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NOVEMBER INSTINCTS AND BUSINESS By EDGAR JAMES SWIFT SCRIBNERS MAGAZINE-Illustrated ROOSEVELT'S Own Letters Dewey at Manila Why the Victory was Won CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS NEW YORK FIFIH AVE.NEW YORK" CONSTABLE B COMPANY LIMITED LONDON MURAD S are as different from ordinary cigarettes as morning is from midnight. If you want to economize you'd better do it in some otker v)a$ tkan by smoking cheap cigarettes. The trifling additional cost of Murads -Will bring bigger returns in Quality than any" investment j)ou e^er made. Because Murads are 100% PURE TURKISH—THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS TOBACCO FOR CIGARETTES. Judge for yourself—!
SCRIBNERS MAGAZINE CONTENTS
THEODORE ROOSEVELT WHEN ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE NAVY
THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND HIS TIME—SHOWN IN HIS OWN LETTERSEDITED BYROOSEVELT AND THE WAR WITH SPAIN. (THIRD PAPER.)
ON EYLESBARROW. PoemIllustration by Victor Perard after sketches by the Author.
DUC K SHOOTING—LEAVES FROM THE SKETCH-BOOK OF
THE CASE OF MACINTYRE. A Story . . . . Frontispiece Theodore Roosevelt . . 515 Joseph Buckliii Bishop. Eden Phillpotts . . 534 Harry L. Johnson -535 Louis Dodge 539 Katharine F. Qerould . 547 Mary R. S. Andrews . . 559 Henry Jones Ford . 560 Pr °f -.o f Politics in Princeton University. Ira South . . . -574 Shaw Desmond 577 Author of " Democracy," " The boul of Denmark, etc. Edgar James Sw ift 584 Author of " Psychology and the Day's Work." Isabel Westcott Harper . 591 Sarah Redington . . 592 Benjamin Brooks . 605 Captain, Engineers, u. S. A. Charles Moreau Harger . 616 Fred C. Smale . 624 Illustrations by Wilson C. Dexter. HABAKKUK. A StoryTHE OLDEST ANGEL. Poem . . TH E SUCCESS OF BARBADOSIllustrations from photographs.
POEMS BY A YOUNG SOLDIERCAMP
SUNSET. A StoryIllustration by Oliver Kemp.INSTINCTS AND BUSINESSTH E GYPSY GIRL. Poem
ANNE THINKS IT OVER. A StoryIllustrations by Rudolph F. Tandler.
.. WHO DIED . IN .THE AMERICAN INVASION OF LYONSIllustrations from photographs.THE ROMANCE OF THE OIL-FIELDS . . . Illustrations from photographs.
THE EXPERTS. A StoryIllustrations by Walter Tittle.
.Roumania; Bureau of Commerce. TH E POINT OF VIEW—Politico-Kinetic Stability—Some By-Products of Research-Apple Butter . . . . . 634 TH E FIEL D OF ART—For Better Illustration . N . C. Wyeth . 638 Illustrations by the Author. TH E FINANCIAL SITUATION—Two Signs of the Times . Alexander Dana Noyes . 643 OVERSEAS TRADE —Th e New Balkans: Their Resources and Needs . . Louis E. Van Norman 645 (Things to Know About Stocks, by S. P. Harman, Adv. page 72.) Trade Commissioner, Bucharest. PUBLISHED MONTHLY. PRICE, 35 CENTS A NUMBER; $4.00 A YEAR Copyrighted in 1919 in United States, Canada, and Great Britain, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Printed in New York. All rights reserved. Entered as Second-Class Matter December 2, 1886, at the Post-Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Entered as Second-Class Matter at the Post-Office Department, Ottawa, Canada.
From a photogiaph by Van der Weyde, New York. THEODORE ROOSEVELT WHEN ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE NAVY.
SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE VOL. LXVI NOVEMBER, 1919 NO. 5 THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND HIS TIME SHOWN IN HIS OWN LETTERS BY JOSEPH BUCKLIN BISHOP Author of "The Panama Gateway," etc. ROOSEVELT AND THE WAR WITH SPAIN [THIRDportion of Theodore Roosevelt's correspondence which relates to the war with Spain, like all the other portions which concern his public career, is rich in material of historical value. He entered the Navy Department as Assistant Secretary at a critical moment in the country's history. War with Spain over the condition of affairs in Cuba was becoming more threatening every hour; in fact, was just a year away, and until Roosevelt began an energetic and systematic agitation for preparation not a step was taken to get the army and navy ready for it. He alone in the administration had either the vision to foresee it or the elementary wisdom to prepare for it. His correspondence reveals this clearly, and reveals much else also. It shows that when the war actually came the United States would have been in a position of almost complete powerlessness but for the action he had taken in getting the navy in fighting condition, not only in face of the persistent opposition of his superior officer, Secretary Long, but over that officer's head while he was absent from office. That action, taken in an official message to Admiral Dewey, at Hong Kong, on February 25,1898,made it PAPER] possible for Dewey to fight and win the battle of Manila when, two months later, April 25, Secretary Long ordered him to sail for the Philippines and attack the Spanish fleet. But for Roosevelt's order, issued on his own responsibility, Dewey's fleet could not have fought at all for lack of preparation. Other, and no less interesting revelations, which the correspondence makes, display Roosevelt's really marvellous gift of foresight. Ten years before the revolution in Russia he predicted that unless her rulers changed their conduct they would "some time experience a red terror that will make the French Revolution pale." At the same time, in 1897, he predicted: "Germany is the power with which we may very possibly have ultimately to come into hostile contact." This prediction he made in substance many times. The same gift of foresight is revealed in the address which he delivered before the Naval War College on June 2, 1897, soon after he became Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Citations from this address show that he was saying at that early stage of his career precisely the things about national preparedness that he said with such courage, pertinacity, and force twenty years later when war with Germany was upon us, and when the Copyrighted in 1919 in United States, Canada, and Great Britain, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Printed in New York. All rights reserved. Vol. LXVI.—42 515 country was even then only slowly realizing the need of heeding his advice. The period covered in this portion of Roosevelt's correspondence is barely a year in length, but what a marvellous record of achievement it discloses! and what a convincing demonstration it makes of the courage, wisdom, and foresight of Theodore Roosevelt! Soon after the election of McKinley to the Presidency in 1896, friends of Roosevelt began to urge upon the new President the desirability of appointing him to some position in his administration, preferably in the Navy Department, because of his well-known interest in naval matters. Chief among these friends was Senator H . C. Lodge, who was as earnest an advocate of the building of an efficient navy as Roosevelt himself. Senator Lodge made a visit to McKinley, at the latter's home in Canton, Ohio, in December, 1896, and had an intimate conversation with the President-elect which he set forth in a confidential letter to Roosevelt under date of December 2. This letter is of historical interest as revealing McKinley's attitude of mind not only toward Roosevelt, but toward the most pressing question that was to confront the new President on taking office—the situation in Cuba. ''He asked me about Cuba," wrote Senator Lodge, "and we went over the whole of that very perplexing question. It is very much on his mind and I found he had given it a great deal of thought. He very naturally does not want to be obliged to go to war as soon as he comes in, for, of course, his great ambition is to restore business and bring back good times, and he dislikes the idea of such interruption. He would like the crisis to come this winter and be settled one way or the other before he takes up the reins, but I was greatly pleased to see how thoroughly he appreciates the momentous character of the question." Striking evidence of the reputation for "driving force," which Roosevelt had earned for himself by his conduct in public office, is furnished in this passage from the Senator's letter: "He (McKinley) spoke of you with great regard for your character and your services and he would like to have you in Washington. The only question he asked me was this, which I give you: ' I hope he has no preconceived notions which he would wish to drive through the moment he got in.' I replied that he need not give himself the slightest uneasiness on that score, that I knew your views about the Navy, and they were only to push on the policies which had been in operation for the last two or three administrations." The possibility mentioned by the President-elect, that Roosevelt might prove too strong a man for the place, was urged by opponents of his appointment in Washington when he was proposed for Assistant Secretary of the Navy, after McKinley had been inaugurated and his Cabinet announced. A letter from Senator Lodge at Washington to Roosevelt, under date of March 8, 1897, gives interesting information as to the high character of his supporters and the arguments used in opposition to his selection: " I have seen Long (Secretary of the Navy) and he is entirely open-minded— has not yet taken the question up—will not for some little time—says that McKinley will appoint, but he supposes he will be consulted. He spoke in the highest terms of you. The only thing resembling criticism was this queer one: 'Roosevelt has the character, standing, ability and reputation to entitle him to be a Cabinet Minister—is not this too small for him ?' "The hitch, if there be one, is not with Long but with the White House. Whether there is any real resistance I cannot tell, and absolutely the only thing I can hear adverse is that there is a fear that you will want to fight somebody at once. "Yo u have enough friends earnest for you to make a Secretary of State. John Hay has written and spoken and urged in the most earnest way at all opportunities. Hanna is entirely friendly and wants you here. Piatt is not lifting a finger against you. I saw Bliss (Cornelius N. , Secretary of the Interior) this morning. He spoke of you in the warmest terms and in the most affectionate way—said you were just the man. Hobart (Vice-President) after adjournment to-day, came up to me Shown in His Own Letters and said: 'Yo u are, I know, interested in Roosevelt. He is a splendid fellow—I think everything of him—just the sort of man we ought to get. What can I do?' He said he had an appointment with the President this afternoon and would urge you then upon him. " I believe we are coming out all right. In any event, you have, I think, a right to be proud of such support as that I have described and you have not raised a finger and it has all come voluntarily. Al l I have done is to plan and direct it a little." President McKinley sent Roosevelt's name to the Senate on April 6, 1897, and the nomination was confirmed on April 8. He assumed the duties of the office on April 19. "Roosevelt's selection for Assistant Secretary of the Navy," wrote a Washington correspondent of a prominent Western newspaper on the day the nomination was made, "surprised no one except Senators Piatt and Quay and a few people who had come to believe President McKinley was so eager to please powerful senators that he had virtually surrendered his independence. Senator Piatt, who is on excellent terms with the President, was dead set against Mr . Roosevelt. He has reasons of his own for his opposition, but they in no wise reflect upon Mr . Roosevelt's fitness for the place." On the day of the Senate's confirmation of the nomination, the Washington Post, which had bitterly opposed Roosevelt while Civil Service Commissioner, made him the subject of an editorial article in which it said that it was "by no means sure" that his appointment was a "matter of regret," and that while "of course he will bring with him to Washington all that machinery of disturbance and upheaval which is as much a part of his entourage as the very air he breathes, who knows that the service will not be a little better for a little dislocation and readjustment?" Of Roosevelt's qualities, the editor added: " He is inspired by a passionate hatred of meanness, humbug, and cowardice. He cherishes an equally passionate love of candor, bravery and devotion. He is a fighter, a man of indomitable pluck and energy, a potent and forceful factor in any equation into which he may be introduced. A field of immeasurable usefulness awaits him—will he find it ? " As soon as Roosevelt had familiarized himself with the detail work of his office he began a series of visits to the various navy-yards and to vessels of the fleet. Early in May he took a trip on a torpedo-boat which he had been inspecting because of a slight injury caused by an accident, and made an official report to the Secretary of the Navy which marked a new departure in documents of that kind, for instead of being a dry, formal record of an accident it contained decided views as to the qualities and disposition of the men who should command naval vessels, and especially torpedo-boats. After saying that no practical damage had been caused, he added: " Boats so delicate which, to be handled effectively must be handled with great daring, necessarily run great risks, and their commanders must, of course, realize that a prerequisite to successfully handling them is the willingness to run such risks. That they will observe proper precautions is, of course, required, but it is more important that our officers should handle these boats with dash and daring than that the boats should be kept unscratched. There must be developed in the men who handle them that mixture of skill and daring which can only be attained if the boats are habitually used under circumstances which imply the risk of an accident. The business of a naval officer is one which, above all others, needs daring and decision and if he must err on either side the nation can best afford to have him err on the side of too much daring rather than too much caution."" This report was hailed by the press with expressions of delight as revealing a new spirit in the Navy Department. One newspaper correspondent said it had "snap and vigor that made it read more like a page out of one of Mr . Roosevelt's books than the ordinary red-tape document." An editor hoped that the report would prove to be the first of a series of papers setting forth his views of naval men and things in general, because "we have been running along in a groove for altogether too many years." Theodore Roosevelt and His Time EARLY EXPRESSION OF LIFELONG VIEWS This hope was soon realized, and the interest which the report had aroused in naval matters was greatly stimulated a few weeks later when Roosevelt delivered a carefully prepared address before the Naval War College, at Newport, R. I., at the opening exercises on June 2, 1897. This address is so notable as the first elaborate expression of Roosevelt's views on the subject of national preparedness that somewhat liberal quotation from it is desirable in order to show the lifelong consistency of his course on this question. He had first given expression to those views in his history of "The Naval War of 1812," in 1882, and had repeated them in his "Life of Benton," in 1887, and in his condensed history of the war of 1812, which he wrote in 1896 for the English Naval History, but in each of these instances he had written briefly and in general terms. The Naval War College address was clearly the result of several years of serious thought and study of the subject. Read in the light of his virtually continuous advocacy of the same subject during the years which intervened between our war with Spain and the outbreak of the great European War in 1914, it is found to contain all the principal ideas which he expounded with such tireless energy during that period and especially when he foresaw that Germany's conduct was certain to force the United States into the war. A few citations will demonstrate the accuracy of this statement: " A century has passed since Washington wrote 'To be prepared for war is the most effectual means to promote peace.' We pay to this maxim the lip-loyalty we so often pay to Washington's words; but it has never sunk deep into our hearts. Indeed of late years many persons have refused it even the poor tribute of lip-loyalty, and prate about the iniquity of war as if somehow that was a justification for refusing to take the steps which alone can in the long run prevent war or avert the dreadful disasters it brings in its train." "In this country there is not the slightest danger of an over-development of warlike spirit, and there never has been any such danger. In all our history there has never been a time when preparedness for war was any menace to peace. On the contrary, again and again we have owed peace to the fact that we were prepared for war; and in the only contest which we have had with a European power since the Revolution, the war of 1812, the struggle and all its attendant disasters were due solely to the fact that we were not prepared to face, and were not ready instantly to resent, an attack upon our honor and interest; while the glorious triumphs at sea which redeemed that war were due to the few preparations which we had actually made." "The danger is of precisely the opposite character. If we forget that in the last resort we can only secure peace by being ready and willing to fight for it, we may some day have bitter cause to realize that a rich nation which is slothful, timid, or unwieldy is an easy prey for any people which still retains those most valuable of all qualities, the soldierly virtues." " Preparation for war is the surest guarantee for peace. Arbitration is an excellent thing, but ultimately those who wish to see this country at peace with foreign nations will be wise if they place reliance upon a first-class fleet of first-class battle-ships rather than on any arbitration treaty which the wit of man can devise." " A really great people, proud and high-spirited, would face all the disasters of war rather than purchase that base prosperity which is bought at the price of national honor." " Cowardice in a race, as in an individual, is the unpardonable sin, and a wilful failure to prepare for danger may in its effects be as bad as cowardice. The timid man who cannot fight and the selfish, shortsighted or foolish man who will not take the steps that will enable him to fight, stand on almost the same plane." "A s yet no nation can hold its place in the world or can do any work really worth doing unless it stands ready to guard its rights with an armed hand. That orderly liberty which is both the foundation and the capstone of our civilization can be gained and kept only by men who are willing to fight for an ideal; who hold high the love of honor, love of faith, love of flag, and love of country." "It has always been true, and in this age it is more than ever true, that it is too late to prepare for war when the time of peace has passed." "Tame submission to foreign aggression of any kind is a mean and unworthy thing; but it is even meaner and more unworthy to bluster first, and then submit or else refuse to make those preparations which can alone obviate the necessity for submission." "In public as in private life a bold front tends to insure peace and not strife. If we possess a formidable navy, small is the chance indeed that we shall ever be dragged into a war to uphold the Monroe Doctrine. If we do not possess such a navy, war may be forced on us at any time." "Diplomacy is utterly useless where there is no force behind it; the diplomat is the servant, not the master, of the soldier." Shown in His Own Letters "N o nation should ever wage war wantonly, but no nation should ever avoid it at the cost of the loss of national honor. A nation should never fight unless forced to; but it should always be ready to fight." "Every feat of heroism makes us forever indebted to the man who performed it. All daring and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune, all devotion to the ideal of honor and of the glory of the flag, make for a finer and nobler type of manhood." "If ever we had to meet defeat at the hands of a foreign foe, or had to submit tamely to wrong or insult, every man among us worthy of the name of American would feel dishonored and debased." "We ask for a great navy, partiy because we think that the possession of such a navy is the surest guarantee of peace, and partly because we feel that no national life is worth having if the nation is not willing, when the need shall arise, to stake everything on the supreme arbitrament of war, and to pour out its blood, its treasure, and tears like water rather than submit to the loss of honor and renown." Published in full in the principal newspapers of the land, the address attracted wide attention and aroused animated discussion. It was universally recognized as sounding a new note in the conduct of national affairs. Nothing similar to it had been heard in the deliverances of other public men. It was the voice of Roosevelt, and of Roosevelt alone, and it stirred the country like the sound of a trumpet. There had been many addresses by naval officials at the War College, but never before had an Assistant Secretary of the Navy or any other navy official made an address like this. What did it mean? To an apparent majority of the people, if the comments of the newspapers were an accurate reflection of popular sentiment, it meant a welcome change. With few exceptions, the leading journals of the country expressed warm approval of the address. The New York Sun, seldom friendly to Roosevelt, called it a "manly, patriotic, intelligent and convincing appeal to American sentiment in behalf of the national honor, and for the preservation of the national strength by means requisite for self-defense and vigorous aggressive resistance to efforts to interfere with our progress and natural dominion." The New York Herald said: " The current of this fine address is filled with a flow of splendid patriotism, from its opening sentence to its close, and its careful reading can scarcely fail to inspire the youth of America with the same lofty spirit of devotion to our country's honor, glory and prosperity that actuated its utterance by the speaker." The Washington Post, dropping its uniformly captious attitude toward Roosevelt, declared that in his address he had "honored both himself and the country," and exclaimed: "Well done, nobly spoken ! Theodore Roosevelt, you have found your proper place at last—all hail!" From Maine to California, the general verdict was expressed in similar terms. EOOSEVELT'S GIFT OF VISION That Roosevelt was endowed, in a really marvellous degree, with the gift of vision his correspondence indubitably shows. He saw clearly what men would do because he had accurate knowledge of and calm judgment upon what men had done. He saw clearly into the motives and actions of men and nations because he had mastered their history and could gauge their conduct in the future by that of the past. He had read human history, not for the purpose of strengthening his prejudices, but of informing his mind, and from fulness of mind and matured conviction he spoke. When Roosevelt entered upon his duties as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, trouble with Spain over conditions in Cuba was visibly impending, and the possibility of war was foremost in his mind when he made his Naval War College address. That he was keeping close watch upon developments in other countries, especially in Germany, is shown by his letters. In his correspondence during the months immediately following his assumption of office, reference to ultimate trouble with Germany is of frequent occurrence. On August 2, 1897, in a letter to Captain B. H. McCalla, U. S. N. , he wrote: " I entirely agree with you that Germany is the power with which we may very possibly have ultimately to come into hostile contact. How I wish our people would wake up to the need for a big navy !" A few days later, August 11, he wrote a long letter, remarkable for the intimate knowledge that it displayed of conditions in European countries, to Cecil Spring-Rice, then with the British Legation at Berlin and afterward British Ambassador at Washington. In it he said: " As an American I should advocate—as a matter of fact do advocate—keeping our navy at a pitch that will enable us to interfere promptly if Germany ventures to touch a foot of American soil. I would not go into the abstract rights or wrongs of it; I would simply say that we did not intend to have Germans on the continent, excepting as immigrants, whose children would become Americans of one sort or another, and if Germany intended to extend her empire here she would have to whip us first." The same idea was repeated in a letter to General James H . Wilson on August 23, 1897: "We cannot rival England as a naval power . . . but I do think we ought to stand ahead of Germany." ' In two letters, written early in 1898, he predicted trouble with Germany in South America if the Kaiser should attempt to acquire territory there. In one, February 5, 1898, addressed to F. C. Moore, New York City, he wrote: "Of all the nations of Europe it seems to me Germany is by far the most hostile to us. With Germany under the Kaiser we may at any time have trouble if she seeks to acquire territory in South America." In another, addressed to Charles A . Moore, New York City, February 14, 1898, the prediction was repeated. The literal accuracy of the prophecy was confirmed in 1902, when the Kaiser attempted to acquire territory in Venezuela and was prevented by the prompt action of Roosevelt, as President, in serving notice upon him that unless he desisted the American fleet under Admiral Dewey would sail for Venezuela and oppose his project by force of arms. Writing again to F. C. Moore, on February 9, 1898, he gave this comprehensive statement of his views in regard to an American foreign policy: " I should myself like to shape our foreign policy with a purpose ultimately of driving off this continent every European power. I would begin with Spain, and in the end would take all other European nations, including England. It is even more important to prevent any new nation from getting a foothold. Germany as a republic would very possibly be a friendly nation, but under the present despotism she is much more bitterly and outspokenly hostile to us than is England. "What I want to see our people avoid is the attitude taken by the great bulk of the Americans at the beginning of this century, and the end of the last, when the mass of the Jeffersonians put the interests of France above the interest and honor of America, and the mass of the Federalists did the same thing in England. I am not hostile to any European power in the abstract. I am simply an American first and last, and therefore hostile to any power which wrongs us. If Germany wronged us I would fight Germany; if England, I would fight England." It should be said in regard to this reference to England, that after what he considered to be the handsome way in which England acted toward the United States during the Spanish War, Roosevelt's attitude toward that country underwent a radical change—a change that was strengthened later by England's course in the war with Germany. The most striking of Roosevelt's predictions at this time appears in his letter to Cecil Spring-Rice, already alluded to. In his review of conditions in foreign countries, he paid especial attention to Russia, a country which Mr . Spring-Rice had recently visited, and in concluding foreshadowed, with remarkable accuracy, ten years in advance, the revolution of 1918: "If Russia chooses to develop purely on her own line and to resist the growth of liberalism, then she may put off the day of reckoning; but she cannot ultimately avert it, and instead of occasionally having to go through what Kansas has gone through with the Populists, she will some time experience a red terror which will make the French Revolution pale." GADFLY OF THE ADMINISTRATION These predictions in regard to the course of events in foreign countries, interesting as they are, occupied only casual space in the great mass of correShown in His Own Letters spondence that Roosevelt conducted during the year in which he held the office of Assistant Secretary of the Navy. His dominating idea during the early part of that period was the condition of affairs in Cuba and the imperative necessity of American interference. He was frankly and ardently in favor of interference in Cuba on the gound of humanity, and, after the blowing up of the Maine, in favor of war with Spain in defense of the national honor. He was virtually alone in the McKinley administration in advocating this policy. So completely was this the case that he might have said of his function in the Administration during the year which preceded the war with Spain what Socrates in his "Apology" said of his function in the Athenian state: "The state is exactly like a powerful highbred steed, which is sluggish by reason of his very size, and so needs a gadfly to wake him up. And as such a gadfly does God seem to have fastened me upon the state; wherefore, besetting you everywhere the whole day long, I arouse and stir up and reproach each one of you." In his "Autobiography" Roosevelt calls the war with Spain "The War of America the Unready." It might with equal truth be called "The War of McKinley the Unwilling," for he and his official associates refused to engage in it till refusal was no longer possible without dishonor. They were supported in this course by Thomas B. Reed, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and by a group of Senators under the leadership of the Senate's most powerful member, Eugene Hale, of Maine. Secretary Long, Roosevelt's superior officer, was more than lukewarm upon the question of building up the navy which Roosevelt considered to be of the highest importance. Upon all these persons Roosevelt acted as the persistent and irritating gadfly. The full story of his efforts and of the developments of this interesting period stands revealed in his correspondence. Roosevelt had been an earnest and persistent advocate of a big navy for ten years or more before he entered the Navy Department, and it was inevitable, therefore, that in assuming office his first thought should be in that direction. One of his early letters, addressed to the editor of the New York Sun, August 16, 1897, contains this passage: " I am rather afraid that there is a very foolish feeling growing that we now have enough of a navy. It would be horrible folly to stop building up our navy now." Secretary Long's lukewarm attitude on the subject was revealed quite early in their official intercourse, and on August 26, 1897, Roosevelt mildly expressed his regret in a letter to the Secretary who was away on vacation: "I know you will excuse my saying that I can't help being sorry you have reached the conclusion that we are not to go on at all in building even, say, one battleship and five torpedo-boats." " A letter to Senator Lodge, written a few weeks later, September 15, 1897, reveals the fact that Roosevelt had brought the subject to the President's attention and secured the overruling of the Secretary. This letter is interesting also for the glimpse it affords of McKinley's personality: "The President has returned and yesterday I went driving with him. Generally, he expressed great satisfaction with what I had done, especially during the last seven weeks that I have been in charge of the Department. Of course the President is a bit of a jollier, but I think his words did represent a substratum of satisfaction. "He is evidently by no means sure that we shall not have trouble with Spain; and though he wants to avoid both, yet I think he could be depended upon to deal thoroughly and well with any difficulty that arises. .. . I told him that I would guarantee that the Department would be in the best possible shape that our means would permit when war began, and that, as he knew, I myself would go to the war. He asked me what Mrs. Roosevelt would think of it, and I said that both you and she would regret it, but this was one case where I would consult neither. He laughed and said that he would do all he could to guarantee that I should have the opportunity I sought if war by any chance arose. "To my great pleasure he also told me that he intended we should go on building up the Navy, with better ships and torpedo-boats and that he did not think the Secretary would recommend anything he (the President) did not approve of." Two efforts were made by Roosevelt in the latter part of September, 1897, when the Cuban situation seemed threatening, to induce Secretary Long to take decisive action of some sort in the direction of naval preparedness. On September 20 he wrote to him at Hingham, Mass.: "From what the President and Judge Day (Secretary of State) say it would seem that advices from Spain are not altogether satisfactory. I do not anticipate any trouble, but if there is wre should have warning just as far in advance as the President will permit, and should be ready to take the initiative at once. If in the event of trouble we wait to receive the attack we will have our hands full, and the greatest panic would ensue, but if we move with the utmost rapidity with our main force on Cuba, say under Admiral Walker, and a flying squadron under Evans, or some such man, against Spain itself, while the Asiatic squadron operates against the Philippines, I believe the affair would not present a very great difficulty." And on September 30, he sent a long and formal letter urging the steady and rapid upbuilding of the navy, and saying: " A great Navy does not make for war but for peace. It is the cheapest kind of insurance. No coast fortifications can really protect our coasts; they can only be protected by a formidable fighting navy. " I believe Congress should at once give us 6 new battleships, 6 large cruisers, and 75 torpedo-boats, 25 for the Pacific and 50 for the Atlantic. I believe we should set about building all these craft now, and that each one should be, if possible, the most formidable of its kind afloat." About the same time he saw the President again, writing to Senator Lodge on September 21: "The President has been most kind. I dined with him Friday evening, and yesterday he sent over and took me out to drive. I gave him a paper showing exactly where all our ships are and I also sketched in outline what I thought ought to be done if things looked menacing about Spain, urging the necessity of taking an immediate and prompt initiative if we wished to avoid the chance of some serious trouble." In December the outlook was even more threatening and, with a side glance still on Germany, he wrote on the 17th, to Lieutenant-Commander W. W. Kimball, U. S. N.: "I doubt if those Spaniards can really pacify Cuba, and if the insurrection goes o n much longer I don't see how we can help interfering. Germany is the power with whom I look forward to serious difficulty; but oh, how bitterly angry I get at the attitude of some of our public men and some of our publicists!" On January 14, 1898, Roosevelt again sent a formal letter to Secretary Long, giving the location and armament of the various ships of the navy at the moment, and fairly imploring him to act: " I feel that I ought to bring to your attention the very serious consequences to the Government as a whole, and especially to the Navy Department—upon which would be visited the national indignation—for any check, n o matter how little the Department was really responsible for the check—if we should drift into a war with Spain and suddenly find ourselves obliged to begin it without preparation, instead of having a t least a month's warning, during which we could actively prepare to strike. Some preparation can and should be undertaken now on the mere chance of having to strike. "Certain things should be done at once if there is any reasonable chance of trouble with Spain during the next six months. For instance, the disposition of the fleet on foreign stations should be radically altered, and altered without delay. For the past six or eight months we have been sending small cruisers and gunboats off to various parts of the world with a total disregard of the fact that in the event of war this would be the worst possible policy to have pursued. .. . If we have war with Spain there will be immediate need for every gunboat and cruiser that we can possibly get together to blockade Cuba, threaten or take the less protected ports, and ferret out the scores of small Spanish cruisers and gunboats which form practically the entire Spanish naval force around the island." On February 15, 1898, the battleship Maine was blowTi up in Havana harbor, and on the following day Roosevelt wrote to a friend: "Being a Jingo, as I am writing confidentially, I will say, to relieve my feelings, that I would give anything if President McKinley would order the fleet to Havana to-morrow. This Cuban business ought to stop. The Maine was sunk by an act of dirty treachery on the part of the Spaniards, I believe; though we shall never find out definitely, and officially it will go down as an accident." Secretary Long had returned to Washington and was on duty when, the Maine explosion occurred. On February 19, Roosevelt addressed a formal letter to him which was the most solemnly earnest of the series of prods thus far administered to him. One passage which I have placed in italics was especially significant in view of the Secretary's well-known attitude toward building up the navy: "In reference to our conversation of yesterday, and to a brief conversation which I had with Judge Day this morning before you came, let me again earnestly urge that you advise the President against our conducting any examination in conjunction with the Spaniards as to the Maine's disaster. I myself doubt whether it will be possible to tell definitely how the disaster occurred by an investigation, and it may be that we could do it as well in conjunction with the Spaniards as alone. But I am sure we could never convince the people at large of this fact. "There is another subject of which I spoke to you yesterday, and about which I venture to remind you. This is in reference to additional warships. I was informed that both Speaker Reed and Senator Hale had stated that we should cease building any more battleships, in view of the disaster to the Maine. I cannot believe that the statement is true, for of course such an attitude, if supported by the people, would mean that we had reached the last pitch of national cowardice and baseness. I earnestly wish that you could see your way clear now, without waiting a day, to send in a special message, stating that in view of the disaster to the Maine (and perhaps in view of the possible needs of this country) instead of recommending one battleship you ask that two, or better still, four battleships be authorized immediately by Congress." This letter evidently alarmed Secretary Long, for a few days later, on February 25, he wrote a personal note to Roosevelt in his own hand, saying he should be absent from the Department for a day's quiet rest, directing him to revoke an order Roosevelt had issued in regard to getting the naval vessels ready for action, and adding: "D o not take any such step affecting the policy of the Administration without consulting the President or me. I am not away from town and my intention was to have you look after the routine of the office while I get a quiet day off. I write to you because I am anxious to have no unnecessary occasion for a sensation in the papers." The passage which I have placed in italics is noteworthy. Writing to Henry White, then Secretary of the American Embassy at London, on March 9, 1898, Roosevelt said: "Of course I have nothing to say as to the policy of the Government, but I hope this incident {Maine) will not be treated by itself, but as part of the whole Cuban business. There is absolutely but one possible solution of a permanent nature to that affair, and that is Cuban independence. The sooner we make up our minds to this the better. If we can attain our object peacefully, of course we should try to do so; but we should attain it one way or the other anyhow." When the news arrived of the sailing of the Spanish torpedo flotilla from the Canaries for Porto Rico, on March 15, 1898, Roosevelt went at once to the President, and, as he wrote to Captain R. D. Evans of the navy on the following day, told him that "we ought to treat the sailing of the flotilla exactly as a European power would the mobilizing of a hostile army on its frontier." He did not confine his exhortations to the President, but, as appears from the subjoined extract from a letter to Brooks Adams, on March 21, 1898, extended them to the Cabinet as well: "Personally, I feel that it is not too late to intervene in Cuba. What the Administration will do I know not. In some points it has followed too closely in Cleveland's footsteps to please me, excellently though it has done on the whole. In the name of humanity and of national interest alike, we should have interfered in Cuba two years ago, a year and a half ago last April, and again last December. The blood of the Cubans, the blood of women and children who have perished by the hundred thousand in hideous misery, lies at our door; and the blood of the murdered men of the Maine calls not for indemnity but for the full measure of atonement which can only come by driving the Spaniard from the New World. I have said this to the President before his Cabinet; I have said it to Judge Day, the real head of the State Department; and to my own Chief. I cannot say it publicly, for I am of course merely a minor official in the Administration. At least, however, I have borne testimony where I thought it would do good." The response that he received was clearly not encouraging, for on March 24 he wrote to Captain A. T. Mahan, who was a cordial sympathizer in his efforts: " I think I told you that I advised the President and the Secretary to treat the sailing of the torpedo flotilla from the Canaries for Porto Rico as an act of hostility. I have repeated the advice today. I do not think it will be regarded." His inability to stir the Administration to action was both discouraging and depressing to him. On March 27, he received a letter, written the day before, from William Tudor, an old and valued friend in Boston, in which the writer said: "It is hard to credit the newspaper reports that the Cabinet by a large majority intend to pass over the blowing up of the Maine. Those of us who are not speculating in the stock market believe that this is merely put forward by the Administration to gain time. " I believe that the blowing up of the Maine with the connivance of the Spanish authorities cannot be passed over. With wholesale murder there can be no question of arbitration. If you allow Spain to get her torpedo fleet across the Atlantic the Administration will be responsible for the loss of more ships. The first act of war was the blowing up of the Maine; the second is the sending of this torpedo fleet to Porto Rico. Are we to wait until more of our ships are destroyed before acting? I protest against this peace-atany-price policy of the Government which does not represent the views of a tenth of the American people." To this Roosevelt responded on March 28: "I agree from the bottom of my heart with all you say. I feel humiliated and ashamed. Every argument you advance I have personally advanced with all the force there was in me, both to the President and the Cabinet; and in vain." To his brother-in-law, Captain W. S. Cowles, of the navy, he wrote in similar strain on March 29: " I am utterly disgusted at the present outlook in foreign relations. I can only hope that the Senate, under the leadership of men like Lodge, will rise to the needs of the hour and insist upon immediate independence for Cuba and armed intervention on our part. Nothing less than this will avail. Shilly shallying and half measures at this time will merely render us contemptible in the eyes of the world; and what is infinitely more important, in our own eyes too. Personally I cannot understand how the bulk of our people can tolerate the hideous infamy that has attended the last two years of Spanish rule in Cuba; and still more how they can tolerate the treacherous destruction of the Maine and the murder of our men ! I feel so deeply that it is with very great difficulty I can restrain myself." . On the following day, March 30, he wrote again to Captain Cowles: " Of course I cannot speak in public, but I have advised the President in the presence of his Cabinet, as well as Judge Day and Senator Hanna, as strongly as I knew how, to settle this matter instantly by armed intervention; and I told the President in the plainest language that ,no other course was compatible with our national honor, or with the claims of humanity on behalf of the wretched women and children of Cuba. I am more grieved and indignant than I can say at there being any delay on our part in a matter like this. A great crisis is upon us, and if we do not rise level to it, we shall have spotted the pages of our history with a dark blot of shame." On the same day, to another brother-in-law, Douglas Robinson, of New York, he wrote: "Neither I nor any one else can give frrom a photograph copyright by LhidcrrvooU tjr Underwood. On board the Mayflower off Oyster Bay, August 17, 1003, at the review of the fleet. Seated are: Mr. Moody, secretary of the navy; President Roosevelt and Mrs. Roosevelt. Standing are: Sir Thomas Lipton; Admiral Dewey; Mr. Iselin, and General Chafiee. you more than the merest vague forecast of events. The President is resolute to have peace at any price. As far as he is concerned, unless the Spaniards declare war, we will not have it. Congress, however, is in an entirely different temper. The most influential man in it, Tom Reed, is as much against war as the President, and the group of Senators who stand closest to the President are also ferociously against war. Nevertheless, Congress as a whole wishes either war or action that would result in war. Their most patriotic and able men take this view, and I doubt if they can be much longer restrained. Therefore I think it 525 about a toss-up whether we have war or peace. The trend of events is for war. Congress is for war. Al l it needs is a big leader; but the two biggest leaders, the President and the Speaker, both of whom have enormous power, are almost crazy in their eagerness for peace, and would make almost any sacrifice to get peace." Writing to Elihu Root, on April 5, 1898, he reveals the sources from which came the most powerful pressure against war and to which the Administration was yielding: "Yo u would be amazed and horrified at the peace-at-any-price telegrams of the most abject description which come in multitudes from New York, Boston, and elsewhere to the President and Senators. "Not only is the peace sentiment of the eastern seaboard not the sentiment of the country at large, but I doubt whether this sentiment exists in the strata lower than the wealthiest even in the east. "The President has taken a position from which he cannot back down without ruin to his reputation, ruin to his party, and, above all, lasting dishonor to his country; and I am sure he will not back down. "Thank Heaven, this morning it looks as if the Administration had made up its mind to lead the movement instead of resisting it with the effect of shattering the party and of humiliating the nation. Judge Day, who together with that idol of the Mugwumps, Secretary Gage, has been advocating peace under almost any conditions, has just told me that he has given up and that the President seems to be making up his mind to the same effect. Of course from the military standpoint it is dreadful to have delayed so long." To a college classmate, Dr. Henry Jackson, of Boston, who had written to him in support of peace-at-any-price, he sent this characteristic rejoinder on April 6: " I believe it criminal for us to submit to the murder of our men, and to the butchery of Cuban women and children. The resources of diplomacy have been exhausted. This nation has erred on the side of over-forbearance. When you talk of this war being undertaken to satisfy the political greed of a parcel of politicians you show the most astounding ignorance of the conditions. The only effective forces against the war are the forces inspired by greed and fear, and the forces that tell in favor of war are the belief in national honor and common humanity." The correspondence closes with this despondent view of the situation as it appeared to him on April 7: "If you are puzzled you can imagine the bitter wrath and humiliation which I feel at the absolute lack of plans. We have our plans in the Navy, and beyond that there is absolutely nothing. The President doesn't know what message he will send in or what he will do if we have war." Four days later, April 11, 1898, President McKinley, left with no alternative by the obviously tricky conduct of the Spanish Government in proposing an armistice which was a sham on its face, made up his mind that war was inevitable, and sent a message to Congress asking it to empower him to end hostilities in Cuba and to secure the establishment of a stable government "capable of maintaining order and observing its international obligations." Congress, after full discussion, adopted, on April 19, joint resolutions declaring the people of Cuba free and independent, demanding the surrender of all Spanish authority in the island, and directing and empowering the President to enforce the resolutions by using the full land and naval forces of the United States. Spain declared war formally on April 24, and the United States did the same on April 25. WINNER OF THE BATTLE OF MANILA That the navy was reasonably well prepared for the war solely because of the efforts of Roosevelt, is clearly revealed by these citations from his correspondence. For months he had been working unceasingly with the hearty co-operation of the ablest men in the service to get material in readiness and have the ships properly equipped and commanded. It was due solely to him also that Admiral Dewey was in command of the Asiatic squadron and that that squadron was ready to sail from Hong Kong to the Philippines at a Shown in His Own Letters moment's notice and was in condition to win the battle of Manila. There is abundant proof in support of these statements. When the question of appointing a commander of the Asiatic squadron arose in the fall of 1897. Roosevelt, in accordance with his established policy of gathering from every source information as to who were the best men to occupy the fighting positions, ascertained that sound naval opinion was overwhelmingly in favor of Dewey for the command of a squadron. He had been struck by an incident in Dewey's career in which he had, without authority from the Navy Department and on his own responsibility, bought a supply of coal in preparation for a threatening emergency. "The incident," Roosevelt says in his "Autobiography," "made me feel that here was a man who could be relied upon to prepare in advance, and to act promptly, fearlessly, and on his own responsibility when the emergency arose. Accordingly I did my best to get him put in command of the Asiatic fleet, the fleet where it was most essential to have a man who would act without referring things back to the home authorities." The manner in which Roosevelt's desire was accomplished is told by Admiral Dewey himself in his "Autobiography" (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913): "The most influential officer in the distribution of assignments was Rear-Admiral A. S. Crowninshield, chief of the Bureau of Navigation, and a pronounced bureaucrat, with whose temperament and methods I had little more sympathy than had the majority of the officers of the navy at that time. He would hardly recommend me to any command; and his advice had great weight with John D . Long, who was then Secretary of the Navy. "Theodore Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He was impatient of red tape, and had a singular understanding both of the importance of preparedness for war and of striking quick blows in rapid succession once war was begun. With the enthusiastic candor which characterizes him, he declared that I ought to have the Asiatic Squadron. He asked me if I had any political influence. I expressed a natural disinclination to use it. He agreed with the correctness of my view as an officer, but this was a situation where it must be used in self-defense. One letter from an influential source in favor of Howell had already been received by the department. " ' I want you to go,' Mr. Roosevelt declared. 'You are the man who will be equal to the emergency if one arises. Do you know any Senators ?' "M y heart was set on having the Asiatic Squadron. It seemed to me that we were inevitably drifting into a war with Spain. In command of an efficient force in the Far East, with a free hand to act in consequence of being so far away from Washington, I could strike promptly and successfully at the Spanish force in the Philippines. "'Senator Proctor is from my State,' I said to Mr. Roosevelt. 'He is an old friend of the family, and my father was of service to him when he was a young man.' "' You could not have a better sponsor,' Mr. Roosevelt exclaimed. 'Lose no time in having him speak a word for you.' " I went immediately to see Senator Proctor, who was delighted that I had mentioned the matter to him. That very day he called on President McKinley and received the promise of the appointment before he left the White House. "When I next met Crowninshield he told me that although I was to have the appointment—a fact which did not seem to please him any too well—Secretary Long was indignant because I had used political influence to obtain it. I went at once to see Mr. Long and said to him: "'Mr . Secretary, I understand that you are displeased with me for having used influence to secure command of the Asiatic Squadron. I did so because it was the only way of offsetting influence that was being exerted on another officer's behalf.' "'You are in error, Commodore,' said Mr. Long. 'No influence had been brought to bear on behalf of any one else.' "Only a few hours later, however, Mr. Long sent me a note in which he said that he had just found that a letter had been received at the department which he had seen for the first time. It had arrived while he was absent from the office and while Mr. Roosevelt was acting secretary, and had only just been brought to his attention." Dewey was appointed, sailed for his post on December 7, 1898, and in February began to assemble the fleet at Hong Kong, doing so " entirely on my own initiative, without any hint whatever from the department that hostilities might be expected. It was evident that in case of emergency Hong Kong was the most advantageous position from which to move to the attack." News of the blowing up of the Maine did not reach him officially till February 18, when he received the following cable message: DEWEY, Hong Kong: Maine destroyed at Havana February 15th by accident. The President directs all colors to be half masted until further orders. Inform vessels under your command by telegraph. LONG. Of this message Dewey writes: "Its wording shows how carefully our government was moving in a moment of such intense excitement.'' What happened next, is described by him as follows: "Though President McKinley was still confident that war could be averted, active naval measures had already begun, so far as navy-yard work upon ships and initial inquiries with regard to the purchase of war material was concerned. But the first real step was taken on February 25, when telegraphic instructions were sent to the Asiatic, European, and South Atlantic Squadrons to rendezvous at certain convenient points where, should war break out, they would be most available. "The message to the Asiatic Squadron bore the signature of that Assistant Secretary who had seized the opportunity, while acting secretary, to hasten preparations for a conflict which was inevitable. As Mr . Roosevelt reasoned, precautions would cost little in time of peace and would be invaluable in case of war. His cablegram was as follows: WASHINGTON, February 25, '98. DEWEY, Hong Kong: Order the squadron except the Monocacy to Hong Kong. Keep full of coal. In the event of declaration of war Spain, your duty will be to see that the Spanish Squadron does not leave the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in Philippine Islands. Keep Olympia until further orders. ROOSEVELT. "The reference to keeping the Olympia until further orders was due to the fact that I had been notified that she would soon be recalled to the United States." Dewey obeyed these instructions and proceeded to get his fleet in readiness for sailing for Manila at a moment's notice, so that when the following order came from Secretary Long, on April 25, two months after Roosevelt's message to Dewey, he was ready to obey: "War has commenced between the United States and Spain. Proceed at once to Philippine Islands. Commence operations particularly against the Spanish fleet. You must capture vessels or destroy. Use utmost endeavor." Thus was the famous battle of Manila fought and won by a commander whose appointment had been secured by Roosevelt against the wishes of Secretary Long and whose fleet had been thoroughly equipped for the conflict by an order that Roosevelt had sent on his own responsibility in the absence of his chief. SECRETARY LONG'S HOSTILITY REVEALED A few months later Secretary Long's personal attitude toward the course pursued by his assistant was revealed in the following letter to Roosevelt from Senator Lodge, decidedly the most interesting and illuminating letter in the present collection: (The italics are mine.) NAHANT, MASS., Sept. 31, 1898. DEAR THEODORE: I am going to ask for five minutes of your crowded time to read this letter and give me a little help. I am getting together of course the necessary materials for my war articles. The second one will be about Manila, and as the first is well advanced I am already gathering facts for the second. I intended to begin by a reference to your order to Dewey of FebruShown in His Own Letters ary 25th. You no doubt remember that memorable Saturday afternoon when I came in and found you and Crowninshield sending out this order "which was of such enormous importance and value in the subsequent operations. I wrote to Crowninshield that I knew the purport of the order, but that as a matter of caution I should be much obliged if I could have its exact terms. Here is a copy of what he said in reply. If you do not smile when you read it I shall be surprised: "Replying to your note of Sept. 19th, I have spoken to the Secretary and he is unwilling to give you the exact language of the order referred to. You will probably see yourself that to do so might appear to put us in a light of being almost over-prepared; in other words, it might seem that the Department had as early as February 25th, the date of the order, made up its mind that there was to be war anyway. Other orders issued about this time could only be called precautionary, but by some this particular order might be construed as indicated above." Here follows what I have said in reply to him, which I think will make you smile also: "Many thanks for your letter of Sept. 19th. I only asked for the language of the order of February 25th to Admiral Dewey out of a spirit of caution which many years of historical studies have cultivated in me. I know the purport of the order as I happened to be in the office that afternoon when you and Mr. Roosevelt were sending it off, and a general statement such as I can make from memory will serve my purpose perfectly well. I confess that now that the war is over and when one of the things of which everybody is most proud and for which the Department received the most unstinted praise was the state of preparation in which the Navy found itself, I cannot conceive that any human being should criticize the Department for being over-prepared, but of this no doubt the Department is the better judge. I shall speak of the order sent out by you and Mr. Roosevelt in my articles as one of the wisest things that was done, a proposition which consider proved by the little affair at Manila on the 1st of May. My intention was simply to refer to it as an order of the Department, but if the Secretary has the slightest objection to my doing so I will say that the order was sent by Mr. Roosevelt as Acting Secretary, and 7" have no doubt the Colonel of the Rough Riders will accept the responsibility of being over-prepared with perfect equanimity." Now what I want of you is to give me your best recollection of the general purport of the order. I remember it pretty well myself, but I want to have your memory to confirm mine, and that will be all sufficient for the statement I wish to make. There is something very comic in our dear Secretary thinking he will be criticized for being over-prepared and precipitating the war if that order is published. H. C. LODGE. In his book, "The War with Spain" (Harper & Brothers, 1899), Senator Lodge records the incident as follows: "On February 25 a cable message was sent to Commodore Dewey by Mr. Roosevelt directing him to assemble his squadron at Hong Kong, retain the Olympia which had been ordered back to San Francisco, and be prepared in case of war for offensive operations in the Philippines. On the 3d of March the Mohican was sent with ammunition to Honolulu, there to await the Baltimore, which was to take the ammunition on board and proceed at once to join the Asiatic squadron. No wiser or more far-sighted precautions were ever taken by an administration than these, and it was all done so quietly that no one on the outside knew what was happening." Writing to John Hay, Secretary of State, on July 1, 1899, Roosevelt gave his own view of what would have been the outcome at Manila if Dewey had not been in command and if the fleet had not been in a condition of thorough preparation. "In last year's fighting, as the President knows, there was a good deal of hesitation in sending Dewey to the Asiatic Squadron. It was urged very strongly by the Bureau of Navigation that Howell was entitled to go. Finally, and most wisely, the Secretary decided to disregard the argument of seniority and to send Dewey. If he had not done so, there would have been no Philippine problem at present, for our fleet would Theodore Roosevelt and His Time have done nothing more than to conduct a solemn blockade of Manila until our coal gave out, and then go away." An additional instance of Secretary Long's personal attitude toward Roosevelt was revealed several years later in an article which he published in the Outlook magazine. Concerning this Roosevelt wrote to him on October 12, 1903: "In the Outlook, in an article written by you, there has appeared this statement about me when I was Assistant Secretary to you: ' Just before the war he, as well as some naval officers, was anxious to send the squadron across the ocean to sink the ships and torpedo-boat destroyers of the Spanish fleet while we were yet at peace with Spain.' I am sure that you did not intend to state the proposition just as it is here expressed. M y memory is that I wished to treat the sending over by Spain of her battleships and destroyers as a cause of war. M y memory is also that when two or more of the armor-clad s of Spain were in Havana—not on the coast of Spain—just before the outbreak of hostilities, I desired some of our ships sent down to watch them. Do you not refer to these two facts? " I would not bother you about this, my dear Governor, but it seems to me to be a very serious accusation, when brought against me by a gentleman of your high standing, my former chief; and it has seemingly been so accepted by the public at large, if I am to judge by the activity of the gentlemen of the press in seeking interviews with me this morning." To this letter Mr. Long wrote a reply in which he professed to see no difference between what he had written and what Roosevelt thought he should have written. In a second letter, October 15,1903, Roosevelt wrote: " I thank you for your letter. I am sure I need not tell you how well I know your kindly feelings toward me, which feelings found full expression in the general tenor of your article. I think, however, that it was a pity that in such an important matter as this I was not given a chance to try to refresh your memory on any point where we differed. It is perfectly true that I wished a declaration of war long before we did declare it; and I also desired notice to be sent to the Spanish Government that we should treat the sailing of the fleet as an act of war, and then meet the fleet on the seas and smash it before it could act on the defensive. It was to my mind obvious that armed cruisers and torpedo-boats could not be used against the insurgents, and could only be intended for use against us. But this last is aside from the point. Don't you think the two statements you have made as to my attitude are in themselves a little inconsistent? You speak in one case as if I wished to send a fleet over to Spain and sink the Spanish boats while we were still at peace. In the other case you speak of the Spanish vessels as having sailed, and my being anxious to meet them on the sea and smash them. I am sure that you will recall that I had been urging a declaration of war for some time—that is, urging a declaration that we should take certain acts, or failures to act, as warranting such declaration after notice had been given. In the case of the sailing of the torpedo-boats, I did wish us to notify the Spanish Government that we should treat their being sent as an act of war. In the form in which the statement is made in the Outlook, I cannot admit that either I or any naval officer whom I was associated with made it—indeed I do not recall such a suggestion made by any one, and certainly I never made any such suggestion myself, as that we should send a squadron across the ocean to sink the ships and torpedo-boat destroyers while we were yet at peace with Spain. As I recall it and all that I remember any naval officer urging, was that we should notify the Spanish Government that we should treat their sailing as an act of war and that we should then conduct ourselves accordingly." WHY ROOSEVELT WENT TO THE WAR As shown in his correspondence, Roosevelt had resolved very early in the controversy about Cuba that if there should be a war with Spain he would take part in it. He had mentioned this purpose to McKinley in his interview with him in September, 1897, quoted above, and in January following, when the probability of war became strong, he sought to get Shown in His Own Letters into the service in a New York militia regiment as a major under Colonel Francis Vinton Greene, saying he "was going to go somehow." On March 9, 1898, he wrote to Captain C. H . Davis of the navy that "if there is a war I want to get away from here and get to the front if I possibly can." On the following day he wrote to General Whitney Tillinghast, Adjutant-General of New York: "Of course I can't leave this position until it is perfectly certain we are going to have a war, and that I can get down to it. I don't want to be in office during war, I want to be at the front; but I would rather be in this office than guarding a fort and no enemy within a thousand miles of me. Of course being here hampers me. If I were in New York City I think I could raise a regiment of volunteers in short order when the President told me to go ahead, but it is going to be difficult from here." Colonel Greene found that for various reasons it was not practicable for Roosevelt to go to the war under him, and on March 15 Roosevelt again wrote to him: " I don't agree with you as to my post of duty. I don't want to be in an office instead of at the front; but I dare say I shall have to be, and shall try to do good work wherever I am put. I have long been accustomed, not to taking the positions I should like, but to doing the best that I was able to in a position I did not altogether like, and under conditions which I didn't like at all. But I shall hope still that in the event of serious war I may have a chance to serve under you." Writing to General Tillinghast again on March 26, he said: "It looks to me as though matters were coming to a climax, and we should soon see actual trouble with Spain. I wish the Governor would say whether or not he believes that the State militia would be sent out of the State, that is, down to Cuba as part of an expeditionary force, or whether we shall raise volunteers. If the latter, will you present my regards to him and ask if I may not be allowed to raise a regiment? I think I can certainly do it." On the same date he wrote as follows to William Astor Chanler, a member of Con-VOL. LXVL—43 gress from New York: "Things look as though they were coming to a head. Now, can you start getting up that regiment when the time comes? Do you want me as Lt. Colonel ? Also, remember that to try to put toughs in it—still worse to try to put political heelers in— will result in an utterly unmanageable regiment, formidable to its own officers and impotent to do mischief to the foe." His reasons for desiring to get into the war were set forth in full in a very striking letter which he wrote, on March 29, 1898, to Doctor W. Sturgis Bigelow, in Boston. There is much material for sober thought in this letter for those critics of Roosevelt who have charged him with favoring war because of sheer love of fighting. " I do not know that I shall be able to go to Cuba if there is a war. The army may not be employed at all, and even if it is employed it will consist chiefly of regular troops; and as regards the volunteers only a very small proportion can be taken from among the multitudes who are even now coming forward. Therefore it may be that I shall be unable to go, and shall have to stay here. In that case I shall do my duty here to the best of my ability, although I shall be eating out my heart. But if I am able to go I certainly shall. It is perfectly true that I shall be leaving one duty, but it will only be for the purpose1 of taking up another. I say quite sincerely that I shall not go for my own pleasure. On the contrary, if I should consult purely my own feelings I should earnestly hope that we would have peace. I like life very much. I have always led a joyous life. I like thought and I like action, and it will be very bitter to me to leave my wife and children; and while I think I could face death with dignity, I have no desire before my time has come to go out into the everlasting darkness. So I shall not go into a war with any undue exhilaration of spirits or in a frame of mind in any way approaching recklessness or levity. "Moreover, a man's usefulness depends upon his living up to his ideals in so far as he can. Now, I have consistently preached what our opponents are pleased to call 'Jingo doctrines' for a good many years. One of the commonest taunts directed at men like myself is that we are armchair and parlor Jingoes who wish to see others do what we only advocate doing. I care very little for such a taunt, except as it affects my usefulness, but I cannot afford to disregard the fact that my power for good, whatever it ma}' be, would be gone if I didn't try to live up to the doctrines I have tried to preach. Moreover, it seems to me that it would be a good deal more important from the standpoint of the nation as a whole that men like myself should go to war than that we should stay comfortably in offices at home and let others carry on the war that we have urged." A way was opened for Roosevelt to get into the war when Congress authorized the raising of three National Volunteer Cavalry Regiments, wholly apart from State contingents. The Secretary of War, General Alger, offered him the command of one of these regiments, but Roosevelt declined it, saying that after six weeks' service in the field he would feel competent to handle the regiment, but that he did not at the time know how to equip it or how to get it into the first action. He recommended for the command his friend Leonard Wood, who was as eager to get into the war as he was, saying to the Secretary that if he could appoint Wood colonel he would accept the Lieutenant-Colonelcy. Thi s was done, and the famous regiment of Rough Riders was formed. Its official name was the First United States Voluntary Cavalry, but because it was largely composed of Western ranchmen, it was promptly nicknamed Rough Riders, and under that picturesque title passed through the war and into history. When he sent in his resignation from the Navy Department he received, among others, the following letters: NAVY DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON. Ma y 7, 1898. M Y DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT: I have your letter of resignation to the President, but as I have told you so many times, I have it with the utmost regret. I have often expressed, perhaps too emphatically and harshly, my conviction that you ought not to leave the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy, where your services have not only been of such great value, but of so much inspiration to me and to the whole service. But now that you have determined to go to the front, I feel bound to say that, while I do not approve of the change, I do most heartily appreciate the patriotism and the sincere fidelity to your convictions which actuate you. Let me assure you how most profoundly I feel the loss I sustain in your going, for your energy, industry and great knowledge of naval interests, and especially your inspiring influence in stimulating and lifting the whole tone of the personnel of the Navy have been invaluable. I cannot close this reply to your letter without telling you also what an affectionate personal regard I have come to feel for you as a man of the truest temper and most loyal friendship. I rejoice that one who has so much capacity for public service and for winning personal friendships has the promise of so many years of useful and loving life before him. M y heart goes with you, and I am, Very sincerely yours, JOHN D. LONG. HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Navy Department. EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON. Ma y 9, 1898. M Y DEAR MR. SECRETARY: Although the President was obliged to accept your resignation of recent date, I can assure you that he has done so with very great regret. Only the circumstances mentioned in your letter and your decided and unchangeable preference for your new patriotic work has induced the President to consent to your severing your present connection with the Administration. Your services here during your entire term in office have been faithful, able and successful in the highest degree, and no one appreciates this fact more keenly than the President himself. Without doubt your connection with the Navy will be beneficially felt in several of its departments for many years to come. In the President's behalf therefore I Shown in His Own Letters wish at this time to thank you most heartily and to wish you all success in your new and important undertaking, for which I hope and predict a brilliantly victorious result. With sincere respect and cordial esteem, believe me, always Faithfully yours; JOHN ADDISON PORTER, Secretary to the President. HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Washington, D . C. Among the many letters of congratulation that Roosevelt received at the close of the war was the following from John Hay, then United States Ambassador to England: LONDON, July 27, 189S. I am afraid I am the last of your friends to congratulate you on the brilliant campaign which now seems drawing to a close, and in which you have gained so much experience and glory. When the war began I was like the rest; I deplored your place in-the Navy where you were so useful and so acceptable. But I know it was idle to preach to a young man. You obeyed your own daemon, and I imagine we older fellows will all have to confess that you were in the right. As Sir Walter wrote: One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name. You have written your name on several pages of your country's history, and they are all honorable to you and comfortable to your friends. It has been a splendid little war; begun with the highest motives, carried on with magnificent intelligence and spirit, favored by that Fortune which loves the brave. It is now to be concluded, I hope, with that fine good nature, which is, after all, the distinguishing trait of the American character. An amusing side-light upon the military conduct of the operations in Cuba during the Spanish War is cast in this letter from Roosevelt to Senator Lodge under date of March 3, 1899: "Lee, the British Military Attache, told me a lovely story the other day. He met the Russian Military Attache in London and gave him a dinner, at which the Russian waxed eloquent over his sufferings at Santiago, and, as capping the climax, described how, when he went to pay his respects and say goodbye to Gen. Shafter, the latter looked at him with his usual easy polish and grace, and remarked: 'Well, goodbye. Who are you, anyway, the Russian or the German ?'shouted. Think of the feelings of Yemiloff, the nice little military and diplomatic pedant, on the one hand, and on the other, of good, vulgar Shatter's magnificent indifference to ethnic and diplomatic niceties!" One further citation from Roosevelt's correspondence relating to this period may properly be made here. When in March, 1901, General Funston executed his brilliant feat of capturing Aguinaldo, the leader of the Philippine insurgents, thus completing the American conquest of the Philippines, Roosevelt wrote, on March 30, 1901, a letter of congratulation to Funston in which he predicted a national condition of unpreparedness which was strikingly like that in which the country found itself when it was compelled to declare war with Germany in 19.17: "This is no perfunctory or formal letter of congratulation. I take pride in this crowning exploit of a career filled with cool courage, iron endurance and gallant daring, because you have added your name to the honor roll of American worthies. Your feat will rank with Cushing's when he sank the Albemarle. Otherwise, I cannot recall any single feat in our history which can compare with it. "Our people as a whole are unquestionably very shortsighted about making (war) preparations. Under such circumstances it is always possible that we may find ourselves pitted against a big military power where we shall need to develop fighting material at the very outset, and then I am one of many millions who would look with confidence to what you would do. Incidentally, if that day is not too far distant, I shall hope to be serving under or alongside of you. I think I could raise at once a brigade of three or four such regiments as I commanded at Santiago." [The next instalment of Theodore Roosevelt's Own Letters will appear in the December number.]
ON EYLESBARROW By Eden Phillpotts HITHER, at set of autumn sun, Each golden child of Hesper flies From gardens of old deities, Where Zeus the maiden Hera won. Their footsteps kindled stone by stone The time-worn barrow, where it stands, Above wide, valley border-lands, Austere and imminent and alone. Their fingers smoothed each granite frown And blossomed where no flow'r may live And gave, what never flow'r can give, Of living flame-light for a crown. And from their flickering kirtles fell A gleam upon its stubborn ways, To touch their nakedness with rays Of amaranth and asphodel. O Hesperids, remember him Whose sun is westering to the change, Along uneven paths and strange, By shadowed aisles and frontiers dim. Flash but one token, pure and rare, From the abundance of your grace, Where many a storm hath stripped the face Of this, his life, and left it bare. Dance but one measure in a heart Sad and unprofitably proud, Ere to your chariots of cloud Ye leap again and so depart. Drawn by Victor Perard after sketchesDARTMOOR, DEVON. by the author.
DUCK SHOOTING LEAVES FROM THE SKETCH-BOOK OF HARRY L. JOHNSON, A RESIDENT OF THE BARNEGAT BAY REGION The Old-Timer touches up his stools before the season opens. Before the day's sport. At low tide with no wind stories fly if fowl do not. Only one, but a good one. Waiting for the black ducks to come at dusk. Preparing for wind. A cold day on Gooss Point. Sighting a "crippler" on the way home.
TH E CASE OF MACINTYRE By Louis Dodge ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILSON C. DEXTER HE N Judge Blevins came over of an evening to sit on old Doctor Madden's front porch he did not cross the lawn which separated the two houses. Not by any means. Instead, he walked rather pompously down his own front walk and turned at right angles and marched over to the doctor's front walk, where he turned at right angles again; and then he approached the doctor's porch with much dignity. When he began that simple act of transit you might have supposed he was setting forth into a far country. It was his chief characteristic —to be excessively punctilious. The doctor rather approved of this formal approach. The two men were a good deal alike, at least superficially, and during the thirty years they had resided side by side they had never taken the slightest liberty with each other, though—or perhaps I should say and therefore—they were on the friendliest and pleasantest terms possible. They liked to look out upon their quiet and sheltered street of a summer evening; and each knew very well that the other regarded it as a thoroughly suitable and appropriate fact that he owned a beautiful home and had come, toward the latter decade or so of his life, to be beyond the reach of insecurity or financial stress. Barring something bordering on national bankruptcy neither need ever deny himself anything suitable or quietly luxurious as long as he lived. They kept few secrets from each other. Each enjoyed the sound of his own voice and was quietly proud of what he conceived to be his correct and even elegant diction. And so in the course of thirty years they had had a good deal to say to each other, including not a little purely personal detail. And yet Judge Blevins had never confided in Doctor Madden the somewhat humiliating story of Maclntyre. He had often thought that he should do so, because he considered it a singularly good story; but it had been a painful matter for reflection for a long while—and it was a story which would keep. Indeed, it might be all the better for not being told until the indubitable sting of it had been lessened by time and meditation. It was the day after one of the local organizations, returned from service in France, had paraded through the streets that the judge finally told the story of Maclntyre. It came out almost unawares at last. Something in the air seemed to suggest it and to release it. Both men had been extraordinarily moved by the spectacle of the soldiers marching through the streets, where triumphal arches and much bunting and long tiers of seats had been arranged. The spectacle had been one to cast out sobriety of thought and selfish predilections. For the moment there was a strong feeling of democracy in the air and it was easy for the judge and the doctor to forget that, after all, life's rewards must be earned by unremitting application rather than by fortuitous merits, and that they were not to be distributed indiscriminately. " Have you come back to earth again ? " asked the judge, as he came up the doctor's walk and mounted the front steps. He was smiling rather grimly, if not a bit shamefacedly. "Not altogether," replied the doctor. "It was really wonderful—didn't you think?" "Yes. Yes, it certainly was." "And somewhat unique, too; the mingling of our very best with—with the others. Of course the boys looked all alike—of an even quality, I mean. That is, if you hadn't the chance to look too closely. But it was the crowd, and—and the colonel's lady ranged alongside of Judy O'Grady, and all that sort of thing. 539 The Case of Maclntyre I've never seen an occasion when the customary social lines were so entirely obliterated." The judge had seated himself by this time, and after permitting the doctor's asseveration to pass with no comment save a thoughtful silence, he remarked: "And yet I'm not so sure of this—this universal brotherhood idea being a sound one. At least, about its coming all of a sudden. Great reforms—or perhaps I should say transformations—must come by evolutionary processes and not because we've all been thrown together for the time being by a common cause. I was considering at dinner this evening— indeed, Mrs. Blevins and I were discussting—the—the case of Maclntyre."The doctor's mind had taken hold of that expression, a common cause, and he had begun to frame a good sentence in which he meant to suggest to the judge that perhaps the time had come for men to look upon all causes as common causes, when he was disturbed by hearing the name which meant nothing to him—the name of Maclntyre. "Maclntyre?" he echoed politely. " A man I've met only a time or two. I think I'll tell you about him. The matter is—is illuminating. I met him the first time summer before last, when Mrs. Blevins and I were down in the country visiting the Maplesons." The doctor's anchor caught again instantly. He knew the Maplesons quite well. The very name suggested impressive things—elegance, position, leisure, independence. The Maplesons owned a beautiful—even a famous—country estate, where they entertained many guests from the city every spring. "Ah—the Maplesons," said the doctor. The judge pondered a moment and then, rather surprisingly, he looked up and inquired: "Yo u remember those great privet hedges which separate the grounds from the road?" "Of course! A feature of the place, one might say. Very wonderful!" The judge frowned faintly. " I suppose so," he said. "A t least that formerly was my own impression. I admit that more recently I've wondered if they weren't slightly overdone. You know they scarcely suggest nature. When a row of bushes has been made to assume the aspects of pillars and spheres and pyramids and such things, one may fairly inquire if a natural intention or destiny hasn't been too much interfered with." The doctor considered this not very sympathetically, and before he had formulated an opinion he let the matter go, for the judge was continuing: "A t any rate, it was through those fantastic hedges of Mapleson's that I made the acquaintance of Maclntyre." From next door floated the strains of a sonata played on a mechanical piano, and the judge's eyes confessed that he had postponed for a moment the story of Maclntyre to consider Mrs. Blevins's recently formed habit of operating her new player. He smiled apologetically. "Yes," he said, looking back to his own front porch, "Mrs. Blevins has become— er—addicted to the player-piano." The doctor nodded cordially. "It sounds very nice," he said. The judge was plainly relieved. He went back to his story. "Yo u see," he resumed, " I was visiting the Maplesons just at the time when the hedges required trimming. And one day Maclntyre appeared on the scene. He had come down from Chicago. He had come all the way just to trim the Maplesons' hedges. And he began his work one forenoon—I remember it was a Saturday—when I was sitting on the front veranda reading the newspaper." "I'd like to have seen him at it," declared the doctor, his eyes widening a little as he revisualized the marvels of the Mapleson hedges. "You would indeed ! You see, he was —or seemed—a truly remarkable man. An artist. The word really seems justified. He worked without taking measurements, without any aids to his eye and hand. And with a sort of quiet ecstasy, as if he were doing the thing he loved to do, and as if all the conditions were ideal. But that isn't all. I'd like to give you a correct impression of the man's appearance. You'd have taken him for a—a gentleman. He made a very fine figure, out there in the sun. He was perhaps fifty or so, with really noble lines: profile, head, shoulders. He
Drawn by Wilson C. Dexler. Before I realized it ... I was sitting beside him and he was telling me about his work.—Page 542.
The Case of Maclntyre was a well-groomed man. Handsome, I should have said. And there was something finely simple and unaffected in his manner—at least, while he moved about at his work." "Why not?" inquired the doctor, when the judge paused. "Oh, no reason why he shouldn't have been. Though you understand he was at Mapleson's in the capacity of a—a servitor. He had his quarters among the servants: ate with them, and so on. This in spite of the fact that by his appearance you'd have taken him for a governor or something of the sort who happened also to be an amateur gardener." " I see," said the doctor musingly. "While I watched him Mapleson joined me on the veranda. I called his attention to the man out on the lawn. And Mapleson brightened in a rather marked way. He told me the man's name. He referred to him as a treasure, a discovery. He didn't know anything about him at all save that he had been recommended by a friend as an expert at landscape gardening. He had come down from Chicago five consecutive springs to shape the hedge. He was a quiet, likable chap, and his charges were not at all unreasonable. That was Mapleson's account of Maclntyre—and that was all. " That would have been the end of the matter but for the fact that I didn't feel like going to church the next day, which was a Sunday, and I was left practically alone about the house. The Maplesons and their other guests, including Mrs. Blevins, drove away to church soon after ten o'clock, leaving me to hold the fort, as Mapleson called back to me. And after they were gone I went rambling about the grounds—and came upon Maclntyre, sitting on a bench under an elm, around on the side lawn. " I can't say why it seemed rather difficult to retreat without speaking to him. As a matter of fact I found it impracticable. I bade him good-morning and stood a moment to exchange a word or two with him. And before I realized it—the man's manner was really so courteous—I was sitting beside him and he was telling me about his work. "He talked about his work very well indeed, and I didn't realize until afterward that he didn't say a word about himself. And presently we were talking about things in general. And I want to emphasize this: he talked well. I mean in a physical as well as a mental sense. His voice was peculiarly agreeable and his speech . . . there was a faint inflection of some sort, as if his parents had been Scotch, or perhaps Irish—or possibly Southern, here in America. His enunciation was most delicate and distinct. However, I don't hope to convey an adequate impression of the fellow's vocal charm. I wasn't able to analyze it myself. And it began to develop presently that he was a very well-informed man—that his mind was stocked with rather ornamental things. He knew history and politics and—and even poetry. And these things cropped out not at all like exhibits, but rather as if you came upon them at their sources. You see, the man's manner was so uncommonly pleasing. I haven't said that he was wearing a fresh Palm Beach suit and a very fine Panama straw. But really you'd have said he was a gentleman. On the whole it was a relief to talk to him after two or three days of Mapleson. You know, Mapleson individually. . . . After all, if it weren't for his money and the family name. . . ." The doctor nodded. "The upshot of it all was that I introduced myself formally when I got up, and said something—perhaps in a very general way—about wishing to meet him again. I must have said—yes, I did say —that if he ever happened to be in St. Louis I'd be glad if he'd drop in at my office. After all, I needn't explain to you how those chance acquaintanceships in the country affect you." He uttered the last words so much in the manner of a confession of folly that the doctor put out a supporting hand, figuratively, by saying, "Quite natural, I'm sure!" "Perhaps so. But, you see, about a year later he did drop in at my office." "Indeed!" exclaimed the doctor, as if he meant to imply that Maclntyre had certainly taken advantage of a wholly conventional and empty courtesy. "Yes, he dropped in on me, just as I had invited him to do." The fellow's manner was a study in quiet elegance.—Page 544. "And you found him—less prepossessing than he had seemed in the country? " "Unfortunately—as it turned out—I did not. No, he stood the test of a new and rather disillusioning setting quite admirably. He was extraordinarily quiet, and you know quietude covers a multitude of defects. He was pleasantly deferential without being really—er—'urnble, as Uriah Heep would have said. Most intriguing of all, he was glad. It seemed to give him a deep-down pleasure to meet me again. And you know there's a fatal quality of flattery in an attitude like that. Beyond everything else, there was a hidden melancholy in his manner. As I recall our meeting it seems to me that this quality—which I had to guess at—was what prompted me to commit the foolish blunder of which I was almost immediately guilty." "You cashed a check for him, or signed a note—or something of the sort?" The judge almost jumped with the vigor of his negation. "No! " he exclaimed. "I see I'm not depicting the fellow well at all. There was no danger of anything like that. You see, I asked him if he had many acquaintances in St. Louis, and he told me he had none. But I got the impression from his reply that he was not only a stranger in St. Louis, but that he was a stranger on the face of the earth—a man doomed to walk alone all his days. I don't know why I should have felt a sort of responsibility; but— well, the upshot of it was that I suggested his coming out to the house for dinner. It seemed that he was leaving town the next morning, and Mrs. Blevins has always been very nice about my bringing persons home unexpectedly. Yes, I invited him out for dinner. For the moment it seemed a very slight courtesy to extend to him. I am now inclined to think there may have been something a bit hypnotic in his manner. I believe there are such things?" 543 The Case of Maclntyre "Undoubtedly," said the doctor. "And at any rate—" The judge paused as if he were still trying to comprehend how he could have done anything so indiscreet. "And he went home to dinner with you?" prompted the doctor. The judge aroused himself. " He came out later, alone. I had a matter or two to look after before I went home. Yes, he came out: a faultless figure of a man in evening clothes, and with just the proper augmentation of elegance in his manner which the dinner hour justifies." " But look here !" exclaimed the doctor, his patience beginning to fail him, "when are you going to reach the—the exposure ? Surely you've described his perfections fully enough. We'll take them for granted." The judge's eyelids flickered faintly with uneasiness, as if, perhaps, he were questioning whether the doctor would receive the denouement of his tale sympathetically. But he continued, with slowly returning confidence: "The fact is I must still dwell a moment longer on his—er— perfections. Though looking back I can see that they were not, perhaps, genuine perfections. You see, the fellow's manner was a study in quiet elegance. It was too elegant. That's the truth. He really got on our nerves a bit. Whether he sat or arose or walked or spoke, no matter what he did, he never exceeded exact bounds by a hair's breadth. And before long a curious sensation began to afflict Mrs. Blevins and myself. It was as if the atmosphere had become more and more rarefied. I think we both began to fear our guest, in a way: I mean, to fear that we might violate some of the proprieties of conduct or speech. We began to despair of proving a match for—for Maclntyre. We discussed the matter afterward." "And the dinner wasn't what you'd call a success then, after all?" "For ourselves it wasn't. For Maclntyre I should say it was. He was admirable throughout. He struck precisely the right note in his praise, in his gratitude, in his corroboration of our beliefs, in his pleasant dissent from our confessed prejudices. He went away at what we concluded must have been the correct time. We had to admit to each other that we didn't know just how long a dinner guest ought to remain after dinner, under the circumstances; but we had no doubt that Maclntyre .knew exactly. "And, by the way, I don't want to create the impression that he was stiff or manikin-like, or anything of that sort. He was—well, he was just perfect. There's no other word. "And after he had been gone a day or so I had a note from him. He had reached the Maplesons' and he wrote, he said, to thank me for my courtesy to him when he was among strangers." "Ah! " exclaimed the doctor, his interest reviving. "His letter revealed the real man, did it ? That would have been a real test." But the judge shook his head. " A letter usually does, I admit," he said. "But Maclntyre's letter was—was peculiar. In a way I may say that his note afforded me the first real clew I had to his character." "You mean it betrayed some sort of illiteracy?" "Well, you may judge for yourself. Certainly Maclntyre didn't write in a manner which our public schools would characterize as illiterate. On the contrary. He wrote too well. I've never seen such penmanship. Every character was a work of art, and the flourishes with which he embellished the ends of certain words were wonderful. I've never seen such meticulousness in shading and slanting. In short, it was the most perfect penmanship I had ever seen. I must say I thought he used punctuation marks somewhat in excess of common usage; but that, I suppose, is a matter of taste." The doctor moved his chair in a manner bordering upon violence. "Look here, Blevins," he said, "is the point of your story simply that things can be too perfect?" "Unfortunately, no," replied the judge. He smiled rather uncomfortably now as he marshalled his concluding facts and impressions in his mind. " You'll see almost immediately that I'm arriving at a far different conclusion. I'll cut it short. I didn't hear from Maclntyre again.did see Mapleson once. He was up to see me last winter. He informed me that It was worth going to Chicago to get such a shave.—Page 540. Maclntyre had been to his place during thing under the sun out of a nourishing the spring to put the hedges in condition, privet-bush.' And then he changed the but that he had remained only a week. I subject. asked him if he could tell me anything "But I was destined to see Maclntyre about the man and he replied that he once more. I had to go to Chicago on a couldn't, 'except that he could make anymatter of business early this year—in S4S The Case of Maclntyre January. And I ran into him when he was the last man in the world I was thinking about. I had set out to call on a client in one of the financial institutions in the loop district, and on m y way I dropped into a barber shop to get a shave. "Maclntyre was there. He was the barber who presided over the third chair. He had on a smart white jacket which set off his fine shoulders admirably. He was just exclaiming ' Next!' when I entered the shop." The judge paused and glanced at the doctor with a curious suggestion of being ready to laugh heartily, if the doctor considered the story a ridiculous one, or to be dramatically indignant, if the doctor felt that Maclntyre had behaved badly. But the doctor was holding his glance out on the deepening dusk and he did not stir. After an almost uncomfortable silence he asked dryly, "And what did you do?" "What could I do? There was no empty chair save Maclntyre's, and there was no one ahead of me to take that one. I simply hung up my coat and prepared to get into Maclntyre's chair." "And what did Maclntyre do?" "He stood beside his chair, gazing rather musingly out into the street. I could see his reflection in the glass as I took my collar off." "And ycTu didn't say anything to him?" "No. He didn't quite seem to give me an opportunity to do so. He went to work quietly when I had taken my seat, and didn't seem to recognize me." " A perfect manner to the last," said the doctor. "Yes, even to the shave he gave me. It was worth going to Chicago to get such a shave." " Well, well!" said the doctor, in a tone which held a certain enigmatic quality. "There's no doubt it was Maclntyre," added the judge. "Yo u see, as I was putting my collar on afterward the fellow slipped out of his jacket and left the shop. It was just lunch-time. He didn't even wait for his tip." "Ah—a flaw at last!" remarked the doctor. "And I spoke to the head barber after he was gone. I took occasion to say that the man in the third chair was a very good barber. And the head man agreed. He said there wasn't a better man in the business than Maclntyre, barring a certain fault he had." "Another fault?" asked the doctor. "The man couldn't be held to his post during the spring months, the head barber said. He would just walk out of the shop when a fine day came and wouldn't report again until early summer. But otherwise he was a perfectly reliable man." Just as the story ended the attention of both men was attracted by the sound of Mrs. Blevins's player-piano .next door. She had begun a new roll, which proved to be a version of "The Star-Spangled Banner," with rather naive and enlivening ornamentation. "It's really pretty, isn't it? " remarked the judge. "Yes," responded the doctor. The dusk hid a furtive gleam of humor in his eyes. "And so," concluded the judge, "you can understand why I can't see this universal brotherhood idea clear through to the end. Except for purposes of public enthusiasm, and such things, it seems rather—er—impracticable. There would be too many complications. For this Maclntyre . . . you see he had made the most prepossessing impression at Maple-son's, and even in my own house." The doctor continued to smile. " However," he said, "there was that handwriting with too many flourishes. You mustn't forget that." The judge nodded diplomatically. It seemed to him that the doctor had received the matter very tactfully, after all. "Yes, that's true," he admitted, laughing pleasantly. "Still, we mustn't forget that no man can be wholly perfect." HABAKKUK BY KATHARINE FULLERTON GEROULD HE N they carried Kathleen Somers up into the hills to die where her ancestors had had the habit of dying —they didn't gad about, those early Somerses: they dropped in their tracks, and the long grass that they had mowed and stacked and trodden under their living feet flourished mightily over their graves—it was held to be only a question of time. I say " to die," not because her case was absolutely hopeless, but because no one saw how, with her spent vitality, she could survive her exile. Everything had come at once, and she had gone under. She had lost her kin, she had lost her money, she had lost her health. Even the people who make their meat of tragedy—and there are a great many of them in all enlightened centres of thought—shook their heads and were sorry. They thought she couldn't live; and they also thought it much, much better that she shouldn't. For there was nothing left in life for that sophisticated creature but a narrow cottage in a stony field, with Nature to look at. Does it sound neurotic and silly? It wasn't. Conceive her if you can—Kathleen Somers, whom probably you never knew. From childhood she had nourished short hopes and straitened thoughts. At least: hopes that depend on the aesthetic passion are short; and the long perspectives of civilized history are very narrow. Kathleen Somers had been fed with the Old World: that is to say, her adolescent feet had exercised themselves in picture-galleries and cathedrals and palaces; she had seen all the right views, all the right ceremonies, and all the censored picturesqueness. Don't get any Cook's tourist idea, please, about Miss Somers. Her mother had died young, and her gifted father had taken her to a hundred places that the school-teacher on a holiday never gets to and thinks of only in connection with geography lessons. She had followed the Great Wall of China, VOL. LXVI.— 44 she had stood before the tomb of Tamburlaine, she had shaded her eyes from the glare of Ka'irouan the Holy, she had chaffered in Tiflis and in Trebizond. Al l this before she was twenty-five. At that time her father's health broke, and they proceeded to live permanently in New York. Her wandering life had steeped her in delights, but kept her innocent of love-affairs. When you have fed on historic beauty, on the great plots of the past, the best tenor voices in the world, it is pretty hard to find a man who doesn't, in his own person, leave out something essential to romance. She had herself no particular beauty, and therefore the male sex could get on without her. A few fell in love with her, but she was too enchanted and amused with the world in general to set to work at the painful process of making a hero out of any one of them. She was a sweet-tempered creature; her mental snobbishness was not a pose, but perfectly inevitable; she had a great many friends. As she had a quick wit and the historic imagination, you can imagine—remembering her bringing up—that she was an entertaining person when she entered upon middle age: when, that is, she was proceeding from the earlier to the later thirties. It was natural that Kathleen Somers and her father—who was a bit precious and pompous, in spite of his ironies— should gather about them a homogeneous group. The house was pleasant and comfortable—they were too sophisticated to be "periodic"—and there was always good talk going, if you happened to be the kind that could stand good talk. Of course you had to pass an examination first. You had at least to show that you "caught on." They were high-brow enough to permit themselves sudden enthusiasms that would have damned a low-brow. You mustn't like "Peter Pan," but you might go three nights running to see some really perfect clog-dancing at a • 547 548 Habakkuk vaudeville theatre. Do you see what I mean? They were eclectic with a vengeance. It wouldn't do for you to cultivate the clog-dancer and like "Peter Pan," because in that case you probably liked the clog-dancer for the wrong reason —for something other than that sublimated skill which is art. Of course this is only a wildly chosen example. I never heard either of them mention "Peter Pan." And the proper hatreds were even more difficult than the proper devotions. You might let Shakespeare get on your nerves, provided you really enjoyed Mil ton. I wonder if you do see what I mean? It must be perfect of its kind, its kind being anything under heaven; and it must never, never, never be sentimental. It must have art, and parti pris, and point of view, and individuality stamped over it. No, I can't explain. If you have known people like that, you've known them. If you haven't, you can scarcely conceive them. By this time you are probably hating the Somerses, father and daughter, and I can't help it—or, rather, I've probably brought it about. But when I tell you that I'm not that sort myself, and that I loved them both dearly and liked immensely to be with them, you'll reconsider a little, I hope. They were sweet and straight and generous, both of them, and they knew all about the grand manner. The grand manner is the most comfortable thing to live with that I know. I used to go there a good deal, and Arnold With-row went even more than I did, though he wasn't even hanging on to Art by the eyelids as I do. (I refer, of course, to my little habit of writing for the best magazines, whose public considers me intellectual. So I seem to myself, in the magazines ... " but out in pantry, good Lord !" Anyhow, I generally knew at least what the Somerses were talking about—the dears !) Withrow was a stock-broker, and always spent his vacations in the veritable wilds, camping in virgin forests, or on the edge of glaciers, or in the dust of American deserts. He had never been to Europe, but he had been to Buenos Aires. You can imagine what Kathleen Somers and her father felt about that: they thought him too quaint and barbaric for words; but still not barbaric enough to be really interesting. I was just beginning to suspect that Withrow was in love with Kathleen Somers in the good old middle-class way, with no drama in it but no end of devotion, when the crash came. Mr. Somers died, and within a month of his death the railroad the bonds of which had constituted his long-since diminished fortune went into the hands of a receiver. There were a pitiful few hundreds a year left, besides the ancestral cottage—which had never even been worth selling. His daughter had an operation, and the shock of that, plus the shock of his death, plus the shock of her impoverishment, brought the curtain down with a tremendous rush that terrified the house. It may make my metaphor clearer if I put it that it was the asbestos curtain which fell suddenly and violently; not the great crimson drop that swings gracefully down at the end of a play. It did not mark the end; it marked a catastrophe in the wings to which the plot must give place. Then they carried Kathleen Somers to the hills. It was Mildred Thurston who told me about it first. Withrow would have rushed to the hills, I think, but he was in British Columbia on an extended trip. He had fought for three months and got them, and he started just before Kathleen Somers had her sudden operation. Mil dred Thurston (Withrow's cousin, by the way) threw herself nobly into the breach. I am not going into the question of Mil dred Thurston here. Perhaps if Withrow had been at home, she wouldn't have gone. I don't know. Anyhow, when she rushed to Kathleen Somers's desolate retreat she did it, apparently, from pure kindness. She was sure, like every one else, that Kathleen would die; and that belief purged her, for the time being, of selfishness and commonness and cheap gayety. I wouldn't take Mildred Thurston's word about a state of soul; but she was a good dictograph. She came back filled with pity; filled, at least, with the means of inspiring pity for the exile in others. After I had satisfied myself that Kathleen Somers was physically on the mend, Habakkuk 549 eating and sleeping fairly, and sitting up a certain amount, I proceeded to more interesting questions. "What is it like?" "It's dreadful." "How dreadful?" Mildred's large blue eyes popped at me with sincere sorrow. "Well, there's no plumbing, and no furnace." "Is it in a village?" "It isn't 'in' anything. It's a mile and a half from a station called Hebron. You have to change three times to get there. It's half-way up a hill—the house is—and there are mountains all about, and the barn is connected with the house by a series of rickety woodsheds, and there are places where the water comes through the roof. They put pails under to catch it. There are queer little contraptions they call Franklin stoves in most of the rooms and a brick oven in the kitchen. When they want anything from the village, Joel Blake gets it, if he doesn't forget. Ditto wood, ditto everything except meat. Some other hick brings that along when he has 'killed.' They can only see one house from the front yard, and that is precisely a mile away by the road. Joel Blake lives nearer, but you can't see his house. You can't see anything—except the woods and the 'crick' and the mountains. You can see the farmers when they are haying, but that doesn't last long." "Is it a beautiful view?" "M y dear man, don't ask me what a beautiful view is. M y education was neglected." "Does Kathleen Somers think it beautiful?" "She never looks at it, I believe. The place is all run down, and she sits and wonders when the wall-paper will drop off. At least, that is what she talks about, when she talks at all. That, and whether Joel Blake will remember to bring the groceries. The two women never speak to each other. Kathleen's awfully polite, but—well, you can't blame her. And I was there in the spring. What it will be in the winter !— But Kathleen can hardly last so long, I should think." "Who is the other woman?" "A n heirloom. Melora Meigs. Miss Meigs, if vou please. You know Mr. Somers's aunt lived to an extreme old age in the place. Miss Meigs 'did' for her. And since then she has been living on there. No one wanted the house—the poor Somerses!—and she was used to it. She's an old thing herself, and of course she hasn't the nerves of a sloth. Now she 'does' for Kathleen. Of course later there'll have to be a nurse again. Kathleen mustn't die with only Melora Meigs. I'm not sure, either, that Melora will last. She's all crooked over with rheumatism." That was the gist of what I got out of Mildred Thurston. Letters to Miss Somers elicited no real response—only a line to say that she wasn't strong enough to write. None of her other female friends could get any encouragement to visit her. It was perhaps due to Miss Thurston's mimicry of Melora Meigs— she made quite a "stunt" of it—that none of them pushed the matter beyond the first rebuff. By summer-time I began to get worried myself. Perhaps I was a little worried, vicariously, for Withrow. Remember that I thought he cared for her. Miss Thurston's pity for Kathleen Somers was the kind that shuts the door on the pitied person. If she had thought Kathleen Somers had a future, she wouldn't have been so kind. I may give it to you as my private opinion that Mildred Thurston wanted Withrow herself. I can't swear to it, even now; but I suspected it sufficiently to feel that some one, for With-row's sake, had better see Kathleen besides his exuberant and slangy cousin. She danced a little too much on Kathleen Somers's grave. I determined to go myself, and not to take the trouble of asking vainly for an invitation. I left New-York at the end of June. With my perfectly ordinary notions of comfort in travelling, I found that it would take me two days to get to Hebron. It was beyond all the resorts that people flock to: beyond, and "cross country" at that. I must have journeyed on at least three small, one-track railroads, after leaving the Pullman at some junction or other. It was late afternoon when I reached Hebron; and nearly an hour later before 5.50 Habakkuk I could get myself deposited at Kathleen Somers's door. There was no garden, no porch; only a long, weed-grown walk up to a stiff front door. A n orchard of rheumatic apple-trees was cowering stiffly to the wind in a far corner of the roughly fenced-in lot; there was a windbreak of perishing pines. In the living-room Kathleen Somers lay on a cheap wicker chaise-longue, staring at a Hindu idol that she held in her thin hands. She did not stir to greet me; only transferred her stare from the gilded idol to dusty and ungilded me. She spoke, of course; the first time in my life, too, that I had ever heard her speak ungently. "M y good man, you had better go away. I can't put you up." That was her greeting. Melora Meigs was snuffling in the hallway outside— listening, I suppose. "Oh, yes, you can. If you can't, I'm sure Joel Blake will. I've come to stay a while, Miss Somers." "Can you eat porridge and salt pork for supper?" " I can eat tenpenny nails, if necessary. Also I can sleep in the barn." "Melora!" The old woman entered, crooked and grudging of aspect. "This friend of my father's and mine has come to see me. Can he sleep in the barn?" I cannot describe the hostility with which Melora Meigs regarded me. It was not a pointed and passionate hatred. That, one could have examined and dealt with. It was, rather, a vast disgust that happened to include me. "There's nothing to sleep on. Barn's empty." "He could move the nurse's cot out there, if he really wants to. And I think there's an extra washstand in the woodshed. You'll hardly need more than one chair, just for a night," she finished, turning to me. "Not for any number of nights, of course," I agreed suavely. I was angry with Kathleen Somers, I didn't know quite why. I think it was the Hindu idol. Nor had she any right to address me with insolence, unless she were mad, and she was not that. Her eyes snapped very sanely. I don't think Kathleen Somers could have made her voice snap. Melora Meigs grunted and left the room. The grunt was neither assent nor dissent; it was only the most inclusive disapproval: the snarl of an animal, proceeding from the topmost of many layers of dislike. "I'l l move the things before dark, I think." I was determined to be cheerful, even if I had to seem impertinent; though the notion of her sticking me out in the barn enraged me. "Yo u won't mind Melora's locking the door between, of course. We always do. I'm such a cockney, I'm timid; and Melora's very sweet about it." It was almost too much, but I stuck it out. Presently, indeed, I got my way; and moved—yes, actually lugged and lifted and dragged—the cot, the chair, and the stand out through the dusty, half-rotted corridors and sheds to the barn. I drew water at the tap in the yard and washed my perspiring face and neck. Then I had supper with Miss Somers and Melora Meigs. After supper my hostess lighted a candle. "We go to bed very early," she informed me. " I know you'll be willing to smoke out-of-doors, it's so warm. I doubt if Melora could bear tobacco in the house. And you won't mind her locking up early. You can get into the barn from the yard any time, of course. Men are never timid, I believe; but there's a horn somewhere, if you'd like it. We have breakfast at six-thirty. Good-night." Yes, it was Kathleen Somers's own voice, saying these things to me. I was still enraged, but I must bide my time. I refused the horn, and went out into the rheumatic orchard to smoke in dappled moonlight. The pure air soothed me; the great silence restored my familiar scheme of things. Before I went to bed in the barn, I could see the humor of this sour adventure. Oh, I would be up at six-thirty! Of course I wasn't. I overslept; and by the time I approached the house (the woodshed door was still locked) their breakfast was long over. I fully expected to fast until the midday meal, but Kathleen Somers relented. With her own hands she made me coffee over a little alcohol lamp. Bread and butter had been austerely left on the table. Habakkuk 551 Miss Somers fetched me eggs, which I ate raw. Then I went out into the orchard to smoke. When I came back, I found Miss Somers as she had been the day before, crouched listlessly in her long chair, fondling her idol. I drew up a horsehair rocking-chair and plunged in. "Why do you play with that silly thing?" "This?" She stroked the idol. "It is rather lovely. Father got it in Benares. The carving is very cunningly done. Look at the nose and mouth. The rank Hinduism of the thing amuses me. Perhaps it was cruel to bring it up here where there are no other gods for it to play with. But it's all I've got. They had to sell everything, you know. When I get stronger, I'll send it back to New York and sell it too." "Why did you keep it out of all the things you had?" " I don't know. I think it was the first thing we ever bought in India. And I remember Benares with so much pleasure. Wasn't it a pity we couldn't have been there when everything happened?" "Much better not, I should think. You needed surgeons." "Just what I didn't need! I should have liked to die in a country that had something to say for itself. I don't feel as though this place had ever existed, except in some hideous dream." "It's not hideous. It's even very beautiful—so wild and untouched; such lovely contours to the mountains." "Yes, it's very untouched." She spoke of it with just the same scorn I had in old days heard her use for certain novelists. " Scarcely worth the trouble of touching, I should think—shouldn't you?" "The beauty of it last night and this morning has knocked me over," I replied hardily. "Oh, really ! How very interesting !" By which she meant that she was not interested at all. "Yo u mean that you would like it landscape-gardened?" Really, she was perverse. She had turned her back to the view—which was ripping, out of her northern window. I could tell that she habitually turned her back on it. "Oh, landscape-gardened? Well, it would improve it, no doubt. But it would take generations to do it. The generations that have been here already don't seem to have accomplished much. Humanly speaking, they have hardly existed at all." Kathleen Somers was no snob in the ordinary sense. She was an angel to peasants. I knew perfectly what she meant by "humanly." She meant there was no castle on the next hill. "Are you incapable of caring for nature —just scenery?" "Quite." She closed her,eyes, and stopped her gentle, even stroking of the idol. "Of course you never did see America first," I laughed. Kathleen Somers opened her eyes and spoke vehemently. "I've seen all there is of it to see, in transit to better places. Seeing America first! That can be borne. It's seeing America last that kills me. Seeing nothing else forever, till I die." "Yo u don't care for just beauty, regardless," I mused. "Not a bit. Not unless it has meant something to man. I'm a humanist, I'm afraid." Whether she was gradually developing remorse for my night in the cobwebby barn, I do not know. But anyhow she grew more gentle, from this point on. She really condescended to expound. "I've never loved nature—she's a brute, and crawly besides. It's what man has done with nature that counts; it's nature with a human past. Peaks that have been fought for, and fought on, crossed by the feet of men, stared at by poets and saints. Most of these peaks aren't even named. Did you know that ? Nature! What is Nature good for, I should like to know, except to kill us all in the end? Don't Ruskinize to me, my dear man." "I won't. I couldn't. But, all the same, beauty is beauty, wherever and whatever. And, look where you will here, your eyes can't go wrong." " I never look. I looked when I first came, and the stupidity, the emptiness, the mere wood and dirt and rock of it seemed like a personal insult. I should prefer the worst huddle of a Chinese city, I verily believe." 552 Habakkuk "You've not precisely the spirit of the pioneer, I can see." "I should hope not. 'But, God if a God there be, is the substance of men, which is man.' I have to stay in the man-made ruts. They're sacred to me. I'll look with pleasure at the Alps, if only for the sake of Hannibal and Goethe; but I never could look with pleasure at your untutored Rockies. They're so unintentional, you know. Nature is nothing until history has touched her. And as for this geological display outside my windows—you'll kindly permit me to turn my back on it. It's not peevishness." She lifted her hand protestinglv. "Only, for weeks, I stared myself blind to see the beauty you talk of. I can't see it. That's honest. I've tried. But there is none that I can see. I am very conventional, you know, very self-distrustful. I have to wait for a Byron to show it to me. American mountains—poor hulking things—have never had a poet to look at them. At least, Poe never wasted his time that way. I don't imagine that Poe would have been much happier here than I am. I haven't even the thrill of the explorer, for I'm not the first one to see them. A few thin generations of people have stared at these hills—and much the hills have done for them! Melora Meigs is the child of these mountains; and Melora's sense of beauty is amply-expressed in the Orthodox church in Hebron. This landscape, I assure you"— she smiled—"hasn't made good. So much for the vie'w. It's no use to me, absolutely no use. I give you full and free leave to take it away with you if you want it. And I don't think the house is much better. But I'm afraid I shall have to keep that for Melora Meigs and me to live in." It was her old smile. The bitterness was all in the words. No, it was not bitterness, precisely, for it was fundamentally as impersonal as criticism can be. You would have thought that the mountains were low-brows. I fore-bore to mention her ancestors who had lived here: it would have seemed like quibbling. They had created the situation; but they had only in the most literal sense created her. "Why don't you get out?" " I simply haven't money enough to live anywhere else. Not money enough for a hall bedroom. This place belongs tome; the taxes are nothing. The good farming land that went with it was sold long since. And I'm afraid I haven't the strength to go out and work for a living. I'm very ineffectual, besides. What could I do even if health returned to me? I've decided it's more decent to stay here and die on three dollars a year than to sink my capital in learning stenography." "Yo u could, I suppose, be a companion." Of course I did not mean it, but she took it up very seriously. "The people who want companions wouldn't want me. And the one thing this place gives me is freedom—freedom to hate it, to see it intelligently for what it is. I couldn't afford my blessed hatreds if I were a companion. And there's no money in it, so that I couldn't even plan for release. It simply wouldn't do." Well, of course it wouldn't do. I had never thought it would. I tried another opening. "When is Withrow coming back?" " I don't know. I haven't heard from him." She might have been telling a squirrel that she didn't know where the other squirrel's nuts were. "He has been far beyond civilization, I know. But I dare say he'll be back soon. I hope you won't put him in the barn. I don't mind, of course, but his feelings might be hurt." "I shall certainly not let him come," she retorted. "He would have the grace to ask first, you know." " I shall make a point of telling him you want him." But even that could strike no spark from her. She was too completely at odds with life to care. I realized, too, after an hour's talk with her, that I had better go—take back my fine proposition about making a long visit. She reacted to nothing I could offer.talked of books and plays, visiting virtuosos and picture exhibitions. Her comments were what they would always have been, except that she was already groping for the cue. She had been out of it for months; she had given up the fight. The best things she said sounded a little stale and precious. Her wit perished in the face of Nature's stare. Nature was a lady she didn't recognize: a country Habakkuk 553 cousin she'd never met. She couldn't even "sit and play with similes." If she lived, she would be an old lady with a clever past: an intolerable bore. But there was no need to look so far ahead. Kathleen Somers would die. Before dinner I clambered up or down (I don't remember which) to a brook and gathered a bunch of wild iris for her. She had loved flowers of old; and how deftly she could place a spray among her treasures! She shuddered. "Take those things away! How dare you bring It inside the house?" By "It" I knew she meant the wild natural world. Obediently I took the flowers out and flung them over the fence. I knew that Kathleen Somers was capable of getting far more pleasure from their inimitable hue than I; but even that inimitable hue was poisoned for her because it came from the world that was torturing her—the world that beat upon her windows, so that she turned her back to the day; that stormed her ears, so that she closed them even to its silence; that surrounded her, so that she locked every gate of her mind. I left, that afternoon, very desolate and sorry. Certainly I could do nothing for her. I had tried to shock her, stir her, into another attitude, but in vain. She had been transplanted to a soil her tender roots could not strike into. She would wither for a little under the sky, and then perish. "If she could only have fallen in love !" I thought, as I left her, huddled in her wicker chair. If I had been a woman, I would have fled from Melora Meigs even into the arms of a bearded farmer; I would have listened to the most nasal male the hills had bred. I would have milked cows, to get away from Melora. But I am a crass creature. Besides, what son of the soil would want her: unexuberant, delicate, pleasant in strange ways, and foreign to all familiar things? She wouldn't even fall in love with Arnold Withrow, who was her only chance. For I saw that Arnold, if he ever came, would, fatally, love the place. She might have put up with the stockbroking, but she never could have borne his liking the view. Yes, I was very unhappy as I drove into Hebron; and when I finally achieved the Pullman at the Junction, I was unhappier still. For I felt towards that Pullman as the lost child feels toward its nurse; and I knew that Kathleen Somers, ill, poor, middle-aged, and a woman, was a thousand times more the child of the Pullman than I. I have told this in detail, because I hate giving things at second-hand. Yet there my connection with Kathleen Somers ceased, and her tragedy deepened before other witnesses. She stayed on in her hills; too proud to visit her friends, too sane to spend her money on a flying trip to town, too bruised and faint to fight her fate. The only thing she tried for was apathy. I think she hoped—when she hoped anything—that her mind would go, a little: not so much that she would have to be "put away"; but just enough so that she could see things in a mist—so that the hated hills might, for all she knew, be Alps, the rocks turn into castles, the stony fields into vineyards, and Joel Blake into a Tuscan. Just enough'so that she could re-create her world from her blessed memories, without any sharp corrective senses to interfere. That, I am sure, was what she fixed her mind upon through the prolonged autumn; bending all her frail strength to turn her brain ever so little from its rigid attitude to fact. "Pretending" was no good: it maddened. If her mind would only pretend without her help! That would be heaven, until heaven really came. . . . You can't sympathize with her, probably, you people who have been bred up on every kind of Nature cult. I can hear you talking about the everlasting hills. Don't you see, that was the trouble ? Her carefully trained imagination was her religion, and in her own way she was a ritualist. The mountains she faced were unbaptized: the Holy Ghost had never descended upon them. She was as narrow as a nun; but she could not help it. And remember, you practical people who love woodchucks, that she had nothing but the view to make life tolerable. The view was no mere accessory to a normal existence. She lived, half-ill, in an ugly, not too comfortable cottage, as far as the moon from any world she understood, in a solitude acidulated by Melora Meigs. No pictures, no music, no plays, no talk—and this, the whole year round. Would you like it your554 Habakkuk selves, you would-be savages with Adirondack guides? Books? Well: that was one of life's little stupidities. She couldn't buy them, and no one knew what to send her. Besides, books deferred the day when her mind should, ever so little, go back on her. She didn't encourage gifts of literature. She was no philosopher; and an abstraction was of no use to her unless she could turn it to a larger concreteness, somehow enhancing, let us say, a sunset from the Acropolis. I never loved Kathleen Somers, as men love women, but many a time that year I would have taken her burden on myself, changed lives with her, if that had been possible. It never could have been so bad for any of us as for her. Mildred Thurston would have gone to the church sociables and flirted as grossly as Hebron conventions permitted; I, at least, could have chopped wood. But to what account could Kathleen Somers turn her martyrdom ? Withrow felt it, too—not as I could feel it, for, as I foretold, he thought the place glorious. He went up in the autumn when everything was crimson and purple and gold. Yet more, in a sense, than I could feel it, for he did love her as men love women. It shows you how far gone she was that she turned him down. Many women, in her case, would have jumped at Withrow for the sake of getting away. But she was so steeped in her type that she couldn't. She wouldn't have married him before; and she wasn't going to marry him for the sake of living in New York. She would have been ashamed to. A few of us who knew blamed her. I didn't, really, though I had always suspected that she cared for him personally. Kathleen Somers's love, when it came, would be a very complicated thing. She had seen sex in too many countries, watched its brazen play on too many stages, within theatres and without, to have any mawkish illusions. But passion would have to bring a large retinue to be accepted where she was sovereign. Little as I knew her, I knew that. Yet I always thought she might have taken him, in that flaming October, if he hadn't so flagrantly, tactlessly liked the place. He drank the autumn like wine; he was tipsy with it; and his loving her didn't tend to sober him. The consequence was that she drew away—as if he had been getting drunk on some foul African brew that was good only to befuddle woolly heads with; as if, in other words, he had not been getting drunk like a gentleman. . . . Anyhow, Arnold came back with a bad headache. She had found a gentle brutality to fit his case. He would have been wise, I believe, to bring her away, even if he had had to chloroform her to do it. But Withrow couldn't have been wise in that way. Except for his incurable weakness for Nature, he was the most delicate soul alive. He didn't talk much to me about it, beyond telling me that she had refused him. I made out the rest from his incoherences. He had not slept in the barn, for they could hardly have let a cat sleep in the barn on such cold nights; but Melora Meigs had apparently treated him even worse than she had treated me. Kathleen Somers had named some of the unnamed mountains after the minor prophets; as grimly as if she had been one of the people they cursed. I thought that a good sign, but Withrow said he wished she hadn't: she ground the names out so between her teeth. Some of her state of mind came out through her talk —not much. It was from one or two casually seen letters that I became aware of her desire to go a little—just a little— mad. In the spring Kathleen Somers had a relapse. It was no wonder. In spite of the Franklin stoves, her frail body must have been chilled to the bone for many months. Relief settled on several faces, when we heard—I am afraid it may have settled on mine. She had been more dead than alive, I judged, for a year; and yet she had not been able to cure her sanity. That was chronic. Death would have been the kindest friend that could arrive to her across those detested hills. We— the "we" is a little vague, but several of us scurried about—sent up a trained nurse, delaying somewhat for the sake of getting the woman who had been there before; for she had the advantage of having experienced Melora Meigs without resultant bloodshed. She was a nice woman, and sent faithful bulletins; but Habakkuk 555 the bulletins were bad. Miss Somers seemed to have so little resistance: there was no interest there, she said, no willingness to fight. "The will was slack." Ah, she little knew Kathleen Somers's will! None of us knew, for that matter. The spring came late that year, and in those northern hills there were weeks of melting snow and raw, deep slush—the ugliest season we have to face south of the Arctic circle. The nurse did not want any of her friends to come; she wrote privately, to those of us who champed at the bit, that Miss Somers was fading away, but not peacefully; she was better unvisited, unseen. Miss Somers did not wish any one to come, and the nurse thought it wiser not to force her. Several women were held back by that, and turned with relief to Lenten opera. The opera, however, said little to Withrow at the best of times, and he was crazed by the notion of not seeing her before she achieved extinction. I thought him unwise, for many reasons: for one, I did not think that Arnold Withrow would bring her peace. She usually knew what she wanted—wasn't that, indeed, the whole trouble with her?—and she had said explicitly to the nurse that she didn't want Arnold Withrow. But by the end of May Withrow was neither to hold nor to bind: he went. I contented myself with begging him at least not to poison her last hours by admiring the landscape. I had expected my earnest request to shock him; but, to my surprise, he nodded understandingly. " I shall curse the whole thing out like a trooper, if she gives me the chance." And he got into his day-coach—the Pullmans wouldn't go on until much later—a mistaken and passionate knight. Withrov; could not see her the first evening, and he talked long and deeply with the nurse. She had no hope to give him: she was mystified. It was her opinion that Kathleen Somers's lack of will was killing her, speedily and surely. "Is there anything for her to die of?" he asked. "There's nothing, you might say, for her to live of," was her reply. The nurse disapproved of his coming, but promised to break the news of his presence to her patient in the morning. Spring had by this time touched the hills. It was that divine first moment when the whole of earth seems to take a leap in the night; when things are literally new every morning. Arnold walked abroad late, rilling his lungs and nostrils and subduing his pulses. He was always faunishly wild in the spring; and for years he hadn't had a chance to seek the season in her haunts. But he turned in before midnight, because he dreaded the next day supremely. He didn't want to meet that face to face until he had to. Melora Meigs lowered like a thunderstorm, but she was held in check by the nurse. I suppose Melora couldn't give notice: there would be nothing but the poor-farm for her if she did. But she whined and grumbled and behaved in general like an electrical disturbance. Luckily, she couldn't curdle the milk. Withrow waked into a world of beauty. He walked for an hour before breakfast, through woods all blurred with buds, down vistas brushed with faint color. But he would have given the spring and all springs to come for Kathleen Somers, and the bitter kernel of it was that he knew it. He was sharp-faced and sad (I know how he looked) when he came back, with a bunch of hepaticas, to breakfast. The nurse was visibly trembling. You see, Kathleen Somers's heart had never been absolutely right. It was a terrible responsibility to let her patient face Withrow. Still, neither she nor any other woman could have held Withrow off. Besides, as she had truly said, there was nothing explicitly for Kathleen Somers to die of. It was that low vitality, that whispering pulse, that listlessness; then, a draught, a shock, a bit of over-exertion, and something real and organic could speedily be upon her. No wonder the woman was troubled. In point of fact, though she had taken up Miss Somers's breakfast, she hadn't dared tell her the news. And finally, after breakfast, she broke down. "I can't do it, Mr. Withrow," she wailed. "Either you go away or I do." Withrow knew at first only one thing: that he wouldn't be the one to go. Then he realized that the woman had been under a long strain, what with the spring thaws, and a delicate patient who wouldn't 556 Habakkuk mend—and Melora to fight with, on behalf of all human decency, every day. "You go, then," he said finally. "I'l l take care of her." The nurse stared at him. Then she thought, presumably, of Kathleen Somers's ineffable delicacy, and burst out laughing. Hysteria might, in all the circumstances, be forgiven her. Then they came back to the imminent question. "I'l l tell her when I do up her room," she faltered. "All right. I'll give you all the time in the world. But she must be told I'm here—unless you wish me to tell her myself." Withrow went out to smoke. But he did not wish to succumb again to the intoxication Kathleen Somers so disdained, and eventually he went into the barn, to shut himself away from temptation. It was easier to prepare his vilifying phrases there. To his consternation, he heard through the gloom the sound of sobbing. The nurse, he saw, after much peering, sat on a dusty chopping-block, crying unhealthily. He went up to her and seized her arm. "Have vou told her?" " I can't." "M y good woman, you'd better leave this afternoon." "Not"—the tone itself was firm, through the shaky sobs—"until there is some one to take my place." "I'll telegraph for some one. You shan't see her again. But I will see her at once." Then the woman's training asserted itself. She pulled herself together, with a little shake of self-disgust. "You'll do nothing of the sort. I'll attend to her until I go. It has been a long strain, and, contrary to custom, I've had no time off. I'll telegraph to the Registry myself. And if I can't manage until then, I'll resign my profession." She spoke with sturdy shame. "That's better." Withrow approved her. "I'm awfully obliged. But honestly, she has got to know. I can't stand it, skulking round, much longer. And no matter what happens to the whole boiling, I'm not going to leave without seeing her." "I'l l tell her." The nurse rose and walked to the barn-door like a heroine. "But you must stay here until I come for you." " I promise. Only you must come.give you half an hour." "I don't need half an hour, thank you." She had recovered her professional crispness. In the wide door she stopped. "It's a pity," she said irrelevantly, "that she can't see how lovely this is." Then she started for the house. "I believe you," muttered Withrow under his breath. In five minutes the nurse came back, breathless, half-running. Arnold got up from the chopping-block, startled. He believed for an instant (as he has since told me) that it was "all over." With her hand on her beating heart the woman panted out her words: " She has come down-stairs in a wrapper. She hasn't been down for weeks. And she has found your hepaticas." "Oh, hell!" Withrow was honestly disgusted. He had never meant to insult Kathleen Somers with hepaticas. " Is it safe to leave her alone with them ? " He hardly knew what he was saying. But it shows to what a pass Kathleen Somers had come that he could be frightened at the notion of her being left alone with a bunch of hepaticas. "She's all right, I think. She seemed to like them." "Oh, Lord!" Withrow's brain was spinning. "Here, I'll go. If she can stand those beastly flowers, she can stand me." "No, she can't." The nurse had recovered her breath now. "I'l l go back and tell her, very quietly. If she could get down-stairs, she can stand it, I think. But I'll be very careful. You come in ten minutes. If she isn't fit, I'll have got her back to bed by that time." She disappeared, and Withrow, his back to the view, counted out the minutes. When the large hand of his watch had' quite accomplished its journey, he turned and walked out through the yard to the side door of the house. Melora Meigs was clattering dish-pans somewhere beyond, and the noise she made covered his entrance to the living-room. He drew a deep breath: they were not there. He listened at the stairs: no Habakkuk 557 sound up there—no sound, at least, to rise above Melora's dish-pans, now a little less audible. But this time he was not going to wait—for anything. He already had one foot on the stairs when he heard voices and stopped. For just one second he paused, then walked cat-like in the direction of the sounds. The front door was open. On the step stood Kathleen Somers, her back to him, facing the horizon. A light shawl hung on her shoulders, and the nurse's arm was very firmly round her waist. They did not hear him, breathing heavily there in the hall behind them. He saw Kathleen Somers raise her arm slowly—with difficulty, it seemed. She pointed at the noble shoulder of a mountain. "That is Habakkuk," said her sweet voice. "I named them all, you know. But I think Habakkuk is my favorite; though of course he's not so stunning as Isaiah. Then they run down to Obadiah and Malachi. Joel is just peeping over Habakkuk's left shoulder. That long bleak range is Jeremiah." She laughed, very faintly. "You know, Miss Willis, they are really very beautiful. Isn't it strange I couldn't see it? For I honestly couldn't. I've been lying there, thinking. And I found I could remember all their outlines, under snow. . . . and this morning it seemed to me I must see how Habakkuk looked in the spring." She sat down suddenly on the top step; and Miss Willis sat down too, her arm still about her patient. "It's very strange"—Withrow, strain though he did, could hardly make out the words, they fell so softly—"that I just couldn't see it before. It's only these last days. . . . And now I feel as if I wanted to see every leaf on every tree. It wasn't so last year. They say something to me now. I don't think I should want to talk with them forever, but you've no idea—you've no idea— how strange and welcome it is for my eyes to find them beautiful." She seemed almost to murmur to herself. Then she braced herself slightly against the nurse's shoulder, and went on, in her light, sweet, ironic voice. "They probably never told you—but I didn't care for Nature, exactly. I don't think I care for it now, as some people do, but I can see that this is beautiful. Of course you don't know what it means to me. It has simply changed the world." She waved her hand again. "They never got by, before. I always knew that line was fine, and color was color, wherever or whoever. But my eyes went back on me. M y father would have despised me. He wouldn't have preferred Habakkuk, but he would have done Habakkuk justice from the beginning. Yes, it makes a great deal of difference to me to see it once, fair and clear. Why"—she drew herself up as well as she could, so firmly held—"it is a very lovely place. I should tire of it some time, but I shall not tire of it soon. For a little while, I shall be up to it. And I know that no one thinks it will be long." Just then, Withrow's absurd fate caught him. Breathless, more passionately interested than he had ever been in his life, he sneezed. He had just time, while the two women were turning, to wonder if he had ruined it all—if she would faint, or shriek, or relapse into apathy. She did none of these things. She faced him and flushed, standing unsteadily. "How long have you been cheating me?" she asked coldly. But she held out her hand before she went upstairs with the nurse's arm still round her. Later he caught at Miss Willis excitedly. "Is she better? Is she worse? Is she well? Or is she going to die?" "She's shaken. She must rest. But she's got the hepaticas in water beside her bed. And she told me to pull the shade up so that she could look out. She has a touch of temperature—but she often has that. The exertion and the shock would be enough to give it to her. I found her leaning against the door-jamb. I hadn't a chance to tell her you were here. I can tell you later whether you'd better go or stay." " I am going to stay. It's you who are going." "You needn't telegraph just yet," the nurse replied dryly. She looked another woman from the nervous, sobbing creature on the chopping-block. The end was that Miss Willis stayed and Arnold Withrow went. Late that afternoon he left Kathleen Somers staring passionately at the sunset. It was not his moment, and he had the grace to know it. But he had not had to tell her that the view was beastly; and, much as he loved her, I think that was a relief to him. None of us will ever know the whole of Kathleen Somers's miracle, of course. I believe she told as much of it as she could when she said that she had lain thinking of the outlines of the mountains until she felt that she must go out and face them: stand once more outside, free of walls, and stare about at the whole chain of the earth-lords. Perhaps the spring, which had broken up the ice-bound streams, had melted other things besides. Unwittingly—by unconscious cerebration— by the long inevitable storing of disdained impressions—she had arrived at vision. That which had been, for her, alternate gibberish and silence, had become an intelligible tongue. The blank features had stirred and shifted into a countenance ; she saw a face, where she had seen only odds and ends of modelling grotesquely flung abroad. With no stupid pantheism to befuddle her, she yet felt the earth a living thing. Wood and stone, which had not even been an idol for her, now shaped themselves to hold a sacrament. Put it as you please; for I can find no way to express it to my satisfaction. Kathleen Somers had, for the first time, envisaged the cosmic, had seen something less passionate, but more vital, than history. Most of us are more fortunate than she: we take it for granted that no loom can rival the petal of a flow-er. But to some creatures the primitive is a cipher, hard to learn; and blood is spent in the struggle. You have perhaps seen (and not simply in the old legend) passion come to a statue. Rare, oh, rare is the necessity for such a miracle. But Kathleen Somers was in need of one; and I believe it came to her. The will was slack, the nurse had said; yet it sufficed to take her from her bed, down the stairs, in pursuit of the voice —straight out into the newly articulate world. She moved, frail and undismayed, to the source of revelation. She did not cower back and demand that the oracle be served up to her by a messenger. A will like that is not slack. Now I will shuffle back into my own skin and tell you the rest of it very briefly and from the rank outsider's point of view. Even had I possessed the whole of Arnold Withrow's confidence, I could not deal with the delicate gradations of a lover's mood. He passed the word about that Kathleen Somers was not going to die—though I believe he did it with his heart in his mouth, not really assured she wouldn't. It took some of us a long time to shift our ground and be thankful. Withrow, with a wisdom beyond his habit, did not go near her until autumn. Reports were that she was gaining all the time, and that she lived out-of-doors staring at Habakkuk and his brethren, gathering wild flowers and pressing them between her palms. She seemed determined to face another winter there alone with Melora, Miss Willis wrote. Withrow set his jaw when that news came. It was hard on him to stay away, but she had made it very clear that she wanted her convalescent summer to herself. When she had to let Miss Willis go—and Miss Willis had already taken a huge slice of Kathleen's capital—he might come and see her through the transition. So Withrow sweltered in New York all summer, and waited for permission. Then Melora Meigs was gracious for once. With no preliminary illness, with just a little gasp as the sun rose over the long range of Jeremiah, she died. Withrow, hearing this, was off like a sprinter who hears the signal. He found laughter and wit abiding happily in Kathleen's recovered body. Together they watched the autumn deepen over the prophets. Habakkuk, all insults forgiven, was their familiar. So they brought Kathleen Somers back from the hills to live. It was impossible for her to remain on her mountainside without a Melora Meigs; and Melora, unlike most tortures, was unreplaceable. Kathleen's world welcomed her as warmly as if her exile had been one long suspense: a gentle hypocrisy we all forgave e<-ch other. Some one went abroad and lef I an apartment for her use. Al l sorts of delicate little events occurred, half accidentally, in her interest. Soon some of us began to gather, as of old. Marvel of marvels, Withrow had not spoken in that crimson week of autumn. Without jealousy he had apparently left her to Habakkuk. It was a brief winter—for Kathleen
The Oldest Angel 559 Somers's body, a kind of spring. You the threshold. I do not think she minded, could see her grow, from week to week: for she had made her point: she had seen plump out and bloom more vividly. Habakkuk once more, and Habakkuk had Then, in April, without a word, she left not gone back on her. That was all she us—disappeared one morning, with no exneeded to know. They meant to go up plicit word to servants. in the autumn after their marriage, but Withrow once more—poor Withrow— the cottage burned to the ground beshot forth, not like a runner, but like a fore they got back from Europe. I do hound on a fresh scent. He needed no not know that they have ever been, or time-tables. He leaped from the telewhether they ever will go, now. There phone to the train. are still a few exotic places that Kathleen He found her there, he told me afterWithrow has not seen, and Habakkuk ward, sitting on the step, the door uncan wait. After all, the years are very locked behind her but shut. brief in Habakkuk's sight. Even if she Indeed, she never entered the house never needs him again, I do not think he again; for Withrow bore her away from will mind. THE OLDEST ANGEL By Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews SPIRIT of the Mountains, serene and beautiful and strong, Over your land you draw your purple veil of October; Behind it hills flame that were green and demure and sober, And the autumn is rolled in copper and gold, the heights and the valleys along.
Spirit of the Mountains, of eyes eternally clear, Rapt eyes smiling downward never to meet the smile of a mortal, You stand, forever welcoming, full-handed, at your portal, And your gifts are to those to whom your stern, sweet ways are dear. Rough-clad, as the pilgrims who journeyed to the Holy Land, Stripped of the pride of the world, and the luxury and the bother, Humble as children, like tired children we run to the old Earth-mother— And behold your arms are about us, and you give us good gifts with unstaying hand. Softly you blot the memories out that ache and are throbbing with pain, Surely you stroke away with strong, cool fingers The twists and the strains of life and the bitterness that lingers; And you steep us in rest, as the parching ground is steeped in the rest of the rain. None follow your singing roads but with tired and stumbling feet; None come to your Holy of Holies but climb—at your wordless commanding— Hard ways of the hills; but the peace of God that passes all understanding You give to the climbers, and long white nights, and a morning world dewy and sweet. Spirit of the Mountains, whose secret rivers lift strong Silver voices, chanting your upward roads, lovely, laborious, Behind the purple, mystical veil of October the glorious It may be to God that we climb—God ashine through the copper and gold and bronze and rose, the heights and the valleys along. THE SUCCESS OF BARBADOS By Henry Jones Ford Professor of Politics i;i Princeton University ILLUSTRATIONS PROM PHOTOGRAPHS T is a common observationwith travellers in the WestIndies that there is a vastdifference between thesocial consequences ofemancipation there and inthe United States; that somehow theWest Indies have managed to escape theriots and lynchings of the United States,and the different races seem to be able toget along together with mutual civilityand good-will. It is usual to remark thatthis is due to the fact that the communities there do not really possess self-government, but public order is maintainedby imperial authority; and hence theWest Indian example has no practicalbearing upon the race problems of theUnited States where imperial methodsare inadmissible. But this explanationleaves out of account the fact that thereis at least one West Indian island that isself-governed. Moreover, there the colored people greatly outnumber the whites,and the country has a tropical climate,which circumstances are commonly supposed to be adverse to capacity for self-government. And yet the island hasescaped the troubles which emancipationhas produced in the United States! Sointeresting a fact caused me to visit theisland of Barbados to see for myself theworking of its political institutions.-Just how Barbados got its name is amatter in dispute. The historian Froudeheld that the name referred to a race ofbearded Indians who inhabited the islandwhen it was discovered; but most his tori the fashion of the banian-tree of the East, The spectacle is certainly sufficiently im pressive to have given the island its name, When the English occupied the island, in 1627, they took over the name, and the bearded fig appears on the oldest seal of the colony. The island had long been known to Spanish and Portuguese navi gators, but the aborigines had been extir pated and the country was practically uninhabited when the English settlers ar rived. There is a tradition that six In dians were found on a spot which has since borne the name Six Men's Plantation, The attractions of Barbados were so ener getically proclaimed that a considerable body of emigrants went to it from Eng land during the seventeenth century. Among them was Fernando Palcologus, a descendant of the last Christian Emperors of Constantinople. He settled in the isl and, and lived there for many years as a planter and country gentleman. He died in 1678, and his imperial ancestry is as serted by the inscription upon his tomb stone in St. John's parish churchyard, The story was investigated by Schom burgk, and in his authoritative "History of Barbados" he gives proof of its au thenticity. Barbados is a coral island, and its highest elevations are only moderate sized hills. While in the volcanic islands occupation has taken place only here and there, where the formidable mountains have yielded the privilege, in Barbados the country is everywhere easily accessi ble. The island is only twenty-one by fourteen miles in maximum length and ans derive the name from the bearded fig- breadth, and it contains a little over one tree, of which magnificent specimens stillremain although the primitive forestshave long since disappeared. The tree letsdown from its branches tufts of fibrousroots, which when they reach the groundstrike in to form an auxiliary trunk, after560 hundred and sixty-six square miles, or about the area of an average county in the United States. The estimated popu lation on December 31,1914, was 176,397, of whom only 12,063 were white. It is believed that Barbados is the most denseThe Success of Barbados ly populated rural area in the world, not excepting even China. The population ranges from 596 to 3,825 to the square mile in the various parishes, and averages over 1,060 to the square mile for the whole island. Since the mass of the people live in little cottages or even huts, the roads in most places are lined continuously with houses. As a rule the cottages look neat and even pretty with their pink or salmon tinted walls and green-latticed windows; but in what might be called'slum districts there are poor-looking huts with roofs of ragged thatch. The fondness for giving individual names to places which one may note wherever the English settle, has sometimes an odd result. For instance, Windsor Castle is a one-story frame cottage. The English love of privacy is exemplified by the general practice of having walls about the grounds of private residences, but tropical conditions are recognized by such ample openings that there is no real enclosure. The walls, however, supply a fine background to the trees and shrubbery, and tend to correct the straggliness that is the defect of tropical gardens. The lack of lawns and neat borders and the general dustiness makes gardens in tropical countries rather unsightly on close view. Where they excel is in the exuberant growth of foliage plants and flowering vines, which look better in the mass and at a distance than in close view. The palm-tree, too, looks better in a picture than it does in reality, but an avenue lined with good specimens presents a stately appearance that will not be soon forgotten. Emigration is constantly drawing off men from Barbados, and about three-fifths of the population are females. Street selling and huckstering seem to be wholly in the hands of the women. One sees them everywhere in the island, carrying upon their heads the goods they have for sale. Long practice has made them so expert that one may see them turning to chat with one another while balancing crockery or a milk-can upon the head. The preponderance of women has its effect upon the shops, where one will generally see colored girls behind the counters, rendering service that is marked by politeness and skill. But of course, in a country where the whites are so few, most functions are in negro hands. Al l the policemen, firemen, harbor police, and minor civil servants are colored. Colored electors are in the majority in every district of the island except one. The foundation of the political organization of the community is the parish system brought from England in the seventeenth century, and preserved with less change than has taken place in the mother country. The island is divided into eleven parishes, and the vestry— which may have as few as six members in a small parish and as many as sixteen in a large parish—is elected annually by the voters of the parish. The rector of the parish is ex officio chairman of the vestry, and is also ex officio chairman of the local school board; but this is the only vestige left of ecclesiastical control of local government and popular education. The vestries are virtually municipal councils, which look after the maintenance of the public roads and poor relief, as well as the repair and maintenance of the churches. Education is really under the control of a central board of nine appointed by the governor, five at least to be members of the assembly. The system is one of state aid, and to get the appropriations the schools must conform to the requirements fixed by the board and applied by its inspectors. Any religious society maintaining a school in conformity with the regulations receives grants in aid in proportion to the number of pupils. The Church of England has most of the schools, but the Wesleyans and the Moravians also receive school appropriations. There is one Roman Catholic congregation on the island, but it does not receive any educational allotment, as the parish school is not conformed to the requirements of the education board. Yet it receives some aid from the public treasury for the upkeep of the church, in pursuance of the settled Barbadian notion that churches perform public functions. The system certainly works well in practice, as complete absence of denominational rancor is a marked Barbadian trait. The parish churches are notable architectural features of the island, and they are rich in historical associations. Every one says that there is no color-line in the churches, and my own observation confirms the statement. I attended a church in a parish where the number of whites was above the average, but in the church most of the congregation, four-fifths of the vested choir, and all of the ushers were colored. When the collection was taken up, there were six who went forward with the proceeds to the chancel-rail—all colored men. There is no color-line in the schools. The school act contains a section which provides that "no public money, parochial or otherwise, shall be granted under any circumstances or in any form in aid of the funds of any school maintained for the education of children of any particular complexion." There is no color-line in speech. The colored people speak the same English as other people. But all through the West Indies one never hears what goes by the name of negro dialect in the United States; so far as that really exists it is a provincial and not a racial trait. Education is cheap but is not absolutely free, and the opinion obtains that it would not be wise to make it so. Books and furniture are supplied, but it is required that every pupil shall pay at least a cent a week in the two lowest grades and two cents in the higher grades. The scale of fees is regulated by the local school boards, subject to the proviso that no child can be required to pay more than six cents a week. Pupils unable to pay may be admitted free, provided that the free list shall not exceed twenty-five per cent of the number of pupils in the school. The fees collected are retained by the teachers, who are paid small fixed salaries, augmented by capitation allowances based on the number of pupils. Retiring pensions are granted by the government, effective at the age of sixty for a man and fifty-five for a woman. The system practically amounts to state provision of a system of public schools, which in various ways is made economical by denominational interest and co-operation. The brief religious instruction in the schools is, however, not compulsory, and parents may have a child excused from attendance. Education is not compulsory, but the desire for it is so great that illiteracy is rare. The number of pupils on the registers in 1014 was 25,473—over fourteen per cent of the entire population. The state does not undertake to supply more than elementary education, the three R's, with a little history and literature, and in all the girls' schools needlework is an indispensable part of the regular course. There are no technical or industrial schools. What chance, then, has the poor child of talent to get ahead? Provision is made for such special cases by a system of scholarships, designated as "exhibitions." Twenty of these exhibitions are awarded annually as the result of a competitive examination. This practically means that the winner is carried through college at public expense. Then in addition there is the great prize of the educational world—the Barbados scholarship. It is awarded every year, and enables the holder to stay four years at an English university. The majority of the winners of these educational prizes are colored lads, who thus obtain opportunities by which they may eventually enter the imperial service. The Barbados scholar of 1908 is now assistant mycologist in the federated Malay states. The Barbados scholar of 1910 obtained a second class in classical honors at Oxford, and afterward entered the Indian civil service. Both these educational prize-winners were negroes. Experience throughout the West Indies corroborates experience in the United States to the effect that negroes in general are susceptible to education only up to a certain point, and that it is the rule that those who evince mental ability are of mixed ancestry; but nevertheless educated colored persons abound all through the West Indies, and the teaching staff of the schools is largely recruited from them. The whole educational scheme appears to be sensible and practical, fitting people to act with ability and success in their sphere of opportunity, but in nowise spoiling them. The system is as economical as it is efficient. State expenditure upon education in the fiscal year of 1915 amounted to $106,728.29 for 149 schools. There is no color-line in politics. Negroes may vote and are eligible to office on exactly the same terms as whites. The franchise is conditioned very much as it is in England, but the requirements The Success of Barbados are not onerous. Any freehold estate of a yearly value of not less than five pounds, or occupancy of any land or building assessed at not less than fifteen pounds' annual value, or the receipt of an annual income of fifty pounds from any occupation or trade, or a rental of fifteen pounds a year paid for lodgings, or the possession of a college degree, qualifies one as a voter. Political issues, when they occur, do not follow racial lines, but the line of cleavage is drawn by economic interest. The latest issue that stirred up Barbadian politics was over emigration regulations, and in an election on that issue the white vote went largely to the support of a colored candidate who was elected over a white competitor. As a rule, however, the electorate, although predominantly negro, seems to prefer to be represented by men of financial substance and social position, and this disposition gives the whites an allotment of office proportionately far in excess of their numerical strength. Of the twenty-four members of the representative assembly, only three are colored. But colored persons are found in every grade of the civil service. The solicitor-general, who stands in line of promotion to the chief-justiceship, is a colored man, the Honorable H . Walter Reece, who was educated at Harrison College, Barbados, and University College, London. At present the judges of the higher courts are all white, but there are colored men holding the office of district magistrate. VOL. LXVI.—45 The heads of the departments of the civil service are generally white, but the subordinate positions are held mostly by colored people. This does not, however, mean that only minor positions go to them. The rule of merit seems to be strictly applied. I went through the civil list with an experienced official, checking off white and colored, and it was impossible to note any color-line in public empl oyment. In some offices the chief clerk is colored with white subordinates. Out-ofdoor employments, such as mail-carrying, customs service, police work, the fire department, are practically monopolized by colored men. The sergeant-major who is responsible for the discipline of the constabulary is a colored man. The force under his control present a smart appearance uniformed in white helmets, white tunics, and blue trousers with broad red stripe. The men have the civil and obliging manners which are characteristic of the English-trained constable of whatever race he may be, and in whatever part of the world you may find him. Behind that suavity of manner is the force and dignity of the British Empire, which must be respected. Error on that point is forthwith attended by unpleasant consequences. During my stay in Barbados a case came up in court in which ten persons were charged with interfering with a constable in the discharge of his duty. He was arresting a youth for stealing sugar-cane when an attempt at rescue was made, in the course of which the constable was hit with stones and received a few lashes with sticks. He was not seriously hurt, but in view of the indignity offered to the crown in the person of a black constable eight persons were sentenced to imprisonment for a Grave of a descendant of the last Christian Emperors of Constantinople. month, one person was reprimanded and then discharged from custody, and a lad of fourteen was sentenced to receive " twelve strokes at the hands of a member of the police force." I attended some sittings of the courts, and was impressed by the simplicity and directness of the proceedings, and by the control exercised by the judge, who acted as if it was his business to see that justice was done. The law is strictly enforced, and fines of ten shillings were imposed for the theft of property valued at a penny. That is to say, if one steals a sugar-cane from a field, the offense is not excused because the loss is slight. One case tried in my presence was for the offense of "blackguarding" on the public highway. It is an offense to use abusive, defamatory, or blackguard language in sound of a public highway. These conditions are so indeterminate that in practice they cover anything in the nature of using the sharp edge of one's tongue. Al l the parties involved were colored, a man complaining that a woman had called him such names as loafer and vagabond. The free-spoken lady was fined ten shillings, and was admonished by the court to keep her tongue under better control. Standards of behavior in respect of speech seem to be well maintained. One never hears profane or obscene language, and civility and good humor seem to be universal. The foundation of it all is of course that law is enforced and impartial justice is administered; but the law is made by representatives chosen by a negro electorate, and the course of justice goes on exactly and impartially. There is no disagreement on these points; troubles there are, but they are of quite another nature. One hears unpleasant stories about the morals of the colored people in the matter of sex relations, the exact truth of which it is of course impossible for a casual observer to determine. One also hears affecting stories of the straits to which white families were reduced by the decline of the cane-sugar industry. Bargains in jewelry and rich furniture have been picked up by dealers, because families have had to melt down personal belongings to meet pressing needs. Many thousands of Barbadians have emigrated in search of work, but at the time of my visit business was booming because of the war. Barbadians are experiencing the truth of the proverb that it is an ill wind that blows nobody good; for the war has advanced the price of sugar, and it chanced that the advance came on top of a bumper crop. But good times or bad, law and order prevail smoothly and surely, and blacks and whites, although they do not mix socially, get on together politically without any racial conflict whatever. There was nothing in the early history of Barbados to suggest that the island was likely to have an easier time of it The Success of Barbados with negro suffrage than our Southern States. The importation of slaves into Barbados began about the same time as into the American colonies, and in number they soon greatly exceeded the whites, who lived in constant fear of an uprising. Several conspiracies were detected, and the punishments inflicted included burning alive and beheading. So late as 1816, when systematic military control had removed anxiety, there was a sudden insurrection attended by the firing of plantations. Martial law was declared, a number of persons were summarily tried and executed, and 123 persons convicted of riot were transported to Honduras. There was a standing feud between the free negroes and the assembly, because that body obstinately refused to admit any negroes to the suffrage.' But when the policy of emancipation was adopted by the imperial parliament the assembly sensibly decided to accept the situation and make the best of it. The compensation which slave-owners received had of course a soothing effect, and the assembly also had to consider the fact that it was the settled policy into local history as Emancipation Day. The suffrage laws were amended so as to admit blacks on the same terms as whites, and at the election of 1843, a of the empire that no A specimen of the bearded fig-tree from which the island British subject could be denied his rights because of race or color. In 1834 the imperial parliament had definitely provided for gradual emancipation, through a system of apprenticeship that might continue until August 1, 1840. The Barbados legislature abolished the system completely on August 1, 1838, which has hence gone takes its name. colored man for the first time obtained a seat in the assembly. Since then there have always been colored members, but there is no color line. Strangest of all there are now no parties. From time to time there are sharp disagreements on points of public policy which may lead to A slum district. a lively electoral contest, but the groupings that take place are in respect of that particular issue and dissolve as soon as that is decided. In times past, there has been plenty of party spirit. Local history tells of a period when there was great excitement over the struggles of two parties known as the " Salmagundies" and the "Pumpkins," the latter being a satirical designation of those classed as aristocrats. But parties have died out, and there are none now. There are no bosses, no demagogues, no conventions, no primary elections, no civil-service commissions, no research bureaus, no civic leagues, no reform associations. Pretty nearly all the dusty activities which we call politics are lacking. What is the explanation of this strange phenomenon? The explanation one usually finds in articles written about Barbados is that the population is so dense that the people are forced to be industrious to keep from starving. But this puts the problem only a little farther back, for the question then comes up why are the people so attached to the soil, so content with conditions, that they stay on, increase and multiply, until the island is as compact of 566 life as a beehive ? It is quite as easy for population to decline there as elsewhere. There is, in fact, much emigration, but it is notorious that it is generally with the expectation of returning. Love of country is a marked Barbadian characteristic. Such things are not ordinarily the consequence of overpopulation. Instead of smoothing the political situation, the industrial conditions would then naturally tend rather to roughen it. Another explanation, and one much more reasonable, is that although political power has passed into the hands of negroes, they are unable to abuse it because the island belongs to the British Empire. Nevertheless, they might try if they were so disposed, and surely the lack of parties is not to be attributed to imperial supervision. As a matter of fact, Barbados has developed on its own lines, and its constitution is quite distinct from the usual colonial pattern. It has annual elections, whereas the arrangement now usual in British commonwealths is a five-year term with annual sessions of the legislature. The Barbadian assembly is composed of two members from each of the eleven parishes, and two members in addition from Bridgetown, the port and capital of the island. Barbados is not and never has been a crown colony. It is a self-governing commonwealth, living under its own laws, proud and tenacious of its ancient rights and privileges. The charter was granted in 1639, and next to the English House of Commons the Barbados Assembly is now the oldest house of representatives in the British Empire. There are indications that for a long time the situation in Barbados was not satisfactory to the imperial administration. The ancient charter lacked securities for good government which it is now the practice to require. The assembly itself made up the annual budget in about the same fashion as in our own State legislatures and with somewhat similar results. At present every constitution of British make contains a provision that appropriations may be voted only on executive recommendation, and it is chiefly due to this provision that the representative assembly acts as an organ of control over the government in behalf of the people. Otherwise the tendency is for the assembly to degenerate into a scuffle of local agency, in which many interests are represented, but not the public interest. The imperial administration desired to correct the charter of Barbados in this particular, and also in the matter of more direct relations with the executive administration. The Barbados Assembly was stubbornly averse to change. A crisis was reached in 1876. It was proposed to merge Barbados with other islands in a scheme of federal government, which incidentally would have destroyed Barbadian legislative independence. A struggle followed in which Barbadian politics reached a high level of originality and sagacity; and the figure of greatest prominence was a colored man. William Conrad Reeves was born in 1821, the son of a local medical man and a negro-slave mother. The mulatto boy took to selling newspapers, and his ability attracted the attention of an editor, who gave him employment and helped him in his education. Reeves learned shorthand, joined a debating club, and became interested in politics. His intelligence and aptitude raised friends, and he was assisted to go to England to study law. He became a student in the Middle Temple in i860 , and while pursuing his legal Public garden in Bridgetown. studies acted as London correspondent of dos. The color line did not figure in the the Barbados press. He was called to issue, but probably confederation found the bar in 1863, and in 1864 he returned its strongest support among the negroes, to Barbados where he attained profes- while a majority of the whites clung to in-Palm-bordered roads. sional eminence. When the confederation dependence; and a colored man was the scheme was brought forward, he held the leading champion of the party of indeoffice of solicitor-general. He resigned pendence. The campaign was conductthat office and went into active opposied with tact and shrewdness, and was tion. He took a leading part in the ascompletely successful. The scheme was sembly in arranging measures to preserve abandoned, the governor who had advothe legislative independence of Barba-cated it was recalled, and the governor who succeeded him made it a point to consult Reeves and take advice from him. A purse of one thousand guineas was raised by popular subscription and presented to him with an address of thanks. In 1882 he was appointed attorney-general; in 1886 he was knighted and became chief justice. He died on January 9,1902, and was accorded a public funeral. He left one daughter, who married and resides in Europe. In the centre of the antechamber of the hall of the assembly, standing out most conspicuously, is his bust on a massive pedestal bearing the following inscription: THIS BUST OF SHi WILLIAM CONRAD REEVES, KT. CHIEF JUSTICE OF BARBADOS FROM 1886 TO 1902 IS PLACED HERE AS A LASTING AND GRATEFUL MEMORIAL OF HIS DISTINGUISHED SERVICES IN THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY FROM 1874 TO 1886 AND ESPECIALLY ON THE PART HE TOOK IN DEFENDING AND MAINTAINING THE CONSTITUTIONAL - RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF THE PEOPLE OF THIS ISLAND AT THE CRITICAL PERIOD 1876-1878 HIS CAREER ON THE PRESS THE LEGISLATURE AT THE BAR AND ON THE BENCH WAS ONE LONG RECORD OF FAITHFUL SERVICE TO' ALL CLASSES OF THIS COUNTRY PALMAM QUI MERUIT FEE AT Reeves was indubitably a genuine statesman. Althoug h he opposed reform measures sent on from England, he proposed measures to correct conditions of which complaint had been made. In 1877 Lord Carnarvon, then at the head of the colonial office, wrote a despatch reviewing the situation in detail, in which he remarked that "to create a constitution such as that of Barbados would be impossible at the present day." This is an allusion to the fact that the constitution of Barbados perpetuates the type of government that existed before the cabinet system was developed and parliamentary institutions took their present form. Barbados differs radically from other self-governing English commonwealths in that there is no ministry, no party responsibility. Lord Carnarvon recommended that budget procedure should rest as elsewhere on estimates of expenditure prepared by the government, and that at least two of the principal officers of the government should be entitled to sit and speak in the assembly. An avenue lined with good specimens presents a stately appearance. Neither of these recommendations was adopted. A bill authorizing the government to nominate two members of the assembly was introduced, but Reeves was active in opposing it, and it was defeated. But later on he proposed and eventually brought to 'enactment a scheme of connection which is quite unique. The act provides for an executive committee, which occupies a place in the Barbadian constitutional system like that of the cabinet in the ordinary The Barbados State House. British type of government. Immediately on the opening of each session the governor may appoint one member of the legislative council, and four members of the assembly, to be associated with the executive council, forming with it " a committee for the transaction of public financial business, for the consideration of ways and means, for advising the governor on any measures which the executive may deem it expedient to bring before the legislature, and for the conduct of public works, and the control and management of public institutions." It should be explained that the executive council is composed of the colonial secretary, the attorney-general, the speaker of the house, and the master in chancery—four persons in all, two of whom—the speaker and the attorney-general—are also members of the assembly. The legislative council is a nominated body of nine, members of which may_ and do serve also as members of the executive council. The assent of this council is necessary to the enactment of the laws, but to withhold it would be practically a government veto, and as a rule the actual decision rests 57° with the assembly, elected by the people and the organ of popular control. The executive committee, the total membership of which is nine, must include four members of the assembly, and in practice there are two more. The act makes it the duty of the executive committee to prepare the estimates, and it is provided that "the initiation of money votes by bill, resolution, or otherwise, by individual members of the house of assembly shall cease, and shall be made only on the responsibility of the executive committee." A practical approximation to the cabinet type of government is effected by an act which provides that if the attorney-general is a member of the assembly and attends to the introduction of government bills he shall be allowed two hundred and fifty pounds annually for that particular service. The way it works out in practice is that the governor selects his legal advisers from among the members of the assembly and they supply the direct administrative connection between the executive and legislative branches,- without which a constitutional system either becomes the prey of corThe Success of Barbados ruption or the victim of revolutionary disorder. The present attorney-general has been a member of the assembly over twenty-five years. The solicitor-general has been a member over twenty years. This survey of constitutional arrangements, with the aid of some comparisons, will enable us to understand Barbadian politics. The absence of civil-service commissions, research bureaus, and reform associations is explained by the fact that all such functions are concentrated in the assembly. Barbados is quite self-governing, subject as are all the self-governing colonies to the power of the imperial parliament to intervene on sufficient occasion. The assembly makes the laws and the governor has no veto power. But in practice the assembly simply sits as a board of directors to examine and revise financial estimates and legislative proposals submitted by the general management. The members receive no pay and have no patronage. Service and attendance are provided by executive arrangements. This, of course, protects the members from the importunities of job hunters, and also makes them moderate in their demands for clerical assistance, since whatever offices are created will be filled by executive appointment without ratification or confirmation by any other authority. The total legislative expenses for the session 1914-15 were £1,38 3 15s. 4<i., which amount is set forth in the Blue Book as being an increase of £6 1 js. Sd., due to the "larger amount of copying done." Since the members themselves have to practise economy, of course they see to it that as strict an obligation rests upon every department of the government, and as they hold the purse-strings they are in a position to enforce their requirements. Hence, frugality pervades every branch of the administration. An incidental result of the activity of the assembly as an organ of control is lucidity and comprehensiveness in accounts of the public business. There is nothing in American public documents that approaches the Barbadian Blue Book in statistical completeness. It is on file in the New York Public Library, so the assertion may readily be put to the test. The above considerations make it pretty clear that there is no opening for the demagogue's trade. When ranters, The governor's house. cranks, and busybodies are able to get upon the stage it is an infallible indication that the representative function is deranged, deflecting political force from the constitutional channels. In Barbados the assembly exercises control over every branch of the administration, including judicial behavior quite as much as any other sort of official behavior. Nothing that can happen is shut off from its supervision. The assembly is the only forum to which the people will look. Any man aiming at political leadership finds it impossible to gain attention unless he comes forward as a candidate. If otherwise qualified he can present himself in any district, no matter where he happens to reside, and the indorsement of one registered voter is sufficient for a legal nomination. The circumstances make it practically The Hon. H . Walter Reece, K . Cimpossible for one to solicitor-general of Barbados. ing a satisfactory exparty machines and reform associations is an essential condition of the economical character of the government. Al l this, however, does not explain the absence of party spirit. In this respect the situation in Barbados is peculiar. Usually in English commonwealths party spirit is so marked that a visitor is apt to be disagreeably impressed by its rancor. It generally seems worse than in the United States, where apparently the politicians have learned to wade in mud with good humor. The explanation usually offered of the placidity of Barbadian politics is that it is due to the merely municipal character of political issues. But the issues are no more [municipal than the ordinary issues of State politics in the United States, and even were the statement true in. fact it could not be regarded as furnishobtain any considerable body of political adherents except by getting accepted as a constitutional representative of the people. It is plain why there are no political bosses. There is nothing to boss. There are no primaries to be carried, no convention delegates to be delivered, no party machine to be kept in order. No state elections are held except for members of the assembly; no municipal elections are held except for members of the parish vestry. Each parish acts for itself in electing representatives, and the task of voters is never greater than to make a choice from among a few candidates. There is not, as a rule, any keen competition for jobs in which men work for nothing and find themselves, so in practice the sitting members are usually returned without opposition, in which case the polls are not opened at all. The absence of such costly political adjuncts as planation in view of the party rage often displayed in American municipal politics. The true explanation lies deeper, and to get at it it will be necessary to dip into political science. It should be noted that the present placidity is rather a recent phenomenon. In the past, party recrimination was quite as violent as in the United States. It has waned only since the constitutional adjustments took place which established a definite system of administration and control. The biological principle of the correlation of structure and function applies to political life as completely as to any other forms of life. It is therefore a principle which holds good always and everywhere that the extent of party organization is proportioned to the work it has to do. Party organization is most massive and energetic in the United States because there is no direct connection between the powers of government, and party control is the means by which The Success of Barbados numerous separate, distinct, and independent agencies of administration are brought into concert of action and subjected to a common purpose. Party organization in English commonwealths of the ordinary pattern is called upon to form a ministry, and supply it with the support of a majority in the representative assembly. English politics all over the world are eternally bickering over this task, and it is in connection with its financial burdens that corruption occasionally invades the constitutional system. In Switzerland, where the constitution provides a stable executive management and invests it of right with power to place measures before the legislature and bring them to determination, party has declined to mere propaganda of opinion supported by amateur interest, like have to encounter party opposition. The political flurries that now and then stir the electorate are never over abstractions but always over some specific matter. Then committees are formed, candidates take sides, and the issue is taken into the elections. The system promptly and effectually ascertains the will of the people on any issue, and at the same time excludes party excitement from the ordinary routine of government. It is a striking circumstance that the statesmanship of a negro took a leading part in establishing this unique system, which works so • smoothly and successfully. There have been prophecies of evil but there are no signs of their fulfilment. Froude visited Barbados in 1887, a . period in which he was busy calling attention to the William Conrad Reeves, an eminent dangers of home rule any other spontanenegro statesman. whether in Ireland ous social activity. Variety of political opinion is a marked Swiss characteristic, but it does not seem to enter into administrative arrangements. The absence of party violence in Barbados is to be attributed to the same cause that exists in Switzerland—the fact that party has no function to discharge in forming an administration and in connecting it with the legislature. This is accomplished in Barbados in quite another way from what it is in Switzerland, but the result is the same. In Barbados the attorney-general proposes the measures recommended by theadministration, submits them to the assembly, and attends to the process of enactment. Every measure stands on its merits, and members divide in accordance with their views on that subject. The attorney-general, who is the recognized spokesman of the administration, has no party support to depend upon, but neither does he or in the West Indies. But in the thirty-two years that have since elapsed none of the tendencies he anticipated have been manifested. A book on Barbados, by an American author, published in 1893, gives an account of the reconstruction period in the United States as a picture of what is in store for Barbados from negro suffrage. But the negroes have long outvoted the whites, and if the results feared were indeed impending there would be some tendency that way displayed by this time. The truth is that those who yield to such alarms are misled through inability to grasp the principle that it is not the suffrage that counts but the conditions under which it is exercised. The institutions of Barbados possess a genuine representative quality that insures their efficiency; and similar methods will have similar results wherever introduced.
POEMS BY A YOUNG SOLDIER WHO DIED IN CAMP By Ira South group of poems by a young Southern college man, who died in a Virginia camp on the eve of going to France, was chosen from about one hundred he left complete as a part of the severe literary training to which he had subjected himself from early school-days. He had the Stevenson idea of keeping eternally at it and of accumulating experience by real contact with all kinds of people. A part of a letter by his sister, Miss Ruby South, reveals a rare personality and a real ambition to be a writer: " A few facts of the boy's life will make the verses mean more: " I think Ira might be called a victim of the 'wandering blues.' He definitely decided to make writing a profession about the year he finished 'prep' school. He first spent a summer in west Texas— on the Pecos River. Here he used his time exploring the canyons and collecting all the legends of the region. "The next year, instead of going to college, he worked on a small newspaper, but came home for the summer. We had just moved to a large farm and ranch and had mostly negro and Mexican labor. Ira worked along with the hands and collected whole note-books full of 'local color' yarns and expressions. He tried short stories and verses, but made no attempt to sell them. From this time on he spent every odd moment studying synonym books, verse form, short stories, etc., poring over every type of magazine to analyze why the stories and verses sold and what made them good. "Next year he started in college but quit in the spring to go to the swamps of east Texas, where he mixed with men from lumber-camps and oil-fields. We 574 enticed him back to college for the next year, and he stayed through, but immediately school closed he went to the coast and shipped on a tugboat as a 'messboy.' Later he was transferred to a large oil-tanker. In that summer he journeyed all up and down the Atlantic coast, from Virginia to Central America. I think the charm which the sea and the tropics always had for him took complete possession of him during the summer's cruising, so that later his only desire seemed to be to get back to them. "He went back to college, however, for his second year, and the next summer war had made the water unsafe, so, because mother begged him not to make another sea trip, he had to spend his summer among the soldier camps on the border when the militia were training there. "He planned for the next summer to start out through Mexico and see how far he could go with no money in his pocket, but only his guitar to make his way. But in the middle of the next year we entered the war, and he joined the Marines the day war was declared, preferring to go as a private than to wait for an officers' training-camp, as the college authorities urged. But he was disappointed in his army service. He was stationed in Florida and kept there almost the whole time. A t last he saw the chance of getting across, but took influenza, soon after he had been transferred to Norfolk, Va., and died just three weeks before the armistice. "Ira had been doing a great deal of writing all this time, but nothing complete. He was studying style and plot and learning to use the language. He sold several verses to the Adventure Magazine, and just before he died sent one to the Saturday Evening Post, which they accepted. . . ." Poems by a Young Soldier Who Died in Camp 575 WISDOM I had a friend, and sometimes we would talk His eyes would gleam with alien light as resolution burned And he would say "I mean to seek the source of thought— Each master only quotes in turn the sage from which he learned." Upon his quest, he writes from distant schools renowned, But now no longer speaks of wisdom or of strength of will. "Ah, lad," he asks, "what has become of my old horse and gun, And does the mist still hang above the woods on Hickory Hill?" REGRET Herons fly low over the flooded rice-fields, Wild roses blow along the irrigation ditches, And curlew drift like strands of cobweb Down the tide flats. Coppermine hill lies adrowse in sunshine, High floats a hawk above the sloping valley. Gone though, a day determining my destinies Slipped by unheeded. Yea, though my eyes discovered wondrous beauty Wide on all hands, yet with grievous blindness Failed to perceive the goddess Peradventure Till she departed. VICTORY They dug the sidewalk up to lay a sewer line, And on the scattered broken concrete slabs, Al l wrapped in twilight, I could scarce divine A slip of girl, bare-legged, with muddy dabs Of new-turned clay upon her sallow feet; And so engrossed, she failed to note me nigh As hurriedly I walked the empty street. A full moon rose to climb the sloping sky. From whence her idea, Heaven only knows! Perhaps some primal instinct stirring strong; Perhaps a memory of picture shows; She hailed the moon with dance and crooning song. She saw me, then abruptly stopped in shame and fear, Self-conscious of her spindle legs and pose, 576 Poems by a Young Soldier Who Died in Camp And dreading lest she meet derisive jeer, She shrank, still balanced on her toes; Then sudden danced anew, as courage woke, Defiant to unsympathetic eyes. Again her chant arose like ritual smoke To low full moon which climbed the sloping skies. THE JOKE I had always worked ashore, But one day, out of a job, I went down to the docks And thought I would ship for one cruise Till something turned up. The captain looked me up and down— Said: "Son, you've never been to sea, I won't take no young man out 'Cause if you start you can never get away." I coaxed him, laughing to myself How mad he would be When I got back and, broke in good to be some use, I would quit and work ashore again. That was forty years ago. I still follow the sea. CARIBBEAN LULLABY The sun has fallen into the sea, Oh sleep, Little Baby, oh sleep, And none can find him but you and me. Oh sleep, Little Baby, oh sleep. And when you have slept, then by and by, Oh wake, Little Baby, oh wake, We'll fish him out to put in the sky. Oh wake, Little Baby, oh wake. UNCERTAINTY Another one has made her heart his goods. Because I worship her for years in vain They laugh: "There can be no reward for him, The fool! For what has he thereby to gain? " Sunset 577 But there be things beyond all reckoning And chance too deep for groping gaze of seers. Some watches end in more than sentry call A single night may recompense for years. VALE It was no sign I loved you any less, Nor do I wish my sacrilege undone; M y plea is only that a man hath need Of intimate divinities—or none. I anger yrou ? I roll my prayer-rug up And let the mounting incense cease to wind. Why tarry long with heedless goddesses When others be as fair, and far more kind?
SUNSET By Shaw Desmond Au'.hur of "Democracy," " The Soul of Denmark," etc. ILLUSTRATION BY OLIVER KEMP TRUMPE T clanged across the smear of stiff black hair that brushed the sultry airs of the August itself down over his sweating forehead. afternoon. It ceased—then The others, dusty bully fellows, their came again brazenly, long breeches thonged under the knee, chaffed drawn out. the big man. " Git aht of my way, you "I thort you Irishers could fight," said bullocky Irisher! Were in hek are you a young laborer mischievously. a-shovin' to?" " Fight!" Regan had whipped the Cocky, his shoulders knitting themword out of his mouth. "Fight phwat? selves under their work, ran briskly down Is it that thing in the string and corduthe plank—a diminutive figure in yellow roys coming down the plank? Fight!" knee-tied corduroys and print shirt; that And he spat again in disgust through the showed the coarse flannel undershirt fringe of his heavy, black mustache. where it opened at the throat, the whole " Fight!" It might have been an echo, dusted from the flour he was helping the only that it came from above with the cut bellying tramp to vomit out upon the of a whip as the little man ran down the wharf, as though a giant pepper-box had plank, his shoulders crouching themselves been shaken over him. under the heavy flour sack. "Fight! Do The big Irishman in the blue jumper you fink I'm afride of you, ye bullocky said nothing as he swept past him, only Irisher? " hunching his great shoulders and spitting The little man had unshipped the sack contemptuously into the turgid waters from his shoulders, tightened his belt with below, but the blue eyes glowered under an instinctive action of his thin, whip578 Sunset cordy arm, and was advancing toward the big man like a bantam cock, his right arm covering his waist and his left pecking aggressively forward. Jim Regan waited for him, his long arms hanging loose at his sides, with a queer twist of the eye that for a moment seemed to turn upward like that of a wicked horse. The little man had run in, aiming a vicious uppercut as he came. But the big man had sidestepped him and had reached down one great paw. Now he was running up the plank, holding the writhing, blaspheming Cockney by the leather belt about his waist. He levered him out over the dock waters, and there he stood whilst the other kicked like a trout on a light line, not abating one vowel of his angry blasphemy as he sprawled over the twenty-foot drop. "Let him go ! Let him go ! " A girl's voice followed by the girl herself came across the silence of the wharfside. Fortunately Regan did not follow the advice, but drew the little man back into safety, now silent enough, but uncowed. "You great brute! Oh, you! You great brute!" The girl had run up the plank and looked a fury as she stood there, clawing upward at the big man who towered over her. She made a pretty picture—of a kind, with her black-brown hair smoothly braided down over the fierce tigerish eyes; the little short, straight nose, and the crimson shawl caught over her head, that knotted itself in front. The Irishman stood there, blinking hopelessly, helplessly. "Arrah, don't be disthressin' yourself, alannah !" at last he ventured. " Sure, it was only a fright I give him." But he flushed heavily as he came down the plank to the wharf. The girl looked at him steadily, almost harshly. Then the veil of her anger fell from a face which softened strangely in the sunlight. "Ah, Jim," she said, coming to him where he stood at the bottom of the plank and reaching out a hand to place it on his bare arm, "sure, ye know it's the pride in ye I have that you wouldn't put the hand heavy on a little man. You know what there is between you and me." She did not see Cocky, who stood behind her. The little man was now gray-white in the face. But without a word he picked up his sack and went on with his work as though nothing had happened. In a few moments the wharf looked as usual, with the sweating, trotting figures that ran up and down in the fierce sunlight which beat down on the Thames's scum. The girl had disappeared. The wharfside knew that story right enough. First the two grumbling but inseparable pals, Cocky and "the Irisher." Then the girl in the shawl, Sheilah Quinlan, who had dropped out of the illimitable with her father, a "blackleg" docker, who had come from the Scotland Division of Liverpool for the work that was denied him there. And then the battle for the girl between the two former chums, now hostile—a bitter, truculent battle on the part of Cocky, and one of sullen indifference upon that of the Irishman. The wharfside knew it, and watched and, when it dared, jeered—this last out of the reach of Jim Regan's ear and fist, for, gentle though he was in most things, he was an ugly man to cross—none uglier. But it never laughed at the girl. She was sacrosanct, partly because of the queer strain of chivalry in the British workman, and . . . well, partly because they all feared her tigerish temper and vitriolic tongue, which, as "Mac, " the Glasgow Scotty, who had some pretense to education, said, "would tak' the skin from a megalosaurus." (Mac had a biological turn in his spare moments.) But the wharf decided sapiently that Sheilah Quinlan was a queer girl, of whom you could never be sure. "Artful Edward" put the views of the wharf concisely: "Wot can you make of a donah wot is a hangel of mercy to Friars Lane . . . w'en she likes . . . and w'en she doesn't would cut off her nose to spite 'er face. And look at the life she leads pore old Jim— a-lovin' and a-hatin' of 'im together!" The trumpet blast had sung again brazenly—sung into the face of the setting sun, as Cocky ran down the plank for the last time and prepared to put on his jacket and celluloid collar. Cocky was as unimaginative as any Cockney stevedore could be. Not much chance for imagination after ten-hour shifts under back-breaking loads. But the blast of the trumpet, which in the Sunset 579 opening months of the Great War had again and again struck insistently on his ears like something that called, had "shifted something in him," as he expressed it. "Fair sends the bloomin' 'awrt inter yer bloomin' gullet!" he muttered to himself as he faced round, looking into the dusty glory of the August sun, where it set behind the spars and roofs of London. As he came out into the streets behind the docks, his billy on his arm and the remains of his dinner tied up in his red bandanna handkerchief, he heard that other sound he now knew so well. That rumbling like the rumbling of wheeled traffic, only that it came, not steadily, but in beats. It was beating down there, and the windows of the houses near him were beginning to rattle uneasily in their frames. He half pulled up and looked down the street, which turned a hundred yards from where he stood, but could see nothing. Then he heard them—the pipes shrilling themselves out over the boom and rattle of the drums under the panting chests of the big Scotsmen who marched in front, "pride in their port, defiance in their eye," the ribbons from their pipes a-flutter in the airs that now lifted uneasily through the reek of the London dust. Behind, a group of men stepped with them, their pinched faces and bodies telling of old-time hunger-lines at the docks, but in their eyes something new, something deathless, as they marched, their faces set; one of them, as Cocky noticed, staring up over the roof-tops, as though he saw something. At the back petered a guttering rabble of boys, followed by a bevy of factory girls, who swayed in line as they sung against the pipes. Something had come into his throat— the thing that the trumpet always brought there; something flamed in his eyes—perhaps it was the sinking sun. Cocky never knew exactly how it happened, but he found himself walking in step with the little group behind the Highlanders, his face set sternly upon the broad leathered back of the Scotsman who strutted in front of him, whilst that thing still gurgled and battled in his throat. VOL. LXVL—46 He had always said: "Every man for hisself!" He had laughed at Regan for being a union man. He didn't believe in trade-unions—places where men paid money to help others. The King was something very far away, and as for "country"—well, country was the thing that prevented you earning your bread and beer and baccy when it could—the thing with which you were always fighting. Now he strutted with the others in the recruiting march, his head set back at an unaccustomed angle, the bandanna handkerchief hanging pendulum-like by his side; in his heart new feelings—new, tumultuous, disturbed feelings. There was something pounding away down there— something that had got into his blood. Private Cocky Gripes, looking natty in his khaki, on his boots an unaccustomed shine and a ferocious cock to his cigarette, was having his tea with the Quinlans. He had got leave for the evening from his training-camp, where he was being made into the finished article, and had looked in " by accident," to find Jim Regan there. Instead of regarding discretion as the better part of valor, as he had been taught in that part of the Rules and Regulations of His Majesty's Forces having relation to retiring in face of an overwhelming enemy, he had set his little aspish jaw, walked in and sat down, to the disgust of the big man and the unconcealed joy of Dan Quinlan, with whom he had a cordial understanding upon trade-union politics. Jim was always in a sullen, unconvinced minority of one at these meetings, for his sweetheart agreed with her father in this thing, which was the only, but a serious, difference between them. "No , Mr . Quinlan," the little man was saying as he flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette into the crazy iron fireplace, with a half-lift of his eye at his enemy, " I don't hold with these 'ere unions, and wot's more, I never will." And he looked challengingly across at Jim Regan, who crouched heavily over the fire. "Wot's the good of 'em?" he went on argumentatively. "Each man for hisself is my motter, and the devil take the hindmost!" 580 Sunset Old Quinlan, a gnarled, old shellback originally from the wilds of Mayo, and afterward from the Liverpool back-blocks, with the iron still rankling in his soul after his battle with the Liverpool dockers, grunted heavily: " Ye're right there, bhoy. Kapin' honest men who want to do an honest day's work, for an honest day's pay, down in the gutter." His voice took a deeper, harsher note . . . "the trucklin', tyrannical, browbeatin' blackguards." Regan flushed as he crouched over the blaze. The girl, putting away the tea-things behind him, had stopped to listen, two yellow spots lightening in her brown eyes at her father's words, for she took his defeat at the hands of the Liverpool union badly. "If there's a man in the wurrld," went on old Quinlan, his mouth working through the fringe of ragged beard and mustache .. . "i f there's a man in the wurrld that can put a name that isn't dirty to the trade-unions, he's no man for me or mine!" And he scowled at Regan. The big Irishman pulled his face up from the knuckled hands where he had sunk it, and looked darkly acro~ss at the old man. " I put the name that isn't dirty to them," he said steadily. " I put the name to the champions of the working man—to the unions that put bread into his mouth . . . and yours," he added, after a moment. "Bread into my mouth! Bread into my belly! H—l's alive, man! but I'd starve in the gutter before I'd take the bread of the unions; God blight them for cutthroats and cowards!" "It's what they fought for that give you thirty bob a week instead of twenty . . . when you're in work," retorted the big man angrily, forgetting himself in the taunt to his beloved unions, for Jim Regan was always gentle with the old man because it was his nature, the nature of his breed, to be gentle to the weak things of the world. Cocky laughed derisively. The old man's face worked fearfully, the veins whipping themselves out on his forehead. He stood up menacingly. "You . . . you . . . you . . ." and fell heavily on his face across the open grate. Regan sprang to pick him up, but the girl had run between them and had spat: " You! It is you that have done this. Get out! Get out to your union, you dirty coward—the union that began the work you've finished !" Regan walked out without a word. Friars Lane heard all about it and knew more as the months went on. Sheilah Quinlan had given Jim Regan "the knock," though her father had got over his heart attack. Now it was Cocky Gripes who came down the Lane each Sunday afternoon, in speckless khaki, a cigarette on, cane, and all complete. She had even been seen "walking out" with him, and, as Friars Lane noted, for Friars Lane noted everything, had cut the Irishman in the light of day. But Regan, big Regan, had hunched his shoulders a little more and was travelling pretty fast downhill via the "Bull and Bush" and the "Traveller's Arms." Then the Lane heard that Jim Regan had 'listed, "and abaht time," according to Friars Lane. In the meantime Cocky Gripes was having, if not a new heaven, at least a new earth, opened to him day by day. He discovered that in the army "Every man for hisself" was taboo. That it was " Each for all, and all for each," the motto of Jim Regan's union—the motto on the picture over the fireplace of the meeting-hall, with the two hands gripping underneath. But this didn't make much impression upon Cocky, who was much too busy learning the whys and wherefores of rifle-keeping and bayonet drill and trench-digging, and the mysteries of washing. Not that all these intricacies had apparently anything to do with anything. It never occurred to Cocky Gripes—Private Albert Gripes in the army list—that the end of all this met in a bayonet point. It never came to him, except dimly through the columns of the morning halfpenny he affected, that behind his bayonet work and face-washing there lay empires and peoples and a tottering of thrones. It never came to him (he was an isolated independent beast was Cocky) that the minds of Europe's wise men were exercising themselves over the things behind these things—things called states
Drawn by Oliver Kemp. "D o you hear it . . . the trumpet . . . the trumpet. . . ."—Page 583.
582 Sunset manship and statecraft and government. Cocky Gripes wasn't interested in questions of government except so far as they impinged upon the price of beer. But the clang of the trumpet and the tap of the drum always brought to him that queer griping feeling—the thing that strangled in his throat. And now there was the nutter of the flag at the head of the regiment. All these things were now in his blood—were part of him. But as he clumped his way in the cold light of the February afternoon along the Flanders road, with the strung poplars swaying bleakly in the gale, and as his eye searched blindly the desolation that stretched away from him, he felt cut off from everything, isolated with that hard-pinched band of mud-stained men who marched by his side. There was something in the bleakness that forced him together with these men—these men who teased him, and whom he had fought in the training-camp. Yes, even forced him against the man he hated, who by luck's long arm had been put into the same draft—Jim Regan, the giant who marched near him, his blue eyes set steadily on the gray ribbon of road. He felt very far from Sheilah and from Friars Lane now. But he hugged to himself, fierce, exulting, the half-promise to marry him which he had worried from her. But as he looked at the six-foot-odd of Regan his brow fell and he asked himself questions. Through the howling of the blast he heard the first mutter. The thing that muttered like the drum near the docks, but with a shuddering long-drawn growl that held something menacing in the heart of it. Again and again it shuddered through the February wind. "The guns!" And now the growl had changed to a scream—things that honked through the air like wild geese, only that Private Gripes knew nothing of wild geese and not much more about tame ones. But yet, as the honking came down the wind, something stirred within the little khaki-clad figure. Private Gripes was a different, a changing man, and in those later days, as in the weeks that followed when he had come up to the real thing, his imagination, that thing which had slept through the twenty-seven years of his life until it had been roused by a trumpet-blast, had begun to work. "Every man for hisself!" had gone by the board with many other things in Cocky's philosophy. It was true that sometimes his temper still "went back" on him, as he expressed it; for among his other discoveries Cocky numbered that of a peppery temper which up to that time he had explained by saying to himself that the whole world "had a down" on him. He had even learned to share the army stew with the others without using "injurious" language, and had given up trying to get the lion's share of the straw in the barn where they lay at night. But for Cocky, Jim Regan stood outside all these things. Toward him he was unreformable and unchangeable. There had even been an ugly fight on the edge of a trench in full view of the astonished enemy, who, before the sight of men fighting without compulsion, withheld their fire in sheer incredulity. "Die zwei Wahnsinnige" ("the two madmen") was the name by which they went in the German trenches. Now, as he prepared to go into the firing-line, he was staring, staring, at the letter the military post had brought, a letter written in a stark, angular hand: "PRIVATE ALBERT GRIPES, British Expeditionary Force Sec. 8473/17. " I am writing to tell you Cocky what I think you must know before. It is my fault and I led you on in my black anger against Jim—but I am Jim's woman now and for always and Jim knows it in his heart but if there had been no Jim it might have been different foi indeed I like you Cocky and if Jim comes back alive I will marry him—and I ask your pardon humbly—and this is the hard thing for me to write. "SHEILAH QUINLAN." He had to crush the letter into his tunic and march off to his section of the trench with Regan and the others. There was wild anger in his little Cockney heart— bitter anger against everybody—against Sheilah and Regan and the rest. Sunset 583 But he hadn't much time to think of that day in the street behind the docks. these things, for their trench, "The Give This thing came to Cocky Gripes with the and Take," was only a bomb's throw trumpet-clang that sounded through his from the Germans, and now the bombs brain. were beginning to come over, hurtling And then he had thrown himself forwith that curious zigzag motion he knew ward, face downward, on the bomb, so well. which at that moment heaved beneath Cocky Gripes had shaken hands with him, whilst something warm spurted up death now for many days. He had between the outstretched legs of the learned how men died . . . and lived, the stooping Irishman, spattering his face. latter sometimes a more difficult business. The big man wrenched himself about. He had learned that even death itself He stared downward. Then he undercould be faced when it came silently stood. through the air. But he feared mutilaHe picked up the little broken thing tion, especially by the bombs—those ugly, from the ground. tearing wounds. And he had seen little "Lay me down, Jim," said Cocky. Curtis shot through the stomach with "La y me down." a high-velocity bullet, and heard him "No, " as Regan moved to lower him. for two hours in the trench by his side, his hands gripping his stomach as he squirmed on the damp earth, screaming like a wounded hare. (He knew how a hare screamed, for he had once coursed a draggled hare with whippets, down there behind the willows on the Tottenham marshes.) And now they were bursting just before and on the edge of the trench. The great god Chance had brought the big man to his side, and so they fought together against the Germans in the noise of the bursting grenades, whilst now the shells were beginning to come over. In the fighting, with the gaps showing in their ranks, the others had drawn away, leaving Regan and himself side by side, throwing their bombs. He had stooped down to get purchase to hurl the grenade in his hand, had touched it off, but as he brought it on the upward swing his foot slipped from the ledge where he stood, and the bomb flew from his hand, landing just behind Regan, who, his back to him and legs outstretched, was dragging at something that lay in the bottom of the trench. Cocky Gripes had three seconds in which to act. If he sprang away he had time to save himself, but not his enemy, who crouched unconscious whilst the bomb burned behind him. "Every man for hisself !" The words stamped themselves before him. " Every man for hisself!" Before him crouched his rival, with the girl somewhere over there. Something passed before his eyes like . . . "No, up there on the edge of the trench, where I can breathe and see." The Irishman lifted him up over the trench edge, clambering after him. The sun was going down in a golden sunburst as the big man looked down tenderly upon his enemy. There was a cold, clear silence, for the big guns had ceased, and the Germans, peering out over the edge of their trench, looked once again upon " the two madmen " who hung there on the edge of the trench, disdainful or forgetful of death. "So this is the end . . . Cocky! . . . the end, after you gev your life for me . . . me .. . me that you hated." The great tears were falling unheeded on the face of the little docker—the face that had suddenly grown so small. Cocky lifted his eyes and smiled a little strained smile: "No, Jim, it's the beginning. . . . Tell her . . . tell Sheilah." He turned, his face transfigured, as he looked into the heart of the dying sun. . . . "I see them ... I see them, Jim. . . . Do you hear it . . . the trumpet . . . the trumpet . . ." And Private Cocky Gripes turned upon his side and coughed—a little sick cough. His head fell brokenly. Regan laid him down. He also looked where the other had looked—into the heart of the setting sun, as though he, too, saw something there. Out of the distance there came the sound of a trumpet—a trumpet that wailed itself out into the heart of the sunset.
INSTINCTS AN D BUSINESS By Edgar James Swift Author of " Psychology and the Day's Work ' VENT S which disrupt the world's work produce new combinations of ideas and new ideals. The bonds of traditional opinions and beliefs are loosened and the mental rearrangement is quite different from-that which prevailed before the disturbance. The Renaissance had this effect. It showed to modern man the unsuspected resources of his mind. And to-day, again, the. crisis from which the world has just emerged has disclosed a new vista of human progress and achievement. During the war much was said about the magnificent behavior of the mass of working men. Much has been said since of their splendid resistance to the blandishments of the Bolsheviki. "We can never go back to the old industrial confusion," has been the theme of many editorials and of the addresses of not a few men high in the business councils of the nation. But now that the immediate peril has passed, the thoughts of those who could inaugurate the change are reverting to the old pre-war grooves of complacency. The working men, however, are alive to the world ferment, and they And what is more important, the workers also know it. The war has been a remarkable revealer of industrial and military values. Victory depended no less upon the workmen in the mines, factories, and shipyards than upon the soldiers in the trenches. Proof of the hopelessness of our country's cause without their help has produced in the working men a profound psychological effect. Conscious of their service in time of need they expect an industrial reconstruction. And in the appalling danger of defeat, it was virtually promised would they but forget past disagreements and give generous aid to the preservation of democracy. The time, then, is opportune to consider certain psychological causes of the restlessness of wage-earners. It is not the writer's purpose to discuss trades unions, nor is he now concerned with the equitable distribution of the proceeds of production. The fundamental impulses which drive men on in ceaseless struggle to find their place in the nation, and the relation of these instincts to industrial efficiency, are the questions in which he is at present interested. So compelling and controlling are these human impulses that cry with Galsworthy's George Laird, "Al l no industrial reconstruction which ignores the old hard-and-fast traditions and drags on life are in the melting-pot," because of the war, "Death's boiling their bones, and they'll make excellent stock for the new soup." The war revealed wage-earners to themselves. It showed them their importance. To be sure, they were not wholly oblivious of their worth before, but the crisis has stressed their value mightily. The cry for help in mining coal and iron, for making steel and implements of war, and for aid in transportation, was convincing evidence of the nation's dependence upon her wage-earners. We know now. that no government which has not the devoted support of its workers is safe from subjugation. 584 them will bring contentment. And without contentment there can be no efficiency. The human mind is a marvellously rich prehistoric cache, the contents of which we are only beginning to unearth. Man has all manner of instincts which have been the basis of modern progress and civilization. Underlying all else, of course, is the instinct of self-preservation which, in modern times, produces the struggle for a comfortable living. But the will to live does not exhaust the wealth of prehistoric effort. After early man had made the weapons which he needed for defense against jungle beasts, he continued working to gratify the creative instinct—the instinct of Instincts and Business workmanship. The incentive was not alone utilitarian, for the art and science of two hundred thousand years ago need not blush when compared with more recent achievements. The modern method of progress is to build upon the natural forces at our disposal. In the physical sciences this is what we do. But in managing men, human impulses- with their resistless momentum of five hundred thousand years are ignored. Germany's most conspicuous failures, in the recent war, were such psychological blunders. She did not understand the racial instincts which impel to action. She did not know the spirit of man. And modern business has followed the same unscientific method, ignoring human impulses and vainly striving to overcome their resistance instead of making them allies in constructive work. We have said that the war revealed wage-earners to themselves. Of course, the real source of the struggle for self-realization of the so-called working-class lies much farther back—in the ideas and ideals of democracy. A great conception spreads. It cannot be restrained within bounds. Woman's suffrage illustrates the extension in one direction of this democratic idea. Women felt that if democracy is good for men, equity and logic affirm that it is also good for women. "N o taxation without representation" was the definite application of votes for men in the revolutionary days. It was inevitable that "Votes for women" should follow. The only question was, when would they organize for the demand? Perhaps, as we are assured, some of them will not use the "right" now that they have it. That does not matter. Its possession is the important thing. One instinctively resents discrimination—when it is directed against oneself. An illustration of this human trait occurred at one of the St. Louis pleasure resorts. About five hundred discharged soldiers in uniform were refused beer. They held an indignation meeting, prepared resolutions of "rights," and appointed a committee to present the ultimatum to the management. Again their demand was refused. They insisted that the matter be referred to the excise commissioner. Meanwhile they waited, an excited, threatening mob. Then, after the commissioner had telephoned permission, they gave three cheers and separated among the soft drink concessions and the girls. Al l that they wanted was their "rights." They objected to the discrimination. Man is a strange animal with most interesting and illogical ways. Restraint, discrimination, compulsion, awaken resistance leading sometimes to riot or rebellion. We know now that our forefathers were not seriously oppressed under British rule. Their suffering was chiefly mental. They objected to laws in which they had no voice. • Evidently, feelings and emotions are much more fundamental and controlling in man than intellect. This resistance to restraint sometimes takes curious forms. A physician, for example, while on his vacation, found an attractive little town in Arizona. One day, in- conversation with a stranger, he remarked: "Arizona is a delightful place, isn't it?" "Yes," replied the man. "It is pleasant, if you don't have to stay here." Selecting the place in which one shall live, instead of having one's health determine the choice, may seem a far cry from the instinctive feelings underlying democracy. But, after all, they have their origin in the same human feelings and emotions. In both cases it is the instinct of self-assertion, of self-expression. The same primitive instinct manifests itself in various ways according to the call of the environment. When men feel themselves under constraint, when they cannot determine and direct their actions, when they believe that their behavior is governed by forces beyond their control, when they have no voice in settling hours of work and compensation, the instinct of self-assertion revolts. This instinct is nature's high explosive. It has destroyed monarchies. It is the essence of democracy. And it is also the fundamental cause of labor's resistance to the present industrial system. The issue, however, is often confused. The underlying racial impulse which ignites the spark of conflict is hidden in the conflagration that follows. The explosive ingredient of self-assertion is not easily identified as the unstable element in the usually peaceful compound of democracy. The individual himself, indeed, is usually unaware of these instinctive impulses. It is a well-known fact of psychology that a man first acts instinctively, and then finds reasons to justify his actions. And the reasons given are generally suggested by the exigencies of the moment. Occasionally, however, in more thoughtful moods, the fundamental impulse is revealed. So we find in a recent pronouncement of the American Federation of Labor, a clear statement of the issue. " It is essential," the programme says, "that the workers should have a voice in determining the laws within industry and commerce which they have as citizens in determining the legislative enactments which shall govern them." This is labor's protest against government without representation. It is a definite demand for industrial democracy. We said that the fundamental cause of the class consciousness and restlessness of wage-earners is to be found in the ideas and ideals of democracy. This cannot be too often repeated. It is a tremendously significant fact. When our forefathers selected democracy as the form of government for the revolting colonies, they settled a good many questions of which they had scarcely heard. They settled slavery, and woman's part in government, and the relation of the wage-earner to his employer. One might better say that with the selection of democracy these questions settled themselves, for an idea is like a chemical that loosens atomic bonds and creates new compounds. Old idea complexes are shattered and from the fragments new thoughts arise. Someone has said that the cure for democracy is more democracy. As a matter of fact, the choice is not between degrees of democracy. It is between democracy in its fullest sense and autocracy. And the decision was made in our revolutionary days. We cannot now retrace our steps. Too long has democracy been the wage-earners' school in vigorous challenge. They have experienced the pleasurable pains of mental inquisitiveness. Tradition and convention have not robbed them of the "native hue of resolution." A little knowledge is dangerous— for autocracy. Having chosen a republican form of government, it is useless to try to maintain autocratic preserves in the midst of democratic freedom. Democracy and autocracy do not mix. They form an explosive compound. It is, of course, inconsiderate of others to wish to share our political, social, and industrial privileges. Nature seems to have made man in the image of a monopolist. He does not object to changes for himself—when, after many years of struggle, the new ideas have battered down the ramparts of traditional belief—but he does not enjoy having these changes common property. Independence was sufficiently declared, some are inclined to think, when we shook ourselves loose from England, and any further declarations are superfluous. Perhaps we should all be monarchists if we could be the monarchs and govern the people in the way best suited to their welfare—which, obviously, would be according to our way and not theirs. It .is human nature to believe that no one is quite so competent to direct the destinies of others as we ourselves. Now the war led working men to think about democracy. During the crisis partnership was emphasized, and especially partnership of wage-earners with their employers who, directly or indirectly, were the government. Not all of this talk, probably, was intended to be taken literally. Some of those who called wage-earners to co-operative service in defense of the nation may have felt that the danger warranted a little patriotic camouflage. But this does not matter. The significant fact is that the call was taken seriously by the workmen. The emergency produced and sustained the maximum effort because of the idea of partnership in extreme danger. Al l the people, instead of special interests, were to gain the advantage or suffer disaster. Wage-earners were told that without their generous cooperation the war would be lost. And this knowledge has made them more clearly conscious of their importance in the industrial life of the nation. They are not likely to forget that the responsibility of partnership was put upon them when the fate of the nation was at stake. Soon after we entered the war, it became evident that some plan must be Instincts and Business found by which disagreements between the workers and managers of a plant could be settled without the usual long delay of reference to the union. Neither the unions nor employers have ever been organized to deal quickly with local disagreements. Consequently, the National War Labor Board organized "shop committees." They were the first extensive experiment in this country in industrial democracy. They organized the employees of a plant for dealing collectively with the management to increase efficiency, to improve the working conditions, and to right injustice done to individual workmen. They replaced the obsolete autocratic methods of the factory with democratic ways. Like the "shop stewards" of England,_ they are shortcuts between employees and employer. They eliminate much of the friction of the "bosses." Authority breeds autocracy. It is a rare man who can resist the infection of arrogance when exposed to the germ that inhabits high places. "We were very thankful to the Board for bringing our wages up," said a factory workman, as quoted by administrator Stoddard of the War Labor Board, "but that isn't the most important thing the Board did." "What is?" he was asked. "The committee system. Giving us poor devils a chance to go to the old man and tell him about conditions without the risk of being jumped on for it by some straw boss down the line. You've never worked here—and you're lucky. But if you had, you would appreciate what this new deal means to the rank-and-file." Shop committees thus bring into the factory much of the personal, human relationship that prevailed in the "good old days" when the owner knew intimately all of his workmen. They also satisfy, to a certain extent, the creative instinct through the opportunity to think, discuss, and test their plans in workmanship and management; and they gratify the desire for self-assertion. The men have a chance to express themselves through their committees. And many disagreements settle themselves after both sides to a controversy have given their opinion of one another. In case of final disagreement, however, only arbitration remains, and the award may not be satisfactory. The increased cost of living has complicated the old racial instinct of workmanship by a very modern factor. Men must live comfortably before they can work contentedly or efficiently. And a comfortable living to-day costs money. Wages, therefore, are a paramount issue which can be settled, in the opinion :f the workers, only by the collective bargaining power of the unions. Shop committees, consequently, do not meet the economic needs. The disturbances of industry, which it was thought shop committees might alleviate, are aggravated by distrust, widespread among wage-earners, of the motives of employers. And co-operation between workers and managers, absolutely vital to industrial efficiency, cannot be secured so long as employees are suspicious of the intentions of their employers. What then is the remedy ? The diagnosis of mistrust has already been made by educators, and the affliction was found to be both organic and functional. The successful treatment is the reverse of that of earlier educational doctors; human instincts, emotions, and thoughts were found to be real forces, both in the disease and in the cure. This, of course, was only a belated recognition 'of the fact that psychology is the science of behavior. After experimenting with all the remedies that business men have tried, and are still using, teachers made the discovery that the only way to avoid distrusts of their purposes is to make the interests of pupil and teacher identical. When each is working for a common end and profit, the maximum quantity and quality of output is secured. And in industry, community of interests means industrial democracy with the creative opportunities that partnership brings. Human nature cannot be organized out of men—not even by scientific management. There is always danger under mechanically efficient methods of increasing human costs to a degree that makes mechanical efficiency too expensive. We hear much to-day about overhead charges. It is now time that attention be given to inside-head expenses. Managers have taken account of the various factors in production. They have analyzed and itemized the elements in the job. Under scientific management they find the right man, give him the right tools, and teach him to use them in the right way. They have omitted only one factor—human nature. Some day we shall learn that the fundamental element of efficiency is man himself, his instincts and emotions. A n efficient organization will then be found to be one that builds upon these instincts and, instead of ignoring them, makes them allies in productive achievement. Consider the lack of insight into human nature in the rule of one authority for speeding up. "It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and of enforcing this co-operation rests with the management." That sort of co-operation does not interest workmen. The less initiative, judgment, responsibility, and intelligence a man has, the more readily will he fit into this enforced adaptation. Intelligence has the inconvenient habit of occasionally asserting itself. And this is unpleasant for those who claim a monopoly of this gift. *• Enforced uniformity in methods of work—imitation, routine—deaden the mind. In proportion as habits are acquired intelligence lapses. Initiative is lost, and the number of men fitted for positions of responsibility decreases. Business men are continually calling for young men of initiative. The manager of a large factory recently said that among his thousand employees he could not find men fitted for half a dozen subordinate chieftainships. The reason is that the employees had been trained to follow directions. Modern business has become abnormally centralized, and at the centre stands the manager from whom all intelligence issues. But this method denies a hereafter. And the present popularity of revolutions shows that starving the brains of workingmen is a terrible social menace. Efficient management would encourage initiative so as to give those of ability a chance to know themselves. It would make distinctions by finding them. Men do not object to being taught; they do not oppose being directed. But they always resist an unco-operative relationship, the advantages of which they think are weighted against them. This suspicion and the practical prohibition of initiative has greatly reduced the productive value of wage work. The resistance of employees to the present system of employer and worker, which has reached its culmination under unscientific "scientific management," indicates a wilful desire of wage-earners to be human beings. To avoid social waste, to call into the service of the nation the instinct of workmanship, an industrial democracy is necessary. And it must be wholly frank and open. The workmen will accept nothing less. This is no time for "secret treaties." Entertainments, lectures, and welfare organizations are of the greatest value. But they will not fulfil the demands of industrial reconstruction. Rather, they should be one expression of the principle of co-operation in a democracy. They do not buy bread nor pay rent. And the workers are conscious today of the economic side of labor. Industrial democracy frankly and ingenuously carried out satisfies both the instinctive and economic needs. And it is not merely a theory. It has been successfully introduced into a few plants and the chief reason for its slow adoption is the inertia of the human mind—the unwillingness to break completely with the past, the adhesion to antiquated notions of business. A factory employing about nine hundred men and women reorganized in 1917, on the plan of an industrial democracy and partnership. The belief of workingmen that the gain from increased production goes into the bank account of the owners was met by providing a dividend system by which the company and employees share, fifty-fifty, any saving in the cost of production whether gained through increased output or saved in overhead expenses. This dividend is paid every two weeks and, according to the report of the company, during the two years in which the plan has been in operation it has never been less than six and one-half per cent, and it has been as high as seventeen and a half. Instincts and Business Those whose minds have run down and who, consequently, repeat conventional phrases, say that working men do not have the intelligence necessary to discuss and settle questions of business policy. Yet, in this plant, the Cabinet—the executives of the company who under the old system managed all the business—has never had occasion to use its veto power. And, to pile Ossa on Pelion and to roll leafy Olympus upon Ossa, in refutation of the denial of intelligence to working men, the president of the company adds that "N o important action is taken without the approval of the employees through their representatives." It is an illustration of the principle of adaptation. The mind grows to the conditions it must meet. It is large or small according to the size of its problems. In this factory the mental expansion extended also to the executives. Among other discoveries, they observed the same interesting fact of human psychology which has been noticed by teachers who are sufficiently modern to introduce pupil government. They found that with interest in achievement the employees themselves discipline those who do not conform to the "rules of the game." "If a man 'knocks off' early now," says a department manager, "or if he comes late or takes a holiday, it is not the boss who wants to know the reason, but the workers whose dividends he is lowering," The executives also found, to their surprise, that workmen could make suggestions of value for the business. " Some of our men," a communication from the company says, "had stored up in their minds ideas for new machinery and other labor-saving devices; but they kept these plans to themselves because they were not sure of their reception by the management. Now a man with a good idea knows not only that his suggestion will be welcomed, but that he will be rewarded if the device is practicable. In our plant today labor and time saving machinery invented by the men is lowering the costs, increasing production, and thus earning dividends for the men." This partnership in the plant of which we have been speaking is only an incident in the great industrial swirl of the nation. Not more than nine hundred workmen are affected. But it points the way to the genuine democratization of industry of which we are hearing not a little to-day. To be sure, many annoying problems will be encountered, but the multiplication of difficulties does not make an impossibility. Difficulties always shrink as they are approached. And industry has become so immense that growing pains are to be expected. In fairness it must be admitted that working men, like others, are not always wise in their decisions. They may at times be unreasonable. But reasonableness is not distinctive of any class, and it has only the standard by which an individual judges it. What a man wills is reasonable, what he rejects is unreasonable, and the wish usually settles the logic and morality of his decision. Perhaps, also, the cultivation of this virtue in wage-earners is not unrelated to its exhibition by employers. The opinion seems rather wide-spread, however, that wage-earners respond to incentives different from those which influence others. It is an interesting fact that manufacturers, finding the quantity and quality of their products decreasing in proportion to the expense of production, sought to increase efficiency by the method formerly used by educators to improve the work in the schoolroom, and which they long since discarded as inefficient. Bonuses and rewards of various sorts were offered as prizes for faithful work, just as Basedow used to let the good children eat their way through the alphabet by cutting the letters in gingerbread. Human nature is much the same in all ranks of men, as well as in the old and young, and bonuses awaken interest in securing rewards rather than in improving the quality of the work. They do not arouse creative interest. Business men have found, just as teachers learned long ago, that rewards have only an artificial relation to production. They do not maintain an alert interest in achievement. Besides, rewards usually awaken suspicion. They suggest an ulterior purpose. And the workers are not unaware that the owners receive a rather generous proportion of the profits of the new economies and efficiencies. Instincts and Business Rewards are offered in factories for the same reason that led to their use in the schools. They are the easiest way of meeting a perplexing situation. It is characteristic of man, when confronted by a difficulty that must be overcome, to follow the line of least resistance instead of profoundly studying the problem. Educators have learned that young people will not work efficiently unless they appreciate the meaning and use of what they are doing and realize its value for themselves. This is as true of adults as of children. But employers, when compulsion failed, resorted to factitious incentives instead of developing the creative interest in workmanship. Yet this interest is necessary if the work is to be done efficiently. And the workers must be convinced that the improved product of their interest will benefit themselves as well as their employers. Perhaps the anaemic condition of industry, indicated by its being "broken out all over with contradictions," should not be unexpected in view of its rapid growth. In earlier days the apprentice worked by the side of the owner. There was constant and unaffected intercourse between employer and employee. And the workmen knew as much about the troubles and success of the business as the owner. With the growth of industry the large factories separated employer and employed. Men came between them— managers and foremen whose success was measured by the output of those under them. And the organization of the factory became as mechanical as the machines with which the men worked. Of course it is idle to talk about going back to the old plan. The hands of the clock never move backward. The old methods would not be adequate to modern needs. The question may well be raised, however, whether it is not possible to recover the advantages of the earlier method—to reclaim the personal interest of the workmen in the product of their labor. And the plan in the factory to which we have referred shows that at least a part of this interest may be salvaged, for the workmen in that plant, having a voice in the management, take pride in their product much as did the craftsmen of old. When the War Labor Board took control of the basic industries, the relation between the unions and employers was at best an armed truce and at worst open warfare. An armistice was agreed upon from time to time, but a permanent treaty of peace was not signed, and the coming period of reconstruction offers the opportunity for agreement upon the terms of such a treaty—terms which shall recognize human instincts and integrate the nation. The armed truce is an expensive method. Periodical strikes are recklessly extravagant. They are wasteful for employees, employers, and the public. But the unions will not surrender their power of collective bargaining until they are assured of an equally good plan for securing what they regard as equitable industrial returns. Wage-earners are more certain of their ground than they were before the war measured the exact dependence of society upon their services. And the longer industrial reconstruction is deferred the larger will be the claim presented. Confidence in one's strength is a psychological asset that commands the market. Those who control conditions have no need to compromise. And the war disclosed the narrow margin of safety of the world's industry. An illustration of the social menace of delaying industrial reconstruction is furnished by the Russian revolution. It is now pretty well understood that had Kerensky's government introduced at the outset certain industrial reforms demanded by the people, Bolshevism would never have obtained its grip. But the ministry, instead of acting, talked. The officials gave long interviews, telling what they were going to do—sometime—when the time was ripe. And meanwhile the people waited, waited until their patience was exhausted, until Lenine had time to promise more than they wanted, and at once. Of course the mass of the people now see their mistake, but they ran true to human psychology, because man first acts according to his instincts and emotions, and reflects afterward. He would be an audacious man who would prescribe for the industrial ills of our country, and this has not been the intention of the writer. His purpose has been a psychological diagnosis of a limited The Gypsy Girl but essential phase of the subject. In At no time have they risked their liberty the final analysis, human nature is aland their lives with greater confidence ways paramount, and the source of man's and serenity. No one who is not blind driving power is his instincts and emocan fail to see the peril. And the outcome tions. Ignored and uncontrolled, this will depend not upon imprisonments and driving power is about as useful to civildeportations, but upon the result of the ization as a tornado. Understood and industrial reconstruction which lies beutilized, its energy may be diverted into fore us. The police may raid meetings serviceable channels and order evolve and anarchists may be deported, but unfrom the present industrial chaos. less the masses of working men can be At no time in the history of the world kept true to American ideals of demochave invaders and destroyers of civilizaracy, raids and deportations will be in tion been more recklessly determined. vain.
THE GYPSY GIRL By Isabel Westcott Harper TH E pines stand black against an evening sky, Higher, the first star trembles in the blue, Above the lock the silent barges lie, And I am waiting for the dark—and you ! 'Twas here you found me first another summer, And here you promised that you would return. That day the heat was dancing in the rushes, A thousand insects sang among the fern. Homeward the last crows straggle from the east; The hobbled horses slowly crop the grass; Before the tent rises the thin, blue smoke; The reeds are whispering as the breezes pass. {The Reeds' Song) "Gypsy girl, where is thy lover? Where is now thy handsome lover? Is he hasting from the city, Or is he now too proud to pity All thy faithful hours of watching, Sleepless underneath the sky? Gypsy, he is now a spirit; Thy true lover is a spirit Wandering in the winds that rustle, Hurrying in the clouds that fly!" The chirp of waken'd birds brings back my thought, And heavy scent of blossoms wet with dew. 'Twas but the fear of my own heart I heard. To-morrow I will watch again for you.
ANNE THINKS IT OVER By Sarah Redington ILLUSTRATIONS BY RimoLr H F . TANDLER F that wretched bell rings again before we've finished breakfast," Anne said, putting out her hand for her husband's cup, " I shall have an extension 'phone right on the table. You might just as well be a doctor, Jim, and be done with it! " She felt the side of the coffee pot, and shook her head. "It's stone cold, you'll have to wait until I make some fresh. That last heart-to-heart of yours must have lasted ten minutes, at the very least." "Well, it was worth cold coffee," Jim Graham said contentedly, reaching for the pot, in spite of his wife's protesting hand. "No, never mind, Anne, I can't wait, I've got to be at the office early, today. This is all right. It was long-distance about that hotel site on the cliffs, and I've put it through, which means you and I can drink red-hot coffee at Coronado in Polo Week, next year. Talk of' a steady growth in real estate!'—this looks like an old-time boom." "'The problem of the returned soldier' bothers you a lot, doesn't it, Jimmy?" There was a teasing note in Anne's voice, which was not lost on her husband. "Yes, I lie awake nights, wishing I were back in the trenches," he responded jocosely, between bites of cold toast. "It's awful, taking up the prosaic job again—I don't think!" He grinned affectionately at his wife, and lit himself a cigarette, with a longing glance at the newspaper propped against the tawny wallflowers that blended so well with Anne's hair and eyes. "Wish I could find time to finish this—look here, do you mind my taking the page with the list of hotel arrivals? If that breakfast-food man came last night, I might " "There's that telephone again !" Anne broke in impatiently. " I'll answer it this time." She hurried into the hall, her husband following her to protest, "Don't 592 cut 'em off if it's for me, Nance, it may be something important." Receiver at ear, she shook her head, pointing to herself, and going through a pantomime of bored resignation, as she called into the mouthpiece: "Yes, Mrs. Wylie, this is Anne Graham!" Jim chuckled, and explained: "Club stuff, Poilu, don't interrupt," to the fuzzy Airedale pup who (you wouldn't say "which" about a personality like Poilu's) was doing his best to untie the crisp bows of his mistress's white shoes. It was a household pleasantry that Anne took her membership in the Woman's Club with an exaggerated seriousness. The telephone conversation was a long one, but when at last Anne ran down to the garage, she found car and owner still there, with Poilu as interested spectator. "Oh, you poor boy, is that self-starter being temperamental again ? " she called out sympathetically. "But I'm glad you haven't gone, for I've a message for you. Listen, Jim, and don't swear at the car, it's such a bad example for Poilu. Will you give a talk some Friday afternoon at the Woman's Club about life in the trenches? They want a patriotic programme, and that nice boy from Detroit who lost his arm is going to sing " Joan of Arc" and "Long Boy" and songs like that, and if you will talk for about half an hour " " If I'll what ? " Jim stopped wrestling with the temperamental self-starter, and stared at his wife incredulously. "Me get up and make a noise like a lecturer before your little Band of Earnest Thinkers ? Nothing doing! Stand out of the way, dear, I'll have this brute started in another minute, and you're too near." The explosive chatter of the engine punctuated the sentence, and with a relieved, "Well, it's about time!" he threw the car into reverse. As he backed slowly out, Anne jumped on the running-board and scrambled in beside him. Anne Thinks It Over "Let me run down as far as Main Street with you, Jim, I'll walk back. Listen, you don't quite understand what Mrs. Wylie wants. It isn't a tiresome, spread-eagle kind of oration, it's only " Jim shook his head. " I get you perfectly, my girl, it's only a nice, informal talk about cooties and trench feet, and the kind of poetry doughboys quoted when they went over the top. Honestly, Anne, I couldn't—you know I can't speak in public on the stage, never could." "But Jim, can't you look on it as a patriotic duty? We who've been over there ought to tell people about the things that counted—really we ought." She touched his arm ever so lightly; one may not be demonstrative in a speeding car when the object of one's demonstration is the driver, but the situation called for a bit of wifely coaxing. "Jimmy, I won't say 'to please me,' for that's not the important thing, but just to live up to what I expect of you as a returned soldier, what your home town expects of you " The car came to a halt, and he leaned forward and opened the door. "Here's Main Street, Nance, hop out. Tell your Entertainment Committee that your paper on canteen work will have to do for the family, I don't give lectures, patriotic or otherwise. So long!" In another minute, the rakish little runabout had turned the corner and was out of sight. Anne walked slowly back to the white stucco bungalow, to take up the dishwashing and bed-making and dusting that had been her job since the momentous last-of-the-month, when Hilma had decided that "it bane too lonely, with joost one girl," and had taken herself and her record as a smasher of crockery to some more sociable household. Poilu was waiting for his mistress by the green gate, teasing and being teased by the postman, a thin, genial little man who wore a service pin for a boy in the Army of Occupation, and who was genuinely interested in young Mrs. Graham because she had done canteen work in France before her marriage. It was quite possible that she had served E d some time with coffee and chocolate cake, an amazingly heartening thought to Ed's parents. Preoccupied though she was this morning, she remembered what was expected of her, and asked brightly, as she disciplined Poilu for leaping at her clean linen skirt. " Good news from your boy, Mr. Hunt ? How does he like keeping the Watch on the Rhine?" The postman chuckled appreciatively. "He likes it first rate, Mrs. Graham. We had a real long letter from him yesterday, and he says Germany is quite a country, wouldn't be a bad place to live in, if there were no Germans in it. And he ain't nearly so homesick now, seems a lot more contented about not getting back right away." " Oh, I am so glad," Anne said with her ready sympathy. " What do you suppose cheered him up, Mr . Hunt ? " "Well, maybe some kind friend has been feeding him fried eggs," the postman answered, with a little smile for the "canteen lady." "Remember that story you told me once about that red-haired sergeant who was so homesick, and the way you gave him a good supper, and got him all right again? You ought to be over there now, Mrs. Graham, only maybe that wouldn't be fair to your husband." Then, as he hitched his heavy bag to his patient shoulder, he added, with the unexpected tact of the friendly American: "But I guess you two have got your job cut out for you right here. It means a lot to a town to have people in it who served their country in the big fight. I wish the captain would give us a little talk at the theayter some evening, the way that Canadian feller did—do you think he would?" "I'm afraid not," Anne said quickly. " He—he isn't much of a speaker, he says. Were there any letters for me, Mr . Hunt?" "Yes, ma'am, I put 'em in the screen door. Well, good-by, Mrs. Graham, I'll tell my wife you asked about Ed, she'll be real pleased." He touched his cap, and started down the street, under the lacy shadows of the drooping pepper boughs. One of the letters in the screen door was marked, "Passed as Censored." Anne tore the flimsy gray envelope open with eager fingers, then shook her head, and put the letter on the living-room mantelpiece. "Bedsand dishes first, Poilu,'' she 594 Anne Thinks It Over said resolutely. "If we get to thinking about what Janet's still finding to do over there, we won't be so keen about this merry little home job." She glanced at the clock, and hurried off to get into her big linen pinafore. An hour later, as she finished the bed-making, adjusting the crisp chintz covers at a knowing and workmanlike angle, she planned her day—what was left of it. Two hours of refugee garments (this was her regular morning at the workrooms), three or four Home Sendee "friendly visits," a meeting of the hospital board at three o'clock. Then she ought to talk to the rector about organizing that cafeteria for the benefit of the Woman's Auxiliary, and perhaps it would be wise to see Mrs. Wylie personally about Jim:s refusal— Anne was quite sure that her smart new sport suit and the hat that was such a justifiable extravagance would soften the blow. "It's a full little day, all right," she said, as she pulled and patted the stiffness out of the rigid white starfish that was a newly washed chamois glove. "I' d better lunch downtown at the Tea Cosy. Hooray, no dishes to wash !—until the next time. Poilu, if it was such a grand and glorious feelin' to wash hundreds of dishes for thousands of soldiers in France, why is it such a chore to wash half a dozen for just one nice soldier boy in California?" But Poilu was very busy with a pink bed slipper, and had no answer ready. At half past five that afternoon, as she took the hall-door key from the top of the porch lantern, she told herself with a shamefaced little smile that it had been a queer sort of day for a home-maker who had to be maid-of-all-work as well as lady of the house. "But it's the least I can do," she answered her own criticism. "After the kind of life I lived in France last year, I can't just sit down in a toy bungalow and hemstitch guest towels. I've got to do some outside work, I wish to goodness there was something really big in this town! Speaking of big things, let's see what Janet has to say." She opened the letter marked "Passed as Censored" that had been waiting for her on the mantelpiece, and curled up on the davenport with a little sigh of anticipation. "Poilu, stop worrying the bellows, and come and listen, it's sure to be interesting. I wish—oh well, what's the use in wishing?" Poilu wagged a sympa*thetic tail, and sprang into her lap, the better to enjoy the reading. The letter was a very long one. The last paragraph began: "Of course America won't be as interesting as this, but I shall still be doing things for the soldiers, and that's everything. Meet me on my return to New York next month, Anne, and help me with the work, it would be simply great to be together on a big job again! But of course you can't leave your husband. He must find it hard to take up prosaic business again, after having seen 'the glory of the trenches' " At this point in the reading, the telephone interrupted, but Anne let it ring three times before she got up to answer it. When she came back to the living-room, she took up the letter again, and re-read the last page with a curious little smile, quoting under her breath: "He must find it hard to take up prosaic business again, after having seen 'the glory of the trenches.'" Then she said defiantly: "But I'm glad he's so interested in his work, it's right he should be," and tore the letter into tiny pieces. \The telephone from Jim made her evening meal a "simple one—when a real woman must eat alone, does she not always vote for "something on a tray"? So dinner was a sort of belated tea, with nothing to wash up but the teapot and cup and saucer; the gingerbread plate was only crumb-y, and the banana was eaten by hand. Then she found herself with a long quiet evening to work on " A Year in a Canteen Over There," and for an hour or so the paper wrote itself, it was so easy and so delightful to recall the wonderful old times. "Those were the days," she hummed to herself as her pencil flew across the big sheets of paper with the business letter-head, loot from Jim's office desk. But presently she was writing slowly and uncertainly, with intervals of pencil chewing; she needed help. When she heard the furtive scratch of a latch-key, and a wild crescendo of joyful barks from Poilu, she got up eagerly, and, in the language of the old-fashioned novel, "met her husband with a smile." Anne Thinks It Over "Jimmy, I've wanted you here worst way. There are all sorts of technical terms that I can't remember, and listen— must I still go in for that 'somewhere in France' kind of talk, or can I mention names of places now? And what's the French for " "Have a heart, Nance, do you take me for the World Almanac?" Jim sank into his big chair, and stretched his feet luxuriously to the fire of eucalyptus logs. "Why this sudden thirst'for information?" "Why, it's my paper for the Woman's Club, don't you remember?" Anne tapped the pile of sheets covered with her clear, boyish writing. "I've struck a She . . . told the chairman she was sure he would do something as his share.—Page 598. snag, and it's up to you to help me, Jim, if this lecture has got to do for the family." Jim recognized the quotation, and grinned appreciatively, but he shook his head. "Your own way will sound all right, Nance," he assured her. " I can't do the reminiscing stunt, honestly I can't. It gives me a pain just to think of technical terms, and the French for over the top." He yawned, the mighty yawn of the tired business man. Anne said nothing for a minute, then she asked, a little hesitatingly: "D o you mind if I read you what I've written? I'd like to know if you think I've put it over." "Sure," he acquiesced cordially, feeling in his pocket for his grubby old pipe. Anne brought her sheaf of papers nearer the fire, and began to read, with an VOL. LXVX—47 occasional glance at her husband's impassive face. Her voice trembled a little as she went back into the past of joyous hard work and willing service, the glorious old days that had made her see life from a new angle. Suddenly, she stopped, and laid her papers aside very quietly, waiting. Poilu thrust a wet, sympathetic nose into her slim brown hand. . . . " Great stuff, Nance, that'll make a big hit with your little Band of Earnest Thinkers." Jim blinked at her smilingly. "Is that all?" "Did you like the way I ended it?" Anne asked, glancing at the last sheet of paper, and at the unfinished sentence half way down the page. "Great stuff," he repeated, with conviction. "Yo u put lots of pep into that wind-up sentence, Nance. Why, what are you laughing at, what's the joke!" He sat up suddenly, suspiciously. " Say, Nance, did I snore ? " She laughed—what was the use of getting angry? "You're wide awake now, anyway," she said, putting the unfinished lecture behind the cushion of her chair. "Is that the paper in your pocket, Jim? I hope the news is good, I haven't had time to read a line to-day." "Interesting developments, all right," he assured her, putting the paper on her lap, and looking suddenly alert. "Here, read it for yourself, on page seven." " I thought the European news was always on the first page," Anne said, glancing at the headlines. "Oh, Jimmy, don't you wish we were both over there again, with all this history being made, and " He stared at her, bewildered. "Over there? History? What's the idea, Nance? I'm talking about the opening up of that new residence quarter, over by the Encinitas. Ford gave it a whole column, and we have a dandy ad." He took the paper from her hand, and found page seven. "Look, isn't that a peach of a headline ? " " Fine," Anne said, dully. He babbled on. "And I drove the breakfast-food man out to Miraval, and it's almost a sure thing that he'll buy it. We'll get a new collar for the pup, and a flivousine for you, Nance." He flashed his appealing boyish smile at her, and leaned forward to throw on another log. "Yo u and me and those much advertised Home Fires, Nance," he said contentedly,' as the ruddy flame leaped into new life. " When we used to plan for home and a quiet life, we never doped out anything better than this, did we? Glad it's over, over there, Chum?" " It's over, over here, for you, isn't it ? " Anne said, so low that she knew he would ask: "What's that? I didn't hear you." "Oh nothing much," she answered. "Tell me about the sale of Miraval, Jim. Will the breakfast-food man finish the terracing?" And as Jim expanded the congenial topic, she let her thoughts stray back to France, and the canteen, and the boys from the firing-line, with that strange new look in their eyes, that look of consecration. Or had that been just her sentimental imagination. . . . "Anne, you're sound asleep, who's loony now?" Jim jeered triumphantly, and she came back with a start to the home fire, and the husband who sold orange groves and rented houses, and had forgotten the French equivalent for "over the top." But as she kissed him good night—very tenderly, as one might kiss a lovable child—she said: "I'm awake, Jim," with an odd little emphasis on the first word, and smiled to herself at his delighted incredulity. The full days went swiftly by, and presently it was the fifteenth, and time for Anne to put on the blue Georgette crepe and the big black hat that was "all line," and to read her paper at the Woman's Club. She had known that it would please, for she had put her best into it, and the subject was an appealing one, but she had not realized how the congratulations would hurt. For every one took it for granted that her first audience had been a sympathetic and appreciative husband. "What does Mr. Graham think of this ? How it must have brought back the old days, when you read it to him!"—this was a typical congratulatory remark, and she winced as she smiled her thanks. When she read it to him, indeed ! As if she had risked his falling asleep a second time. She went home from her afternoon of triumph wondering, as she had so often wondered, why Jim's year with the A. E. F. was something that he chose to consider as a closed episode. Her keen joy in recalling her canteen days this afternoon emphasized the contrast in their respective points of view, and she hated to realize that her paper on overseas work would mean no more to her husband than if it were a " thoughtful" essay on "The Poetry of Amy Lowell." He would be proud and pleased because she had made a hit with her audience, but she could not'make his eyes kindle at her pictures of Pershing's men, their simplicity and courage and integrity. And yet he had been one of them! The problem was frankly beyond her—she only knew that he looked into a future of real-estate deals rather than into a past of heroic action. "I' d rather he wouldn't ask me about the paper," she thought, as she unlocked her front door. "He'll only do it to please me, he isn't really interested." It was a relief to have him telephone (for the third
Drawn by Rudolph F. Tandler. "I'm sick of it, sick of having you act as if there was nothing in the world but land to be sold."—Page 598.
time that week) that he was too busy to come home to dinner. Anne put " A Year in a Canteen Over There" into the farthest pigeonhole of her desk, and made up her mind to forget it as soon as possible. But it was the paper that was really responsible for her new appointment; it had put her into the Club foreground, and presently, she found herself, as a prominent member, on the committee for corner-stone ceremonies at the new Recreation Hall , the community memorial to the boys who would never come back to be heroes in their home town. And the chairman wanted to know if Mr. Graham couldn't be persuaded to say just a few words, after the dedicatory speech? Anne remembered his attitude about the "informal talk" at the Club, and cast around in her mind for excuses, then she said to herself, "but this is different, he can't refuse," and told the chairman she was sure he would do something as his share. Yes, she would ask him that night, and telephone his answer the first thing in the morning. Her spirits rose unaccountably, and all the way home she sang "Over There" to the accompaniment of her little car's cheerful purr—it was wonderful to be married to a veteran who had got his wound in the Argonne! After dinner, when he had finished his saga of the day with prospective purchasers, she would tell him what his town expected of him on the seventh. She got his attention sooner than she had hoped, for to her sympathetic "Was this a big day, Jimmy?" he only said, "Well, I've been awfully busy with a man from Riverside who's going into a big deal with me, but I can't tell you about it yet," and changed the subject abruptly by asking her what she had been doing. Delighted at having her path all smoothed for her, she gave him the chairman's message. He listened attentively, onlv asking one question: "What's the date of all this?" When she had wound up her story with a cheerful, "and perhaps I can help you write your speech, Jim, if it's going to be a nuisance to you," he took his pipe out of his mouth, and looked at her gravely. " I shall be out of town on the seventh, Anne," he said. She looked at him, puzzled. "Out of town when you're needed here? Why? Postpone your trip, that's simple enough." He shook his head. " I can't, it's that big deal with the Riverside man I just told you about, and we've got to make it the seventh," he said. "I'm sorry if you're going to be disappointed, Anne, but this is business, and " "And you put business before patriotism. I see," Anne heard herself saying, and then there was a dreadful pause. He got up and stood over her, looking down at her as if she were a stranger. "That's a funny kind of thing to say to me, Anne," he said very slowly. "I don't think you realize what it sounded like, or you wouldn't have said it." "Ask his pardon this minute," Anne's better self whispered to her, but she only flashed back: " I suppose you'd rather have outsiders say it, as they will, when they hear you've refused. Just as if you couldn't put your trip off for one day!" She was standing now, facing him, but her knees were trembling as if they wouldn't hold her. He looked at her with an odd expression, and then put her gently back in her chair. "Listen, Anne," he said, still very quietly. "You've got to answer a question, before the subject is closed. Do you really think I'm yellow, just because I don't make a speech at a cornerstone ceremony on a day when I simply have to be out of town?" She winced, and avoided his eyes. "I didn't say you were yellow!" "Not in so many words, perhaps, but it was what you meant, all right. Will you take it back, when you realize that I gave you a perfectly good reason for refusing?" " A perfectly good reason !" she echoed bitterly. " From the standpoint of a perfectly good business man ! You know as well as I do that this is a case where it shouldn't be business first. But it always is! I'm sick of it, sick of having you act as if there was nothing in the world but land to be sold and houses to rent. Oh, it isn't just this question of the seventh, it's everything, your whole attitude. One would think you'd never been in the war " "What's the war got to do with it?" he interrupted. The bewilderment in his Anne Thinks It Over voice was the genuine thing, and her scorn blazed out again. "It has everything to do with it. Either a man found his soul there, or he didn't, that's the touchstone. And when I married you, of course I thought it had meant something to you, that it had consecrated your whole life, as it did mine. But it was only an episode, a job " "But Anne," he broke in eagerly. "That job's done, I'm not fighting in France now, I'm living in California. And you needn't think—" He stopped abruptly, and put his big hand on her shoulder. "Nance dear, you don't get me at all, I can see that, so don't let's argue, you know how I feel about discussions. The subject's closed, as far as I'm concerned. I shall forget what you said " "But I shan't forget what you think J" Anne flung his hand away, and winked the angry tears from her eyes. "Yo u think I'm a fool because I expect life to be full and rich for you after your year over there and all it meant, because I wonder at your taking up the old life just as if you had come back to it from" (she cast wildly about in her mind for a scathing simile) "from a consulship at Timbuctoo ! I wasn't ever going to say this, but you've made me. You've brought it on yourself, and you've got to listen!" Her voice broke in an angry sob. "I'm listening," he assured her, evenly. "Say anything you want, Anne, only don't expect me to defend myself, you ought to know by this time that I'm no hand at arguing." As she struggled with the tears she would not give way to, he waited courteously, as remote from her, she thought, as - any stranger. Then, when at last she had recovered her self-control—"Since you feel this way about things," he asked her quietly, "just what do you propose to do?" "Of course I said too much, but how could I help it when he simply refused to argue ? " Anne told herself hours later, as she lay on the sleeping porch, waiting for the dawn of a hopeless to-morrow. "An d he does put business before everything else!" "But you shouldn't have questioned his. patriotism, you know perfectly well he was a brave soldier," came the insistent voice of her better self. " I know that he didn't find his soul in the war, or he wouldn't treat it just like a common episode that was done and finished," Anne whispered despairingly. "If my canteen work was the biggest thing that ever came into my life, oughtn't his year at the front to mean something tremendous to him? Why does he act as if it was just all in the day's work?" She tossed and tumbled, as it got slowly lighter; at last, she got up very quietly, and opened the door of the bedroom a tiny crack, so that she could look in. She waited there a tense, listening moment, then crept shivering back to bed. "So he can sleep!" she said bitterly. Presently the tears came, and the sun rose for her through a derisive rainbow that prickled and hurt. They greeted each other politely and distantly at the breakfast table, then each talked a good deal to Poilu, who was lavishly . affectionate about favors of toast. As Anne was clearing the table, Jim came back to ask: " Shall I see about your section to-day?" and she replied, with great punctilio: "Thank you very much. Will you try for Thursday, or Friday at the latest ? And will you send this wire to Janet Mills?" He nodded, and left the room without a word. When she heard the honk of his horn as he turned the car out of the driveway, she said to Poilu: "The note on the pincushion is old stuff, Puppy, we do it straight from the shoulder these days, and when we leave our husbands, they buy our tickets for us." Then she added hastily: "But you needn't look like that, Poilu, for I'm not deserting him, I'm only going East to work with Janet until I can get my bearings. Perhaps doing things for the soldiers again, big things—" She was so long in finishing the sentence that Poilu got tired of waiting, and went out into the garden to bury a bone. When you are planning to go East at a moment's notice, and leave your house ready to rent in your absence, there is a great deal to do. Before Anne had scratched off a quarter of the things on her list, it was one o'clock, time to think of food, even if appetite was lacking. She was just salvaging some cold fish and an uninteresting scrap of cauliflower from
Drawn by Rudolph F. Tandler. "We do it straight from the shoulder these days."—Page 599.
Anne Thinks It Over the ice chest when the bell rang, and she opened the front door to a big, red-headed young fellow in a chauffeur's livery, who touched his cap with a crisp, soldierly gesture. " Good morning ! Can you tell me if I'm on the right street for the Skyline Road, or should I—" Instead of finishing the question, he suddenly thrust out a big hand, and gripped hers with a boyish shout of pleasure. "Well, will you look who's here! Say, you remember me, don't you, Miss Russell? I'd know you anywhere, though you do look different without your uniform. Say, just think of my pulling off a movie reunion like this, when I didn't know you were within a thousand miles!" He stood beaming at her, shaking her hand joyously up and down. "I told you we'd meet somewhere, some time, and I'd fry you more eggs," Anne responded, while she searched in the back of her head for the big fellow's name. (It was the homesick red-haired sergeant, of course, whose story had made such an impression on the postman, but she could only remember him as Joe. Joe what? Henderson, no, Anderson, that was it, and the song that had nearly been his undoing that night of the big concert was "M y Little Gray Home in the West.") "Come right in, Sergeant, and let's swap news. Are you living here, or just passing through?" He followed her in, and sank contentedly into Jim's shabby leather chair. "Just up this way for a day or so; my little gray home in the west is at Riverside," he explained, adding with a sheepish grin: " Remember that night ? Gosh but I was homesick, and you were some good friend, all right! Say, you're mar-, ried, Miss Russell, ain't you? You-kinder look as if you were the lady of the house. Who's the* lucky man?" He smiled the serene smile of the courtier who has said the graceful thing. "Yes, I married Captain Graham. I met him over there, and we came -back within a few weeks of each other, and were married just as soon as he got his honorable discharge," Anne explained. "This is his home town." "Well, it's a nice place to come back to," Anderson said approvingly, taking the box of cigarettes Anne offered him, and stretching out his long legs with a sigh of contentment. At her reassuring "Jusf spill the ashes on the floor, it keeps the moths'ou-t of the rugs," he looked at her almost with awe. "Say, I didn't know ladies ever felt that way," he said, between puffs. "I'm going to spring that on Friend Wife, but I don't know if it'll make you popular with her, she's awful neat. Sure, I'm married too, and she's a regular peach!" He pulled a photograph out of his pocket, and handed it to Anne. "That's just a snap-shot of her and me, and it ain't very good of her, but it shows the house up fine. Say, Mrs. Graham, it's the cutest little bungalow, and the feller that built it put some kind of gray dope on the shingles it's built out of, so " " So it's really a little gray home in the west!"-- Anne cried, with ready understanding. "That's awfully nice, just as it should be, Joe. And if your wife is any prettier than she looks in the kodak, she must be a perfect beauty. Now tell me all about yourself." "Well, it's kind of a long story," Anderson began happily, and it was, being so full of details about the wonderful wife and the home-beautiful and the amazingly good job as chauffeur to "the finest family in Riverside" that the rug was filmy with cigarette ashes before he ended with a jubilant, " So that's the story of my life, Miss Russell, pardon me! Mrs. Graham. And we're going back to-morrow, I guess. I got to-day to myself, cause my folks are playing golf with friends at the hotel, and I'm on my way to that . little inn on the mountain. I thought I'd get my lunch there, and then go 'round the Skyline Road." He glanced at the clock, and got up hastily. "I'll say good-by now " "You won't do anything of the kind," Anne declared, refusing his proffered hand. "You're going to stay and have lunch with me, this minute." And as he hesitated, "I'm doing my own work," she added, and blessed the local servant problem that made this reassuring statement possible. "Well, if that's the case, perhaps I can help you," he said, relieved, and followed her out to the kitchen. He watched her choose the biggest frying-pan, and positively howled with joy when he saw the gray carton with its "Best Selected Ranch" label. "Fried eggs—Oh boy! Say, how many can I have ? " "How many can you eat?" she coun"Why, this sort of home stuff," with a comprehensive wave of his big arm. "Your husband, and me, and any one who's got any sense at all, we see that coming back to the kind of life we left (if it was a decent way of living) is the big How she had hated that unknown "man from Riverside/'—Page 604. ter-queried, and they both roared with laughter, for this was a Familiar Quotation. She let him cut the ham, and as the last slice sizzled in the hot pan, he sighed for pure happiness. "Say, it was worth the war, almost, to know just what a lot it means to be doing this kind of thing again in a home in God's country," he said gravely, and was silent for a long moment. It was his grace before meat. After lunch, they attacked the pile of dishes light-heartedly, and in an incredibly short time everything was piled neatly away, the sink wiped, and the towels hung up to dry, and they could go back to the living-room. It was an afternoon of chilly, drifting fog, and the little fire that Anne lit made the room even cosier than before. Anderson smoked in quiet contentment for a long time, then suddenly, he laid down his cigarette, and said thoughtfully, staring into the leaping flames: "I'm kinder sorry, for them, ain't you, the fellers who don't know what the war did for them?" "What do you mean?" Anne asked, startled. thing. Holy smoke, just think how awful it would be if we were all discontented and wishing we were back there, for the excitement of it, and saying life could never be the same again, like some poor simp in a movie! This—well, it's all so real and so good—if you get me!" He laughed shamefacedly, but looked to Anne for ready understanding. For a moment she was silent, then she leaned forward, clasping her hands across her knees, and asked earnestly: "Do you really think that? Do you think one of the best things you men got out of the war is feeling that the everyday common things are what are worth while?" " I don't think it, I know it," he asserted. "Of course we learned other things too—the kind of talk the chaplain used to hand out means something to us now, and perhaps it didn't before. And when you think of what you and your buddy would do for each other, well—it makes you kinder feel that you'd rather do a feller a good turn than a mean one. But you can't talk about that sort of thing, you see. It's just there, inside Anne Thinks It Over G03 hesitated a minute, and then said, very low: "and his own kids some day. If ours is a boy, we're going to name him for Pershing, and if it's a girl Maisie wants to call her Joan, for Joan of Arc. But I guess I hadn't ought to talk about those sort of things to a lady—" his honest boyish face crimsoned under its freckles, and he looked wistfully at his hostess, wondering (as he told his wife afterward) if he had "got in dutch." But Anne leaned forward, and put her hand squarely in his. "It's almost the most wonderful thing in the world to have a child, Joe," she said tremulously. "So why shouldn't you talk about it, you—" He stopped abruptly, and poked a log that didn't need poking, then he blurted out: "You get me, don't you? I'll bet your husband feels just like I do, and can't talk about it." Anne nodded, she couldn't speak. He hurried on, without waiting for an answer. "What a feller can talk about is how darned lucky he is to get home, and pick up his job again, and find his girl "Joe, I want to thank you for what you've done waiting for him, and—" He for me."—Page 604. 604 Anne Thinks It Over to some one who can understand? Thank you for telling me." Their eyes met, and he looked his speechless appreciation. By and by, they walked down to the green gate together, and she delighted him by her intelligent praise of the great gray touring-car. "I' d like to take you joy-riding some day," he announced, as he wriggled his long legs around the steering post. " Say, are you going to be here first part of next month?" "Yes," Anne said, after an instant of hesitation. " I was going East, but I've thought it oyer, and I shan't go, now." He looked pleased. '' Then watch out for me some time about the fifth or sixth," he said. " M y boss has got a date at Santa Fina on the seventh—say, do you know about that big thing they're putting through at the old Trinidad ranch?" "No, what is it? " Anderson lowered his voice mysteriously. "Well, it isn't out yet, but they put me wise to it up at the ranch; of course every one there has heard about it. It's going to be made into a kind of convalescent home for disabled Yanks, where they can live out-of-doors, and milk cows to get over shell shock, and all that sort of thing. M y boss has been behind it (I told you he was a doctor, didn't I? Well, he's a nerve specialist), and he was bound to get this place because it was just right for climate and all that, but believe me, they had to work for it. The owners were old mossbacks who didn't want to sell, and if it hadn't been for a real-estate fellow called Graham—" He broke off suddenly, and stared at Anne, round-eyed with the joy of establishing the coincidence. "Say, I bet it's your husband, he said he lived up here by the Mission! Well, what do you know about that!" "Yes, it's my husband," Anne said unhesitatingly, while her heart sang with joy. How she had hated that unknown "man from Riverside" last night, and how she blessed him now! " It's kept him awfully busy lately." Anderson nodded. "I'l l bet it has," he agreed. "Dr . Hawter says he wouldn't have believed it could have been done, and at our price and all. It's a man's job all right, putting through a thing like that, that's going to help fellers to come back." "Yes, it is a man's job," Anne said, half to herself. She stretched out her slim brown hand/and grasped Anderson's, shapeless and huge in the shaggy motor glove. "Joe, I want to thank you for what you've done for me." He laughed. " Some joke, your thanking me," he said. " I guess it's the other way round, after those eats and smokes." He released the brake, and waved his hand as the big car shot forward. "0 revoy, Mrs. Graham, as we useter say in gay Paree—" Another minute, and the car had turned the corner and was out of sight. Ten minutes later, Anne rejoined Poilu in the living-room. " Tired of hearing me telephone, Puppy? " she asked, taking his sleepy head into her lap, and patting his limp paws affectionately together. "Cheer up, it's all finished now. The ticket-office will cancel the reservation, and Miss Black will not be here at half past nine to-morrow to take the inventory, and your master will be home in twenty minutes, because I phoned him I had to see him on important business. Poilu, I've let the fire go out,-that was very careless. We want to have it burning for your master, so let's fix it now." She knelt on the hearth, busying herself with the smouldering logs. Presently they burst into flame, and as she stretched out her hands to the heartening blaze, she whispered, very low, "Home fires, Poilu," and she smiled, but her eyes were wet.
The Hotel de Ville, built 1646-1672 by Simon Maupin. THE AMERICAN INVASION OF LYONS By Benjamin Brooks Captain, Engineers, U. S. A. ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS HIL E spring is yet unthought of along our North Atlantic coast, before it has invaded the British Isles anew, even before it discovers itself to the world along the shining boulevards of Paris, there is one great city in France where it is to be found already exultantly decked out in green of stately poplar rising from the river mists, and in orchards white as snow up on the heights. In days long past the Roman conquerors were not slow to appreciate the place with its two great blue-green rivers giving access on the one hand to the rich land of the Burgundians and on the other to the strongholds of the Helvetians, and with an acropolis between the two for defense. So, while Paris was still a mud-and-thatched village behind a wooden stockade, there were already real folks established here with Roman institutions of art and learning and oratory, and withal a good system for limiting debate; for, while those oratorical contestants who won were crowned with laurel, those who lost were straightway chucked into the Saone by the guards to quench their verbosity. To-day the ancient charm persists; and when, at this ardent season of which we speak, the young officer arrives according to his orders which state that he "will report upon arrival to the Commanding Officer of the City of Lyons," he counts himself fortunate indeed. Lyons, from the very moment you are out of the smoky tunnel which brings you in from the north, invites you with a smile. There are no disagreeable outskirts and approaches. Your train hangs a moment high over the Saone for a passing glimpse of the low sun warmly tinting the swift water and touching up the curving gray stone quays, double-bordered with old sycamores, and mellowing the cathedral 605
The government bank and the Ainay Bridge.
The American Invasion of Lyons towers and flaming the windows of the .high acropolis beyond, and then you step out and down from the elevated station immediately into a park where the barelegged babies escape from their nurses and clasp your knees demanding chewing-gum, and the sleepy birds chirp softly over the matter of lodgings for the night, and the fountains, playing darkly under the thick trees, mingle their sweet cadence with the murmurings of the lovers on the benches. The air is soft as velvet. - You cannot go wrong from here. You find yourself on a narrow peninsula like Manhattan Island (but not so big) with the Rhone on your right instead of the East River, and the Saone on your left instead of the Hudson, and a series of gray stone streets and open squares and fountains instead of the canyons of lower Broadway; and if you follow the broad quays of the Rhone there are the beautiful arching bridges to delight you, painted in the selfsame colors as the Panama-Pacific Exposition—dull horizon blue and dull dark red; and if you follow the equally broad quays of the Saone there are the steep heights and battlements and walls and towers,' for all the world like Edinburgh, also to delight you; and if you go straight up-town between the two you come, perchance, past the great cafes with everybody sipping his afternoon drink upon the sidewalk and swarms of people contesting with the trolley-cars for space upon the streets, and arrive, maybe, opposite the solemn stone-arched portico of the Opera House or the still more solemn facade of the Hotel de Ville with its touch of gold; or perhaps again opposite the bronze lady of the fountain near by, who is not solemn at all, but who sits with a charming grace upon a rocking chariot of sea-shells and, with a smiling nonchalance, drives plunging through the surf the best team of four bronze horses in all Europe— horses that rear and tug at their kelp traces, and paw the foam but never quite upset her. And she will delight you, too. Why not? Is she not created by the same Bartholdi who fathered the Statue of Liberty ? It is but a few steps from hereabouts to a hotel with a sombre, non-committal stone exterior and a prim, puritan, clean white interior which proudly advertises electric lights on all six floors and possibly a bathtub, too—possibly—and an elevator which doesn't work during armistices, but with a polite personnel which works beautifully, and a brisk, plump manager in black with a white frill and a pile of neat gray hair on her head who, in presenting you with a key weighing as much as a monkey-wrench, informs you kindly but firmly that you must be home by eleven hours and a half or you will be locked out—a hotel, in short, carefully selected, where your brother officers do not hang out and where their olive-drab motor-cars do not line the curb in front and where life runs noiselessly on as it was in the beginning. Thus, at a very conservative hour, you find yourself grandly to bed in rare old mahogany, eclipsed by a silken quilt like a huge pillow five feet square and two feet thick; and for your dreams visions of the homeliest female caricatures that ever dared to call themselves a chorus without the safeguard of an intervening net, and perhaps the most charmingly vivacious and fieriest and naughtiest and altogether feminine Carmen that ever sang the part. And so the swift green Rhone near by, foaming and crowding through its bridges, will roar you to sleep " as gently as a suckling dove." But upon what is built this town of Lyons, upon what rests its solemn charm, its musty dim cathedral with the purple glass, its temple-like court-house, black with age, its plentiful cafes spilling their crowds upon the sidewalks, its comfortable dingy clubs with their groups of stout white-haired merchants and clicking billiard-balls, its fat banks, its lovely fashion shops? Well, first of all, if you will rise and go, with the proper introductions, to the acropolis that mounts to the north in about the relative position of the reservoirs in Central Park, but much higher, with the picturesque abruptness of a Beacon Hill, you will discover behind those piled-up windows that flame so bright at sunset a large part of the secret of the city's old prosperity. What city is more famous for its silks? But did you expect to see great smoking factories housing each a thousand workers? Such is not the road to fame in old Europe. Instead, you will enter an acropolis of what in America might irreverently be called "sweat-shops," but with a commendable absence of perspiration and with plenty of light from the broad studio-like windows (for one must have light to weave silk)—chambers bare of ornament, clean and puritanically simple with a tiny hearth for kitchen, an alcove with a high mahogany bed and crucifix, and, near the window, the great loom with its spiderjr silk web and its ancient frame silhouetted against the sky. Such small chambers, you learn, have often served for generations on end as workshop, domicile, and shrine for whole families. I recall one whose sole occupant seemed to be a sort of last leaf, a white-haired weaver of eighty years. It seemed a long time to have stuck to one loom and watched life going by almost like a prisoner from one window. "But," said he, "such an existence has its interest. To weave silk is to contribute to the arts and to be one with the fashions of the day. And then there was the great adventure of the war of 1870 with our same old enemies; and now I am proud to receive in my last stronghold one of the avengers of that old injustice and a liberator of my country from so far across the seas." Out of such patience, such simplicity and frugality, then, come the beautiful shimmering colored silks and the white-and-silver designs which ornament our frivolities and gladden our modern hearts; and thus by slow degrees—by the half metre a day—while the big children tend the little ones out of school hours and the women divide their time and their lightning fingers between lost threads and lost infants, and the men bend ever at the ponderous looms to the monotonous "clack bang, clack bang" of their shuttles and beams, rises from year to year the prosperity of a great city of six or eight hundred thousand. But this is not all. If you ascend to the very crest of the acropolis and sit speculatively on its terrace you may look out over a broad plain, relatively in the direction of Brooklyn, which sprouts smoke-stacks like asparagus, and you may catch a muffled roar of machinery and the white jets of steam-hammers, for here is where the canny merchants of Lyons are bidding strongly and successfully for the devastated factories of the north to come and transplant themselves. Incidentally, if the sky is clear and rain-washed, as it has such frequent opportunities to be in France, you may behold far on the eastern horizon the beautifully—the incredibly—white forms of the snowy Alps marching along like a procession of fair maidens to first communion ably chaperoned by the great white, broad-shouldered nun called Mont Blanc in the geographies. Or again, if you arise early upon a Sunday morning and march out along the quays you will see the greatest example of retail producer-to-consumer merchandising—an exchange of country produce for metropolitan money, which means, of course, another immediate exchange of this same money for the needs of a numerous peasantry; or, in other words, you will be able to visualize the extent of the farm territory served by the city of Lyons. This producer-toconsumer business will interest you perforce by its economic simplicity. A military prejudice against rising before reveille prevents me from stating exactly when the market opens. The curious old women one encounters at midnight sleeping on the sidewalks, their heads propped up on full baskets, and the loud exchange of compliments between donkey-drivers that floats up to one's window about two in the morning have something to do with the opening exercises, and when you inspect the market at eight A. M. it has been going full blast for some time. The Spartan women who slept on their baskets have opened them up under ample umbrellas and have discovered to the world crisp lettuce and strong young onions and cheeses stronger yet and noisy ducks, indignant over the new inconveniences of city life, and mild-mannered rabbits who meekly submit to being weighed by the ears and haggled over and replaced in their baskets. The noisy donkey-drivers have each produced a spike and a chain, driven the spike into the pavement, hooked the chain to the donkey, thrown him some hay, and thus securely anchored have produced from the donkey-cart four poles and an awning, two trestles and a counter, a pair of The American Invasion of Lyons mediaeval scales, a sack of small change, a half ton or so of new potatoes, nice firm cabbages and cauliflower, crates of irreproachable eggs, goats neatly dressed for Easter with hoofs and fur anklets left on to prove to you that they are goats. The greatest interest centres about the pigs. All French pigs are extremely blond and incredibly clean, with pink ears and noses. Nevertheless, "pigs is pigs," and they emit the same kind of squealing nasal profanity when they are affectionately carried off in the motherly arms of a waddling cook for the family dinner as when strung up by the heels and started through a harsh and systematic American packing-house; and one always wonders whether the wriggling animal will escape the affectionate arms of the purchaser or whether the bargain will stick. Thus, literally, for miles along both river quays extends the weekly market. The awnings flop gayly under the green sycamores, the white bonnets of the fat peasants bob as they stoop and waddle about their inviting wares, the marketmen exchange merry, obscene jests that never were writ in French grammars, the townsfolk swarm densely with eager baskets and shrill voices, the ducks quack, the pigs squeal, and all goes merrily on up to a certain moment when the police arrive with squads of sweepers and, notwithstanding the state of the market or the stock on hand, down come the awnings, into the donkey-carts go the vegetables, up come the terrestrial anchors, and the whole show vanishes by magic, leaving only the tags stuck on the tree trunks to testify that each merchant has duly paid rent to the city for a place on its grand old quay. What could be simpler? No middleman, no freight, no wastage en route, no store rent, no insurance—the very minimum of overhead expense and wear and tear on the cart, the awning, and the portable counter. Donkeys, I suppose, never wear out; at least I never heard of one that did. But, of course, if we were to set about in America to eliminate our middlemen we should first have to eliminate our middle distance and exterminate the real-estate agents who would make possible truck-gardens into highly improbable town lots, and to crowd our cities up considerably, and to teach our farmers how to get more produce from less acreage, and to guarantee perfect roads all over the country; but since so many of us have seen this miracle performed somewhere in France, who dares say that it is impossible in America? In considering the sources of the city's prestige one must remember the university. Long years before the war the University of Lyons drew students from far America to study medicine. University education in Lyons is a very serious and profound and extremely thorough business. A n inconsistently dreamy-looking Lyonnaise highbrow with inconsistently short skirts and pretty ankles once frankly observed to me at a tea that the Americans were not intellectual ! It was perhaps a natural mistake to make, for surely they are not educated along the same lines with the same thoroughness. A Southern college dean once complained to me that the railway magnates that contributed to his college and expected something out of it in return found fault if the graduates were made to spend so much time on fundamentals that they were not specialists in practical surveying when they left college. Similarly another educator from Iowa regretfully explained that if a young man wanted, for instance, to open a dyeing and cleaning establishment he could come to college for a short course in specialized chemistry and other details of that business, and graduate with a diploma and the notion that he had received a college education without ever learning the difference between a Shakespearean play and a Ciceronian oration. Education in Lyons is different. It is so thorough and fundamental and profound and all-embracing that when the young graduate blossoms forth at the age of, say, twenty-three he is still so far from being specially adapted to any means of livelihood that he must remain tied to his mother's apron-strings for Minerva knows how long. I do not attempt to say here which is the best system nor that possibly a happy medium between the two might be better than either; but one sometimes asks, after listening to the charming wealth and depth and breadth of ideas as expressed by gentle LyonThe Tilsit Bridge, Avenue de la Bibliotheque, and the Cathedral of Saint John. naise highbrows, if much of our American restlessness for new excitement might not be overcome by a greater wealth of ideas in the first place. But there are other differences. A French professor, student of university conditions in America, lectured to the elite of Lyons one Sunday afternoon upon this subject. He called their attention 610 (and incidentally mine) to how very fortunate we are in America in the matter of university plant and equipment and popular support. In France, when a man graduated from college he forgot it; in America he dutifully continued to contribute to the funds of his Alma Mater. In France they built beautiful but useless monuments to their soldiers; in The American Invasion of Lyons America we erected memorial halls with the names of the heroes by the threshold, so that we could use the halls to good purpose and read the names every day. In America the wife of the president of a famous university actually kept open house and served tea on Sunday afternoons to the undergraduates. Now imagine the wife of the president of the University of Lyons doing such a democratic thing ! A mild ripple of laughter arose from the audience at the mere thought, but it became a very polite suppressed ripple as soon as they discovered that the lady herself was sitting in the front row. Then the lecturer, pointing his finger ominously at me, who happened to be the only American officer in the audience, said: "An d here is an American who can bear me out in my assertion that every student has the luxurious opportunity of a bath." This was most embarrassing for three reasons: first, because his excellent French was not the same as that to which I had more frequently listened as mess officer among the market women on the quays; second, because, having absorbed the idea, I recalled visiting several ancient institutions of learning in America where this was not true; and third, because I had it on my mind that the fortunes of war had discouraged me from totally and recklessly immersing myself all at one time in an honest-to-goodness bathtub for fifteen months. But in a community where the ancient Roman custom of ending a hot debate with an enforced bath has been entirely done away with and where the woman conductor on the trolley-car shrieks upbraidings at you if you attempt to open a window in a first-class compartment, and calls your attention to a notice posted by the board of health warning you against breathing air from the outside which may be charged with Spanish influenza, why be ashamed of the humble galvanized iron bucket so generously issued by the Quartermaster Department in lieu of a complete plumbing equipment? Now, about these public manifestations that I have so far noted down there is a certain air of Old World solemnity. Yet the French are not altogether solemn. Well, hardly! If one might venture a VOL . LXVI.—48 brief synopsis of the Lyonnaise character after a few months' acquaintance, he might say that it« consists of a substratum of indomitable, Gallic temperament flattened smoothly down by a steamroller of Roman law and system and graded precisely to a line of strict economy; but every taxpayer knows that the most substantial road materials will not stay put indefinitely, but immediately the steam-roller is past they begin to rise again under strain of traffic in bumps and ridges. Well then, where in the staid old town of Lyons does the Gallic temperament bump up? I finally found out; but you must promise not to tell too many folks about it. After the cafes are all closed and dark at, say, eleven-thirty—yes, O Father Knickerbocker, at eleven-thirty—you walk out and up the avenue with the slim Terpsichore on your arm with whom you have delightfully dined (for you remember in the old geographies it said the French were fond of music and dancing), and she guides you nonchalantly past the splendid Place de la Bourse and knowingly down the dark little street behind the old gray church and stops intuitively at a certain perfectly blank, black, non-committal door, and bangs with a big iron knocker a certain number of times in a certain way (which you will have to discover for yourself) and after an appropriately long interval of dead silence a fearsome voice issues through a tiny bronze grating in the door and demands, "Quiest la? " and inquires further if you have left your auto standing out in front and if you are alone with Terpsichore or in a crowd and if there are any militarv police or gendarmes about. Then, having satisfied himself on all these important points, the voice subsides, the bolts thump and the door opens; but before you enter, indulgent reader, be assured that this mysterious place harbors no real wickedness unless you choose to bring it in your own thoughts, and that all this mystery is simply delicious farce comedy designed to satisfy the hitherto restrained Gallic temperament that it is about to enjoy a devil of a good time. With this explanatory preface, then, you enter a long corridor which leads to a kitchen, which leads to a spiral back stairway, which 612 The American Invasion of Lyons leads finally down to a subterranean chamber—perhaps once a wine-cellar— and there you are! There also is a one-eyed, swaying, capering Pan with the most compelling rhythmic, vibrating violin tucked under his insinuating chin, and beside him an equally compelling 'cellist. By the time Terpsichore is fairly seated and has bowed to a few acquaintances the young Italian major in his mouse-colored uniform steps to the middle of the floor and dances with his Italian sweetheart—the biggest diamond you ever saw in public flashing from her throat—a curious fancy dance in which the dancers separate from time to time and shake their fingers threateningly at each other and turn their backs poutingly, and then kiss and make up. Then the music changes and a graceful Lyonnaise with a partner in horizon blue and dotted with medals of honor will perhaps do you a very charming tango; and then it changes again and the demobilized Frenchman in evening dress will bow invitingly to the little American Red Cross nurse and guide her beautifully through a sort of maxixe all his own; meanwhile the American officer who has accompanied the nurse will ask permission to dance with your slim Terpsichore and in turn the supple little danseuse you saw just now at the Comedie will excuse herself from her stately gray marquis and, clutching you appealingly by the shoulder, will beg you to initiate her in the elusive simplicity of the American one-step. But in the very midst of this gay little underground party suddenly the waiter calls: "L a Police!" (I think myself the management bribes the police to intervene so as to keep up the right spirit of deviltry, for the only crime I ever witnessed in this awful den was the contraband burning of electric lights after hours.) At all events, the police came fiercely in, mustaches fuzzed out as wide as the corridor; but meanwhile the entire company has fled up through the kitchen and sits convulsed in suppressed giggles in a pitch-dark room awaiting results. The fierce police, piercing eyes staring from beetling brows, find an apparently half-witted, one-eyed man mopping up the floor, an old violin hung on a peg, an erstwhile 'cellist, suddenly turned porter, collecting empty glasses. They are soon appeased. The door bangs, the lights come on, the one-eyed idiot reclaims his intoxicating violin; the proprietor passes the hat to collect for the alleged "fine" he has paid the police; the dance is on again amid shrieks of laughter. About three A. M . it may occur to you that, even though the armistice is signed, the adjutant may have something really important for you on the morrow; so, bidding good night to Terpsichore, you find your car; and, wrapping tightly in the blankets that your chauffeur has thoughtfully borrowed from the quartermaster to keep the perspiration from freezing on you, you motor out to camp. Such interesting public institutions cannot fail to tempt you to venture, if possible, into the mysterious private life of this old Gallo-Romanic stronghold. What goes on behind the solemn uncommunicative gray stone walls of the fashionable appartments along the river quays? Their very taciturnity invites an exploration; and, if you are worthy and wear an American officer's uniform for introduction, you may probably make it. If the belle of Sioux City, Iowa, were to invite you to tea, explaining that she lived right round the corner on First Street over the hardware store, the location might surprise you greatly; for in our new prairie towns that never knew a city wall, nor the feudal necessity for living behind one, there is more room for residences than in Lyons. I confess that the first time I was invited to tea in Lyons, just off its most crowded thoroughfare "over the post-office," I was surprised to enter, on about the fourth floor, a residence of great charm and quietude and dignity. There in the hallway, with its high oak panelling, hung the old general's own helmet with its two bronze stars and deep dents just as he had taken it off, to prove beyond a doubt that in this family there was no need to look back to the Middle Ages for ancestors, but that the present generation had its glorious warriors. The dignity with which the little maid swung open the heavy door into the living-room was quite in keeping. The polished inlaid floor I ruthlessly trod with soldier boots was worthy to reflect the ankles of a
View of the bridges over the Rhone.
614 The American Invasion of Lyons Josephine. The tapestries and pictures on the walls harmonized like the shadows of a Rembrandt. The enormous mirrors doubled the already spacious distances. The heavily carved gilded glass-topped tables held just the right amount of brica-brac and hand-wrought leather books; and about the silver tea-tray were some truly charming ladies—devotees of art and literature and sociability, in picture hats and gowns seriously chosen to go with uniforms of horizon blue and olive drab. And there was bridge-whist in two languages, punctuated with a quiet little laugh now and then, and marvellously good things to eat and drink despite the restrictions. But, one might ask, is it not noisy and inconvenient to attempt real teas in the heart of a town crammed with, say, eight hundred thousand? Ah, no! Nowhere better than in France do people understand the difficult art of keeping out what should be out and keeping in what should be in. Some day, after you have been often to tea and your gentle hostess's mother has at length concluded that the sad antics of a few conspicuous Americans along the esplanade at Nice are not typical of the whole army and that she may safely plead a headache or a dressmaker and leave you to be entertained by her daughter—some day, I say, when you find yourself snugly behind stone walls three feet thick and it begins to grow dusk and the maid comes in silently and lights the shaded lamp and closes the steel shutters at the windows, and then closes the windows themselves, that swing and bolt like double gates, and then slides into place behind these again the supplemental noise-defying double-glass partitions, and then draws the silken curtains and the heavy portieres behind the curtains, and then noislessly places the shining tea-tray before the crackling fire, and glides mouse-like across the thick rug and closes the double door behind her at the near end of the corridor and another double door at the far end of it,andfinally leaves you alone with your fair hostess— then, and never till then, will you know the true delightful possibilities of privacy, of intimacy, of quietude as perfected after centuries of wars and rumors of wars and Middle Age marauders. But better still are the dances. During the armistice Lyons does not dance publicly, for it is still officially in mourning, but privately it is quite dance-mad— after five years. To be a good dancer in Lyons is the same as to be a good writer in Boston, a good spender in New York, or a good promoter in Oklahoma. There is a feeling of mutual concern about a dance, for not only are good dancers rare in France now, but to match the splendid hospitality of your hostess you may make arrangements with the camp baker for an extra loaf or so of nice white American bread for the sandwiches (which she cannot buy for any money) and with tact you may arrange with the top sergeant for a good ragtime piano-player, a jazz drummer; and with the motor transportation officer for a light delivery truck to carry the whole works to the dance. It becomes, therefore, a thoroughly international affair. You get the impression that they are really very glad to have you come. The hostess has spared no effort to turn the whole house upsidedown for the necessary space. The dancers are decked out in their very prettiest, their very stateliest, and you find they have taken lessons the afternoon before so as to be up on the one-step and the fox-trot. Never in their young lives, they will tell you, have they danced with such supple men, such strong and agile men as the Americans, and their thrilled enthusiasm would spoil a saint. It is about half past nine o'clock when you rise from dinner, having discovered that the example of old King Louis, incomparable patron of manners and customs, pleasant human relations, cooks and kitchens, has deserved to be copied all over the civilized world, and that all real folks delight in the same delicious things to eat, the same frank generous deportment, the same happy exchange of ideas, and that a well-paid compliment or a well-turned epigram will get you as far in France to-day as at any time in history—half past nine when the jazz is evoked and the great mirrors begin to reflect the fluttering vari-colored silks of the dancers and the gold filets in their blond hair, and the candles begin to flicker and pick out the gilt and bronze of the furniture, and the perspiration beThe American Invasion of Lyons gins to trickle, for the valley of the Rhone is a right warm valley in the spring. But there are at least three intervals between this and midnight for absurdly generous suppers and cooling incomparable punch, and many opportunities to improve one's French, leaning on the balcony and watching the cool moonlight on the unbroken gray facade six stories high across the river and listening to the soothing roar of the beautiful river itself and essaying the same sweet nothings that go with dancing in any country under the sun. At one o'clock those who are so fortunate as to have governmental permission to burn gasolene will expect their motors; and the host himself, candle in hand, apologizing for the lack of what Americans call modern conveniences, will accompany you suddenly out of the brilliant assemblage and gropingly down five flights of black, dank, echoing stone stairs, unbar the big street door for you, and bid you good night upon the quay. There may be a Lenten season in Lyons; for, as I have explained, it is a very serious-minded city, more like Boston than any place in France where one is invited to well-rendered symphonies and mighty keen lectures and theatres where the maximum of talent is displayed with the severest minimum of scenery and the actors may approach and leave the stage with dignity through the audience as in the old Shakespearean days. There may be a Lenten season, I say, but surely an American officer, so soon after the joyous armistice, will never be permitted to suspect it. Before he knows it, Easter is at hand with all the miracle of the resurrection illustrated anew in green river banks and snowy cherry blossoms and tons of pendant wisteria bloom hung along the walls. He finds himself introduced to the mysteries of the tight walled villas that crown the neighboring heights —for in Lyons the palisades come all the way down the river straight through the area corresponding to that occupied by Hoboken and Newark (which therefore have no counterpart there) and he marvels to find so close to, but yet so greatly isolated from the great city, gardens of wild flowers and lush grass, thick mossy bits of forest, and quiet old homes. The formality of the city goes by the board. I remember one rainy afternoon, when the echoing voices on the tennis-court were perforce silenced, joining in the height of merriment with hitherto supposedly grave people in the ridiculous game of " Consequences," scribbling down "what he said" and "what she said" in a hodge-podge of two languages which caused the others to hold their ribs in laughter. It was in such a villa, in such a beautiful old garden, where I first played the highly disrespectful game of photograph whist. To play this game you first ransack the library for all the old photograph albums in the house and wickedly remove their contents. The photos are dealt around face down. First hand leads a photo of somebody's maiden aunt with a severe and absurd headgear; second hand, low with a fair two spot of the present generation; third hand, high with a great-uncle famed in silk manufacture, with three fat wrinkles where his neck ought to be; then you take the trick with the homeliest photo of all, being that on your own identification card accompanied by your official finger print—all this amidst most uncomplimentary merriment and disrespectful laughter. Thus does the younger generation rebel mockingly; but cautiously, against the older generation which knows so well in France how to put down its young uprisings with severity and affection. But will it always be able to do so? One cannot help recalling illuminating scraps of conversation that set one thinking. " I think we can go," said one wise maid, "i f we get the captain to ask mama. If Cousin Paul asks her she will refuse." And again, after motoring some fair maidens home from an officers' dance at camp—without a chaperone, marvellous to relate !—one of them said: "Thank you infinitely, captain. It has been wonderful. We were never allowed to go so far before with our French boy friends. If one were always as free as this in France one would never have to bother to marry at all!" "Liberator?" said another devotee of the new American dance. "Liberator? I should say you were in more ways than the funny old weaver on the hill suspected. I shall design a statue for the 616 The Romance of the Oil-Fields Place Bellecour called 'Le Liberateur,' and it shall be a high pedestal with a polished top and on it an American officer dancing a fox-trot with a slim rebellious Lyonnaise." After admissions like these one' wonders perforce what will be the result of the great American invasion. "Poo! " exclaimed an old American lady who had lived twenty years in Paris, " don't flatter vourselves. They will be glad and thankful to be rid of you, bag and baggage. The whole American army has not changed France one little bit. I have lived here long enough to know what the French really think of us." But before the words were fairly out of her mouth the Chamber of Deputies passed the Votes-for-Women Bill and laid it under the noses of the conservative old Senate almost two years' absence, where the Statue of Liberty, according to the cartoonists, now stands in an arid desert and a new Goddess of Prudery, so they say, walks abroad—the United States with its great roar of activities, where there are no compartments to the coaches, no walls to the gardens, nothing but a resounding wood partition between you and the phonograph in the next apartment—what will it be like after such Old World calm and beauty? But even while you sorrowfully pack your trunk the reflections of the bronze castles on the collar of your uniform, caught momentarily in your tiny steel mirror, remind you that you are about to exchange for the comparative idle aftermath of a war of devastation the everlasting activities of a war of construction, for ratification; so evidently something is tall rocking piledrivers instead of long-changing France more than she perhaps realizes herself. But suddenly, while yet the cherries are ripening on the trees and the purple wisteria still lingers, bang comes a telegram stating flatly and indisputably that "you will report without delay to the commanding general of the port of embarcation for transportation to the United States!" The United States that have changed so much during your range cannon, leviathan dredges instead of careening tanks, dusty lines of contractors' mule-teams instead of mud-splashed cavalry, thunder of dynamite gouging out power plants in the high Sierras instead of deadly mines; and you thrill at the great—the rare—opportunity of living in a land which is not perfect, not finished, not yet arrived at its full destiny, but which eagerly permits itself to be born anew in every generation. THE ROMANCE OF THE OIL-FIELDS By Charles Moreau Harger ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS TIMULATED by the rising price level of its finished product, the evolution of an oil-field to-day is an adventure teeming with visions, thrills, and high finance. The era when a group of men raised a few thousand dollars and hired a driller to sink a well, or when a town voted bonds to build a city hall and used the money to prospect for oil, is past. The ramifications of development reach from the remotest farm and hamlet to the highest sky-scraper on Wall Street. If you have not yet been invited to invest in oil securities, be patient—it was merely an oversight; numerous Wallingfords gladly will give you opportunity. For the past decade oil booms have centred in the mid-continent field— Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas—which has succeeded the eastern territory as the great source of petroleum supply, producing nearly half the output of the United States. From the first well in southeast Kansas in the middle nineties, it has spread until in scarcely a county west of the Mississippi has there not been search for the wealth millions of years old, settled in pools formed by the changThe Romance of the Oil-Fields ing structure of earth. These pools maybe large or small; they may be under such compression that when tapped the black flood will rise to the surface or may require pumping—but always fortune beckons if once the underground store of oil can be found. Location and development are systematized to the limit of ingenuity, the outgrowth of years of experience. At the beginning is the spying out of the land. Three men in a Ford car, carrying spades, pickaxes, tripods, and levels, come quietly into town, putting up at the second best hotel. For days and weeks they travel over the country measuring, digging, taking note of slopes, valleys, hills, and the outcropping ledges of rocks. Then as quietly they depart. A little later come three other men— alert, well-dressed—who put up at the best hotel. They hire motor-cars and drive over a portion of the country, stopping at every farm in a selected section. "We want to lease your farm for oil," is their introduction. "If we can get, say, 10,000 to 25,000 acres leased, we will put down a well inside of a year, and you will know whether or not there is oil here." "What you paying for leases?" comes back the question. It is explained that one dollar will be paid for a lease on the farm for one year, the farmer to get one-eighth of all the oil produced on his land, delivered free to the pipe-line. If no well is drilled in a year in that territory, the leases may be renewed by paying a dollar an acre from year to year. No leases, no well. The farmer signs; so do his neighbors, and suddenly the county wakes to the first ebullition of an oil boom. This is "wildcatting," or exploring new territory. The first men were geologists or locators, and they reported that the surface conditions were good. They do not pretend to say where oil certainly is, but claim to be able to determine with fair exactness where conditions are favorable. "Of course," explained an oilman with long experience, "no one can tell with certainty what is hundreds of feet underground, but study and experiments of the past few years have given a great volume of facts on which to base opinions. Oil is found only where geologic strata have been bent by upheavals of the past. There may be structures where there is no oil, but there is no oil where the structure is not favorable. Chance of success is increased by surface indications, but, after all, it is a gamble. Geology plays a more important part in the location of every oil country removed from proved fields than a few years ago, because conditions are better understood. Hence, the developers fall into two classes: Companies that pay high prices for leases in proved territory, and the wildcatters. The first play a comparatively safe game, with high expense and smaller profits. The wildcatters pay little or nothing for leases in unknown country. Their geologists choose the likely places for drilling. If a few good wells are brought in, their profits are large. Theirs is really the gamble end of the oil business, for the chances are in favor of the operator in country already producing oil." From their study the locators, or geologists, report indications of oil at 2,000 to 3,000 feet, the usual depth to which wells are drilled in the interior. Leases secured, the financial operations begin. The interest in the leases may be sold outright to one of the great producing and distributing companies or their subsidiaries. These constantly explore new territory, setting aside a few hundred thousand dollars each year for the purpose of finding new pools to maintain production—for every pool has its limit of content. One company last year, at a cost of half a million dollars, drilled forty wells, only three of which were good producers. A large leased acreage in a field that has been passed on by experts is a tangible asset. The promoters may decide to finance it themselves. A derrick is erected; drill, engine, workmen appear, and down goes a test hole Chinaward. Up to this time the only activity has been that of the geologists and the lease writers; now is reared the pyramid of speculation which has attracted millions from capitalists large and small. With leases on 25,000 acres and a well being drilled, the promoter makes a trip east. To brokers he presents his plans, tells of the favorable reports, and day by day receives telegrams telling how many hundred feet the drill has penetrated. "It is a good wildcat prospect," he deWhen a "gusher" comes in, clares, and sells two-thirds of his leases for, say, $3 an acre, taking home $50,000. He can finish the well, costing these days $30,000 to $40,000, and if it is a dry hole his profit is still sure. The eastern broker sells the leases, either outright or in undivided interest, on a basis of $5 or more an acre, and the buyers are "i n the oil game." Each proudly announces that he has "oil interests" and confidently awaits the outcome. Or the promoters may organize the Bounding Billow Oil & Gas Company, retaining 51 per cent of the stock and the management, and take pages in such newspapers as will accept their advertising announcing the sale of 10,000,000 shares at five cents a share, "well now drilling and prices to advance next week." On an even less basis than this two Oklahoma sharps, recently arrested, took in over $500,000 from trusting investors. Mails are heavy with extravagant circulars announcing stock in oil companies. The attorney-general of Kansas gave on July 18,1919, a list of the 238 corporations in that State allowed by the blue sky board to sell stock; of these 142 were oil companies, and each presumably had satisfied the authorities that it had a sound financial plan. But out in Fragrant Hill township the drill is pounding away, sinking deeper each day into the earth. At 1,800 feet it strikes "oil-sand," a layer of sand sprinkled with particles of oil. Excitement rises locally. Every farmer has retained the statutory one-eighth royalty in the oil to be produced on his place, and those nearest the well commence to figure in millions. No company can lease the entire product of the farm. Those living nearest the well plan on moving to the city and buying a flock of limousines. Here enters the next step in the high finance of the oil game. To the farm adjoining the well rolls a big blue racing car carrying another kind of promoter. "What will you take for one-fourth of your royalty?" he asks. The farm owner is torn by conflicting interests. If oil were sure, he should The Romance of the Oil-Fieldskeep his entire royalty; if no oil is under to be selling an actual interest in the out-his property, now is the time to possess come, and not stock in a company, some real money. In the end he sells These units are then marketed—a circular one-fourth of his one-eighth for, say, laying before me is typical. It says: "M y $10,000, and the promoter is to receive one customers have made 700 per cent profit, thirty-second of the production, if any. Invest $100 a unit and get back $500." From a photograph by Hot/ier T. Harden. When an oil well is afire. This fraction is capitalized for $100,000, Who buys? Every class, from the divided into 1,000 "units" of $100 each; banker to the laborer; from the widow or into 5,000 units of $20 each; or, if the to the sales-girl and the school-teacher, promoter has soaring imagination, into One grade teacher borrowed on her salary 5,000,000 units of two cents each. This contract to invest $400 in units last procedure has for a long time evaded the winter—that she sold out eventually for blue sky law, as it was held technically $1,000 did not alter the fact that she took long chances. Of 4.059 wells completed in the established fields of Oklahoma the first six months of 1910. 1,124 were dry holes. In unproved territory it is a gambling chance, and production may in the successful instances be so small as to return no profit. It is stated that the average production of all wells in the United States now producing oil is four and one-half barrels a day. Supposing the men with the tripods and levels did guess right. The well when it is down 2,000 feet suddenly becomes a fountain of oil, sending forth 3,000 barrels a day worth §2.25 to $2.70 a barrel! Then is the thrill of a lifetime ! The value of the leases held by a single company, or by smaller investors down east, soars; units of royalities near by, marketed at $20 each, go up to S100 and more; royalties on all the surrounding farms jump to tens of thousands cash; other wells are started as rapidly as machinery can be secured. Other promoters have by this time secured leases for twenty miles around, paying perhaps $50 or $1,000 an acre, and they repeat the history of the Fragrant Hill well with greater ease, for on their maps appears a broad black arrow pointing to Section 36, where is marked in staring letters " Gusher." If the well be a "duster," a dry hole, the entire pyramid collapses, except for the promoters, who move on to other financial hunting-grounds, having so planned that they win, no matter who loses. "How did you come out?" was asked of the manager of an oil proposition a few weeks ago. "Dry hole," was the contemptuous reply, "but," brightening, "we made $40,000 out of it." "I bought a fraction of a lease for $10,000 and sold it- to five men for $iS,ooo," remarked a dealer in royalties. "I had never paid a dollar on the purchase, nor had the man before me, who got it for $4,000. The last owners have taken $S2,ooo from the property, and recently were offered $225,000 for it. You just can't tell when you are safe." The only statement the stock promoter does not exaggerate is the staggering profit that sometimes has come to oil seekers. The Aladdin-like rise to fortune dazzles the imagination. One well in the mid-continent field has produced an average of 1,000 barrels a day for fourteen months, a total product of over $1,000,000 on an initial investment of $25,000. Nor need one tell more than a half truth about the Trapshooters' company and still be able to dumfound the credulous prospect. Originally it consisted of a dozen members of a gun club, who invested $250 each. The first well was 200 barrels a day; the second started at 14,000 barrels a day. Soon they had so much money they could give all their time to the gun club. One $100 share sold for $41,000. Over $;i,ooo,ooo has been paid on their royalties to Indian wards—Osages, Cherokees, Creeks—in the past three years, and the humblest member of the tribe is a king of finance. What the promoter does not tell is the history of hundreds, if not thousands, of oil companies based on nothing more than a lease on a piece of land without the faintest prospect for oil and where no serious effort ever was made to find any; The ignorance of the average investor of the whole oil business has made it easy to induce investment in absolutely worthless securities. So elusive are the deep hidden oil pools, that a variation of a few rods may spell success or disaster. In one newly opened field was first drilled the Holden well—a generous producer. A second well drilled 400 feet away was dry. Had the second been the initial location, the field, now with scores of rich wells, would be untried. The finding of one well encourages experiment, even if there be many dry holes. One Kansas town voted bonds for $20,000, secured a few hundred acres near the city and drilled a well. At last the money was gone, and no oil. The enterprise lay idle for many months, when a wealthy company offered to pay off the bonds for the leases and make another trial. It found a 2,000-barrel well the first attempt, and has taken over $25,000,000 in oil from the leases. Had the city chosen another location for its well, it would be the richest municipality in the country to-day. "I can stand on my back porch," said a banker of that town, "and sec five hundred derricks—and my own farm which The Romance of the Oil-Fields has two dry wells. I have not received a dollar from the oil boom, yet the man on the next farm is getting $3,000 a month from his royalties. Maybe I'll strike it yet—but it is rather disappointing." One school district has an income of $22,000 a year from a well in the school yard; churchyards are producing enough to support the pastor in luxury and pay dividends to the naturally growing membership. I met the other day a farmer pathetic, but a vast number of projects have not one chance in a million of returning a dollar to the purchaser of stock. Vicious financeering, fake bases for the company's promises, and absolute rascality keep well in advance of the most earnest efforts of the blue sky boards and state and federal authorities. Actual development is, however, on a higher plane than in the earlier days. It is told of one now famous Texas field that, when the first drill had reached nearly to From a photograph by Homer T. Harden. S hum way Well No. 5,who came to Kansas ten years ago in a covered wagon that contained all his earthly possessions. Last winter he and his four boys were laborers on a well near his little farm. He is now drawing $1,000 a day with prospects of many times that as more wells are drilled on his land—and has refused a million for his royalty. These instances could be multiplied by the hundred; they are typical of overnight riches where oil has been found. The losses are not to the landowners but to the hundreds of thousands of investors, large and small, some amply able to speculate in the gamble, and some led into risk of their scant savings by the stories of great finds. Were the promotions all on a fair basis, it would be less 14,000 barrels a day. oil, people came for miles to see the well "come in." The drill ran for hours without the point being allowed to touch bottom, and finally the manager announced with great regret that it was a dry hole. His agent then leased thousands more acres at a low price, the well was "brought in," the beginning of a wonderful rush of speculators and of hundreds of new wells. From an open prairie worth a few dollars an acre it became an oil city, and the county is said to possess to-day one-tenth the wealth of the state. The rivalry to secure leases has led to a new profession, the oil scout. His task is to learn what other companies are doing, how their wells are producing, what the ones drilling promise. Lying under floors to hear the conversation of workers, roosting all night in trees to watch operations are but a part of his duties. He is a superdetective with specialized knowledge of his business. This is legitimate, but so vast has become the field and so little does one well affect the total that affairs are far more above board than formerly, so far as actual work is concerned. But no diplomat is closer mouthed than the operators in an oilfield. The finding of oil in a new territory is not in the amount of oil secured but in the indication that another pool or series of pools has been opened. According to developments, it is believed that a series of oil pools lie beneath a comparatively narrow parallelogram reaching from southwest to northeast, from north-central Texas across Oklahoma into central Kansas. Within this has been found in the past five years marvellous producers like the Shumway No. 5, that flowed 14,000 barrels of oil a day. Wyoming is developing fields with high-grade oil but moderate sized wells, while California continues as it has for years to be a rich territory. The Ranger, Burkburnett, and Desdemona fields in central Texas have transformed open lands into a congested scramble for oil, with derricks on town lots, in the streets, and beside the cemeteries of towns that rapidly become cities. Railroads are overwhelmed with business, and new hotels are thronged with promoters, stock speculators, and organizers of hundreds of new oil companies, some with prospects and some untarnished blue sky. Oil exchanges, with the fluctuating market prices of scores of companies, are surrounded by as eager a throng as ever faced the stock exchange of New York or Chicago. Men and women who have known the touch of poverty all their years suddenly count their wealth in six or seven figures. The first purchase is a high-powered automobile, and this market for the most expensive makes is the best in United States. Even Poor Lo drives his seven-passenger, twin-six—and erects a modern mansion. The remarkable development of production in late years has been due to the increased price of oil growing out of the rapidly growing consumption. When oil was worth only 40 to 60 cents a barrel, little inducement to exploration existed. In the palmy days of the Beaumont, Texas, field, only four cents a barrel was paid for a vast production. Now, with prices ranging from $1.85 to $3.50 a barrel, according to quality, even a moderate sized well is a fortune maker. Yet with this added impetus, consumption leaps forward and has overtaken production. It is possible that we are at the peak of oil production in America. The Bureau of Mines estimates that 40 per cent of our underground reserves are exhausted—but none knows what day may reveal other great fields. With 6,000,000 motor-cars running on our streets and highways, with farm tractors promising to outnumber them in a short time, with fuel oil taking the place of coal and supplanting gas in a large district where gas supply is lessening, not to mention the demands of the navy, merchant marine, and airplanes, the call is insistent. The investment in the industry can only be estimated. The Standard Oil stocks alone represent two and a half billion dollars, of which one-sixth is devoted to production. Its pipe-lines reaching half across the continent to the Atlantic coast, and from the central west to the Gulf, are but a portion of the vast machinery of distribution. Oil may be transported through them from the Gulf to New York harbor, or from any field east of the Rockies to any of the larger cities. The need of conservation of production methods has been one of the important demands of state and federal authorities. In the Texas field where during the recent summer production reached 224,000 barrels every twenty-four hours it was estimated that 10,000 barrels were wasted daily. Inability of railroads and pipelines to handle the oil caused an order to shut down the wells for a period. A new field without storage tanks and using open ponds to hold the overflowing oil causes excessive waste. A possibility that the nation will in a few years experience a serious shortage for its demands has resulted in strict legislation by many The Romance of the Oil-Fields states to control the recklessness of producers. Experts estimate that the world demand for the finished product has increased in the past three years 93 per cent. Some of this is attributable to the immense demand of war activities, now eliminated. However, the exploration of every possible field is essential to maintain the supply of this most important commodity. In 1918 were drilled in the United States 28,828 wells, of which s17,849 were producing, 2,337 g a wells, and 5,752 dry holes. The production was 344,000,000 barrels, three-fourths the world's output. In 1914, the production was 296,000,000 barrels, and, in 1906, 126,000,000 barrels. Production was in 1918 at its highest mark, the first six months of 1919 showing a decrease in some of the important fields. The stocks on hand in midsummer showed a decrease of 70,000,000 barrels compared with one year previous. Last year we imported some 39,000,000 barrels, and still had a shortage of 30,000,000 barrels. This refers to the crude oil, not to the finished product, such as gasolene, of which we are large exporters. Much of the imported oil comes from Mexico, which has fallen off this year because of the governmental unrest in that country. Our own production at the height of the 1919 season gave no indication of making up the deficit; it was in June, approximately 30,000,000 barrels, of which 14,500,000 barrels was produced in the mid-continent field, 8,000,000 barrels in California, 1,500,000 barrels on the Gulf coast, 2,500,000 barrels in the Appalachian field, 1,500,000 barrels in Indiana-Illinois, and 1,200,000 barrels in the Rocky Mountain district. The future's hope is in millions of acres of land under lease not yet proved, and where exploration may yet meet our needs. The fate of every field is eventual exhaustion. Beginning as a gusher, a well gradually lessens its flow and finally must be pumped. One large producing company has this year applied electricity to this work, and is connecting its 900 wells with transmission lines, and using motors to drive the pumps over a large territory. Then the reservoir underneath is drained of its precious supply, and its usefulness is past. It may be that going to a deeper level may revive it—and there is hope of larger supplies by sinking wells farther in the earth when the demand becomes sufficient to warrant the greatly increased expense. The spectacular mid-continent wells that were producing their peak a year ago are now showing a material falling off, and the new fields will pass through the same process. Hence, fortunes must be made while the oil remains. Many a well has been quickly exhausted because others near by took part of the limited supply. Feverish anxiety to tap a field in as many places as possible marks every effort that shows even a moderate success. The reservoir may be but a few rods across—it may be but a pocket. Because of its glittering lottery and the opportunity for speculation in small amounts with promise of making a fortune, oil is America's greatest gamble, far exceeding the gold mining craze in its palmiest days. On one side is a marvellous business enterprise, with investment of hundreds of millions in pipelines, refineries, tank-cars, ships, drilling outfits, and central offices, carried on by an army of laborers, clerks, and executives, forming one of the great industries of the nation. On the other its dazzling possibilities have been coined into a flamboyant offering of stock issues, promoted with honesty or with guile, and gathering from almost every neighborhood hard-earned dollars on which the investors expect a hundred-fold return. Together these have combined to make the romantic oil era of the past decade unique in the world's financial history. Rising steadily to higher tension, its development to-day touches every industry and exerts a vast influence on our national prosperity. In myriad safety deposit vaults, desks, and bureau drawers, are untold reams of green and blue and tinseled oil stock certificates, each bearing gilt seals and high-sounding titles. Their owners fondly hope and dream of luxury and ease "when my oil well comes in." Many the disappointments, few the realizations— but that is the history of fairy finance everywhere. At least, there will have been for the investors some days and nights filled with visions of Fortune's alluring smile.
THE EXPERTS By Fred ILLUSTRATIONS B R. EPHRAIM K. BLAIZE, late of Chicago, but recently domiciled in England, and Mynheer Maurice de Graaf, of Arnhem, sat together on the terrace of the Casino Gardens, Monte Carlo, smoking their cigars in the warm southern sunshine. The two men presented something of a contrast. Blaize was thin, ascetic-looking, and somewhat cynical of temperament, whilst his companion was rotund of figure, genial of habit, and, owing to the smoking of innumerable cigars, mahogany-complexioned. Both were of late middle age, though the American looked considerably the elder of the two. They held in front of them the current number of the Connoisseur, which journal occupied their attention to the entire exclusion of the entrancing view of the blue Mediterranean which lay beyond. "Very goot reproduction," commented de Graaf, "very goot indeed. Shows every detail, even to the gilt anchor marks. Coloring is goot, too." "Fool idea though, showing the vases as a pair," growled Blaize. "Gives a wrong impression, seeing that as a pair they do not exist." "More is de pity," sighed de Graaf. "They were made as a pair and never ought to have been " "Divorced," put in Blaize with a short laugh. "Granted, but there it is. You hold one and I hold the other. It's a decree absolute"; and he closed the paper with an irritable gesture. "Not if you would listen to reason, my friend," protested the other. " A tousand pounds I offer, and you bought your sbecimen for sefen huntret." "Seven-fifty," corrected Blaize with a dry chuckle, "and I am willing to give a thousand guineas—guineas, mind you, not pounds—for its mate. Yet you refuse to part. Talk of listening to reason, pah!" 624 C. Smale WALTER TITTLE De Graaf cast an angry glance at the speaker and seemed about to retort, then he checked himself with another sigh. "So! It is no use going over it all again," said he. " We haf argued it what you call threatbare. Here is a pair of vases " "Two vases," interposed Blaize gruffly. " A pair of vases," doggedly reiterated de Graaf, "and, as a pair, unique. You hold one, I the other. Neither of us will sell to the other. There is an end to it. We are neither of us marrit, and when one of us dies I suppose our gollections will be sold. Then the survivor will get his chance." Blaize chuckled grimly once more. "Not thinking of putting me out of the way, by any chance, are you, mynheer?" he observed. The Dutchman shook his head gravely. "No, hardly that," he replied. "I may be what you call a crank concerning curios, but I would not go so far as that. Let us stroll a little, friend Blaize. I am getting chilled." The American grunted assent, and the two men rose. As they moved awray a tall smartly dressed individual in a gray morning suit paused opposite the seat they had just vacated. He looked at the Connoisseur, which had been left thereon, and then at the departing pair, as though debating within himself as to whether he should call their attention or not. Then, with a little shrug, he sat down and took up the paper. He turned over the leaves rather listlessly until he came to the illustrations of the vases, then, with a slight yawn, he proceeded to read the brief paragraph underneath. It informed him that the above illustrations had been reproduced from water-color drawings made by the kind permission of Ephraim K. Blaize, Esq., of Westley Court, Hants, and of Mynheer Maurice de Graaf, of Arnhem, Holland, which gentlemen respectively owned the two vases depicted. The Experts "Owing to a blunder on the part of an sign, thus each illustration might be con-auctioneer, some years ago," went on the sidered as the reverse of the other, writer, " the specimens were sold sepa- The man on the seat laid down the rately, and there seems to be no prospect paper and remained for some minutes apof the pair being reunited, which our parently deep in thought, paying no at"Not thinking of putting me out of the way, by any chance, are you, Mynheer?"—Page 624. readers will agree is, from an artistic point of view, somewhat to be regretted." The man in the gray suit read the paragraph a second time, more carefully, then he examined the illustration with equal attention. It represented a pair of beautiful specimens of Old Chelsea ware. The ground-color was a deep blue with, on one side, representations of vari-hued exotic birds and, on the other, the painting of a Bouchier subject. The vases were described as being identical in detention to the increasing throng of fashionably dressed passers-by. At last his swarthy features relaxed in a somewhat sardonic smile. "Yes," he muttered softly, "it is worth while trying." His lips set tightly underneath his waxed mustache, and he became suddenly alert, his keen eyes closely scrutinizing the passing crowd. At last his search was rewarded, and, rising with a swift movement, he accosted Mr. EphThe Experts raim K . Blaize and Mynheer de Graaf, returning from their promenade. "Pardon, messieurs," said the man in gray, "but, if I am not mistaken, this paper belongs to one of you." Blaize looked at the speaker, then at the paper in his hand. "Sure," said he, after a pause. "I left it on the seat. Many thanks." The stranger smiled sunnily. " I saw you leave it there," said he, "and my first impulse was to hasten after you. Then I saw what paper it was, and I confess I fell into temptation. I will borrow it for a few minutes, said I to myself, and then return it. I trust that I am forgiven." De Graaf looked interestedly at the smiling apologist. "Yo u yourself are a gollector, monsieur?" said he. The man in gray gave a slight shrug. "Alas, no," he replied. " I am not rich enough for that, and have to be content with the public galleries and museums. Yet," he added with his swift smile, "what can a collector do more! There is the joy of possession, it is true, but, after all, he can only look." "True," grunted Ephraim Blaize, "but there is something in owning the thing, whatever it may be, for yourself, after that." "But that again is not always an unqualified joy," responded the stranger, with a mischievous glance at the faces of the two men. "For instance, to possess a thing that is incomplete, and to know that you cannot supply what is missing; that must be desolating! A famous sword without its sheath, a set of chess without the king, or, let us say, one of a unique pair of vases without its fellow!" Both the collectors started slightly. "You know us, then?" blurted out Blaize. The mischievous smile faded from the other's face. "Ah , but yes, messieurs. I have been reading of the vases, and I heard you address each other by name just as you left the seat. But allow me to introduce myself. Unfortunately, I have not a card with me, but my name is Besancon, Chevalier Henri de Besancon. I have a little villa near Grenoble. Perhaps some day one or both of you will do me the honor of a visit. As I said, I do not collect, but I happen to possess a few specimens which I think would interest you. I know little of ceramics, however; that is not my specialty, but I am interested in all beautiful things, and I was especially struck by the illustration of the two vases and the remarks printed in connection with it. Shall I tell you why?" "Yo u had seen the originals at some time, berhaps?" said de Graaf politely. Blaize remained silent. He was more a man of the world than his friend, and, moreover, he had the Anglo-Saxon prejudice against the suave Latin race. The Chevalier de Besancon seemed to him a trifle too ready of tongue. His English, too, was extremely good for a Frenchman. Indeed, it was only now and again that some little idiom or expression stamped him as an alien to the language he spoke. "No, " replied the chevalier *to de Graaf, once more displaying two gleaming rows of teeth, " I have never seen the originals of this illustration, but I have seen two vases precisely like them, absolute duplicates, as a matter of fact." Ephraim Blaize stared incredulously, while de Graaf gave an ejaculation of surprise. "Gopies, of course?" exclaimed the latter. " I do not know as to copies. One or other of the vases must have been made first, of course, so that in one sense the others must all be copies, but these that I speak of are equally genuine. They are not mere worthless imitations, if that is what you mean." "But, sir, that is impossible!" cried the American. "These vases are unique, that is as a pair. There are no others in the world like them. Mynheer de Graaf will bear me out in that." The Dutchman nodded. "That is so, chevalier," said he. "There are no other known sbecimens. You haf not read what is in the paper, berhaps?" The Frenchman smiled imperturbably. "Oh, yes, I have, mynheer," he returned; "that is why I was so deeply interested and, may I add, so pleased to make the acquaintance of you both.assure you that there are at least two The Experts other perfect specimens in existence. I have seen them. They are in the possession of a friend of mine, a Russian count, living in Odessa." The two collectors looked at each other swiftly, then at Besancon. "But are you sure that they are not mere fakes—cheap imitations, and not genuine Old Chelsea at all?" asked Blaize. "Yo u said just now that you knew nothing of ceramics." "That is true," replied Besancon gravely, "but I know the Count Porzroff, and he is not one to have anything about his house that is not absolutely genuine." "A pair, you say?" slowly observed de Graaf. "Yes, and in perfect condition, as far as I remember." The two men exchanged glances once more, then Blaize uttered the thought that was in both their minds: "Would this count consider an offer for these vases, do you think, chevalier ? " Besancon started slightly, then his features relaxed in a smile. "Ah, yes, of course !" he cried. "You, messieurs, would each wish to complete your pair. Ah, if only that were possible!" Then he continued thoughtfully, almost as though communing with himself: "Pardieu! The count is not so very rich, and it is possible that—" He broke off abruptly. "I will tell you what, messieurs," said he briskly, "I will see what can be done in the matter. I would give you the count's address and place you in direct communication with him if I thought such a course would be wise. I am convinced, however, that it would not. You see, the count is a strange person, what " A fortnight, probably," said Ephraim Blaize gruffly. He thought he saw the smirking Frenchman's game. Commission! That was what he was after, unless, as was more probable, the whole thing happened to be a fraud. "Good!" said Besancon, "then I will go at once to Odessa. But first I must know what price you are prepared to offer for the vases." There was another exchange of glances. "If there are four vases instead of two the value of each becomes brobortionately less," said de Graaf shrewdly, "but Mr. Blaize and I must talk the matter ofer. Berhaps you will see us a liddle later at our hotel—the Medropole—if it is not troubling you too much." The Frenchman made a deprecatory gesture. " I think not of the trouble," he replied, with a touch of grandiloquence which jarred upon Ephraim Blaize's sensibilities. "It is in the sacred cause of art. I agree with the writer in the paper. Such a superb pair of specimens should not remain apart, and if I can be the means of your procuring the vases I speak of, I take it that you gentlemen will be able to come to an arrangement with regard to pairing the specimens once more." "That depends," said Blaize. "We haven't seen these vases of yours yet." "Ah, of course you will inspect them for yourselves before committing yourselves to any bargain," said Besancon. Ephraim Blaize gave a dry laugh. "Yo u may depend upon that, chevalier," said he. "Very well, then, this evening, at the Metropole, at, say, seven o'clock, then we'll be able to give you something definite." you call an eccentrique, and the probabil" I will be there, messieurs." ity is that a direct business offer from a stranger would make him close up—snap ! —like an oyster—so!" The speaker made a vividly appropriate gesture. "But if, as a friend, I put the matter delicately, diplomatically, who knows but what something may be done! At any rate I am entirely at your service, messieurs. You are both staying here in Monte Carlo for some time yet—hein?" VOL. LXVI.—49 With a bow and a flourish of his hat, Besancon left them. Fiphraim Blaize watched him out of sight, then he turned to his companion. "What do you make of him and his yarn, de Graaf?" he-asked abruptly. The other hesitated. "I gan hardly say. He seems all right, but, as you know, my friend, there are all sorts of beople here in Monte Carlo." The Experts "Exactly. All sorts of crooks. We have got to be careful, mynheer." "Still," said de Graaf slowly, "I do not see how this man gan svindle us. As he said, we shall not buy what you gall a big in a zack. We shall see—examine first for ourselves, and I dink, friend Blaize, we know what we are apout when it gomes to telling the difference between genuine sbecimens and frauds!" " I should say so, too," agreed the American. "Well, it seems that he wants us to name a price and, whatever we say, we may take it that he will go the limit we fix, and a bit over if he can work it." "Subbose we say five huntret each?" said de Graaf, after a pause. "That is about what I was thinking of myself. It is enough for a starter; though if the vases are really genuine they are worth twice that, even allowing for there being four in existence instead of two." "So be it, and if it comes off we shall, at any rate, hold the gomplete set between us." "Unless this chap is able to conjure up still others," returned Blaize grumpily. "Still, we won't worry about that until we see these he speaks of, to begin with." Punctually at seven o'clock the Chevalier de Besancon appeared at the Hotel Metropole. He received the statement of the two collectors as to the sum they were prepared to pay with a somewhat dubious expression. "It is for you to say, of course," said he. "As I told you, ceramics are not just in my line, and I am no judge of values. I have, however, been looking up references since I saw you, and I find that in 1882, at a sale of Lord H. Thynne's collection, no less than three thousand two hundred and fifty-five pounds and five thousand four hundred pounds were paid respectively for two Old Chelsea vases." Ephraim Blaize chuckled dryly. " I know the case you refer to, chevalier," said he, "and they were the biggest prices ever given, but I may tell you that Mynheer de Graaf and I are not out to break records in that respect." "You will understand that I am not trying to raise your offer," said Besancon hastily. " I merely wish to know exactly how far I may go. Of course, I may be able to obtain the vases for even less than the sum you mention." "Yo u may," returned the American, still in the same dry tone, "but if they are genuine Old Chelsea, and precisely like the ones which Mynheer de Graaf and I have, I do not much expect you will. At any rate, you cannot expect us to say more until we have seen for ourselves, and the offer we make is, of course, merely conditional." " I quite understand," said the Frenchman readily. "Well, I will go to Odessa at once. I shall try to obtain the count's permission to bring the vases here to you." De Graaf nodded, and Blaize gave a grunt of approval. "We shall both remain here until the twenty-fourth," said the latter. "That should give you time enough." "I will return at the earliest possible moment," said Besancon. "It may be within a week, but, in any case, it should not be more than ten days." "We will not run away," said de Graaf cheerily, "and, of course, chevalier, we shall expect to repay you any exbenses which you incur—eh, Blaize?" "Certainly—in reason," gruffly assented the American. The Frenchman made a smiling gesture. "We shall not quarrel as to that," he returned. " I am no professional dealer, and I shall only require my travelling expenses. Beyond that I am only too pleased to place my services at your disposal without any further recompense." "Very well," said Blaize phlegmatically. "Within ten days, then, we may expect you back." "With the vases, I hope," added Besancon, and he left them with a graceful bow. "If he is a crook he is a pretty smart one," meditatively observed Ephraim Blaize. " I suppose we ought to have asked him to dine with us, eh, de Graaf?" "If he brings back the vases, and they are genuine, and reasonable as to price, he shall haf such a dinner as nefer was!" exclaimed the Dutchman enthusiastically.
Drawn by Waller Tillle. "You yourself are a gollector, monsieur?"—Page 626.
"There's a whole push of 'ifs' hanging on to that," said the other cynically. " I expect he's counting upon getting the things for a song and then stinging us for the rest. Perhaps this count of his doesn't know an Old Chelsea vase from a china dog. Anyhow, the chevalier is reckoning upon making his profit somewhere, that's a sure thing!" The sun-bathed days passed. The two collectors loafed more or less contentedly on the terraces and promenades, now and again making short excursions to Nice or in the hills above the town. Neither of them patronized the Casino itself. "We may be able to afford a thousand pounds for a piece of crockery," Ephraim Blaize observed, "but going and flinging it away to Monseer Blonk is a different proposition. I like to see something for my money, myself." "If this affair we are waiting for does not gome off, we might blay for the vases we haf," suggested de Graaf half-jestingly, "or rather for the option of buying. It would not be necessary actually to blay. We could agree to watch a rouge-et-noir table, then, if red turn up, to dine with us," said de Graaf, but specimens forming a strong bond between them. During the day de Graaf casually ascertained that the American had sent off at least two telegrams, and that he had also received two. At dinner Blaize appeared, looking slightly more sallow than usual. "Yo u are worried, my friend," observed de Graaf sympathetically. "Pusiness worries?" "Yes," returned Blaize briefly, "but I hope it is all right now. Hullo, what's this, another wire ? " The waiter presented it on a salver to the American, who tore open the envelope eagerly and read the message. Then he handed it to de Graaf. "It's meant for both of us," said he. The other read as follows: " 'Paris, 6.40. Arriving to-night. Bringing both specimens. Besancon.' " "Goot!" exclaimed the Dutchman. "Now we shall soon see!" "We shall," returned Blaize. "In the meantime make a good dinner. I am going to." "It is a bity he was not here in time say, twelf times before white, you buy of me; if white before red, I buy of you. Simple enough!" But Ephraim Blaize grunted and shook his head. "No, mynheer," said he. "I'll stick to what I have. If this chevalier fellow enables us to pair, well and good." " Subbose he bring one vase only !" exclaimed de Graaf blankly. The American's dried-up features relaxed in a grim smile. "Then I reckon it will be a case of the highest bidder. But we needn't worry about that. I've an idea that he'll bring both—if he brings any at all." The following morning de Graaf received a message stating that Mr. Blaize had got news from home which necessitated his devoting the day to correspondence, but that he hoped to see his friend in the evening, whereupon the Dutchman rather disconsolately proceeded forth on a lonely ramble. Al though totally different in temperament the two men had become close friends, their enthusiasm with regard to fine art Blaize only grunted in reply and remained more than usually silent during the meal. Both men, however, were in a state of suppressed excitement. A slight flush was over the American's sallow features and his eyes kindled brightly. It occurred to de Graaf that his friend was even more anxious than he was himself. After dinner they went and sat smoking in the foyer of the hotel, too full of the coming interview even to talk. It was not until they had been there considerably over an hour that de Graaf suddenly exclaimed: "Here he is, py Gott!" . They both rose to meet Besancon. He appeared rather thinner than before, and decidedly travel-worn. He greeted them with a triumphant smile. "Ah , gentlemen," he cried, " I am glad to see you. You received my telegram ? " "We did, chevalier," replied Blaize, eying the brown leather portmanteau which the arrival carried, "and—and you have them—both?" "Yes, both." "Ah, " sighed Blaize in evident relief, The Experts " then come straight up to my room. We shall be safe from interruption there." The trio ascended in the lift, and when they were in the American's room he carefully closed the door and locked it. "Now, then," said he briefly. Besancon opened his bag and carefully drew out two large oblong parcels. He removed seemingly endless wrappings of paper, and at last there stood on the table, beneath the electric light, two exquisite vases, absolute counterparts of " I can reassure you there," said Besancon quickly. "The count is quite sure that there are no similar specimens in existence; that is, of course, besides the ones you both possess already. The count knows the whole history of the set. He says that the second pair, these before you now, were made by special order for some great lady, a member of the Russian aristocracy, who had seen the original ones and wished to have a pair precisely like them." the illustrations in the Connoisseur. Ephraim Blaize tapped a gold pencil-Neither of the collectors spoke, but the case against his teeth and eyed Besancon flush oh Blaize's face deepened, and de reflectively. Graaf breathed quickly. "It's a pity," said he. "Perhaps if "Voila, messieurs I" exclaimed BesanMynheer de Graaf and I were to intercon, with a triumphant flourish. "Have I kept my promise?" "You haf, indeed," replied de Graaf tremulously, but Blaize still remained silent. He examined the vases closely, turning them around so as to observe every detail. Then he drew a small magnifying-glass from his waistcoat pocket and scrutinized the marks they bore, finishing by holding up one of the specimens and examining the bottom. At last he gave a little sigh of satisfaction and turned to de Graaf. "Well?" he observed. "They are genuine," said the Dutchman. "This one is a twin to mine at home." Blaize's sallow features twisted in a slight smile. "Oh, yes," he observed, "they are genuine." Then he turned to Besancon, who had been watching keenly. "What price?" The Frenchman's face clouded slightly, and he gave a little shrug. "Ah, messieurs, I am desolated !" he replied gravely. '' The count asks precisely double what you authorized me to offer, and he absolutely declines to sell the vases for less. I have brought them to you on my own responsibility, without telling him that you were unlikely to meet him as to price. I thought it the best course." Ephraim Blaize chuckled softly. " Two thousand for the pair, eh ! That's a big jump." "And, of course, there may be others," put in de Graaf. view this count of yours personally " "Impossible!" hastily interrupted Besancon. "As I told you, he is a strange person and very difficult to deal with. He absolutely declines any bargaining. Indeed, he has given me two receipts, for one thousand pounds each, to be handed to you respectively if you accept his offer. Otherwise I am to return the vases to him at once. There is no middle course possible. I am sorry if I seem blunt and disobliging, but I could obtain no other conditions, and my only alternative was to drop the matter altogether. As it was, I had great difficulty in getting the count to allow me to bring the vases here, I can assure you." De Graaf nodded. "We quite understand. Well, it would appear, friend Blaize, that we must make up our minds quickly, eh?" Ephraim Blaize suddenly stopped tapping the pencil-case against his teeth and addressed Besancon. "You infernal swindler!" said the American quietly. The Frenchman gave a violent start and his face paled, while de Graaf gasped in astonishment. "Monsieur!" cried Besancon indignantly. "You infernal swindler!" repeated Blaize. "This vase"— he touched one of the specimens on the table—"is mine —mine, do you hear ! The one I left at home a fortnight ago. There is a private mark on it which I made myself. You can only see it with a magnifying-glass. Every specimen I have is marked in some
Drawn ly Waller Tiltle. "You are a thief, a liar, and a swindler, and I reckon you've had about all the run that you're entitled to."—Page 633.
The Experts way or other, so that I may be able to identify it in any circumstances. You have stolen this from my house in England, and I haven't the slightest doubt but what the other is the property of Mynheer de Graaf." "Py Gott, that is so!" exclaimed the Dutchman. "I said he was a twin!" "Your story of this precious count of yours is all a fake from beginning to end," pursued Blaize. "Yo u have not been to Odessa any more than we have. You are a thief, a liar, and a swindler, and I reckon you've had about all the run that you're entitled to." The American stepped back and placed his finger on the knob of the electric bell. "Stay!" cried Besancon quickly. His face was white and his voice shook a little, but he met the gaze of the two men steadily. " I look over your insults for a moment," he continued as Blaize paused, "seeing that you are laboring under a delusion. If I had stolen the vases, as you so absurdly say, you would have known of it before I came back." Ephraim Blaize chuckled dryly. "Maybe I did know," said he, "or, at any rate, strongly suspected. You are a pretty artful crook, chevalier, but I know all about the shabby old guy in the black cape who had seen the pictures in the paper and came rubbering around my place to have a look at one of the originals. M y man that I left in charge wrote to me about it. I got his letter this morning. He is faithful and honest, though he is something of a bonehead and no sort of match for sharpers like you. I can guess just how you worked it. That black cape of yours came in useful. I'll bet that when I get home I'll find a bit of blue pottery worth about eighteen pence standing in the place of this"—he tapped the vase again—"Old MacCormick wouldn't know any difference. As to Mynheer de Graaf, that job was easier, perhaps. He doesn't even leave a caretaker, though I always told him he was foolish on that point." "Damnt scountrel!" exclaimed the Dutchman, his mahogany-colored features apoplectic with emotion. "You are talking outrageous nonsense !" said Besancon angrily, but his eye flickered to the door, where the key was still in the lock. " I believe that you are both trying to swindle me yourselves. It is a conspiracy between you to obtain the vases for nothing. I know you collectors ! You are all alike—without conscience or scruple when it comes to securing something which you covet!" Blaize laughed. "Well, we can soon settle that," he returned. "I'l l call up the manager and get him to fetch in a couple of those gendarme sports " He got no further. Besancon took a sudden step backward and switched off the light, then the key was turned, the door opened and closed swiftly, and he was gone. "Stop him!" shouted Blaize, fumbling wildly for the switch. "Damn him, he'll get away!" He found the switch at last, and the light flooded the room once more. " Stay here and look after the vases," he said quickly to the still half-stupefied de Graaf, and, opening the door, the American ran down the stairs with the agility of a young man. But ere he reached the vestibule of the hotel he heard the whir of a starting motor-car, and he reached the open just in time to see its lights disappearing in the night. He returned slowly to his room. "Well! " exclaimed de Graaf, as his friend appeared. "Made his getaway," replied Blaize succinctly. "But the bolice, haf you told them?" The other shook his head. "He will be over the Italian border within twenty minutes. And what's the good, anyway? Even if they did catch him it would mean you and I fooling about here for at least another week, and I want to get home. We have got our vases, and we're lucky, if you ask me! The only point is whether he has pinched anything else, but I reckon not. I got a wire from Mac saying he can't see that anything is missing." De Graaf sank into a chair and breathed stertorously. "And I was thinking of puying the vase—my vase!" he exclaimed. " I had my check-pook ready." Then he regarded his companion a little resentfully. " But why did you not tell me before ? " 634 The Point of View he asked. "When you heard from England." Blaize shook his head. "Yo u are an impulsive man, mynheer," he replied. "If I had told you what I knew you would have been for rushing off home to see if your stuff was safe, and maybe you would have put the police on this crook's track at once. Then, as likely as not, we'd both have lost our vases for good and all. The only chance was to get him here with the goods and then let the band play. It was lucky for him that he brought back the vases safe and sound. If he had as much as scratched mine I'd have had his scalp there and then for sure!" Then the American's eye fell on the brown portmanteau. "We're something to the good, anyway!" he observed. "He's left his grip as a memento. Guess I'll toss you for it." "Yo u are velcome to the bag as long as I haf my vase," returned de Graaf.
SOM E years ago, when what my grandfather used to refer to as "what you are pleased to call your mind," was still in the hands of the university professors, I ventured into the vegetable garden one evening to interview John, the gardener, on the subject of the approaching Politico-Kinetic Stability presidential election. I was expecting to vote for the first time myself, and I was giving the question very careful consideration, weighing the issues in the light of the recent lectures on economics and sociology which I had been attending. Not so the gardener. He was. going to vote the straight Republican ticket because in his opinion the price of potatoes was too high. No references of mine to the theory of protection, the activities of the money trust, or the control of immigration held any meaning for him. He had always voted the Republican ticket for very good reasons, so he averred, and he intended to do so the "And to think that we was so nearly svindled!" " I always suspected that he was a crook from the first," said Blaize, " though I never dreamed of his having the gall to steal our own vases and then try and sell 'em back to us." "The worst I thought of him was that he was a gollector, like ourselfs," ingenuously remarked de Graaf. " I don't believe he was even a Frenchman," said Blaize; "more likely some bunco-steerer from London or N'York. But he was a collector, all right—only he didn't manage to collect of us, thanks be!" "He gollected our vases," observed de Graaf, with a rueful smile. "But not the dollars," said Blaize, "and we've got the vases back. We had better pack them up. I'm for home tomorrow." " I also," said Mynheer de Graaf, "and I think I spread about some mouse-traps the next time I leaf my house." rest of his life. His decision was final; and though that was not the last discussion I had with him, no argument that I was ever able to adduce had the slightest effect on his political complexion. He had learned how to go through the motions of voting that ticket, and at his age he was not going to make an Athenian of himself and run after anything new. Replicas of this estimable agriculturalist abound in all walks of life. They form the backbone of the body politic; and just as physiologists tell us that no thinking goes on in the spinal cord—only reactions—so cerebration is absent in these specimens. Give John the assurance that he will enjoy the fruit of his labors about as heretofore and you will interest him and gain his confidence far more easily then by offering him the single tax or the soviet form of government. Potatoes are concrete. Progress and Poverty is some new tangled theory and The Point of View he is against it no matter what it promises or how specious it appears. Of course John has his periods of indecision—generally in the heat of the primaries. On such occasions, when his mental disturbance becomes fairly acute, he goes off down the road and consults with the postmaster. He has great confidence in the postmaster, and so have I. The difference between John and the postmaster is that whereas the latter has been known to consult with me, John would never place any reliance on any political opinion which I might venture. He regards me as rather a dangerous voter with Red tendencies—a conclusion which I have suspected springs from a remark I once hazarded to the effect that all government was a kind of evolution. That was too near revolution for John, and I forfeited his confidence in that hour. The postmaster, however, like the abnormally sane curator of my vegetables, is a congenital conservative and never fails to have a positive opinion on every political question. He regards me as Quixotic because I once confessed that I did not vote at all in certain cases where I could not find out anything about either of the candidates for an office, but even though I do not always agree with him I am sure he is an excellent man for John to consult with. He and John are pillars of the common law, and have an instinctive distrust of the legislature's activity in making modifications or alterations in it. They, and the many like them, compose the great gyroscope which maintains the nicety of balance in the relations of men and nations. It is not that they are deliberately reactionary. They simply express the human tendency which makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of. They feel, with Lord Falkland, that when it is not necessary to change it is necessary not to change; and that is not in any sense an illiberal doctrine. On the issues of the moment John does not vote. He would deny this impeachment, but it is so nevertheless. When he started to exercise his right of suffrage he voted every year on the questions which agitated the country about the time of the Missouri Compromise. Along about the period of the Spanish War he was voting on the Free Silver question. The last few years he has been voting against Progressives, on principle, without regard to the issues. His friend the postmaster is, I think, quite aware of the antediluvian state of John's politics, but he finds it reassuring. He confided to me that the object of the mass meetings which he organizes at election time was not to educate the electors, but to "get out the vote," by rousing interest in the contest. No Democrats ever go to Republican rallies, he says, nor Republicans to Democratic ones. John tells me he goes to meetings to find out the answers to the rubbish the other side is disseminating, and though I explained to him that a priori reasoning has not been well regarded since Francis Bacon's time, I have never been able to pursuade him to listen to a Democratic orator no matter how distinguished. I really think he goes for the beer and crackers, and is secretly much relieved when the harangues are over. Of course, John and the great mass of conservatives afflicted with his political benightedness are a great source of exasperation to high-minded reformers. Their capacity for ignoring the experience of the centuries is absolutely infinite, nor have the most cogent arguments the slightest influence with them. As a factor in politics they form a constant. They are the flywheel on the machinery of government and make for steadiness and continuity—somewhat at the cost of velocity. Adventurers in every field from commerce to matrimony count on them. But for them the Constitution might be amended every week, and Lord Acton's test of freedom, the security of the minority, would make a sorry showing. They are the guarantors of the harvest, the bulwarks of civilization. WHE N writers in the Point of View and others assure us of the futility of trying to enforce verbal taboos we accept their dicta as philosophically as may be, hoping that the worst vulgarities will fail to make their way in polite society. But such optimism seems ill-founded when we happen upon a uctsoHi scientific treatise on the American Language, a work of indefatigable research which gives us a shuddering glimpse into the future. Under its direction we look over the fence that encloses our pleasant decencies of speech and gaze at the horde of barbarous words and phrases, defaced still further by a formless and uncouth The Point of View grammar, and half-clad in indecently abbreviated garments of simplified spelling, all insistently pushing and shouldering their way in. Useless to lock the gate; they will climb over the fence. These are the creatures whom we and our children are to welcome to our firesides, and who presently are to form our means of communication with each other. We are quite sure that they are far worse than anything that has been admitted in the past. Still, even this depressing book proves unexpectedly entertaining. In its odd way it is for some of us a Book of Remembrance; as, for instance, when the author mentions the mysterious word "Sashay," to whose origin he can find no clue. "Its relationwanted to and an old maid couldn't. And by Jove," she added, "I'm a spinster!" She was a very charming woman, indeed, and granting her the definition of the word, she named herself correctly. As to feminine terminations, the Point-of-Viewer seems to me to fall somewhat behind the latest usage in the matter of "authoress" and "poetess." Those titles surely belong rather to the Victorian era, before work was recognized as neuter; the period of "Women's excitement about Woman," to quote a clever writer—although perhaps, after all, that period is not quite over. Later on, in discussing proper names, the treatise mentions that " a candidate for governor of New York had the curious given ship to the French chasse seems to be plain," name of D-Cady," and that brings to mind he says, "and yet it has acquired meanings in American that differ widely from the meaning of chasse. .. . It is reportedpopular use as a verb signifying to prance or to walk consciously." M y mind goes back many years to my youth in a country village and to the "square dances" which were in vogue. Strictly religious parents who would not allow their girls to waltz looked with lenient eyes on the decorous and innocuous quadrille. The music used to be printed with directions, usually in French, as to the figures, and these directions were frequently " called off." On formal occasions this was done by the leader of the orchestra, while at small and informal dances it might be that one of the guests called off, but it was always a man with a commanding voice. I can still hear those stentorian tones, and always, instead of "chassez," as the direction was printed, he shouted "Sashay!" This was in central New York, but surely the origin of "Sashay" in "southeastern Missouri, Nebraska, northwestern Arkansas, eastern Alabama, and western Indiana . . . and on Cape Cod " is explicable. When, a little farther on, our author mentions the derogatory significance acthe eminent Judge Daniel Cady and his famous daughter, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in one of the earliest and most ardent apostles of "Woman's Rights." I recall in passing that the namesakes of Judge Cady used to be called Cady and to write their names D . Cady, but I didn't know they hyphenated them. There was extant in the family an interesting anecdote of Mrs. Stanton's childhood. She happened, it seems, to hear a discussion of the injustice of the law which prevented a married woman from holding property independently of her husband; and then and there was kindled a flame which was not extinguished during that child's lifetime. With precocious interest she turned to her father. "Is that law in your books?" she asked, having been told at some time that all the laws were in the rows of calf-bound volumes. "Yes, it is in my books." "Then I'll get the book down that has it in, and tear it out." "That won't do any good. If any one wants to get rid of a law he has to go to the legislature and ask them to repeal it." "Then I'll do that." " A little girl can't very well do that." "I'll do it when I'm grown up." quired by the termination ster, as in trickAnd do it she did, and never gave up ster, shyster, etc. (always masculine, be it noted), one recalls one's amusement at the definition given by a very charming woman to the one word which, in English, preserves the original feminine meaning of the termination ster. "D o you know," said she, "the difference between a spinster and an old maid? A spinster could have been married if she had until the law was repealed. Indeed, the learned treatise is full of interesting things and, quite accidentally, it is a passably good Book of Remembrance. W E R E you so fortunate as to be born in a smaU town ? Were you so fortunate as to be born long enough ago to remember the big gypsy kettie in the back yard, the gypsy fire underneath, the novel outdoor cookery, the long wooden stirrer, the barrel of cider against the fence, that tantalizing, luscious, spicy, fruity odor, then, in the clear, Apple Butter golden, frosty twilight, the finished product—the product that the winter long was to form a welcome part of the daily fare, and daily was to call forth that pleasant autumn picture ? Can't you see it now? Can't you smell that wood smoke, see the blue haze encircling the mammoth kettle ? And don't you wish you could taste real apple butter once again, compounded of smoke and eager young response as well as of the tangible ingredients? But apart from the sentiment of the thing, how good and wholesome it was, how worthy a place in the daily fare. The carefully prepared apples, the fresh cider, the artful mixing of spices, the right sweetening, this American dish has no superior, I trow, anywhere in the world. The day the wonderful barrel was hoisted on its support in the back yard did you not, now and then, slyly stroll over in the vicinity thereof with a chosen friend or two, stand watchful of the dripping bung, presently boldly toy with the spigot, though all the time fearful you might not be successful in turning it off and might occasion the loss of the precious vintage—and the more precious apple butter? But who could forego quenching one's thirst with new cider, especially when standing close to a dripping bung? Did they let you take part in that great paring of the evening before, family and neighborly helpers gathered in the big kitchen where, amid quip and gossip, they deftly pared and cored and quartered until a tub, shiningly clean, was well filled with the fragrant fruit? Fingers got shrunken and stained in the labor, but that just showed apple-butter time had come; with those living in a small town, the ceremonial of the year. Maybe they let you stir the precious stuff after the sweetening was in and the mixture must be watched every instant to keep it from burning. A proud, responsible, happy trust, the fortunes of the family—at least the winter well-being—dependent on your devotedness to this duty. You scraped the sides, you sounded the bottom, you stood over the seething mass until your arms ached, your legs wobbled, your eyes burned, your cheeks smarted. Presently relief came; mother approached with saucer and wooden spoon to test the contents of the kettle. No, not thick enough yet; must boil down more. So the post of stirrer becomes one that tests endurance to the utmost, that requires shifts of workers. When the next watch comes to your relief, burned, benumbed, you seek a sunny "lair of grass" where you can lie relaxed, and, without the drawback of aching muscles, enjoy the delectable odor commingled of brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, "rhambos," and cider. In apple butter East and West meet; the spices from the Orient are called to add their tang to the harvest gathered from trees growing on Ohio hillsides, to the fruit and to the juice of the fruit. As the mixture thickens and darkens to the point where it is pronounced "done," the air, too, grows thicker and sweeter with the perfume from hot spices, the whole neighborhood learns that the Blanks are "making their apple butter"; have arrived at their ceremonial. Dusk, and at last the apple butter is done, is ready to be put into the jars. "Crocks," you called them, and they stood there in array; big ones, middle-sized ones, and little ones. When filled they were neatly covered, then carried to the cellar and placed arow on a shelf devoted to their sole use. . The shelf the winter through yielded the welcome "sauce" craved in that period before fresh fruit from the tropics had become a commonplace, before bananas, oranges, and grapefruit were in daily use in the average household. With the present price for fruit shipped from a distance, and with the present harking back to old family industries, perhaps we shall return to the home-made apple butter, again shall make it after the old fashion. Hasten the day! Give the youngsters a taste of what real apple butter is, give them a chance to assist at the rites associated with its preparation. And give the older ones, in addition to the perfect dish, the reawaking of memories—youth, mother, home, small town, ruddy, crisp autumn weather, gypsy fire and kettle, cider and spice, smoke and once-familiar figures that move therein, labors shared in common, family bond and neighborly bond— Old Days! FOR BETTER ILLUSTRATION By N. C. Wyeth ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR MOS T of us will agree, I presume, that American illustration, considering • the remarkable opportunities that have been offered by the publishers, in the past twenty years, is not up to the standard of excellence which we have every right to expect, and the quality of production does not seem to grow more important as the time passes. Here and there we find admirable pictures no doubt, but considering the mass of drawings that are being made, the number of good works is almost negligible; and even the best too often lacks polishes the standards, and shapes the policies and methods therein. To my very definite knowledge, the painter's opinion of the illustrator's profession as compared to his own, is often very near that of contempt, and if it amounted only to this I would have nothing to say; but his influence in the art academies is really the fundamental cause of a very serious neglect in the courses of training meted out to the illustrators, and this in spite of the fact that the illustrating classes have become a popular and paying branch of these institutions. tentiality, that promise of growth into the It has been my experience in the past broader field of painting and mural decoration which is the logical sequence to illustration. Let us glance at present methods and circumstances which I think are interfering with the production of substantial illustrators, and then propose a few corrective suggestions which I believe to be fundamental. The popular blame for the failure of the modern illustrator is, of course, laid upon the tremendous and enveloping spirit of commercialism, and unquestionably this does play a large part in his undoing. However, commercialism is a condition, and it must be met. But I feel by stopping here that we are missing the real issue and are not striking at the source of our failures. There is a very depressing belief in artistic circles, particularly amongst the painters themselves, that illustration is not an art but a craft, that it is not conceived from inspirational sources, but is built and fashioned as a stage-setting would be around the theme of a story, or planned like an ingenious design. Now it happens that the painter's opinion in this matter has far-reaching and distressing results for the illustrator, as it is he who stands at the advisory head of our art training-schools and, consciously or unconsciously, estab638 few years to discuss the plans and prospects of a considerable number of art students aspiring to illustration. Many of them have come to me fresh from the art schools with the ostensible purpose of carrying on their study to more practical ends. From these contacts I have learned from the truest source possible just what the illustrator is getting from the academies. We all realize that the period of adolescence in the life of the young artist or poet, when he is awakening into dreams of artistic achievement, while he is enjoying the subtle but none the less definite thrills of an inner-urge to express himself, is the most wonderful, the most illusive, and the most susceptible period of his life. Now, unless this young spirit is blest with understanding parents who recognize, and are willing to cherish and foster this tender dawning of a new vision with the right supplementary training in the home, there remains no other provision for the proper development of his talent but to send him to an art school. So, invariably he is taken from the discipline and the mildly philosophical influences of the public schools, and is thrust into a school where there is still less of these things. His first experience is to be seated before a cast, and with a few elementary remarks The Field of Art on drawing from the instructor, his work is started for the term. Now, outside of the weekly or semiweekly returns of the instructor the boy is allowed almost complete freedom to work or not, according to his moods, with no steadying influences of an intellectual nature, no one to remind him that art and life are incorporate, that to grow in artistic power he must grow in character. On the contrary, the philosophic ideas which he picks up are gleaned from the other students, older students, indiscreet students, the product of their loose surroundings. He is plunged almost immediately into a whirlpool of shapeless, radical ideas (so abundant amongst art students). It is not long before he has lost complete sight of his early, inherent vision, and has accepted in its place the novel, more exciting schemes upon which to shape his destiny. This is so often the beginning of the end. Only rarely does a fortunate student happen upon a helpful mind, one sufficiently strong and sympathetic to help him back into the real light. Back in the golden days of art an air of great seriousness, of religious fervor, surrounded the training of the artist; the profession was closely linked with the church, and to a very great extent supported by it, so when one entered the field, it was done with becoming reverence and humility which preserved a most fertile condition of mind for spiritual as well as technical growth. But to-day we have not the church, nor have we supplied any substitute to invest the profession with these inspirational qualities. Now to speak more specifically of the prevailing system of teaching. . The great majority of the art schools mark a distinct division between the painting classes and the illustrating classes. This is a grave mistake. The training course for the illustrator should not be one whit different or less thorough, than that for the painter. But it is a fact that the course of study required of the illustrator is depressingly brief. He is fairly galloped through the antique, takes a "swipe" at still-life painting, and bounces in and out of the life class. And heaped upon this slovenly drilling are the highly distracting interests of composition. Apply this system of training to the young musician, allow him to compose before he knows the five-finger exLandscape Study. Painted out of doors. ercises. The cases are precisely parallel. Why the fallacy of precipitating a young, undeveloped mind into the advanced courses of an illustrating class before he has had a chance to occupy his senses sufficiently with the truth, and nothing but the truth, to acquire a thorough working knowledge of nature in her simplest forms, before attempting to present her in the impressionistic dressings of his emotions, is more than I can comprehend. To destroy individuality, seems to be the main function of the illustrating classroom today. To turn the embryo mind face to face with technical methods, style, and the restrictions of publishing processes which all figure so prominently in composition, before he is able to feel that divine urge which comes only from a sound initiation into 640 nature's truths is, to my mind, the principal reason why such a tragic percentage of art students fail. I know from experience what it means to answer that premature call for pictures. The second week I spent in an art school I was requested to do this as a part of the routine, and how I suffered for that entire year. I noted that cleverness was rewarded; stunty and affected methods got the applause; so naturally I concluded that my salvation in art lay in my ability to develop a new stunt. And how many hundreds of promising young men are making this same mistake in our art schools to-day! To be sure, the crafty ingenuity of a few survives to reach a popular level—they enjoy a vogue, but invariably such ability grows weaker as time goes by, and finally passes out altogether. There is no substance, no body to such work, it is a mere shell, and " September Afternoon." Studied directly from nature. being solely dependent on superficial effect the light of inspiration soon burns out. I will admit the commercial value of such craftsmanship, but it does not figure at all in the building up of important illustration, and that is what I am writing about. Now this brings me to that dire need of philosophic influence in the art schools, a phase of study which should be made as important a part of the curriculum as drawing or painting. One has but to talk with any of the majority of students to soon learn that they consider art something that they do rather than something they live. They are essentially dilettantes. It seems to me that thefirst responsibility to be taught the young artist, along with sturdy technical study is this, that he must sense deeply of the fact and substance of the object he is drawing; he must learn to love that object for its own sake, not because it is picturesque, or odd, or striking, but simply because it is an object of form and substance revealed to him by the wonder of light that represents a phase of the great cosmic order of things. My grandfather, who was associated with Louis Agassiz for many years, used to tell me that this was the very keystone to his power of teaching. He invested natural science with such a profound spirit of romance, and his thrilling appreciation of cosmic relationship was so strong, that he awakened the youngest of his listeners to the most enthusiastic appreciation of science. To the master this power to sense reality is an instinctive trait, of course, but how can this feeling ever live in a man who has never established stirring relations with the realities in the first place? The fact is the student is inclined and encour641 The Field of Art aged to look upon the phenomena of life as merely fit or unfit material with which to construct clever pictures. The result: they never reach the point where the creation of a picture becomes a constitutional necessity, but rather amounts to a mere intellectual attainment—the one vital, the other ephemeral. ' To unfold to the youhg mind the glory of all facts of existence should be the fundamental function of the art school, but in just this they are utterly deficient. The view-point I have expressed, once established, the young artist will naturally become more interested in the common objects around him, and this is apt to save him that futile chase for ultrapicturesqueness in the shape of Dutch windmills, or South Sea Island cannibals, but instead he will derive his inspiration from the happenings in his own life, the virility of it passing without waste into his work. It was Thoreau who believed (and came as near to fulfilling his belief as any one ever did) that the action of doing a thing, and the writing about it should be so close that they amount to one and the same thing. And so with the picture-maker. But isn't it obviously clear how the very training we get in the art schools, and colleges too, tends to separate us from, life, teaches us to work too much with our brains and too little with our hearts ? Romain Rolland in "Jean Christophe" says: "Write the simple life of one of these simple men, write the peaceful epic of the days and nights following one like to another, and yet all different, all sons of the same mother, from the dawning of the first day in the life of the world. Write it simply, as simple as its own unfolding. Waste no thought upon the word and the letter, and the subtle vain researches in which the force of the artists of to-day is turned to naught. You are addressing all men; use the language of all men. There are no words noble or vulgar; there is no style chaste or impure; there are only words and styles which say or do not say exactly what they have to say. Be sound and thorough in all you do; think just what you think, and feel just what you feel. Let the rhythm of your heart prevail in your writings; the style is the soul.". We cannot, in art, produce a fraction more than what we are. The strange and popularly accepted belief that great artists were invariably wayward, and are excused for it on the grounds of special privileges, is as false as it is impossible. No great artist ever thrived on such principles. If stories have been handed down to us of moral lapses in the lives of the masters, their work survives in spite of the mistakes, and not on account of them. No art justifies anything but honest, straightforward living. The moral superiority of Beethoven, the greatest of them all, comes to my mind while I write this. Do we hear any of this in the art schools ? Decidedly no. To teach the young illustrator that his salvation lies within himself, that to be able to draw virile pictures means that he must live virilely; upon such stuff should the system of the art schools be built. And without it we cannot expect him to be of any permanent benefit to the upbuilding of American illustration. A calendar of current art exhibitions will be found on page 6. THE FINANCIAL SITUATION TWO SIGNS OF TH E TIMES BY ALEXANDER DANA NOYES MOS T people who were asked what are the events and movements on which the world's interest is converged would answer: The civil war in Russia; the three-cornered struggle between the English and the Irish; the manoeuvres of political facrMovement .. . r. , , „ , ,of Events tions in Italy and Central Europe, and, in America, the extraordinary controversy over the ratification of peace. The peculiarity of all these incidents (possibly excepting the last one in its present form) is that each is almost exactly what a shrewd political observer would have predicted. But if the practical man of affairs were asked what seemed to him the most significant movements of the day, he would almost certainly name two which would not have been predicted at all two or three years ago—the action and attitude of Labor, and the greatly increased depreciation of the currencies of belligerent Europe after return of peace, as measured in the exchange market. Both of these movements touch very intimately on the question, which underlies nearly all other questions of the moment, as to Europe's recuperation from the effects of the Great War. Each is in its nature economic as distinguished from political. But I have often had occasion to direct attention to the paramount part which developments of this sort are playing and are certain to play in the history of the period. It is the outstanding fact of the present chapter of events that, as often as one endeavors to fix his mind on the purely political aspects of the great post-bellum readjustment, exactly so often is he forced back to the economic considerations. At no time has that view of the situation been more compelling than at the present moment. Neither the Treaty of Peace, nor the League of Nations, nor the struggle with Russian Bolshevism, nor the relations between Entente Europe and its former antagonists, or between both of them and the United States, can be properly judged except in the light of these economic movements. The future of European politics and therefore of European history depends very largely on them. So, possibly, in greater measure than our people realize, does our own future. It will perhaps be said that.this is always true of a period in which long-settled institutions of every sort have been shaken or uprooted by war. But history as it has usually been written, and as its text-books remain to inform us concerning what happened in the aftermath of the great wars of the past, has largely restricted its attention to political events. In most of the well-known historical retrospects the reader will find incidental treatment of the social movements of such periods, casual reference to the larger economic developments, but little or no discussion of the course which events were taking in national or international finance. There are a few noteworthy exceptions; but it is still mainly true that what we are told of the decade following such momentous struggles has to do with the division of empires, the dethroning of kings, or the foreign policies of the governments. YET , after all, nothing is more certain than that such commonly neglected considerations as the attitude of labor, the course of prices, the movement of foreign trade, the readjustment of manufacture end food production, the depreciation of the currencies or j^ 1 ^ ^ the foreign exchanges, must Making have been matters of far more intimate importance to the every-day life of every-day citizens of those times than 643 Two Signs of the Times the achievements of the Foreign Offices. What will be the key-note and burden of the histories, written say half a century from now to describe the present period, one can only conjecture. Financial and economic influences are undoubtedly attracting nowadays a greater share of the historian's study than at any previous epoch in the world's progress. But at all events, no one is likely to deny that when thoughtful men of the present day attempt to read the future of their own or of any other nation, the problems which engage their particularly anxious investigation and controversy are not political in the old-fashioned sense, but economic, social, financial. Ever since the armistice was signed, there has been a confused—sometimes (so far as Europe was concerned) a seemingly chaotic — jumble of events and tendencies. But with every successive new turn in the situation it soon became apparent that the primary underlying influences were always the same. National aspirations on the one hand, and the wish to re-establish orderly political conditions on the other, had an evident hand in most of these incidents, but among the forces behind the political movements there were almost invariably found either Labor, in its relations to its employers and to the state, or the finances of the government, in its relations to its own citizens and to other countries. TH E two problems have always arisen in some form as a result of the economic upheaval of a great war, but neither has ever arisen in the shape which it has taken on this occasion. Restlessness of labor, sometimes a result of ofLabra-t'le lermen t °f social and po-After a War Ihical ideas which come with war, sometimes of the sudden plunge from highly stimulated production and full employment to greatly decreased production and opportunity for employment on return of peace, has been a familiar phenomenon after other wars. It has, however, always hitherto taken the form of a protest either against actual unemployment or against wages so low as not to provide for the necessaries of life under the inflated prices. It has never before embodied itself, first in a demand for greatly reduced production per man in the face of higher wages, and next in a demand for a share in controlling industry. So, also, depreciated currency and very unfavorable foreign exchanges have been perfectly familiar consequences of war, in the case of victorious as well as of defeated belligerents. But there is no other instance— certainly none since the machinery of modern trade and finance was built up— of the most powerful European nations having fallen so deeply in debt to other nations on trade account that there seemed to be no way of settlement; this trade debt being increased more rapidly after than during the war, and being measured by a far greater depreciation of their currencies in terms of foreign money, during a full year following return of peace, than had occurred in the worst days of the war itself. The past few weeks have given forcible evidence of the extent to which these two influences are dominating the situation. The increasingly frequent strikes or threatened strikes have sometimes made their issue an increase of wages out of proportion even to the higher cost of living; sometimes greatly shortened hours; sometimes, as with the steel-trade strike, recognition of an outside union. The fundamental basis of these demonstrations was rather manifestly changing. Whereas most of the labor demonstrations up to the past few months almost invariably took the explicit ground that existing wages were not sufficient to meet the present cost of living, the position was now often taken openly that organized labor had the power, and proposed to exercise it, of controlling industry. T N England, statesmen as well as man1 agers of industry urgently set forth that maintenance of the country's foreign trade was seriously threatened, not alone by the very heavily increased labor cost in coal production, for instance, but by the arbitrarily England ereduced efficiency of produc-^ t ^ tiveness of labor. The an- states swer of the radical element in the English unions was that nationalization of the mines, their virtual future management by the laborers, and the (Continued on page 54, following) OVERSEAS TRADE THE NEW BALKANS: THEIR RESOURCES AND NEEDS By Louis E. Van Norman Trade Commissioner, Bucharest, Roumania, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Department of Commerce FO R the little peoples of southeastern Europe, the peace of Versailles, whatever may be its defects, has been, in the main, one of justice, because it has made boundaries follow national rather than political lines. For the first time in their long and troubled history, each one of these little nations now finds approximately all of its nationals within the frontiers of its political sovereignty. This fact is bound to have far-reaching social and economic, as well as political, significance. In this part of the world, wars for territory will be practically impossible in the future. The day is past when the dynastic ambitions of alien rulers can retard the national life of smaller peoples. Energies released from the struggle to liberate their nationals beyond their boundaries will now be applied to the settlement of domestic problems, to the development of resources, of trade, of commerce, and industry. The whole configuration of central and eastern Europe will be changed. No more will Teutonic intrigue and lust for power dictate the north-south trend of railway systems. In the future, the little Slav nations, the Roumanians and the Greeks, will be free to develop their transportation systems east and west or in any other direction called for by the exploitation of their national riches. Draw a line from the mouth of the Danube River, on the Black Sea, to the headwaters of the Adriatic, say at Trieste. Roughly, everything to the south and east of this, from the Adriatic to the ^Egean and the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, is the Balkan Peninsula. This area, about two hundred thousand square miles, or slightly less ^j^0*1 an d than that of France or the galkantheGerman Empire and about states ? four-fifths that of the State of Texas, includes Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, Albania, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Macedonia, part of Roumania and what remains of Turkey in Europe. It includes the old nations of Greece and Bulgaria and the new nation of Jugoslavia, but not Roumania. The Roumanians, indeed, have always claimed that, since their land lies north of the Danube, they are not a Balkan people. Nevertheless, in the minds of the outside world, Roumania belongs in this classification. The very names conjure up race rivalries, religious antagonisms, political intrigue, economic exploitation, the clash of East and West, the impact of Asia upon Europe. For five centuries the Turk has been gradually withdrawing, back to Asia, where he belongs. He has gone back under pressure of the westward urge of the Slav, and the southern and eastern push of the Teuton (Drang nach Osten). The lure of the markets of the Orient, the dynastic ambitions and political rivalries of the great powers, the clash of militant religious creeds, kept the Balkans seething for centuries. Finally, to make more complex this already puzzling situation, nature strewed mountains liberally over 645 the Balkan peninsula, thus making communication slow and difficult and intensifying the human peculiarities and prejudices that come from isolation. The Turkish flood began to recede after the Polish King Sobieski beat off the hosts of Islam from the walls of Vienna in 1683. One by one the little peoples of the Balkans lifted their heads above this flood of Mongolism. Serbia and Greece won their independence before the middle of the nineteenth century. Bulgaria and Roumania became their own masters after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. It was the intrigues of Berlin, Vienna, and Petrograd that held back Balkan progress for the past half century. The German wanted to keep his way open to the east, to maintain contact with Turkey, and used the less virile Austrian as his pawn. Czarism struggled to block the advance of the Teuton by throwing a wedge of Slavs in between Vienna and Constantinople. Turkey, weakened by her war with Italy, was an inviting object of attack by the Balkan League. Then the Slav wedge was actually thrown in between the Teuton and the Turk. The Teuton realized that he must fight for his prey, and the Great War came on swiftly. For seven long years these little peoples of southeastern Europe have suffered the miseries of war. Is it to be wondered at if to-day they are prostrate economically, bankrupt financially, afflicted morally and suspicious of further attempts to exploit them, "jumpy" in their national nerves, almost to the point of national hysteria? To those who have travelled in these countries since the armistice, seen the ravages of the war and come into personal contact with the people, the wonder is that so much of their natural riches remain and so much of their national resiliency of spirit can still be evident. All these new nations are suffering from unstable currencies and broken-down transportation systems. The Balkan Wars exhausted them for two years before the world war broke over their heads. Their monetary systems became disorganized and their units debased. Roumania has had to struggle with seven different kinds of paper currency—all de(Continued on based and unstable; her own notes, the "made in Germany" paper that the invaders brought in and with which they paid for their so-called "requisitions," Hungarian crowns in Transylvania, Austrian crowns in Bukowina and the Banat, while in Bessarabia there were three kinds of roubles, the Romanoff, Kerensky, and Soviet brands, all practically worthless. Jugoslavia also has had to wrestle with the crown and the Serbian dinar and, incidentally, with the Italian lira. Gold reserves disappeared. The invading armies of the Central Powers stripped Roumania and Jugoslavia (Serbia) of everything—grain and other foodstuffs, even seeds, cattle, milch cows and work oxen, railroad cars and engines, all the movable copper, all fabrics, including bedding, telephone instruments and cooking utensils. In Roumania they even brought nail-drawing instruments and pulled the nails out of the walls, and carted away freight cars of humus, the rich Roumanian top soil, just as they did in Poland and the Ukraine. All these things the Balkan peoples must replace. Naturally, they prefer not to replace them from the factories and workshops of their late enemies. O F all the belligerents in the Great War, Roumania has received the largest percentage of increase in territory and population. She is twice as large in both as before the conflict. But she has an intricate problem of reconstruction to solve. This people of Latin stock, though showing strongly the influence of contact with their Slav and Turk neighbors, occupies a highly important position as the trade bridge from Europe to Asia. The new Roumania is a country approximately as large as Italy, with a population almost as great as that of Spain. It is a country of raw materials, foodstuffs, and minerals, notably oil. Its endowment of these natural products make it probably the Jgg d s of richest country for its size in R ni a ouma the world. The soil of Roumania is so rich that it has never needed a fertilizer and it has always produced a harvest large enough to permit of a 50 to 60 per cent exportation of grain. ige 80, following)
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(Financial Situation, continued from page 644) partial confiscation of the private capital invested were the alternatives. Discussion in our own Congress of the methods whereby the railways, with the immense increase since 1917 in their wage schedules under government operation, might be returned to their owners, was brusquely interrupted by the signed and published declaration of four national Railway Union leaders that "the railroad employees are in no mood to brook the return of .the lines to their former control." BU T these occurrences had created an impossible situation. The result of the arrogant attitude assumed on both occasions was not alone tostiffen the resistance of the governments and the people at large to such pretensions, but to disclose a split in the ranks of organized labor itself. The British unions, faced by the powerful opposition of the British public and j Ne w ethe British statesmen, withdrew|g their political threat. The advocates of the "Plumb plan " for the railways very quickly had to confess that Congress was not in the least disposed to yield to coercion. But what was equally important, the general public was now able to see clearly that the conflict between conservative and radical parties, in the responsible leadership of the unions, had become more irreconcilable even than the conflict between labor and capital. Evidence was wholly unmistakable Al es (Financial Situation, corttinued on page 56)
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(Financial Situation, continued from page 54) that organized labor was breaking into factions of its own. The struggle, it had become evident, was bound hereafter to occur within the ranks of labor as well as between the laborers and the employers. The extremists of the labor leaders, like the so-called "Bolshevist wing" of the disintegrated Socialist party, have the present advantage (especially in Europe) of the confusion of ideas, policies, and institutions which has followed the war. The moderates of both organizations have the position of advantage to the extent that their policy can be shown to contribute to the restoration of orderly conditions, the arresting of the advance in living costs, and the bringing of industry and finance back to a normal footing. The Measure of Credit BUSINESS development is measured by the confidence which men have in each other as expressed by credit. Credit is the measure of business character and achievement. The -National Bank of Commerce is a product of development of credit in America. National Bank of Commerce in New York Capital. Surplus and Undivided Profits Over Fifty Million Dollars THIS remarkable division into opposing factions has resulted in one body of organized labor, strongly represented in its leadership, approaching more closely than at any previous moment of industrial history to the position in which labor disputes can be adjusted withewout industrial convulsion, while an--* : other body, also with voice in leader-j Labor 0ship, has rapidly moved toward the ideas and purposes of what was once popularly known as "the I. W. W.," the industrialists who repudiate both capital and state. Between the two factions there very manifestly exists a feud as bitter as the old-time feud between laboring and employing classes. The attempt to stop production in the entire Financial Situation, continued on page 58)
56 Publications of Interest to Investors A S a part of our comprehensive service to investors, our BOND DEPARTMENT issues from time to time publications of value to owners and buyers of investment securities. Investment Recommendations, issued monthly, describes securities which we offer and recommend for investment. An Organization for Investment Service describes the facilities and services of our Bond Department. How to Figure Interest Returns on Securities explains the use of "yield" tables. Amortization outlines methods of amortizing premiums paid on securities. The Care of Securities describes the advantages of a safe-keeping account for security owners. Other publications on business and economic questions of interest to investors are described in our leaflet, Publications of Current Interest, which we shall be pleased to send you, or which may be obtained at our correspondent offices throughout the country. Guaranty Trust Company of New York New York London Liverpool Paris Brussels Capital&Surplus$5 0,000,000 Resources over $800,000,000 57
(Financial Situation, continued from page 56) American steel trade brought this aspect of the situation into the strongest light. That contest was avowedly fought by the Union leaders for prestige and power. It was forced by the radical faction of official Unionism, against the protest of the conservative faction, and from the outset it was manifest that the failure of the strike would be as distinct a victory for the sober-minded element in organized labor as for the United Steel Corporation. In a score of other strikes there occurred actual collision of unions—one, under radical leadership, undertaking to impose by force the most extravagant conditions; the other insisting on reasonable demands, observance of contracts, and practical recognition of the conditions of an industry. The Boston police episode was a notable instance. When the community at large made its voice heard emphatically, denying the right of protectors of the public peace to strike and demanding punishment of the offenders, organized labor refused a sympathetic strike. It remained to be seen whether English labor, in the climax of that country's railway dispute, would or would not show a similar reserve of conservatism. A turn of the highest importance in a worldwide economic crisis may quite possibly be at hand. Thus far, the course of events has borne out the belief of experienced observers, that the American economic structure would be less formidably shaken by these disturbances than that of any other country. But the issue concerns the whole of modern industry and society, and we have yet to see the outcome. T T cannot be said that this struggle of social and I economic forces has been reflected in the markets. Confidence in the financial and industrial future has apparently been expressed by a rise in prices, on the Stock Exchange, for shares of the very enterprises whose fortunes would be at stake in an outright vie-* . tory for the radical labor party. Markets But the violence of this rise in prices, the utter extravagance which repeatedly characterized it, were indications of unsettled ideas in finance as well as industry. On this aspect of the situation the movement of the foreign exchanges had its bearing. The fall in exchange rates on the markets of the lately belligerent European states has continued this autumn at a spectacular pace. Two or three instances will illustrate the general trend. New York Exchange on London stands normally at $4.86?4, the intrinsic value of the pound sterling in American currency. When gold is freely released for international trade at London, the rate can go no lower than say $4.82. The lowest sterling rate of war-time (that of September, 1915) was $4.48. This autumn it touched $4-12 %. (Financial Situation, continued on page 60)
BROWN BROTHERS & CO. Established 1818 Philadelphia NEW YORK Boston FOREIGN SERVICE Through our long established connections abroad, we are in a position to render complete foreign service to banks, corporations andfirms doing an international business. Our correspondents include the strongest and most progressive institutions and private banks overseas. BROWN, SHIPLEY & COMPANY Established 1810 Founders Court, Lothbury Office for Travelers LONDON, E. C. 123 Pall Mall, LONDON, S. W. 58 Savings Made Safe by Bonds as Safe as Our Cities. Invest your accumulated wealth so as to assure the security of your savings. Municipal Bonds—as safe as our cities—offer an unusual opportunity for the safe investment of surplus funds. Municipal Bonds, being payable from taxes, are a virtual first lien on the issuing community, and property owners must pay these taxes before private obligations are met. The safety of the city itself backs the bonds which it issues. The security afforded by well-chosen Municipals, coupled with their ready salability, collateral value, and superior net yield, makes them the choice of discriminating investors— those desiring sure returns and freedom from investment worry. Added to the security afforded by the issuing community which is behind the bonds, the issues purchased by the William R. Compton Company have been approved, only after searching and careful investigation. In this way the investors' interests are safe-guarded by the approval of specialists. Our country-wide facilities, our long established organization, and our facilities for research are at your disposal in the selection of Municipal Bonds for the investment of savings. They are available in amounts of $100, $500, and $1000, and have a net yield of \ \ to 5i%. Write for our free booklet, "Bonds as Safe as Our Cities." Address Dept. B-ll . William R.fompton Company GOVERNMENT AND MUNICIPAL BONDS "Over a Quarter Century in this Business" New York Chicago St. Louis Cincinnati New Orleans
59 (Financial Situation, continued from page 58) Exchange on Paris, which normally rules at or around 19,5-3 cents to the franc, and whose low rate during actual hostilities was i6^i, got down to 10's last September. As for German exchange, the New York valuation of the mark for commercial purposes, whose normal rate 23^ cents and which stood at i6>-g when the United States broke off relations with the Imperial German Government in April of 1917, had declined a month or so ago to 3 y& cents. WIT H the exchange rates in England, France, or Italy the case was somewhat different. The currencies of all three nations were inflated, and in none of them was gold redemption maintained. But that exchange rates were not governed wholly by this circumstance Exchange was shown by the fact that English Rates and and French exchange, unlike the rate Foreign on Germany, was quoted at very difTrade ferent levels in the different outside markets; the rate of depreciation varying 7 to 28 per cent as between certain of these markets. But the New York rate always maintained the heaviest margin of depreciation, and for this the unmistakable reason was the course of trade. To most of the markets of Europe, South America, and the East, England, for instance, has largely increased her exports since the cessation of hostilities. Her exports to the whole outside world during the first half of 1919 increased £126,500,000 over the same months in 1918; this W e advise thewhile the increase in her imports from them was only £64,800,000. Expressed in terms of American currency on the old-time conventional basis of calculation, this $632,500,000 increase in England's exports included such specific gains as $163,000,000 in shipments to the Scandinavian countries (largely, perhaps, for reshipment into Germany), $14,500,000 in those to Spain, $23,000,000 each in exports to Switzerland and Holland, $8,500,000 in exports to Argentina, with a similarly large increase in goods sent to France, Belgium, and the British colonies. But her exports to the United States decreased $12,000,000 in the period, and our government's figures for the seven months ending with last July showed that while our imports from England during that period were $21,000,000 greater than the year before, our exports to her were $132,000,000 larger. TH E recent movement of New York Exchange rates on those countries, then, can hardly be called mysterious. Yet there were other and quite different aspects to the matter. This autumn's violent depreciation in exchange on Europe cannot possibly be dissociated with the debate of the United ^"yence States Senate on the treaty of peace, -preatv The collapse in rates, on a scale quite Controversy unprecedented in the history of finance, was not indeed primarily a result of the procedure at Washington. But the case was one (Financial Situation, continued on page 62)
purchase and are making a Specialty of U . S. Government Bonds and are prepared, at any time, to buy or sell large or small lots We have prepared a circular on investment securities which we shall be glad to send you on request. Kidder , Peabodyand Co. 4i| Devo*%sliiare Si;. a-7"W»ll St**eet Boston 60 We Recommend For Investment ARMOUR AND COM RAX V £r£A : 6% ScrialConvcrtible Gold Debentures. Back of Your Bond CHARACTER , to the experienced banker, is the real measure of credit. It should be of equal importance to the investor who, in the purchase of bonds, is in reality lending his money—extending credit—to the borrowing corporation. Halsey, Stuart & Co. bonds are the promises-to-pay of corporations of character—corporations of established credit and proven earning ability, conservatively capitalized and capably managed. Representative of these are the 6% Debentures of Armour and Company. Bonds sponsored by Halsey, Stuart & Co., are suited to the investment of any funds where safety of principal, salability and fair interest return are the determining factors in the choice of the investment. Our current list of offerings SMS will be sent upon request. Advise us of the circumstances surrounding your investment and we shall be pleased to indicate which of our issues are best adapted to your individual needs. You will incur no obligation. HALSEY, STUART &, COINCORPORATED—SUCCESSORS TO N. W. HALSEY 4 CO., CHICAGO CHICAGO NEWYORK PHILADELPHIA BOSTON J09 S. LA SALLE ST. 4S WALL ST. LAND TITLE BUILDING 30 STATE STREET MILWAUKEE DETROIT ST,LOUIS FIRST NATIONAL BANK GLDG. SECURITY BLDG. Buy bonds in Installments—take a year to pay for them, if necessary, and receive bond interest on your funds while accumulating. Our booklet SM9 "HALSEY, STUART & CO.'S PAR TIA L PA Y711EN T PLAN" tells how you may do it. It will be sent without cost or obligation. . 61 Growing In Favor It is plainly evident that more and more people are coming to regard Federal Bond CSl Mortgage Company bonds as the most desirable bonds to be had. As you know, this company has a reputation for being notably conservative and painstaking in its selection of property upon which to make loans And this unswerving adherence to the highest standards has had its effect. Investors have come to realize that in selecting the 6% First Mortgage Real Estate Serial Gold Bonds offered by this company they get bonds of unusual safety and stability. So that each month shows a substantial increase in the number of those who want Federal Bond C&, Mortgage Company bonds in preference to any others. Mall your request today for
(Financial Situation, continued from page 60) in which remedial measures of the most critical importance—certainly so to Europe, possibly to ourselves—were blockaded by the policies of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I do not propose to go into the merits or demerits of the treaty terms drawn up at Paris. In many important respects they were not what our people had hoped for. The transfer of territory, permanently or temporarily, shocked the sensibilities of many well-meaning persons who had been ready to approve in the abstract the "return of the lost French provinces," the "reuniting of the Trentino with Italy," or the "establishment and safeguarding of an independent Poland," but who had failed to associate those achievements with Germany's loss of her coalfields, with the disappointing of the aspirations of Austria's seceding provinces, or with the neutralization of a German city which would be Poland's only access to the sea. In the financial community itself, a feeling of dislike was unmistakable at the requiring Germany's assent to an indemnity whose enormous amount as stipulated in the treaty, though it might be decreased later by an Allied commission, might also be increased. The terms as a whole were, on their face, less magnanimous even than the terms imposed upon defeated France by the Allies of 1815, and they were certainly not what the American delegates at Versailles would have laid down had the United States alone been making a settlement with Germany. But the United States was not alone. The American critics of the treaty, at Washington or elsewhere, were not confronted with the devastation of their country by the enemy or with the decimation of the country's able-bodied citizenship in the war provoked by him. To forgive, shake hands, and let bygones be bygones, would be at least easier for America, which won prosperity from the war, than for France, which had emerged from the war not only almost crushed economically but with the prospect of Germany's undestroyed and unplundered granaries and factories ready to get the start of France in future industrial competition. TH E League of Nations clauses of the treaty have to be judged in somewhat the same light. There was, no doubt, this much of difference, that while the United States asked nothing "Questions and Answers on Bondfrom Germany by way of national reparation, it committed itself to serious future Invemtment" obligations by those clauses. Most The Controversy at
Americans had expected all along Waslungton that these obligations would be debated in the Senate; that the Senate would clearly and formally express its own interpretation of such clauses as admitted of possible misunderstanding, and its reservation of certain well-
recognized political privileges in the future atti90 South Grlswold Street Detroit (244) tude of our government. Yet it may be doubted whether the people were prepared for quite the (Financial Situation, continued on page 64) 62
Investments IMPORTANT attributes are necessary in every investment recommendation: character and prestige, sound judgment and wide knowledge of conditions. These are the results of many years of successful experience in the investment field. Our November list of offerings, which will be sent on request, meets all requirements and includes: — Municipal Bonds yielding from 4.20 to 5.50% Railroad " " » 4.90 to 7.00% Industrial " " " 5.00 to 7.00% Commission Orders Executed HORNBLOWER & WEEKS BOSTON Investment Securities NEW YORK PORTLAND CHICAGO PROVIDENCE DETROIT Founded in USHH Members of the New York, Boston and Chicago Stock Exchanges 63
(Financial Situation, continued from page 62) turn which the matter actually took at Washington—the proposal to throw Japan summarily out of consideration, for instance, in regard to the German outpost in China which the Japanese forces had won in battle and which Germany had conceded to Japan, or the formal statement in the Committee's majority report that, unless the other nations "take us on our own terms," "their League is a wreck and all their gains from a victorious peace are imperilled," or its further intimation that the pressure for speedy ratification Was the work of "certain great banking firms which had a direct pecuniary interest in securing an early opportunity to reap the harvest which they expected from the adjustment of the financial obligations of the countries which had been engaged in the war." The American reader of these rather unusual diplomatic declarations was familiar with the eccentricities of American politics. But the foreign markets may possibly have been less familiar with them. Their inferences from this language, in a report to the American high court of ratification, may have been colored by the fact that not only was their own financial position critical but that, for several reasons, it was linked up in an exceptional degree with America's action on the treaty. WHAT , then, is this international situation? The comment is occasionally heard that, supposing this depreciation in exchange to mean depreciation of the inflated European paper currencies, it is none of our business to help in correcting the rates. If England or France or the Teutonic markets wish to buy from the United States, then let them measure the payment not in European paper money but in American gold. But that is precisely what, however willing, they cannot do in the present status of international finance. To pay in American gold, the gold itself must be raised through loans placed in America on a very substantial scale, running for a long enough term to avoid the necessity, which besets the market nowadays, of obtaining at frequent intervals new drafts on New York to pay off short-term borrowings at maturity. This, however, can be accomplished only through the concerted action of the American investors and the American bankers, and neither investors nor bankers are in the least likely to undertake the task while the nature and the terms of the European peace remain unsettled. With its currency so heavily depreciated by war-time fiat money issues that gold stood at a premium of 150 over United States legal-tender paper, our own country was in much the same position when it emerged from the Civil War. We, too, had a seemingly crushing balance against us in foreign trade; our imports of merchandise had been (Financial Situation, continued on page 66)
A Great Banking Institution The Mellon National Bank is one of the strongest financial institutions in America. During the past fifty years it has been active in the development and growth of the big, basic industries of the Pittsburgh District. Because of its intimate knowledge of the investment opportunities in this district it is in a position to secure and offer bonds that appeal to the conservative investor. Write for complete bond list. Mellon Naliona 1 B Bond Department Pittsburgh, Pa. 64 Preferred Ownership in the -third largest utility of its ^Moc k in the PaciBc Gas and^^"! Electric Co. offers you. It is the largest company of its kind in the West and third largest [in America. It operates 10 hydro-electric plants in the mountains, 4 steam-driven electric plants in big cities, 17 gas works. It serves 74% of the gas and electricity used in Northern California. We own, offer and recommend Pacific Gas & Electric Co. of California First Preferred 6% Cumulative Stock (Par value $100) Price $89—Yielding 6% <fo Has paid uninterrupted dividends for 10 years. During this period the company has reinvested more than 70% ot its net earnings to build abetter property and give a better service. The Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is a basic industry in California. It operates in 32 counties, enters over 200 cities, serves 500,000 consumers. It covers a territory of 37,775 square miles — more than half the combined area of New England. Gross earnings exceed §25,000,000 annually. Illustrated boohlet N-5 Blyth, Witter & Co. offer the facilities of an experienced investment organization. Each of our offices is equipped to render a prompt, capable service to investors—a service based on careful, painstaking analysis of every security offered and recommended by us. Write our nearest office fortlst NSofour current offerings BLYTH. WITTER. &. Co, UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT, MUNICIPAL ft CORPORATION BONDS San Francisco Los Angeles Merchants Excuanfre Trust & SavingsBldg. I New York Seattle 61 Broadway Alaska Bide. 65 Features of Strength Always found in MILLE R Mortgage Bonds Among the many features of strength always found in Miller Mortgage Bonds are the following: 1. FIRST MORTGAGE: The mortgaged property must be conservatively appraised by unbiased authorities for at least twice the amount of the loan. 2. EARNING POWER: The earnings of the mortgaged property must substantially exceed requirements for interest and principal payments. T o meet interest and principal when due, advance payments must be made to a trustee by the borrower. We are now offering an issue of 7% bonds, maturities 2 to io years, denominations $ioo, $500 and $1000, secured by a first mortgage on property worth more than twice the amount of the loan, with earning power exceeding three times the amount required to meet payments. Interest and principal payable at the Third National Bank, Atlanta, Ga., or the Guaranty Trust Company of New York. Write for illustrated circular giving further details. G. L. M ILLAR & Co. INCORPORATED 112 HURT BLDG., ATLANTA.<3A.
(Financial Situation, continued from page 64) double our annual exports. But the situation was met by immediate and very large loans to us by European investors, extending over a long series of years—loans based on our railways, on our shipping enterprises, or on the credit of our government. Happily for the United States, the terms of peace at any rate had settled themselves. No European Foreign Affairs Committee could delay them or throw obstacles in their way. THER E is another answer, frequently made to the plea for settling the status of peace and stopping the depreciation of exchange. After all, was not our own market profiting from the fact that, when our merchants remitted funds to Europe, it cost them 15 to 90 per cent ectless per unit of European currency ^ y.1 j , , -, j . Depreciated than it used to cost ? Let us suppose Exchange a certain block of French merchandise to have been worth 1,000 francs in France before the war and r,5oo francs this autumn. The American purchaser would not, with French exchange at last month's level, have to pay 50 per cent more for it in dollars than before the war, but actually about 5 per cent less. Payment in 1913 for 1,000 francs, at 19^ cents to the franc, would have called for $193 in American money at New York. Payment for 1,500 francs last month, at the rate of loj/i cents per franc, required only $163. The advantage here would be on the American market's side, always supposing, however, that we had nothing to consider except the import trade, and that we had no objection to the possibility that, without reducing prices in his own market, the merchant in such a European country could offer his goods to our own or rather foreign markets for 15 to 90 per cent less than their actual home price. But these are serious possibilities. A depreciated sterling rate may enable the American importer to buy English goods for 15 per cent less than the English price. It will, however, equally compel the American exporter, all other things remaining equal, to sell his American goods in England, and in British currency, for 15 per cent more than the American price. If cost of production is the same in both countries, the natural result of the first process would be the emphasizing to that extent of competition by English exporters with our own producers. On the same supposition, the natural result of the second process would be the handicapping, to a similar extent, of competition by our own exporters with English producers. This is what a certain member of the British Government meant (Financial Situation, continued on page 68)
66 How WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAV E A N INVESTMENT Secured by a first claim on the property and earnings of an expert farmer, worth $400,000.00, and a first mortgage on 3913 acres of high grade farm land, one mile from railway. Nearly 1000 acres are alfalfa land and the balance raises prolific yields of wheat, oats and corn. There are buildings, machinery, equipment and livestock worth over $60,000.00 in addition to the value of the land. You can share in this modern and money-making farming enterprise with security in the land alone of two-and-a-half to one, in amounts from $100.00 upwards, to yield 6% net. ASSOCIATED MORTGAGE INVESTORSJNC. Farm Mortgage Bankers. KINGMAN NOTT ROBINS.Tregsurer CHICAGO GRANITE BUILDING Bl LLINGS, MONT. EDMONTON, CAN CALGARY, CAN. ROCHESTER, NEW YORK Investment Securities Financial The determination of the worth of Understanding the securities in which you invest your money is based on certain fundamental principles which are It is always necessary for a concisely covered in a series of purchaser of securities to depamphlets which we have published. termine what proportions of The first pamphlet describes the "Bainvestment for income and sic Principles of Bond Investment." speculation for profit fit his inOther pamphlets discussing various clinations arid circumstances. classes of bonds are: If you are contemplating buyUnited States Government Bonds" "Foreign Government Bonds" ing securities, it would be wise "Investment Advantages of Municipal Bonds" to read our booklets on— " Facts About Railroad Bonds" How to Judge Industrial Bonds " "Wha t Securities Mean " " Public Utility Bonds " " Miscellaneous Bonds " " Incomes" (monthly publication) With each pamphlet u>c shall send an example of a bond which meets the principles. They will be sent gratuitously. MERRICK & BENNETT Write today. Breed, Elliott & Harrison Members New York StockExchange High Grade Investment Securities66Bimdwaij, New l/ork Chicago Cincinnati Indianapolis 67 The Effect of Taxes on Your Income from Securities In previous years Municipal Bonds were readily absorbed by investors because of their eminent safety although their yield was smaller than that obtainable in many other securities. Today Municipal Bonds not only remain in the front rank of safety, but, because they are totally tax exempt, they often yield the investor a higher net income than he could derive from taxable or partly taxable securities. Every investor, subject to normal and surtax for 1919 should investigate the effect on his income of investing in tax-free Municipals. Write for tabulation comparing the net income for 1919 if derived from Municipal Bonds or from taxable securities. Current list of Municipal offerings to net to 5}4,% sent upon request. ACTtBRAU fa'INVESTMENT BONDS 1 Second National Bank Building New York Toled o Cincinnati The CONTINENTAL W COMMERCIAL BANKS CHICAGO COMMERCIAL BANKING, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. SAVINGS. PERSONAL TRUSTS. CORPORATE TRUSTS AND CORPORATE AGENCIES. SAFE DEPOSIT. SAFEKEEPING FOREIGN AN D DOMESTIC SECURITIES. INVESTMENT SECURITIES. FINANCING GOVERNMENT ISSUES. FINANCING INDUSTRIES. MUNICIPALITIES, RAILROADS, UTILITIES. a i ii illinium ii Hum i
(Financial Situation, continued from page 66) by his remark, a few weeks ago, that the 15 per cent depreciation in New York exchange on London was equivalent to a 15 per cent English protective tariff against American merchandise. In point of fact it was more than that; for protective tariffs, while they may curtail the import trade of a country adopting such a recourse, will never stimulate its exports. HERE , then, is the basis for the prediction that the depreciation in our market, of exchange rates on the great European producing countries, must eventually mean large reduction in our export trade and equally large increase in our imports. To what extent this will happen depends in part on other con- Will Our siderations. The comparisons which Trade I have already made, between our Suffer? actual trade with Europe in this period of falling exchanges and our trade in former periods, proves that nothing of the sort has yet occurred. The principal and most obvious reason why it has not occurred is that Europe's present need of our export products is extremely urgent (owing to its exhausted supplies and reconstruction needs), while its own partly paralyzed industrial power has prevented recovery in production to a level which will admit of extensive exports. But even so, the fact remains that, as a result of our own disproportionately great surplus of exports, exchange on the markets of our allies is depreciated far less in other outside countries than in our own. During September, while New York exchange on London was at a discount 15 per cent, sterling ruled only 11 per cent below parity in Canada, and less than 7 per cent below parity in Sweden. In August, when exchange on New York was depreciated 49 pi per cent at Paris, the same day's French exchange rate on Holland was 40 Js per cent away from parity, and exchange on Denmark only 21 per cent. In the long run, these other markets would under such conditions have a very considerable advantage over the United States in selling goods in the French and English markets. BU T this is not the only consideration. What we have thus far been considering is the case of the powerful European states whose financial and governmental structure has been and is intact. Our merchants also gt^teTof^ have to consider, however, the case Europe of the new nationalities which are emerging from the Great War. Wholly irrespective of what may be regarded as America's moral (Financial Situation, continued on page 70)
68 8% Cumulative Preferred Stock of Standard Gas & Electric Company is an exceptionally attractive investment. This company under unified management is responsible for supplying upwards of 2,200,000 people with daily necessities. Ask for Circular S H.M.Byllesby&G). Incorporated Investment Securities 1214-111 Broadway 214 So. La Salle St. NEW YORK CHICAGO " 26V5 Per Cent f For 10 years the average yield per share on LOWELL BLEACHERY Established 1833 This stock is tax free in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Connecticut. A stable industry with plants in Lowell and St. Louis. Conditions are fortunate in that inventory is low. For full particulars apply Earnest E. Smith & Co. Specialists in New England Investments 52 Devonshire Street, Boston, Mass. Members New York and Boston Stock Exchanges 69 Investing? If you are thinking of buying securities you would do well to ask us to submit our current list of attractive offerings of Municipal Bonds We offer high - grade issues backed by the taxing power of prominent cities, states, and districts, some of which are selling at prices to yield as high as sy2%. The income, of course, is exempt from all Federal Income Taxes. Send for booklet S-4 "Bonds That Always Pay1' and current offering list. Kauf f man-Smith-Emert Co. Security Building St. Louis, Mo. A Business That Grows The wise investor selects securities of a corporation showing rapid, healthy growth. Customers of the Middle West Utilities Company increased 24,712 in the last fiscal year; the first six months of 1919 the gain was 100% greater than 1918 while the net earnings for the first four months of 1919 gained 103% over the same period of 1918. We offer bonds and notes of this company and its controlled properties to yield 51%, to 7|% Write for our list S. S. 200 AH Bickmore & Co III BROADWAY, NY. 5% 8%orWhich? Five per cent has been considered a good yield on conservative bonds in the past. During the past two years, clients operating according to the the Babson Method of Investment, have netted a yield of over 8'/o with, the same or greatersecurity. Babson's Reports, based on fundamental statistics, not onl? forecast the trend of the investment market for you, but make specific recommendations. You are warned on weakening issues. Farther, each issue of the Investment Bulletin recommends for purchase at least one good security selected from those which are selling below their true worth, as the best buy in the entire investment field. A request on your letterhead will bring "How to Get More Out of Your Money'' and full details of the abson Method of Investing. Merely Write for Bulletin 1318 of Babson's Statistical Organization Wellesley Hills, Mass. The Largest Organization of Its Character — in the World — GREATER INCOME FRO M SAVINGS You may obtain a greater income from your savings if you do these two things: 1. Invest in the same securities as those held by savings banks; 2. Invest your savings as fast as they accumulate so as not to lose a day's interest. Our farm mortgages a savingsre bank investments. They yield 6%. By our installment investment plan you may invest in one of these mortgages and accomplish the two results above described. Write for literature further explaining how to obtain a greater income from your savings. INVESTORS MORTGAGE COMPANY R. B. Bishop, President 610 Canal Bank Annex NEW ORLEANS, LA.
(Financial Situation, continued from page 68) or political duties in regard to Poland, Czechoslovakia, or Armenia, the economic fact of the situation is that each of these states is certain hereafter to be a rich field of mutual commercial profit in exchange of goods, yet that at the present moment the United States has practically no trade with any of them. The government's detailed report on the foreign trade of the United States in the first seven months of 1919 mentioned exchange of exports and imports with Malta, the Azores, and Gibraltar. But nothing whatever was shown to have been exchanged with the other countries mentioned above, and practically nothing with Bulgaria or Hungary. The reason, stated with emphasis by Mr. Hoover on his return from Europe in September, was that until the peace treaty is ratified, and the raising of foreign credits by the merchants or governments of those nationalities is thereby made possible, no such trade can really get under way. Until these preliminary events have been brought about, so Mr. Hoover answered his inquirers, "none of these countries can reorganize its internal finance; raw materials cannot be obtained; industry cannot be started." We have helped to create an independent Poland; but, lacking ratification of the decree of the Paris Conference, "she is unable to provide raw material; her textile mills are idle, and her people are in rags." Even the question of food conditions in Europe "is purely a question of credits"; which waited on the formal approval of the terms of peace, for the very sufficient reason that, if the United States Senate were to reject the treaty, no merchant or banker in the world would know with what government or on what basis he had to deal in advancing long credits to those countries. This obvious fact, one might suppose, is possibly at least as convincing an explanation of the international banker's plea to hasten ratification as the "direct pecuniary interest" of "certain great banking firms"—which seemed to impress the Foreign Affairs Committee's majority report as the only reason. WHE N all this is said, the question still occasionally arises, whether these European countries can pay or will be willing to pay such international obligations. That question has come into view through constant reference, in discussions by European publications and even in speeches by European statesAs to " National men, to the "national bankruptcy" Bankwhich may be impending unless cerruptcy " tain policies are adopted. One may venture the guess that if national insolvency were actually deemed probable by these 70 writers and speakers, there would be considerably less public talk by them about it. Merchants and bankers whose resources are nearly exhausted, whose credit is hanging in the business, and whose failure in business is an early possibility, are not apt to discuss their situation at the street corner, and governments actually in the same position would be governed by very similar motives. "National bankruptcy" could mean only repudiation of the home debt, or the foreign debt, or suspension of contracted interest payments on one or both of the two kinds of obligations. Russia is a bankrupt nation because of her government's adoption of exactly that policy; indeed, Lenine, at a moment when Bolshevik fortunes seemed to have become hopeless, began to hint very strongly at actually placing Russia in the hands of receivers for the benefit of her creditors. But this very case proves why nothing of the sort is reasonably to be expected from other European states. Bolshevik politics and Bolshevik finance have qualities peculiar to themselves, but the spread of Bolshevik principles to the rest of Europe has distinctly ceased; and if Russia, with all her enormous resources of food and raw materials, is idle and starving for the reason, very largely, that her government's intentional bankruptcy has destroyed her access to the money, goods, and services of the outside world, what is likely to be the choice of nations even more dependent on the products and materials of other nations ? Furthermore, it does not follow that the alternative of cancelling arbitrarily the public obligations will present itself. Circumstances will naturally differ with the stronger and weaker European governments. The expedients adopted in dealing with the paper currencies and the internal government war loans are certain to vary widely; they will presumably range all the way from a large levy on property of citizens and the actual scaling-down of some excessive paper issues to a comprehensive scheme of refunding at a lower rate of interest. But the obligations accrued and accruing purely as a result of an abnormally adverse balance in foreign trade stand on another footing, and will have to be met, as they always have heretofore been met, through increased national production and decreased home consumption. They can be dealt with indirectly by great expansion in exports to other countries than the United States, as well as directly by expanded trade to the United States. What the actual capacity of these countries for the purpose is, we know from the history of the period before the war.
An Investment Strongly Safeguarded Yielding iy2% Cities Service Co. in addition to being one of the world's largest producers of oil, controls and operates 84 public utility properties in the United States and Canada. This diversity in business as well as location provides unusual safeguards for the investor. Preferred Stock Dividend Requirements were earned five times over in 1918. Statement of Earnings sent to stockholders each month, keeping them in close touch with the company's progress. Dividends payable monthly. Ask for Circular D-4 Henry L. Doherty & Company Bond Department 60 Wall Street, New York usiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigiiiiiiiiiiiiigiiiiMiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiMi: r or man Farm Mortgages Permanent Investments A substantial portion of your surplus should be placed permanently in strict investments,—bed-rock securities, to be held until maturity. For this purpose select Forman Farm Mortgages or Farm Land Bonds, and thus obtain a security of non-fluctuating value, netting 6%, which will never trouble you with details. Make Forman Farm Mortgages the backbone of your fortune, whether large or small, the last line of your financial reserves. These investments described in two booklets: "How Forman Farm Mortgages Are Made." " Forman Farm Mortgages and the Forman Monthly Payment Plan." Hither booklet, and list of current offerings, free on request. GEORGE M FORMAN & COMPANY Established 1885 FARM MORTGAGE BANKERS 11 South La Salle Street Chicago, 111. niiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinii: 71
THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT What is Poor's Investment Service? STOCKS BEFOR E investing you want the facts, from a thoroughly competent and impartial source, about the men, history and possibilities surrounding the securities you are about to purchase. Poor's Investment Service furnishes and interprets these facts for you. The Service includes: Weekly Investment Letters—A study of the investment situation and definite recommendations on the purchases and sales of securities. Special Investment Letters—A medium for furnishing timely information and special recommendations without delay. Monthly Investment Outlook—An interpretation of the latest data affecting corporations of public interest. Advisory Department—A personal service on your own investment problems. Send for full in formation about Poor''s Investment Service-. Ask/or booklet D-J Poor's Publishing Co. Boston 33 Broadway Chicago New York Publishers of Poor's Manual of Railroads; Moodys Manual of Industrials; Moodys Manual of Public Utilities; Poor's Daily Digest Service; Poor's Classified Investment Holdings. The WESTERN SECURITIES INVESTMENT COMPANY First National Bank Bldg., Denver, Colorado OFFERS YOU 3IRST Farm Mortgages and IRST Farm Mortgage G-old Bonds Secured by Colorado's far-famed farms — richest Sugar beet country in the world. Not a single solitary loss on these farm mortgages in our sixteen successful years' record. Your booklet sent on request. C. C . Bennett, President. H. A. Bradford,Treasurer 6% FARM MORTGAGE BONDS Let us send you descriptions of our first mortgage bonds secured by improved and producing farms and ranches in Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana. Denominations $100, $500 and SI,000. 29 years without loss to any investor. CAPITAL TRUSfllSAVINGS BANK I CjJS3lB90 I -P'ap.tai and Surplus'500,00000 Saint Paul,/Minnesota B Y STEVENS PALMER HARMAN OBSERVER S of the security markets have doubtless often noticed, as in the summer of ioio, following the signing of the treaty of peace with Germany, that the prices of stocks, as quoted on the exchanges, may be advancing rapidly or even violently, while bond prices are falling lower and lower. At such times the public has been eagerly buying shares of stock, while dealers are complaining that investors show little or no interest in bonds. This condition suggests that people with money to invest, if they can correctly gauge the trend of the markets at or near the beginning of a movement of this kind, may profitably exercise discrimination as to the class of security into which they put their funds. Just why stocks should advance, at a moment when bonds, bearing a fixed income return, are on the downward trend, may require a word of explanation. The reason lies in the essential difference of the two classes of security. When the prices of commodities advance, as they did during and after the European war, what has come to be known familiarly as the "purchasing power of the dollar" declines correspondingly. Hence, securities like bonds, which yield only a fixed number of dollars in the shape of interest per year become, temporarily at least, less desirable. But the period of business activity and rising prices accompanying this decline in bond values is precisely the condition favorable to an advance in stocks, for investors and speculators will then reckon upon a probable increase in the dividends paid by corporations upon their capital stock—an increase made possible by the general prosperity and enlarged turnover of business enterprises. There are a number of other factors entering into the equation, to be sure, such as pureh' speculative purchases of stocks on "margin," made with the hope of selling out to someone else within a short time at a higher figure, or a decline in prices of bonds due to shaken confidence among investors who demand safety, first of all. But in the last analysis the prices of both stocks and bonds relate themselves more or less closely with the actual or prospective net income yield. From this, some of the essential differences between stocks and bonds will have already been inferred. A stock certificate, made out in the name of the individual owner, is merely an evidence that he is a participant to the (Continued on pige 74)
72 Insured Investment in Washington, D. C. The new international importance of the National Capital has greatly increased and solidly stabilized Washington realty. During fifty years no We Specialize in First client of ours has suffered a penny's loss Mortgage 6% Notes of principal; nor a day's delay in receipt of interest due. An They offer an investment which enjoys the prestige of added insurance of governmental environment, entirely beyond the influence the safety of this investment. of varying market conditions, and always worth face value—plus the accrued interest. We shall be pleased to give inquiries for specific information our prompt attention. Address: Swartzell, Rheem & Hensey Co. 725 Fifteenth Street Washington, D. C. Essential Investment MUNICIPAL BONDS Features from the These are the essential investment Agricultural Northwest features of our farm mortgages: Security: First liens on prosperous fertile YO U usually can secure farms of the Black Waxy Belt of Texas. a higher interest rate on Income: sJ^% and 6% net. Municipal Bonds, withMaturity: Usually 5 years, occasionally out sacrifice of safety, by 7 or 10 years. buying the obligations of Freedom from Care: All details attendprosperous Northwestern ed to by us, including collection of agricultural communities. interest and principal. Stability: Our Black Land farm mortOur first hand knowledge of gages can always be inventoried at par. Northwestern land values, gleaned from overforty years' experience in Individual Control: The investor as the Farm Mortgage business, gives owner of the entire mortgage is always us a decided advantage in selectin complete control of the investment. ing sound municipal offerings Write for current offerings and our booklet entitled from this territory. "Investing," describing our mortgages and services. Ask for list " NS " "Millions loaned; not a dollar lost" MELLS-DICKEy COMPANY TEXASMORTGAGECOMPANY " ESTABLISHED 1878 T.J.COLE. Prest. SURPLUS £l CAPITAL $ 1,300,000 Paid up Capita I $ 200,000 MINNEAPOLIS • MINNESOTA DALLAS. TEXAS 73 fflt | A Suggestion For Conservative Investors I If you demand of an investment | these things: safety, a guaranteed I rate of interest, convenience and | marketability—buy bonds. | We have an exceptionally large | listing of Government, Municipal, | Corporation and Farm Land I Bonds that will meet your require1 ments. £ | Tell us in what class of bonds you | are interested and we will gladly | furnish you complete information. Circular Sug and Investograph, our monthly investment digest,will he forwarded upon request. Gold Stabeck Company MINNEAPOLIS Preferred Stock of one of largest Cement Manufacturing Corporations in United States. Has paid dividends regularly and promptly at the rate of 8% per annum on Preferred Stock from date of issue i n 1899. Price to Yield 7.2 7% FREDERIC H. HATCH & CO. Established 188874 Broadway New York Kansas and Oklahoma Farm Loans Exceptionally Safe Opportunities for Investors $10,000, $5,000, $2,500 invested in our first farm mortgages now offer particularly safe securities. Based on ultra conservative values, which guarantees satisfaction in the long run. Investors with as little capital as $100 can also put their money to work with us at 6%. Write today for details of our partial payment plan. Deposits with us always at interest. THE FARM MORTGAGE TRUST COMPANY 501 Jackson St. TOPEKA, KANSAS
(Continued from page 72) extent of a certain number of shares in a certain enterprise having a definite number of shares outstanding. The stock certificate carries no obligation on the part of the issuing company to pay or repay any amount of money to the holder. If he wishes to get his money back, he must sell his certificate in the market, getting either more or less than he paid for it. In case the company winds up its affairs, voluntarily or involuntarily, the stockholder is entitled to receive a proportionate share of the assets after the bondholders and other preferred creditors have been satisfied. In such a distribution the stockholder's share may be either large or small. Bonds, on the other hand, have fundamentally different characteristics. They represent money lent by the owner or by some previous owner to the issuing corporation. This money must be repaid to the holder on a date specified, and in the meantime interest must be paid at stated intervals. In case interest or principal is not paid when due, the holder usually has the right to appeal to the courts to appoint a receiver, who will either carry on the business until it is "reorganized" and put on its feet once more, or until its property is liquidated. In such liquidation, bondholders' claims rank ahead of those of stockholders, but in no case can bondholders receive more than the amount stipulated on the face of their bonds. Moreover, the owner of a bond never receives more than his stated percentage of interest, no matter how large the earnings of the corporation. It will thus be seen that against the relative safety which the bond carries with it, is set the possibility of gain inherent in the stock issue. Some corporations have enjoyed long careers of prosperity and careful management, until a great accumulated value represented in plant and equipment, over and above the claims of bondholders and other creditors, underlies their stock, and the regularity of their dividend payments has caused them to be highly regarded by investors. In addition to the right to divide the profits, after prior claims have been satisfied (and after prudent management has made ample provision for all contingencies by setting aside necessary reserves), stockholders enjoy the right of actually controlling their company. Only the stockholders, not the bondholders, have the right to vote for directors who will administer the company's affairs. It is to the stockholders that the officers report annually or oftener. Of course, in the case of very small holdings, this privilege (Continued on page 76)
74 PRACTICAL INVESTING Insurance companies, banks and endowed institutions invest such huge sums that even a fraction of one percent makes a great difference in their income. Know These expert investors with whom the amount of income is so important realDon't guess about strike trends, ize the futility of trying to " beat the game." They purchase securities yieldsales and labor problems. ing the maximum income with the required degree of safety. Experienced investors purchase our Babson's mortgages on farms of Missouri, Kansas, Reports mass the fundamental facts, figures and Arkansas and Oklahoma. We have vital statistics of business conditions to show the placed over $15,000,000 in them without basic movements. They forecast conditions 3 loss to any client. months—6. months—and yes—a year ahead with almost uncanny accuracy. Through them eight Our service is complete, covering every thousand of the best business men in America are increasing their profits 10 to 30 per cent. They detail. Current offerings in denominawill enable you to increase your profits, also. tions of $300 and upward yield 6%. These mortgages are the most practical Report on Requestinvestment for individuals as well as institutions. A request on your letterhead will bring our latest Bulletin and lull particulars of the Babson Mercantile Services. Write for list of current offerings and illustrated booklet Merely Write for Bulletin No. 931818 of Babson's Statistical Organization Wellesely Hills, Mass. THE NEW ENGLAND SECURITIES CO. The Largest Statistical Orgttttii n oj Its KindCAPITAL & SURPLUS 4400,000 In the World Kansas City Missouri Bonds of lllllllllllllllif ESTABLISH ED 1665 Jill | [|||H lllf All Nations Conservative Investment 63/4c/oand safety Is the title of a booklet we have prepared which gives the attractive features of the internal loans Security over four to one. of all the more important European Earnings over four to one. nations. Due to the present rates Property exceedingly well of exchange remarkable opportulocated. nities exist for those who purchase a Product is a necessity. one or more of these bonds. Should Business is well established. exchange return to normal a profit Maturities—two to fifteen of from 15% to over 100% will be years. obtained. Bonds of $500 and $1,000 Copt; of this Booklet sent on request. denominations. Send for Circular No. 1047 SC. A. B. Leach & Co., Inc. Peabocfy Investment Securities 62 Cedar St., New York Houghteling & Go. 105 S. La Salle St., Chicago Philadelphia Boston Buffalo Minneapolis (ESTABLISHED 1865) Baltimore Pittsburg Cleveland Milwaukee Detroit 10 So. La Salle St. St. Louis Cleveland CHICAGO Milwaukee ESTABLISHED .863 3 III! Ml 75 Back of every I.ackner and Butz First Mortgage Bond, there is a substantial modern building in a high-class, progressive,"value increasing" neighborhood-Each one or (he buildings picture** here is in the best neighborhood of Chicago—the second largest city in ihe United Slates where properly values are in rheir infancy, where the demand for occupancy in this class of property is far in excess of the supply. No safer form of investment — no surer • guarantee ol b'~- interest without possibility of principal depreciation. Bonds may be purchased on the partial payment plan —send for explanatory booklet and circular) of late issues. LACKNER, BUTZ & COMPANY CONWAY BUILDING 111 E Wuhinjion si. CHICAGO, ILL When You Invest You Want 1. Absolute Safety 2. A fair yield and 3. Marketability Municipal Bonds comply with the above demands. We offer bonds of some of the leading municipalities of the Middle West, to yield as high as S%%They are exempt from all Federal Income Taxes. Send /or current offering list. %J & Company %J INVESTMENT BONDS 1013-15 Baltimore Avenue Kansas City, Mo. ^tFmsT FARM MORTGAGES I Safety and Six Per Cent If you have a large or small sum to place where you are assured of perfect safe;y and substantial income, let us tell you about our First Farm Mortgages and Real Estate Bonds. Land Heat Security Our loans are secured by rich agricultural land in the Northwest—one ol the best fanning sections in the Union, am.1 are furnished in amounts to suit. Send for descriptive pamphlet " G " and offerings. Established 1883 Capital and Surplus $500,000.00 E.J. LANDER & CO, G RAND FOR US, NORTH DAKOTA
(Continued from page 74) may seem to be worth little or nothing, since the owners of the majority shares will control the company. But the small holders, by banding together and pooling their interests, not infrequently force their will upon the corporation's management. Dividends constitute the income return on stock investments and, as we have seen, may fluctuate sharply in amount, according as times are prosperous or the reverse. Dividends on common stock (not always on the preferred, which differs in many details from the common) are usually the first thing to be reduced or eliminated when earnings fall off or adversity threatens. They thus supply a financial safety valve. The owner of shares may console himself with the thought that when business revives, he stands a chance of faring better than the bondholders who have received their interest without interruption. Of course, dividends are for the most part paid in cash, but if the financial stringency in which a company is involved promises to be of short duration, a dividend in "scrip" may be declared. Scrip is merely an interest-bearing note, payable usually within a short period, which is issued to stockholders in lieu of cutting off their payments entirely. Until rather recently, it was the almost universal practice for shares of stock to state on their face their "par value," usually $100. But the par might be anything—$50, $25, $5. It is now not uncommon for a corporation to issue shares with no par value, which is a step in the direction of correct practice. The par value of $100 is a convenient device in some respects, in that it gives a basis on which to figure dividends as a percentage of par. But otherwise the term is valueless and positively misleading. It means nothing whatever, so far as actual value is concerned. It does not necessarily indicate that the nominal value of $100 has been subscribed and paid in to the corporation for purchase of plant and equipment. It does not mean that the shares are worth the nominal value in the open market (they may be selling far above or far below par), or that in case of dissolution stockholders would receive the nominal value of their shares. Instead'of stating dividends as a certain per cent of par, it is easier and more accurate to report them as so many dollars or cents per share. We have grown so accustomed to the enormous volume of transactions in stocks on the exchanges, particularly the New York Stock Exchange, that we are apt to take the existence of this great mass of securities for granted, 76 without inquiring how it originated. It represents a large part of the capital invested in the country's business enterprises. But it would be incorrect to imagine that outstanding shares have always been sold by corporations to investors, through bankers and brokers, in order to raise cash funds to carry on business or build plants. On the contrary, a great proportion of these shares represent comparatively little, if any, transfer of actual cash. They were issued in enormous volume during the era of great industrial combinations, the time of the formation of the so-called "trusts," in exchange for the shares of smaller companies that were taken into the big combines. They are still being issued as a means of industrial consolidations. They are sometimes issued to the owners of outstanding shares as a virtual gift. When a corporation finds its earnings are growing very rapidly, threatening to make the dividend rate on its stock unusually large, it may distribute new shares to stockholders gratis, on which in future it expects to pay dividends. If the stockholder chooses, he may sell the shares thus acquired, in which case the cash obtained becomes practically a cash dividend. While a great mass of industrial stocks (for what has just been said does not apply to the recent history of the railroads) has its origin in these sources, it is true that shares are sometimes sold by corporations for cash. This is more often true of preferred stock than of common. But in times of great prosperity, as during the war, numerous companies find it possible to place new common stock by offering it to their shareholders in proportion to the number of shares already held. In such 'cases, the price of the new stock is usually considerably below the market price of the old. L The privilege of subscribing in this way is generally put in the form of "rights," which are merely certificates issued by the corporation to its shareholders, stating that each has the right to subscribe to a certain number of new shares at the price fixed, on or before a certain date. Since, as we have seen, the price of the new shares is usually below that of the outstanding stock, these rights often have a considerable cash value. For successful investment in stocks, the prospective buyer requires a large degree of alertness, familiarity with existing business conditions, and skill in interpreting them. In some respects, his method of judgment will be similar to that employed in selecting bonds. In others, which have been briefly indicated, he will need to employ different standards.
77 First Mortgages on Improved Farms Yielding 6> % and T %2 In denominations of $200 to $10,000. Man y years' experience in placing millions of dollars without loss should inspire confidence. We never lend more than 40% of appraised value. Write for particulars. TH ETITLE GUARANTY &TRUST CO. FIRST BRIDGEPORT NATIONAL BANK BLDG. BRIDGEPORT, CONN. NORTHERN OFFICE OF THE GEORGIA LOAN & TRUST CO MACON. GEORGIA PETTERS FARM , MORTGAGE I NVf STMENTS PER MA fj'ENT:. A NO PRO PJ BCe.:/?.rf' EMPLO.YMENT• 6F:'I;,UNp5 ' Simplifying Investment Notwithstanding its seeming complexity, the science of safe investing can be reduced to three basic principles. These principles are outlined in a booklet entitled " The Science of Safe and Profitable Investing," which also describes the 6% farm mortgage investments we are offering. Every investor should read this booklet, sent on request with list of current offerings. PETTERJANDCOMPAN v'i StHVlNG INVESTORS SATISFACTORILY M AN v YFAgS CAPITAL. OVE R $ 40.0 O O O M C KNIGHT BLDG MINNEAPOLIS. M 1 NNJ STUMBLING BLOCKS FINANCE Read this booklet. It plainly discusses the common evils of finance, viz: Fraud, Manipulation, Worthless Tips and Inflation. When investors post themselves on theje financial pitfalls they are // you invest or speculate, in a stronger and safer send for this 36-pafle Booklet of Financial Wisdom position to invest their OXe money conservatively and HNANCIAL\\0?LD profitably. Sent free on request for 29 Broadway Booklet W-29NEW YORK, N Y. till Six Per Cent Investments Secured by First Mortgages on Productive Farms Every farm mortgage negotiated by the Denton-Coleman Loan &Title Company of Butler, Mo., is secured by a first lien on a Missouri or Arkansas farm, under cultivation, producing income ample to meet mortgage payments. As Denton-Coleman representatives we sell these mortgages to savings banks. This fact should recommend them to the private investor. Write for booklet and list of offerings. FRAN K C. WILLIAMS, Inc. NEWPORT --- VERMONT Investing Scientifically in Farm Mortgages The Investor's Final Consideration Farm mortgages are short-term investments. Usually they mature in five, seven or ten years. Upon maturity the mortgage investor must arrange for the prompt collection of his principal. Funds released should be reinvested without delay to prevent loss of income. We relieve our clients of the collection of maturing investments. They are usually so well satisfied with our entire service that they reinvest in our Iowa and Missouri Farm Mortgages Write for booklet and current offerings PHOENIX TRUST COMPANY OTTUMWA IOWA When Dollars Won't Buy Much Invest them where they are safe, earn good interest and come back to you when their purchasing power will be greater. No investor has ever lost a dollar invested thru us on First Mortgage Farm Loans Write for Particulars THE IRRIGATED PARMSMORTGAGECO. J. V. N. DORR, n ., rAI A JOSEPH D.HlTCHcu ED President UcNVtR.WLO. Manager Selected Investment Securities W e Offer IOWA FIRST FARM Mortgage Bonds Over 200% Secured Denominations $1000-$500-$100-$50 10 year bonds net 5%. 20 year bonds net 5}4%. Loans are made on Iowa farm lands, the value of which is more than twice the loan. These mortgages are put in trust with an additional 10% of securities and bonds issued of convenient denominations. For each $110,000 of security $100,000 in bonds are issued. Circular V-l l will explain. Partial Payments when desired. Bankers Mortgage Co. Cubital $2,000,000 CHICAGO - DES MOINES - NEW YORK 112 W. Adams St. 521 W. Walnut St. 512 Fifth Avenue Compounds You can invest $50 or any larger amount in Guaranteed First Mortgage Participations and have the interest either remitted or compounded semi-annually at 4%, 4V2% and 5%. Even $100's invested for five year periods will earn 5J^% semi-annually. Write for descriptive booklet Mortgage Trust Company an°dapdrney flUM Missouri 78 INVESTMENT LITERATURE Many instructive booklets, circulars and periodicals on investment and kindred subjects are published by financial institutions. Following is a list of literature now available. To obtain any of the booklets mentioned below, write to the issuing house, mentioning the Investor's Service Bureau of SCRIBNER' S MAGAZINE. CURRENT INVESTMENT OFFERINGS Bonds and Corporation Stocks for October Investment: Frederic H. Hatch Co., 74 Broadway, New York. City of Copenhagen (Denmark) $%% Bonds. Descriptive Circular with Map: Brown Brothers & Co., 50 Wail St., N. Y. C. Empire Gas and Fuel Company 6% Notes and 8% Preferred Stock: Henry L. Doherty & Co., 60 Wall Street, New York. Current Investment List: S.W. Straus & Co., 150 Broadway, New York, or Straus Building, Chicago. Halsey. Stuart Investment Offerings: Halsey, Stuart &* Co., 209 S. La Salle St., Chicago. Internal War Loans of Belligerent Countries: National City Company, New York. Investment Recommendations: Guaranty Trust Company. 140 Broadway, New York. Investment Securities: Continental and Commercial Trust and Savings Bank, Chicago, III. Investment Suggestions: A. B. Leach &• Co., 62 Cedar St., New York. Investments Yielding from 5%% to 7J4%: Peabody, Houghteling fir Co., Chicago. Robertson Paper Co. 8% Preferred Stock: Earnest E. Smith 6* Co., 52 Devonshire Street, Boston. Mass. October Bond List: Homblower & Weeks, New York, Boston, Chicago. A Study of the Shaffer Oil and Refining Co., H. M. Byllesby rjf Co., New York, Chicago. Pacific Gas & Electric Co., First Preferred 6% Cumulative Stock: Blyth, Witter & Co., San Francisco, Col. FARM MORTGAGE INVESTMENTS Alberta Farm Mortgages: Associated Mortgage Investors, Rochester, N. Y. Colorado Farm Mortgages: Western Securities Investment Co., Denver, Colo. Farm Land Bonds. ) Wells-Dickey Company,Farm Mortgage Investments. ) Minneapolis, Minn. Farm Loans and I. F. M. Co. Service: The Irrigated Farms Mortgage Co., Denver, Col. How Forman Farm Mortgages Are Made: Geo. M. Forman &* Co., Chicago, III. Illustrated Farm Mortgage Investments: New England Securities Co., Kansas City, Mo. Investing: Texas Mortgage Company, Dallas, Texas. Investing Scientifically in Farm Mortgages: Phanix Trust Company, Ottumwa, Iowa. Investments in First Grade Farm Mortgages: Denton-Coleman Loan 6* Title Co., Butler, Mo. Investograph: Gold-Stabeck Company, Minneapolis, Minn. Iowa Investments: Bankers Mortgage Company, Des Moines. Iowa. Mortgages on Money-Making Farms: Capital Trust cV Savings Bank, St. Paul, Minn. Mortgages Payable in Gold: The Title Guaranty and Tru.t Co., Bridgeport, Conn. Peace Investments: Investors Mortgage Co., New Orleans, La. The Great Wheat Way: The Farm Mortgage Trust Co., To-Peka, Kans. The Science of Safe and Profitable Investing: Petlers and Company. Minneapolis. Minn. "We're Right on the Ground," and descriptive offerings of investments: E. J. Lander fir Co., Grand Forks, N. D. PARTIAL PAYMENT PLAN Acquiring Doherty Securities by Monthly Payments: Henry L. Doherty fir Co., 60 Wall Street, New York. A Safe Way to Save: Bankers Mortgage Company, Des Moines. Iowa. Forman Farm Mortgages and the Forman Monthly Payment Plan: George M. Forman er Co., Chicago, III. Partial Payments for Investment Securities: Hcrrick cr Bennett, 66 Broadway, New York. 6% On Your Money While Saving: Lackner, Butz fir Co., Conway Bldg., Chicago. INVESTMENT COUNSEL Readers of SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE may consult our Financial Department for information regarding their investments. We do not prophesy the future of the speculative market or make decisions for our readers, but we do furnish relevant information to assist investors. Inquiries should be addressed to the Investor's Service Bureau, SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE, 597 Fifth Avenue, New York. REAL ESTATE INVESTMENTS A Buyer's Guide to Good Investment: Federal Bond £r Mortgage Co., go S. Griswold Street, Detroit, Mich. Banking Credentials: G. L. Miller fir Co., Hurt Bldg., Atlanta. Ga. Chicago 6% First Mortgage Real Estate Bonds: Lackner, Butz fir Company, Conway Building, Chicago, III. Miller Service, How It Insures. Protects and Safeguards the Bond Buyers' Investment Interests: G. L. Miller fir Co., Atlanta, Ga. Questionnaire for Investors, Fourth Edition: S. W. Straus fir Co., 150 Broadway, New York, or Straus Building, Chicago. Safeguarding the Safest Investment: Swartzell, Rheem fir Hensey Co., Washington, D. C. The Key to Safe Investment: Federal Bond fir Mortgage Co., go S. Griswold Street, Detroit, Mick. INVESTMENT BOOKLETS Basic Principles of Bond Investment: Herrick fir Bennett, 66 Broadway, New York. Bonds—Questions Answered; Terms Defined: Halsey. Stuart fir Co., 209 S. La Salle St., Chicago, III. Getting the Most Out of Your Money: Babson's Statistical Organization, Wcllesley Hills, Mass. Is Interest Return an Index of Safety? A. H. Bickmore fir Co., in Broadway, New York. Liberty Bond and Victory Note Values: Bankers Trust Co., 16 Wall St., New York. Poor's Investment Service: Poor's Publishing Co., 33 Broadway, New York. What Finance Means: Breed, Elliott fir Harrison, 105 S. La Salle Street, Chicago, III., Cincinnati, hulianapolis. Stumbling Blocks of Finance: Financial World, 29 Broadway, New York. MUNICIPAL BONDS Bonds as Safe as Our Cities: Wm. R. Complon Co., St. Louis, Mo. Bonds That Always Pay: Kauffman-Smilh-Emert Investment Co., St. Louis, Mo. How to Invest Without Loss: Stern Brothers fir Co., Kansas City, Mo. Investing in Municipal Bonds: Stacy fir Braun, Toledo, Ohio. Market Chart of Municipal Bonds: Wells-Dickey Company, Minneapolis, Minn. The South and Southern Municipal Bonds: Stacy fir Braun, Toledo, Ohio. BANKING AND FINANCE Our Public Debt: Bankers Trust Co., 16 Wall St., New York. Problems of Peace: The National Shawmut Bank of Boston, 40 Water Street, Boston, Mass. Report on Conditions and Progress of South Africa: The National Bank of South Africa, Ltd., New York Office, 10 Wall Street, New York. PERIODICALS AND MARKET LETTERS Bond Topics: A.H. Bickmore fir Co., 111 Broadway, New York-Industries of New England: Earnest E. Smith fir Co., 52 Devonshire St., Boston, Mass. FOREIGN TRADE LITERATURE Banking Service for Foreign Trade: Guaranty Trust Co., 140 Broadway, New York. Cuba and the Cuba Railroad: National City Company, 55 Wall St., New York. The Webb Law: The National Shawmut Bank of Boston, Boston, Mass. 79
OVERSEAS TRADE (Continued from page 646) Sixty per cent of the productive area of the soil is arable. About twelve million acres in the old kingdom has been devoted to the raising of cereals, notably wheat and corn, or maize, as the Roumanians call it. Large quantities of rye, oats, barley, sugar beets, tobacco, and wine have also been produced, besides vegetables and fruits. Roumania has great quantities of petroleum, of rock salt, of mineral water, and of natural gas, besides some iron, coal, and copper. The old kingdom produces large quantities of potatoes and other vegetables. In the west and north are to be found extensive orchards of plums and walnuts. Bessarabia is also an agricultural country, and a great part of the wine drunk in the former Russian Empire came from there. Roumania, furthermore, possesses extensive forests of firs on the slopes of the Carpathians, also oak, beech, and other woods. Her mineral resources consist in: petroleum; pure rock salt in practically unlimited quantities; lignite, of which there are extensive deposits, as yet unexploited; copper and iron to be found in the west and in the Dobrogea. Roumania is not a manufacturing nation. She needs a multitude of commodities made in the workshops and factories of the West. Her people, from time immemorial having been almost exclusively tillers of the soil, they are not now, and may not be for years to come, able to produce the machine-made things they need. They must purchase abroad the manufactured commodities necessary to their national life, and for these they must pay with the export of their raw materials. They need machinery, railway equipment, tools, clothing, fabrics, particularly boots and shoes. American goods are very popular in Roumania. The writer saw in Bucharest American 3Q (Continued on shoes for which the inhabitants of the Roumanian capital were paying as high as sixty dollars per pair. They also bought American stockings at twelve to fifteen dollars a pair. Roumanian credit has always been good—secured as it has been by her great natural riches. There had been practically no borrowing abroad up to the time of the Balkan Wars, the national debt being held largely by the Roumanian people themselves. Before the Great War, German capital and German enterprise dominated Roumania. German banks, factories, and merchants were within a few hours' railroad distance, and German drummers had the bulk of Roumania's business. Roumania has made brave efforts to correct the inequalities and iniquities of the mediaeval land-holding system, under which she, like the other eastern European countries, has suffered. This year marks the end of the old regime. All the lands of the crown and the big magnates have now been expropriated and are being distributed to the peasants. The Roumanian government is also striving to restore and develop the oil properties. When the writer left Bucharest, in the middle of July, the production of petroleum in Roumania had risen to 70 per cent of the normal. The restoration to normal of her means of transportation and communication on such a scale as will permit expansion to meet future needs—this is one of Roumania's most pressing problems to day. As a result of the war virtually all these means of communication—railways, telegraph, and telephone lines, traffic roads, shipping, and even the ports themselves —are badly crippled; in fact, rendered almost useless. Before the war Roumania had a total railway mileage of slightly page 82)
The Essential Factor in Modern Business Credit, the reputation of ability to meet obligations, is a fundamental of all business. A bank may be said to manufacture credit. It supplies the means and information necessary to the exchange of goods. Naturally, the resources and facilities of a bank determine its extension of credit and the value of its credit ratings. Further, the reputation of a bank insures in a measure the reputation of its customers. For eighty-three years, the National Shawmut Bank of Boston has been serving American business men in this capacity. Its credit standards are known and appreciated, at home and abroad. Its extensive and important connections throughout the world enable it to offer assistance of direct, practical value in many different lines of business. The Credit Department of this bank is organized to supply every need of responsible credit and credit information. Correspondence is invited. THE NATIONAL SHAWMUT BANK of Boston Resources over $200,000,000 81 The New Balkans: Their Resources and Needs
(Continued from page Ho) over 2,400 miles, practically all state owned. The Roumanian railways are now in immediate need of almost everything in the way of rolling stock and other equipment, as well as basic materials for construction and repair. Such locomotives as remain to them are not of sufficiently high power for the tasks facing them. Freight cannot be moved; passenger traffic is delayed'so that six-hour trips take fifteen and twenty hours. Of approximately i,roo locomotives the Germans left only about 200, and were preparing to take these off, also, when the armistice of November, 1918, hastened the departure of the invaders. Not only did Roumania lose these entire machines, which the Germans took away, but, owing to the lack of material for repairs, a number of locomotives, running up into the hundreds could be noticed (in June, 1919) resting idly on the tracks in Moldavia because parts and material had been taken from them to repair others. Locomotives were promised Roumania from France. Twenty or thirty, mostly of American make, had reached the country by July 1. Some had been obtained from Austro-Hungarian roads, but these were not in good condition. To provide for her new economic life adequately Roumania needs at least 2,500 locomotives and a proportionate number of cars. The sea-borne commerce of Roumania passes through the three ports of Braila, Galatz, and Constanza—the first two on the lower reaches of the Danube and the third on the Black Sea. All the exportation of grain, petroleum, and wood, and the importation of such manufactured articles as the Roumanian people need is effected through these three ports. They are all provided with warehouses and silos or grain elevators of modern construction, while Constanza, in addition, has reservoirs for petroleum. At present, Braila is Roumania's port of exportation; Galatz her port of importation; Constanza sharing equally in both, but possessing the particular advantage of being open to navigation all the year (Continued on page 84)
CITY OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA 4/2% STREET and PARK ROAD BONDS Due September 1, 1929 These bonds are free from all Federal Income Taxes, thereby often producing a larger actual yield, to investors who are subject to a burdensome income tax, than taxable bonds bearing a higher interest rate. They are the obligations of one of the largest cities in the South. Richmond, with an estimated present population of over 150,000 with its six railroad trunk lines and its excellent water facilities, in the 137 years of its corporate existence has never defaulted in any of its obligations, not even during the Civil War and the Reconstruction era. Price 99Mand interest, yielding about 4.60% ALEX. BROWN & SONS Oldest Banking House in the United States BALTIMORE MARYLAND iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii The National Bank of South Africa, Limited Bankers to the Union Government in the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, and Natal, and to the Imperial Government Paid-up Capital and Reserves Exceed $20,000,000 Resources Exceed . . . $280,000,000 Head Office: PRETORIA GENERAL MANAGER: E. C. REYNOLD S London Offices: Circus Place, London Wall, E.C., 18 St. Swithin's Lane, E.C. MANACER: D. CUNNINGHAM London Bankers: BANK OF NEW ENGLAND, LONDON JOINT CITY & MIDLAND BANK, LTD. The National Bank of South Africa's Travellers letters of credit are available all over the World Over 400 Branches in South Africa MAP SHOWING I. CATION OK PRINCIPAL BRANCHES Banking Business of Every Description is Transacted at All Branches Bills on all points negotiated and collected. Letters of Credit and Drafts issued and Commercial Credits established on all Branches and Agencies of the Bank in Africa and abroad New York Office, 10 Wall Street, New York City, U. S. A. R. E. SAUNDERS. Agent Offers to American and Canadian banks its superior facilities for the extension of trade and commerce between United States of America, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania 83 84 The New Balkans: Their Resources and Needs
(Continued from page 82) round. In the winter months Braila and Galatz are closed, owing to the freezing-over of the Danube. At all three ports there are extensive dock, warehouse, and other port facilities, in general, much damaged during the war, but in all cases capable of considerable extension and improvement. The ports in normal times are connected with the capital, Bucharest, by railroad lines. This connection, however, broke down entirely during the war and is now more than inadequate, in fact, almost useless. The railroad line between Bucharest and Constanza (in the opinion of the Roumanians as well as foreigners) has never been adequate to the task assigned to Con-stanza by the constructors of that port and the ambitions of the Roumanian government. DU E west of Roumania is the new nation of the Jugoslavs. The word Jugo means south. The Jugoslavs, then, are the Southern Slavs. The name is used to include the Serbs of the former mm Come to HAWAII Pacific ParadiselJI —land of perpetual June. Drowse on Waikiki's sun-bathed coral beach. Splash in a placid sea, luxuriously warm. Would you know the thrill of gazing into the fiery heart of Kilauea, the LIVING VOLCANO i Then come to Hawaii. Visit the MID-PACIFIC CARNIVAL in which peoples of Orient and Occident unite at Honolulu in mid-February. Regular steamer service from San Francisco. Good motor roads. Palatial hotels. Attractive bungalows. For rates ask nearest railway agent. For descriptive booklets and further information write Hawaii Tourist Bureau branch office, 397 Monadnock Building, San Francisco, or kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, the former Austro-Hungarian territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina, portions of Southern Hungary j^ 6 ^ and Northern Dalmatia, the Jugoslavs Croats of Croatia and Slavonia, and the Slovenes of part of Carinthia, Styria, Carniola, Istria, and Gradiska. There are nearly thirteen million Jugoslavs in the world. The new state of Jugoslavia is a union of all these—in the form of a constitutional monarchy, if the Serbs have their way, but a republic if the Croats succeed in realizing their ambition. Geography has made the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes the direct link between the East and the West; that is to say, between Western, Central, and Southern Europe, on the one hand and the Balkans, the Adriatic Sea, and Asia Minor on the other. Their lands have, for centuries, been the arena of great political rivalries and ferocious racial conflicts. Ever since the dual monarchy, Austria-Hungary, began its existence, the subjection, at least, (Continued on page 86)
COMMERCIAL UNION OF AMERICA, Inc. Cable Address All Cable Comunerica, New York Codes INTERNATIONAL MERCHANTS MANUFACTURERS' REPRESENTATIVES Branches: Piraeus, Salonica, Constantinople, Smyrna and Alexandria. Sub-Branches and Agencies in all important commercial centers in the Balkan countries and the Levant. Agents and Representatives in all parts of the world. HAWAIII TOURIST BUREAU25 BEAVER STREET, NEW YORK 11 Honolulu U Thirty Years in Export Banking 23 Branches in South America 8 Offices in Spain, France and England A N intimate knowledge of the people, their habits, social and economic customs is of essential importance when transacting business abroad. Such knowledge can be gained only by years of experience and actual residence in foreign countries, and a constant study of the needs and daily habits of the people. Many of our offices in foreign countries have been established more than thirty years. ^WENTY-THREE of our own branches in Latin America, eight offices in Europe and direct connections throughout the world enable us to furnish accurate trade and credit information on foreign markets. The facilities of this institution are at your disposal through the medium of your own bank, if you so desire. Anglo South American Bank Ltd. New York Agency, 49 Broadway Head Office F. C . HARDING , Agent Capital and Reserve London W . M . DAWKIN , Sub-Agent Over $32,000,000 85
The New Balk?.is: Their Resources and Needs (Continued from page 84) if not the destruction, of the Jugoslav race, in the person of the Serb, has been the policy of the Hapsburgs. This is the key to Balkan history. This policy brought on the Great War itself. Both Croatia and the Slovene lands are rich in agricultural and mineral possibilities. No industry was prosperous among them, however, because the governing policy of the administration at Vienna was selfish and short-sighted. Tariff, taxation, railroad regulations, and practically every other commercial procedure were so formulated and administered as to discriminate against these Slavonic citizens of the empire-kingdom, in favor of the German and Magyar-speaking minorities. The Croats and Slovenes, like their Serb brethren, are an industrious, law-abiding folk. They are farmers and sheep, cattle and horse raisers, dairymen, metal workers, fishermen and traders. Coal, marble, copper, sulphur, iron and lead are found in their mountains. The co-operative movement is highly developed among them. They are, generally speaking, hospitable, sociable, musical, and given to writing and appreciating lyric poetry. Educationally they stand high. There is a Jugoslav Academy in Zagreb (Agram) for both Slovenes and Croats, which is famous, and there are countless art and literary societies. They are patient, industrious, sober, patriotic, long-suffering. They are eager for work and trade. They need manufactured articles, tools, and factories. They are holding out their hands for American commerce. TH E Bulgar bet on the wrong horse in the war. He will have to pay the price of his mistake. As these words are being written the Conference at Paris is presenting to him the terms upon which he will be permitted to re-enter the family of nations. Bulgaria is a land of mountain peasants, who till the soil and, generally speaking, ignore the rest of Bulgaria.e] c i More than 80 per th wor xUndevel-, ,, . cenopedt °' them are farmers. They are still in a rather crude state of agricultural development. The Bulgar is naturally conservative. Moreover, he has, after centuries of oppression, no very great desire to possess expensive tools for the Turk—or any one else—to take from him. So his apparatus has been primitive. He grows wheat, maize, rye, oats, barley, and millet, and pastures cattle for food. He also cultivates tobacco—of a good quality— and makes a fair income from attar of roses. Wine, silk, and cotton he also produces in respectable and increasing amounts—even for export. He has suffered very little from the present war. Up to the last few weeks before his armies collapsed, he had but few losses in men or material. Bulgaria depends on the Black Sea for a large part of her commerce. Varna and Burgas, her chief ports, are connected with the Turkish capital by steamship lines. Bulgaria has comparatively little capital and, therefore, much of her natural wealth is as yet undeveloped and her industries crude. Her textiles have mostly gone to Turkey. Her homespuns and embroidery—everything she makes of wool—are regarded highly. Well-read Bulgarians profess great admiration for the United States and the American people. Every one of these little new nations, despite the underhand, tortuous diplomacy of the old systems from which they are still suffering, looks to the great republic of the New World for credits by which to rehabilitate their economic life, to develop their resources, to satisfy the needs of their peoples. The agents of other nations are already at work, pushing the claims of western Europe to clothe these peoples and supply their other material needs. But America has the "inside track" in the Balkans. America was the friend of these peoples when they had nothing to give. When their needs cry for satisfaction, and their natural resources blossom, who shall say them nay, if they turn from the cynical selfishness of their traditional enemies—be they wealthy and skilful beyond compare—to the sons of the new world whose belief in the common folk of all lands made the self-determination of little peoples a fact?