About Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 30, 1917)
4 THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL / ATLANTA. GA, 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST. \ • .Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail Matter of the Second Class. JAMES R- GRAT, President and Editor. • SUBSCRIPTION PRICE. Twelve months 75c Six months Three Months 2 ® c • The Semi-Weekly Journal is published on Tues- day and Friday, and is mailed by U»e shortest routes for early delivery. It contains news from all over the world, brought by special leased wires into our office. It has a staff of distinguished contributors, with strong depart ments of special value to the home and the farm. Agents waited at every postoffice. Liberal com mission allowed. Outfit free. Write R. R- BRAD LEY. Circulation Manager. The only traveling representatives we have are B. F. Bolton. C. C. Coyle. L H. Kimbrough. Chas. H. Wood lift and L. J. Farris. We will be responsible only for money paid to the above-named traveling representatives. ' NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS. The label used for addresem; your paper shows the time you subscriptioß expires. By renewing at V-ust two weeks be fore the date on this label, yo.i insure regilar service. In ord rlEg paper changed, be sure to mention your old, as well as your new address If an a route, please give the route number. We ennnot enter subscriptions to begin with back numbers. Remittance should be sent by postal order or registered mail. - Adt're.-s all orders ami notices for this Department to THE SEMI-WBBKI.Y JOURNAL, Atlanta, Ga. A Remarkable Parallel To President Wilson's Proposals, It has happened not infrequently that a great discovery of science has been made independently and almost simultaneously by observers in lands far apart. Some such unconscious collaboration of watchful minds seems to mark the emergence of world-moving ideas. Certainly, the ideas which President Wilson put forth in his address to the Senate were astir in the deeper ttfought of Europe as.of America before he gave them responsible ut terance; and he divined as much, for be confidently ventured the belief that he was speaking “for lib erals and friends of humanity in every nation." Curiously interesting evidence of just how true this is appears from an article by Mr. H. G. Wells, in the current number of the Saturday Evening Post, on "The Ending of the War.” Os all British writers who have discussed the war, none has shown keener penetration or broader patriotism than Mr. Wells; at times he has written with a truly prophetic gift, and always with a manifest desire to interpret his country's best aspirations. He is not a “pacifist.” He is anything but a sen -1 timentalist. He has a frankly British hate for Prussian militarism. And he thinks the Allies “have a winning game before them," though he indulges no such fancy as Lord Curzon’s “pleas ant image of the Bombay Lancers riding down the Enter Den Linden." But Mr. Wells, while Brit ish to the heart's core, has the intellectual and moral capacity to think of this world tragedy in 5 other than purely partisan terms, to think of it • and of the aftermath in terms of human, not merely national, experience. And thinking thus, he has arrived at certain conclusions which are al most identical with those set’ forth in President Wilson’s address to the Senate. r To appreciate this remarkable coincidence of ideas, and its roallv profound significance, one should note that Mr. Wells’ article, though pub lished last week, evidently was written as far back as the middle of last December.* if not earlier. Cer tainly, it was written long before there was the faintest foreshadowing of the purpose that was maturing in the President’s mind. Furthermore, Mr. Wells' article represents not simply a theory of his own evolving but’ a consensus of thoughtful and influential opinion. "Quietly perhaps. and unobtrusively, everyone 1 know,” he says, "is now trying to .find the way out of the war; and 1 am con vinced that the same is the case in Germany. But we ask, how are we to get out—with any credit —in such away as to prevent a subse quent collapse into another war as frightful? Can America come into this dispute at the * end to insist upon something better than a new diplomatic patchwork?* Is there above the claims and passions of Germany, France, Britain and the rest of them, a conceivable right thing to do for all mankind? I have been joining up one thing to another, sugges tions I have heard from th’is man and that; and I believe that it is possible to state a so lution that will be acceptable to the bulk of reasonable men all over the world.” » And what is that solution? It is essentially the same as President Wilson's proposals. While it accentuates some points on which the President touched but lightly and introduces some elements • on which he was altogether silent, the peace plan presented by Mr. Wells accords substantially with that suggested by the. President. It accords not only in respect to such ultimate matters as a con- • cert of Powers and the moderation of armaments, the freedom of the seas*the rights of small States and of every people, but also in respect to the more Immediate question of the basis on which the war should be ended and settled. President Wil son spoke of “a peace without, victory”—a phrase that has aroused much criticism. But Mr. Wells speaks to the same effect just as boldly. "We need not triumphs out of this war,” he declares, “but the peace of the world.” Further, “The idea that the settlement of this war must be what one might call an unimpas sioned settlement, or, if you will, a scientific settlement, or a judicial and not a treaty set tlement—a settlement, that is. based upon the conception of what is right and necessary, rather than upon the relative success or fail ure of either set of belligerents to make its will the standard of -decision —is one that, in a great variety of forms and partial develop ments. 1 find gaining ground in the most dif ferent circles.” This is very interestingly in accord with the President’s idea that a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished' "accepted in humiliation, under duress and at intolerable sacrifice" would not and could not mean a permanent settlement, but one that would rest “as upon quicksand." Mr. Wells aptly speaks of the war as having been started as a German adventure, as Hohenzollern ambition to dominate the world. That adventure is a manifest failure. It was defeated more than two years ago at' the Marne. It was defeated again at Verdun. It was defeated the moment the Al lies established their mastery of the seas. In the broader sense, therefore, whatever peace settle- THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., JANUARY 1917. ment may be made and whenever it may be reach ed, it will represent a peace of victory over Prus sian Militarism. But that is quite different from a |>eace of subjugation and pitiless revenge. Americas’s counsel will be needed for a satis factory ending of the War, thinks Mr. Wells, be cause a settlement worked out by the belligerents alone would be "altogether different in effect as well as in spirit from a world settlement, made pri marily to establish a new phase in the history of mankind." "In every country at present at war,” he adds, "the desire of the majority of the peo ple is for a uon-contentious solution that will neither crystallize a triumph, nor propitiate an enemy, but which will embody the eco nomic and ethnologic and geographic sense of the matter.” That is precisely the principle which President Wilson enunciated. He stated the economic and geographic sense of the matter when he said that ,as far as practicable every great people should be assured a direct outlet to the great highways of the seas, and that where this could not be effect ed by a cession of territory, it could be done no doubt by the neutralization of direct rights of way, under a general guarantee of a concert of Powers. He stated the ethnologic sense of the matter when he said, in referring ter a united and autonomous Poland, that "no right anywhere exists to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property” and when he added still more forcefully that, “Henceforth inviolable security of life, of worship and of industrial and social develop ment should be guaranteed to all peoples who have lived hitherto under the power of Gov ernments devoted to a faith and purpose hos- - tile to their own.” At the outset of its mission of reconstruction the United States would be at a disadvantage, thinks Mr. Wells. “Nowhere in Europe,” he can didly points out, “do people now seem to be in love with the United States.” There is a strong dispo sition, he says, to regard America as “fundamen tally indifferent to the rights and wrongs of the European struggle—sentimentally interested per haps, but fundamentally indifferent." Naturally, then, the first offers and efforts of the United States tb bring disinterested counsel and friend ship into the tragic maze of the Old World’s af fairs will be met with a certain cynicism if not resentment- But the important question, as Mr. Wells declares, is not “whether the belligerents dislike Americans, or Americans dislike the bel ligrents;” the important question is “the duty of a great and fortunate nation toward the rest of the world and the future of mankind.” Wherefore, he says: “I cling also to the persuasion that there - are Intellectual forces among the rational elements in the belligerent centers, among the other neutrals and in America, that will co-operate in enabling the United States to play the role of the Unimpassioned Third Party, which becomes more and more neces sary to a generally satisfactory ending of the war." This is not the persuasion of only one man but of millions. Beneath the dreams of diplo matists and the ambitions of kings, beneath the rage and bitterness and rancor which the war's red caldron brews, are the longing of millions in every land who feel, vaguely perhaps but deeply, that there is an upward way out of this ghastly struggle, away that will lead to justice for all nations and freedom for all peoples. It is the heart and hope of those sflent millions that Presi dent Wilson has spoken out to the world. The peace dove Is becoming more and more restive in it's cage. Why the continued high cost of living? Have the boycotts gone to sleep? The Land Show and Its Opportunities. A peculiarly interesting and admirable feature of the Southeastern Land Show, to be held in At lanta February 1-15 under the auspices of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, will be the award ing of a number of free farms. The plan in no wise resembles a lottery; indeed, it involves no ele ment of chance whatsoever. It is a thoroughly businesslike piece of enterprise designed to bring Into this region, Us permanent settlers, between and a hundred experienced live-stock farmers whose methods will be an object lesson and whose success will be an incentive to the commuitities in which they make their new homes. The farm sites are donated by exhibitors at the Land Show and will be given .away on these terms: each applicant must be experienced in animal hus bandry and must reside at present outside the States comprised in the Land Show —Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina; he must at tend the Show and secure an official application blank to be filled out with a list of references and other pertinent information; he must promise to invest in buildings, general improvements .and live stock an amount equal to the appraised value of the land given him. The application? thus re ceived will be passed upon by a competent com mittee which will allot the farms at its disposal “to the applicants making the best showing in the investigation.” It is announced, furthermore, that if the number of desirable applications exceeds the number of farms to be given away, the committee will endeavor to obtain for this purpose additional farms from land owners and communities. Per sons who receive the farm sitds shall live thereon for a period of five years, operating them as live stock farms for either hogs or cattle; and at the end of that period, the conditions having been duly met, each applicant will receive a deed in fee simple. . As a means of stimulating interest interest in the resources for raising live stock in the Southeast and of developing those resources in districts where they now are neglected, this project should yield substantial results. In every respect, the approach-, ing exposition promises to be one of the most pro ductive enterprises of the kind ever undertaken in the United States. It Is the first Ijand Show to bfe held in the South, and as such will attract from other sections hundreds of visitors hundreds of visitors, many of whom no doubt will become in vestors, if not settlers, in the Southeast. The world's kings will have to form a syndi cate of republics. It will be noticed that in the end people of all kinds of beliefs and political tendencies endorse what Woodrow Wilson says. Universal Military Service By Dr. Frank Crane 1 am a pacifist of the pacifists, extreme, radical, uncompromising, and altogether such an one, A suppose, as me uoyic me-eaung patriots would can a pussyloot auu moHycouuie. For 1 con ceive war to De a mucous auacnrouism, am outbreak 01 meuiaevaiism iu uu age ui reaouu, a gigantic illu sion, tue crime of -crimes, auu me sum 01 ail vil lauies. And yet 1 am in favor of compulsory military service for every person, maie auu female, for at least one year between the ages of eighteen auu twenty-four. Aud 1 will explain how 1 hold two opinions that apparently conflict. First, military service does not necessarily mean training to make war. One can serve his country in other ways thau by shooting his country’s ene mies. • 1 would like to see a great democratic army of the youth of the nation working, not killing some body, nor preparing so to do—working at building highways, conserving forests, improving waterways, investigating social problems, curing diseases, teaching the children, and doing the tnousand and one other things that can best be done by the au thority of, and under the organization of, the nation. We need patriotism, not the kind that wants to fight, but the kind that wants to serve. We lack group consciousness. We are too individual istic. It would not hurt any human being to give one year of his life to Uncle Sam, to labor one year for the common weal. Os course, to attain this the army would have to be de-Prussianized, get rid of the autocratic buncombe it has inherited from the monarchic sys tems of the Old World, and organize upon the basis of efficiency only, just as a railroM or .factory is organized. The foreman in a steel plant does not wear gold braid and clank -a sword, and the railway euperintendent maintains discipline without be ing a martinet, and there is no reason why a cap tain in the army cannot get 10 0 per cent obedience out of his men without treating them as helots. I believe in the nation and in national pride and enthusiasm. National feeling ought to be as wholesome as family feeling, and will be when the mad world recovers from it's war obsession. As I can love my own family without wanting to whip some other family, so my love for my country does not need to be fed upon hate for an other country. (Copyright, 1917, by Frank Crane.) The Searchlight Fighting Sleeping Sickness One of the little islands in the Gulf of Guinea, near the African coast, has been swept clear of sleeping sickness by modern methods. Sleeping sickness is carried by the tsetse fly, and the hundreds of men in the army of sanitation were turned into walking fly paper during the campaign. They wore canvas suits coated with a sticky substance similar to that used in commercial fly papers. Five years ago one man sometimes caught 500 flies a day. The squad of 300 caught 17,000 a month. For the last ntae months not a fly has been caught, and the sickness has disappeared from the island. A Big Problem Solved. Two years ago America faced a dye shortage that compelled many mills to shut down and threatened divers fields of industry with grave mis fortune. Conditions were peculiarly critical for manufacturers of woolen, silk and cotton goods, but not for them alone. The trouble extended to paints, paper, ink, soap, certain medicinal products, photographic supplies, upholstery, automobiles and hundreds of other lines of production and trade. It was conservatively reckoned at the time that at least two million people were directly affected by the dearth of dyestuffs, and ten times that num ber indirectly. Having depended on Germany for more than eighty per cent of their supply of such commodities, Americans were sorely perplexed and discomfited when the war shut off their German imports. Dyes constituted only one item in a long list of chemical products, including drugs, of which there was an embarrassing and sometimes distress ing shortage. With that state of affairs fresh in the public memory, it seems marvelous that today the United States is producing abundantly and efficiently most of the varieties of dyes and most of the chemicals it needs. In a little more than two years, native enterprise has developed to important proportions a field of industries which before were almost neg ligible, compared with those abroad. The New York Commercial truly observes that the best chemists and chemical engineers in the world are Americans, and it adds: “If we can produce potash cheaply enough the United States will be practically independ ent of foreign made chemicals peace is restored. Soda products and sulphuric -acid we . are now making on a scale that assures indus trial independence as far as these important in dustrial chemicals are concerned. A gas compa ny in Greater New York has erected the most efficient plant in existence for the recOverj’ of • ammonia as a by-product of gas making. The principal dyestuffs derived from coal tar are now made here equal in quality to the German products. For a time some of them were not fast, but that difficulty has been overcome and onr manufacturers are now putting on the market all the dyes and colors we need with the exception of a few special tints that never were largely used, such for instance as the peculiar blue used by the Government Printing Bureau in printing bank notes.” The United States always had the raw materials and it always had the scientific talent and skill needful for making dyestuffs and developing chem ical industries. But not until the European war threw us upon our own resources and initiative were our chemists given a fair chance to show what they could do; not until then, indeed, were they given a fair hearing by industry and capital. The results that have been accomplished in so brief a time are, therefore, not so astonishing after all, for they al ways lay within the chemist’s reach; it required only the confidence and aid of capital to put them squarely within his grasp. What chemical science has done for dyestuffs and other industries thus far is merely a prologue to what it can do and .will do in developing the country’s latent resources and opening new paths of opportunity. No region of the United States has more to expect in this connection than the South. Its agricultural resources, its mineral resources, its forests a«d streams and all the wide range of in dustries based on these offer unlimited realms for the chemist and chemical engineer. * Charles M. Schwab has written a book on how to succeed. Two methods occur to us. One is to open a munitions plant and the other to start a corner in eggs. BECOME MORE ALIVE—By H. Addington Bruce IFE —real human life —is more than a matter of working, playing, eating, and sleeping. L It is more tian a matter of biological adjustment and physiological functioning. It cannot be adequately described in terms of heart movements, lung movements, blood flow, and so forth. Neither can it be adequately described as a ceaseless process of physical transformation. Change, movement, activity, are indeed basic life elements. But this is true of nil kinds of life. Real human life has other fundamental character istics —which set it apart from, and stamp it as superior to, the life of the beasts, the birds, the fishes, the insects, the trees, the flowers, the waving grain. And not least amofig these other characteristics is ability to think, to imagine, to sympathize, and to develop self-energy for the attaining, of ends de termined by the thinking, the imagining, and the sympathizing. This means that human life differs from all lower kinds of life in being self-modifiable to an extraordinary degree. It means also that human beings are more really alive than others —that those are most alive who think most vigorously, imagine most vividly, sympathize most keenly. Reader, how does it stand with you? To degree are you really alive? Be honest in answering these questtons, for you will find it only unprofitable to attempt to fool your self. Many men and women, let me tell you, are RUCKER GAINS POPULARITY—By Ralph Smith ASHINGTON, Jan. 29. —No congressman of re cent years has gained, in so short a space of time, the prominence and popularity of Col. w Tinsley W. Rucker, the new member from the Eighth Georgia district, and that, gentle reader, accounts for the fact that he has received more attention than usual in these columns. Hifc progress in the path of fame merits attention. Colonel Rucker has made progress without apparent effort, and the pity is that his con gressional career is to be of such short' duration. The Colonel (the capital ”C” is used advisedly, for he is known as "The Colonel") is one of four distin guished members of the lower house of congres to be invited to participate in the midwinter entertainment of the National Press club. The entertainment will be held Wednesday evening, and the Colonel is down on the program to speak about whatever may appeal to him Talent for press club entertainments is picked carefully, and it is considered an honor to be invited to participate as a head-liner. A keen sense of humor, a de>ep sense of appreciation, a highly developed originality, the sharpest of intel lects, an entertaining gift of gab, a wealth of good stories and an attractive personality have contributed to Colonel Rucker’s prominence and popularity in the house. He is sought after by members who enjo\- good companionship and who appreciate something out of the ordinary in speech and observation about the hum drum doings of congress. It isn’t surprising that Colonel Rucker’s attractiftns were not slow to become noised in the press gallery and in the press ciu-b, and his selection for the mid winter entertainment followed as a matter of epurse. I• • • Senator Bankhead, of Alabama, expects that a large number of interested persons will attend the meeting of the Bankhead Highway association, that is to be held in Atlanta on the 10th of next month. He has re ceived many letters concerning the projected highway from Atlanta to Memphis, via Birmingham, and be lieves that the Atlanta meeting will give a new im petus to the movement “Local highway associations have been formed in nearly every community along.the proposed route from Atlanta to Memphis,” said Senator Bankhead today. "Most of them will send delegates «r> the Atlanta meet ing. at which plans for connecting up the various links of the highway will be considered.” The senator stated that the highway probably would be extended from Memphis to the Pacific coast, and from Atlanta to Washington, so that, when completed, it will torn a transcontinental, roadway. Within the Iron Ring: IV.—Housekeeping on Card System ERLTN, Nov. 22.—Housekeeping on the card system is one of the most remarkable pieces of social organization ever attempted. Consider the B magnitude of the task of putting a people of 69,000,000 upon rations, of issuing equal doles to rich/ poor, high and low from scanty stores, or controlling from a central office every ounce of a nation’s foodstuff pro duction and importation in all articles where supply is short, and, furthermore, of determining profits and prices! Housekeeping on the card system Is the most precise of all home management. One does not have to bother one’s head about the amounts of supplies necessary to purchase. One buys according to the coupons upon one’s allowance cards, just so mucn each week—and there is no way in the world to increase the share. One novel feature of the card system is that it forces equal division between the rich and poor. There is just enough of,many things when equally divided, and a little 'favoritism, a slight disturbance of the delicate balance determined by the cards would bring about starvation for the needy, would sap away Germany’s power for resistance. • / Native or stranger, one must have the necessary pasteboard documents today* in Germany to eat. Vis itors, and those who live in hotels and restaurants and cases, are burdened with a less formidable assortment of cards than needful ,to the maintenance of a private household. These receive bread cards and meat cards, a fresh bread card every day and a meat card four times a week. The coupons on these cards are torn off by the waiters before bread or meat is served. The body of the old card must be retumt-d each day in order to establish a right to a fresh card. There is no way to beat the system, to get an extra piece of bread or an extra slice of meat. Cards to the private household are generally issued weekly, some monthly, others every two months. Tnere are bread cards, upon which flour, also, is purchased; meat cards, butter cards, soap cards, sugar cards, egg cards, milk cards, po<tato cards, cards for the purchase of clothing, and other cards. At the present time the cards enable their holders to draw a sufficient ration, but there is not a surplus crumb that may be wasted. Living in the midst of this frugal German housekeeping, one is almost tempted to be’ieve that wF Americans waste enough day by day to feed this whole nation straining under the burdens of a world war. Card rations are modest. One is allowed about five and a. half pounds of bread a week, which is about five slices of, bread a day. These are two slices of bread, or two small war roles for breakfast, a slice of bread for luncheon, and two for dinner. This allowance is sufficient, and every mouthful of it is enjoyed. When you cross the border to Copenhagen and see heaped-up baskets of bread standing about unguarded on the tables, you become as nervous and fidgety at such prodigality as you would become in America if you found your favorite lunch joom serving champagne instead of ice water. Your meat allowance varies from a quarter of a pound to a pound and a half a week. The individual allowance of potatoes varies between five and eight pounds a week. Each individual draws between one and four eggs eyery fourteen days. The allowance of n.ilk is one-half litre per day, provided one has been successful in getting a milk card and provided that one reaches a milk depot before the Supply has been exhausted. The children have the first call on milk. One must possess a card to justify the purchase of clothing. In these times of stress, one is not supposed to follow fashion; and style has gone out of fashion. Neatness and simplicity characterize the dress of German women today, and the summer frocks and the winter costumes of years ago have been requisitioned to do service anew throughout the weary months of war. One of ti*e great services performed by the more dead than alive in point of thinking, imagin ing, and sympathizing. Their thinking is so thin it is little better than dreaming. They scarcely know what it means to use their imagination. Because of this they are deficient in power to sympathize. No one weak in imagination can be strong in sympathy. "“Such people are fearfully handicapped. They are doomed to an existence of lonely, self-centered, inefficient inferiority. They find it hard even to amuse themselves. Whatever work they undertake, they are cer tain to be among the left behind. Thin thinking never makes for.success in anything. It’ makes only for bungling mediocrity. Unhappily, people thus afflicted seldom suspeft what the real trouble is. They are incline* <■> blame anything or anybody except themselves. Sometimes -they bitterly complain, sometimes they dully endure their hard lot. Sometimes, alas, they escape from it by makiug themselves physio logically as well as mentally dead. You, of course, are not so badly off as these poor people. But, honestly, are you making all the use you can and 1 should make of the dynamic, suc cess bringing.’ happiness winning power of real thinking, vivid imagining, and keen sympathizing? Study yourself. If you find the result of your .self-study not wholly flattering, begin now to he 'come more alive. Begin to think harder than you have been doing, imagination, and train yourself to be increasingly sympathetic. (Copyright, 1917, by the Associated Newspapers.) The effort to excite congress over alleged manipula tion In the cotton exchanges has not made much progress, and the explanation isn’t difficult. The farm ers, generally speaking, are not concerned over the agitation, and therein you have the answer. The cot ton farmers fared better with their crop last fall than ever before, and they have no axe to grind with the •cotton exchanges. The persons making the row at this time are warehousemen who have been holding the staple for an advance in price. Most of the farmers were smart enough to unload when the prices were far in advance of what they are today. There Is no occasion for excitement over the de lay in the appointment of a federal judge for south Georgia, vice the late Judge Lambdin. The department of justice usually takes Its own good time in filling judicial vacancies. There are probably a half dozen district and circuit judgeships that have, been standing vacant much longer than the south Georgia judgeship, and if the vacancies are considered and disposed of in order it may be several weeks before Judge Lambdin's successor is named. It is reported in Washington that Marvin Under wood, of Atlanta, assistant attorney general, shortly will resign his position and return to Georgia td re engage in active practice before the courts of his native state. Mr. Underwod was appointed by Attorney General Mcßeynolds, several years ago, and during his connection with the department of justice has made an enviable record. • • • There will soon be two vacancies on the federal trade commission, to be filled by presidential appoint ment W. N. Hurley, chairman of the board, has re signed and will retire. The rejection of George Rublee’s nomination, by the senate, accounts for the other vacancy. Since Georgia is already represented on the board in the person of William J. Harris, vice chairman, it follows that no Georgian will be consid ered for either of the vacancies. • • • Robert W. Woolley, director of publicity of the Democratic national com mi tee, has returned to Wash ington. after a around the country, seeking con tributions for the Democratic campaign deficit. Hi» trip was a success, but there still remains a large de ficit. and the committee Is anxious for loyal Democrats to "kick’in.” Ms. Woolley speaks in terms of highest praise concerning the reception accorded him in At lanta. organised German club women was tile collection of all the old clothes of the empire for distribution among the £bor. Collection stations were opened in all the cities and towns, darkened garrets, fragrant chests and dusty closets were ransacked, and the finds were 'sold to the poorer people at the bare cost of alteration. Thus, after two ywars of war, one does not see a single raga muffin in the German cities. Soap, on account of the fat shortage, is highly t prized and scant -luxury. In some oases the washing of clothes has become a purely physical process—the dirt is beaten out. A claylike soap is used sos washing clothes and cleaning house. The toilet soaps are gritty and costly. A cake of soap sells at 20 to 30 cents, and works largely by friction. Whenever business takes a German across the border into Copenhagen, he brings back a small quan tity of soap or butter. The soap of normal quality has acquired a unique value from its scarcity, a value that can be only understood by suffering from the effects of such a shortage. An illustration will serve to make something of this value plain. In the old days in Germany, even as ip this country, the young man made shy offerings to the girl of his choice of costly flowers and expensive chocolates. Today she gives him a* brighter reception than ever of old if he is able to make her a proud presentation of a genuine cake of soap. It would have been an offering of questionable delicacy in peace times; today it is a certain testimony of true esteem. *Of foods, there areu of course, many kinds which may be bought without cards. Garden vegetables and fruits may be purchased at will and in quantity. Goose, chicken and game do not count as meat, and. so, one may dine his fill upon them seven times a week, if he can afford them. Strangely enough, goose and chicken are not much more expensive than is meat They cost between $1 and $1.5>0 a pound. Rabbit and venison are also relatively cheap. Fish, likewise, is sold without cards, and the herring is reassuming his fifteenth century importance as an article of diet. * One great drawback thy card system has, which is only slowly being cured. This drawback is the enor mous loss of time in making purchases of -daily pro visions. There have been more food disturbances due to the difficulties of making purchases under the new system than those caused by actual lack of food. It is n?t an uncommon sight to see a throng of men and women waiting outside some milk depot, butcher shop or grocery for a chance tcf get their coupon allowances. Eaca must be served the exact amount indicated on the coupon, and this portion must not be more or less. The dealer against cases of short measure are estab lished is punished sternly, while the dealer, in turn, must account to the authorities for every pound of provisions that he received. Therefore, he does not dare to give an over-measure. This precise meting out of supplies consumes time, and it ft? a case of first come first served. Housekeeping on the card system is-a new kind of national housekeeping. Under this system, the state becomes a family group, to each member of which is. served an equal amount of bread and butter, at an equal cost. Downstairs, the janitor munches five slices of bread a day, and the janitor's wife wonders what she can cook upon an allowance of an egg a week. Upstairs, the same amount of the same kind of war bread is daintily nibbled, and wonderful sauces, salads and desserts have been discarded for the same reason that causes the janitor’s wife to worry. Some excep tions are made; the same sort of exceptions that are made in the smaller family. The milk supply is first distributed among the children and the sick. The sick are given larger allowances of those nourishing foods that they most stand in need of; and the members of the greater family who do the hardest manual labor are allowed a bit larger share of substantial foods.
