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THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
— ATLAMTA, GA.. 5 MOITH FOBau'B ST. ->
Entered at the Atlanta Pontofllee as Mail Matter of
the Second Class
JAMES B. GBAY,
President and Editor.
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SEMI WEEKLY JOURNAL Atlanta. Ua.
Tightening the Embargo.
The Senate acted wisely in voting the President
broad powers of embargo on American exports to
neutral countries. Through Sweden, ‘Norway, Den
mark. Hollafid and Switzerland, particularly the
latter two. Germany has been getting large quanti
ties of food and other necessaries. Those countries
depend on imports, chiefly from the United States,
for the very commodities which they sell to the
Central Powers. Thus in shipping unrestrictedly
to them we are helping to feed and sustain the
monarchy with which we are at war. It is to meet
this situation that the President has been author
ized to use the embargo power.
These neutrals have an unquestionable right to
their enriching traffic. It would be as foolish for
us to- censure them for selling to German' as it
was for Germany to censure us. when we were neu
trals. for selling to the Entente nations But sim
ply because we recognize and respect their legal
rights in the case we are in no wise bound to go
on supplying them with the merchandise which
constitutes their stock in trade witl\ Germany. On
the contrary, we are constrained by every consid
eration of self-defense and of loyalty to our cause to
put a stop to all American exports which are likely
to reach an enemy destination.
To what an extent the embargo must be em
ployed for this purpose depends on the readiness of
the interested neutrals to cease exporting to Ger
many. Their position, it must be admitted, is a deli
cate one. and our Government will treat them with
the broad sympathy of a nation which stood for two
and a half years as a champion of neutral rights.
Rut we cannot countenance for a moment any course
which results In our own. food products and mil
itary supplies reaching the armies of the Hohenzol
iern. We shall do a willing part to keep Holland
or Denmark or any other neutral from famine., but
we must draw a rigid line against keeping up the
Kaiser s forces and thereby prolonging the war.
It is a problem to determine just what quanti
ties and what kinds of Imports the countries bor
dering Germany need for their subsistence. Official
figures show that in a number of instances the ship
ments which have reached them from the United
States have been out of all proportion to their
necessities. It is natural that their purchases from
us should be heavier than before the war. because
they must look to us for many things which they
formerly got from Germany; but this can not ac
count for all the extraordinary increases The Brit
ish blockade has done much to keep supplies from
reaching Germany byway of Holland and Scandi
navia. and it will be still more effective now that
the United States is one of the Allies instead of a
neutral asserting its rights to trade with other neu
rals But the only way to stop entirely Germany’s
American sources of supply is to see to It that no
American goods reaches any country which sells
those goods to Germany.
For that purpose the embargo should be used
as broadly and as rigidly as conditions may require.
We can act the more freely and unhesitatingly upon
this line because it is our own commerce that we are
controlling. We need for ourselves and our allies
every pound of foodstuffs which we can produce.
We shall willingly spare the neutrals enough for
their own needs, but we cannot to let a single
ounce slip through to the support of Prussian mil
itarism When this policy Is enforced as string
ently as it can be. Germany will feel the difference
and the«war will be appreciably nearer an end.
<
In Praise of Corn Meal.
Those to the manor born in the land of "buck
wheat cakes and Indian batter” need no reminder
that even though the wheat crop turns out short
again, the country can fare well if there is a
plenty of corn. But other parts of America evi
dently need enlightenment on the nutritions and
delectable dishes into which corn can he made.
The national Department of Agriculture has under
taken an educational, or we might say missionary,
campaign to that end. Mr. Carl Vroornan, Assist
ant Secretary of the Department, says that a
pound of corn meal provides five times aa much
energy and tissue-building protein as does a pound
of raw potatoes; and as prices now run,a pound of
«orn meal coats from .one-third to one-sixth what a
pound of potatoes costs. Mr. Vroornan adds:
"There are dozens of corn meal dishes in
addition to corn bread. What is known in
the North as Boston brown bread is composed
of about one-half rye meal and half corn meal.
Polenta is another corn meal dish which is ex
tremely popular throughout southern Europe
and in certain parts of the United States. The
tainale also is In high favor when well made.”
This may seem faint praise or entirely super
fluous to mouths that have watered at a morning
vision of corn meal batter cakes and to hearts
that have beat faster at the evening incense of corn
muffins. But we of Dixie must remember that there
are those who dwell in darkness—untutored
palates that knew aS little of the rich delights of
corn cookery as the poor Indian knew of the civil
ization heyond his wilderness. Let us rejoice that
the Government is awake to its duty and oppor
tunity in this respect us see to It that the
South raises enough corn to meet the stupendous
demand which is certain to come. •
IHE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL,’ ATLANTA, GA., FRIDAY, MAY 11, 1917.
A Statewide Local School Tax.
Georgia's pronounced need of more schools and
longer school terms, its need of more teachers and
better salaries for them, its need of free text
books and a thoroughgoing enforcement of the
compulsory school attendance law all point to one
stubbornly practical question—where is the money
coming from?
We cannot expect an increase in the legisla
tive appropriation for common school purposes,
certainly not in many years to come. The state
already provides two and a quarter mills direct
tax for common schools out of the five mills al
lowed for taxation, besides something like half a
million dollars* in‘‘"permanent”’funds. In actual
amount of state appropriations for schools, only
ten states give more than Georgia, and in percent
age of state funds to local funds, Georgia stands
third. Evidently, then, it would be neither rea
sonable or just to demand more from the state
treasury until the local school funds are nearer
what they ought to be.
It is to the individual county and district that
we must look for the money needed to provide
more and better schools. F ( or the United States,
as a whole, approximately 76 per cent of the com
mon school fund is raised through local tax. but
for Georgia less than 40 per cent is thus raised.
Only forty-three Georgia counties have a
county-w’ide local tax for the maintenance of
schools. Many counties continue to draw from
the state treasury in school funds more than they
pay into the treasury for all purposes. We are
running counter to the policy of almost every other
state in the union and counter to the judgment
of our own educational leaders. Dr. Joseph S
Stewart well observes that elsewhere the responsi
bility of the school is placed ‘‘primarily upon the
local area, where the administration exists, to be
supplemented by the state funds.” but in the great
majority of Georgia counties it is just the reverse,
with the exception of the towns and a few dis
tricts:
"The other states say the local area
• SHALL levy a school tax. Georgia says tbe
local area MAY, if one-fourth of the qualified
voters petition and two-thirds vote for it in
the election. Most of the other states' local
tax is compulsory; Georgia puts a hindrance in
the way of its its adoption. The other states say
that schools are just as much a local matter
as courthouses, roads, almshouses and jails.
Georgia says the schools are. first, a state
affair, but may be supplemented by local funds,
if you can get a two-thirds favorable vote.
We have reversed the usual custom, and we
have demonstrated the folly of our plan.”
North Dakota spends nine dollars and sixty
two cents per capita for the support of common
schools as compared with only one dollar and nine
ty-eight cents per capita spent by Georgia, and
numbers of states far less rich in resources than
ours are raising more for schools simply because
every community within their borders shoulders
Its rightful share of responsibility. If all the Geor
gia counties did their duty in this respect, our
school fund will he ample to establish excellept
schools throughout the state and to extend the
average school term to seven or nine months, where
it is now only one hundred and forty days; we
could pay the teachers well and promptly; we
could build up a system under which there would
be a desk for every child and a child at every
desk.
The more progressive counties are voluntarily
adopting the local tax plan, and in every county the
more thoughtful people favor it. But why wait
years longer for the plan to be adopted one county
at a time Why not follow the example of virtually
all the rest of the nation and make the levying
of local taxes for schools a state law? We be
lieve that a constitutional amendment to this ef
fect would be ratified by the people if its wisdom
and justice were duly explained. Superintendent
Brittain speaks advisedly when he says;
•'All other laws which could be passed for*
* the benefit of education are far less important
than this one single measure.”
This measure is fundamentally important be
cause it touches the fundamental need of an ade
quate system of school finance. Not until the
money is provided can we make our school sys
tem what we wish it: and not until the local tax
is made state-wide will the money be forthcoming.
Plant Corn.
"With cotton at twenty-five cents and corn
at two dollars, it takes ten pounds of cotton to
buy a bushel of corn. Yet it. takes infinitely
more care, work and time to produce ten
pounds of cotton.” —Augusta Herald.
The least the Georgia farmer can afford to do
Is to raise corn enough to supply his own needs,
for if he has to buy it along with other necessaries
at prevailing prices, which probably will go still
higher, he will have a beggarly winter, no mat
ter what cotton brings. Rut the more prudent and
patriotic fanners will not rest content with plant
ing only enough corn to meet their own neces
sities. They will produce as liberal a surplus as
possible, and they will find a ready, profitable mar
ket for all they have to offer. It is very largely
to the corn crop that the country as a whole
and particularly the South must look to make
up the great deficit in wheat and other small
grains. The time for planting corn is still season
able. The acreage should be unprecedentedly
large.
Good Conduct of Aliens.
The Junker who boasted to Ambassador Gerard
that war between Germany and the United States
would find half a million Germans in this country
ready to take up arms against the American Gov
ernment would be Interested in the report of the
Department of Justice concerning the conduct* of
enemy aliens. Since the beginning of hostilities,
reports the Attorney General, only one hundred
and twenty-five arrests of these aliens have been
necessary, and the great majority of those were
made for minor offenses. There are upwards of
two and a half million foreign-born Germans in
the -United States, a considerable percentage of
whom are still unnaturalized subjects of the Kaiser.
But they have learned the difference, most of them,
between despotism and democracy; and they will
not play dupes to the Hohenzollerns. As for Ger
mans who are citizens of the United States, they
of course are Americans stanch and true.
BANK ON ENVIRONMENT
By H. Addington Bruce
tODAY I address myself particularly to those
responsible for the upbringing of children,
and more particularly to those aware that
T
the chiklren in their charge have what doctors call
a bad family history.
When the immediate ancestry of any child in
cludes one or more relatives who were consump
tive. insane, criminal, or otherwise physically,
mentally, or morally diseased, the belief is widely
held that that child may be foredoomed to be sim
ilarly afflicted. It is important for the child's sake
to appreciate that this belief in the fatality of
heredity is erroneous.
What may happen, undeniably, is that the child
inherits a tendency to consumption, insanity, or
criminality. But whether this tendency will result
in the threatened affliction depends altogether on
the manner of the child's rearing and the condi
tions of the environment in which he is reared.
Always environment is the chief factor in de
termining the fate of a human life. This is some
thing that parents and guardians must clearly un
derstand. To quote Dr. Arthur Holmes, the well
known clinical psychologist:
“No inherited element can develop without its
appropriate environment. Neither the inherited
potentialities of a chick hidden in the germ of an
egg nor the innate martial talents of a Napoleon
can come to their fruition without favorable ex
ternal conditions. . . .
“In all borderland cases, where there is rea
sonable doubt, the environment is such a controlling
and controllable factor that, rightly adjusted, it
may become decisive in arresting Inherited im
pulses or guiding them into channels useful for the
individual and the community.”
What this means to parents and guardians of
children having unfavorable heredity is surely ob
vious.
It means that their great aim. knowing the
particular tendency their child may have inherited,
should be to surround him with influences which
will arrest the tendency and prevent it from ever
developing. Whatever the tendency, the child's
training and environment must be specially ad
justed to cope with it.
To this end consultation with experts is most
desirable.
The physician can point out to the parent the
preventive measures that ought to be take i in
the case of a child with a family history of ..tbcr
culosis. or with inhc.rited liability to any other
physical disease.
The psychologist, and particularly the clinical
psychologist, can give helpful advice if it is a ques
tion of a possible tendency to insanity or crim
inality.
Physicians and psychologist can also recom
mend to the parents of such specially predisposed
children health manuals giving further informa
tion as to action desirable for maintaining phys
ical. mental, and moral health.
If. then, you are anxious about the future of a
child because of what you know of his heredity,
do not fall into the error of thinking that the fate
of his ancestors must unfailingly be his.
Remember the superior power of environment.
Rank on environment, arid draw from its resources
for the saving of the child.
(Copyright. 1917, by the Associated Newspapers.)
QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES
“It would save us much needed floor space and con
siderable money if more of our women customers would
use the stairway when going up only one flight," said
the department store manager.
■•‘l wish I knew of some way to make ’em do it.'
"Why not take the mirrors out of the elevators and
put ’em on the stairs?” suggested hts bright assistant.
He had proposed and been rejected.
■Very well,” he said, coldly, “there will come a time
when your treatment of me will be regretted.
“I shall never regret it,” she replied.
“Oh. 1 don’t mean you.” he returned. ”1 refer to the
man whom you will Anally accept.”
• • •
George Ade was recently talking about tbe intrica
cies of the English language
"There's the word ‘smart.’ for instance,” he said.
“The word may mean ‘highly intellectual, or again it
may mean ‘fashionable,’ ‘chic.’ or ‘elegant.’
"A man wanted to present me to a lady the other
day.
“ ‘She’s very, very smart,' he said.
■ But I asked cautiously:
“ Smart —humph! Highbrow or low-neck type?’”
The Kaiser's Peace Trick.
in his well reasoned warning against German
peace proposals Minister Eagan, our diplomatic
representative in Denmark, confirms the opinion
prevalent among all the allies: no overtures from
the Prussian autocracy could be taken as sincere.
Far from being ready to quit, the Kaiser and his
accomplices are determined to fight to the last
trench if they can continue deceiving the people.
There is no likelihood, thinks Minister Eagan, of
a dethronement of the Hohenzollerns. Constitu
tional reforms are to be expected, perhaps in the
near future; but “there is not the slightest reason
for believing that such reforms will impose the
Czar's fate on the Kaiser and fiis line.” Though
the food problem is critical, the mass of the Ger
mrf’n people, whom a subservient press has imbued
with the belief that victory is merely a question of
time, “are still sanguine and ready to make fur
ther sacrifices.”
These are the Impressions of a trained listener
stationed almost within earshot of the German
border. No doubt there is much political and so
cial unrest in Germany, but the grip of the Junk
ers is still far from broken. . Hopes that Kaiser
ism might be crushed frqm within are vain, at
least for the present. Any relaxation of the ham
mering from without would merely strengthen the
Hohenzollern despots; and any inconclusive peace
would make them more than ever a menace to
the world’s concord and freedom. They are schem
ing for time —time in which to repair, if possible,
the disastrous blows upon their western front, time
in which to build more submarines, time in which
to allay or stamp out such discontent as there is
among their snbjects. A parley at this crucial
juncture might save the Kaiser's cause from the
defeat which inevitably will befall it if the Allies
keep fighting ceaselessly and with unbending reso
lution.
Minister Eagan is eminently right in saying that
priace talk in America would .serve merely to
prolong the war. But there is no peace talk in
this country and there will be none, certainly none
of a responsible or representative character, until
the principles for which we entered the war have
been wholly vindicated and made forever secure.
If there is one thing above all else which the
American government and the American people
have learned concerning the German autocracy, it
is that no reliance can be placed on its pledges and
that its fairest promises are but masks to its black
est designs. The United States is planning, as re
gards both military and economic operations, on the
basis of a three-year war. That is the safe plan,
the plan that is most likely to foreshorten the con
flict and the one that is sure to win.
— ?
I HE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. Vlll.—Animal Friends and Enemies.
-e
By Frederi J. Haskin.
ASHINGTON, April 10.—Few people would re
gard the alligator as a friend of man after a
casual .glance at him. but there is a law in
w
Louisiana which authorizes the different parishes of
tlie state to enact such measures as they deem best to
protect the alligator. The reason for this law is the
fact that the alligator is regarded as an enemy of the
muskrat, and the muskrat is an enemy of the rice
planter, because of his habit of burrowing in the banks
and dikes of the rice field and flooding the crop at the
wrong time. Thus man and ;.lligator, who may be
regarded as natural enemies between whom there
exists little spontaneous cordiality, ally themselves
against the muskrat.
• • •
This alligator protection is an instance of one angle
of a great national agricultural problem—the wild
animal problem. By taking possession of the continent,
man has disturbed and destroyed the delicate balance
or nature, and it is now his task to work out and set
up a new balance that shall be favorable to the greatest
possible food production. Many an’mals that seem at
first to be the enemies of man are really his best
fi-fends. and when they are trapped out and killed as a
result of a hasty and short-sighted policy, a new and
Far more destructive species multiplies out of all
bounds, because the first species, its natural enemies,
have been destroyed.
• • •
It is necessary that every bird and animal species
in tha United States should be carefully investigated,
tried in a court of equity as it were, to determine
whether it is on the whole Injurious or beneficial to
agriculture, before the human inhabitants of the
country decide how that species shall be treated. This
trial is technically called determining its economic
status, and the court which tries each species to decide
whether it shall live or die is the biological survey of
the department of agriculture.
• • •
In the natural balance of animal life, each species
of bird and insect and mammal has its natural enemies,
not sufficiently numerous to kill it out completely, but
strong enough to keep it in bounds. When man steps
In and exterminates a species, he often lets loose upon
himself and his crops the unchecked multitudes of
another one that work ten times as much harm. Thera
is a certain southern state where a bounty has been
placed upon hawks and owls, because of the damage
they were supposed to do to poultry. In consequence
of the bounty, the hawks and owi« have been killed out,
and as a result of the killing, the orchard industiy of
the state, which might be worth millions of dollars, hag
been practically ruined. The orchards are ruined by
the field mice that girdle the trees, and field mice have
.ncreased enormously because the hawks and owls,
their natural enemies, have been killed by man.
• • •
This sort of delicate balance runs all through nature,
and it is part of the work of the biological survey to
study each bird and animal exhaustively, weigh the
harm it does against the good, and pronounce a verdict
for or against, which shall be reflected in local or
national protective legislation. This sort of work has
already been carried out very extensively. Even such
relatively unimportant creatures as the humming
birds have had to stand an Investigation, and scores of
their tiny stomachs were examined to determine what
they fed on. In this case. It Is welcome to learn, the
verdict was "Not guilty.”
When a species of animal is plainly destructive and
injurious to man, the survey takes up the work of
exterminating it. or at least of bringing it within
limits. The biggest job of this kind on hand is the
campaign on predatory wild animals that is being
waged in twelve of the big western stock-raising states.
These animals include such species as the gray wolves,
the coyotes, the mountain lions, the bob cats, and thp
bears; the annual damage they do to stock Is estimated
at $12,000,000. Even here the question of the balance
of nature enters to some -extent, and the interests of
farmers and cattlemen are not identical. The coyotes
are the natural enemies of the jack rabbits, for in
stance, and where the survey has carried out an interi-
WAR NEARS CRITICAL STAGE—By Herbert Corey
ASHINGTON. —Suppose we look our war square
in the face.
What follows is intended aa a presentation
w
of the blackest elements in the situation. It is all
gloom. The sun still shines, but it isn’t shining here.
Some members of the general staff feel that these
things should be known. The members of the French
and British commissions have assuredly not tried to
temper the unpleasant wind to the shorn iamb of
American optimism.
What is the worst of the situation today?
Russia may go out. Rumania will go with her. If
the suggested separate peace is signed with Austria by
Russia; it means that Germany will be provisioned by
Russia through the Austrian door.
The peasant private is gaining control of the Russian
army. Already hundreds of officers have been forced
out and hundreds of others have resigned. The Russian
peasant is of sound material, but it is to be doubted if
there is much officer miterial in the ranks.
The peasant s eyes are turned on internal tutestions.
He demands a distribution of land. He has been assured
that the land will not be distributed until he comes
home. If he can vote himself home it is probable that
he will do so. In that way the land distribution will be
hastened.
There is at least no indication that the Russian army
will become an efficient factor soon. If the present
government does not evolve stability out of turmoil
there is a chance of civil war. The monarchical, pro-
German, land-holding, 'reactionary classes may find
strength in the desire of all Russia for internal peace.
I am told the Macedonian campaign may be aban
doned. It is militarily useless and economically impos
sible. Its abandonment points to a centering of the
allied strength in the west. That might coax King
Constantine of Greece into taking the German side. He,
has always believed the kaiser would win.
There is no information at hand justifying the fondly
held American opinion that Germany may starve out,
that strikes may cripple her munition production, or
that revolution will overturn the government.
To meet the allied strength in the west von Hinden
burg will undoubtedly retire to the Rhine line of
fortresses. The Germans have always believed that they
can hold this line until Satan begins to burn ice in
perdition s furnaces.
As long as she can hold on, her U-boat campaign
promises to be increasingly formidable. The allies and
neutrals have been censored and cheered about the
U-boats until lately. Now Admiral Beresford, in Lon
don, and Lord Eustace Percy, in Washington, are being
frank So are others. The Scientific American says
Germany can build a thousand U-boats a year. At the
present rate, vessel destruction exceeds that of vessel
construction. A mathematical formula is created that
he may work out who will..
If the U-boats starve Italy for coal. Italy may be
forced out. Not out, perhaps, but at least to greatly
decrease her efforts. France will never But she
cannot maintain the present rate of man expenditure
for more than a year. The members of the French
commission in Washington say she ought not be asked
to keep it up for more than six months.
"The crisis,” they have said, "will come in six
months."
If Germany holds her Rhine line and the central
Europe she has gained, she has won the war.
She can be defeated by American troops added to the
allied troops now on the western front
The time has come when we should look at the black
aide only. Only in that way can we visualize what we
may have to face. Reliance on luck and the other
fellow s efforts and belief in sunshiny stories make war
into a gamble.
There is nothing speculative about war It is a busi
ness Other elements being* equal, in the long run the
best business man will win.
Americans have always believed they are business
men.
In ten days Washington—that part of Washington
one meets in clubs and-lobbies and which reflects official
and congressional opinios—has changed its tune. One
no longer hears the "we'll never fire a shot” sort of talk.
Washington is gradually reaching an appreciation of the
sive .campaign of coyote extermination to control the
outbreak of rabies, the jack rabbits have increased to a
point where they do serious damage to crops, and it is
necessary to start a new war on the jack rabbits by
means of poison. There is no question, however, that
the predatory wild animals do vastly more harm than
good: they form, in fact, one of the leading sources of
loss to the western stock grower.
• • •
There are some sections in the southwest where it Is
not possible to raise horses beedise of the ravages of
the mountain lions. Gray wolves do great damage to
the cattle herds. In a glass case at the headquarters
of the biological survey there is kept the skull of an
old gray wolf whieh ate $3,000 worth of cattle before
he was trapped. This wolf had only two toes on one
forefoot, so it was possible to recognize his work fey
the tracks around each kill. There are doubtless
numerous other wolves on the range whose, meat bills
run as high.
• • •
The western states have been fighting the predatory
animals without success for many* years. Most of the
work has been done on the bounty system, which offers
a reward for the scalp of each wolf or coyote. In some
states this system has been in operation for twenty-five
years, and the relative losses today are greater than
they were in the beginning. In the last year the
biological survey has started work on a new co-opera
tive method which promises to solve the problem. The
new system calls for the trapping and poisoning of
wild animals by salaried hunters using the beat meth
ods, and doing away with the bounty system.
• • •
The great drawback to the bounty system is the
fact that the trapper makes his living from the wild
animals, and if toe kills them out he destroys his source
of profit. Also, he wants to kill the greatest possible
number of animals in the least possible time. So he
works against the young and unsophisticated animals,
which probably do not kill many cattle anyw’ay, and
leaves the old and wary cattle killers alone, because it
takes too much time and trouble to catch them. These
old animals bring forth litters of young each year,
and thus furnish the trapper with fresh sources of
bounty season after season. As an official of the sur
vey puts it. it is more like stock raising than animal
killing
• • •
The survey has divided the twelve big western
stock-raising states into nine districts, each under th*
supervision of an inspector, and worked by salaried
trappers, who draw no bounty money, and who are
judged solely by the results they get. The catching
of one wise old wolf may be a harder job. and worth
more to the cattle business than the trapping of a dosen
young ones, and the inspector in charge knows it, and
gives credit accordingly. Wherever possible, the states
are being induced to revoke their bounty laws and
make an appropriation to co-operate with the survey
instead. Three states are already working on this
system, and others are expected to follow shortly. In
Montana In the last Ave years SBOO,OOO has been spent
on the old system, and the losses are as big as ever.
Dr. Fisher, who is in charge of the wild animal work
for the survey, told the Montana stockmen that if the
survey had that amount of money to spend in Ave years,
they would guarantee to kill out all the wolves and most
of the coyotes. It seems to be only a matter of time
until the survey plan will be adopted all through the
west, and tt promises to solve the problem.
• • • ,
The larger predatory animals are only one side of the
question of animal control. Prairie dogs and ground
squirrels do hundreds of thousands of dollars of dam
age to crops every year. The survey has worked out a
system of poisoning them at a cost of 5 cents an aero. ‘
Methods of destroying such species as the gophers and
the field mice and the land crabs have been developed.
The survey is working toward that balance of nature
which shall be the most favorable for the works of M
man: but one of the most effective methods, and the
one that calls for nation-wide co-operation, is the
preservation of the species that prey on the species
that do the damage. *~f
siae of the job ahead. Impatience is being shown with
the fid-faddling of* congress. Any suggestion that
politics of the old personal sort may be permitted to
hamper the effectiveness of our arms arouses genuine
anger.
Balfour waked us up. Bridges helped. Vfvianl and
Hovelacque assisted. Above all. Marshal Joffre brought
home to Washington that we are now at war, that our
help is sorely needed, and that when a nation goes to
war it is expected to fight.
I*, is not what these men have said that has brought
about this change. They have been almost meticulously
careful not to overstep the strictest limits of propriety.
It is the atmosphere that surrounds them. The
correspondents who have interviewed them have carried
away the impression that we have been cheerily
optimistic without the best of reasons. These men have
shown confidence that the allies will wtn. But they do
not suggest that tbe allies will win In a hurry.
They do not disguise the probability that there mly be
bad times ahead. t
One gains the impression that they.were somewhat
styprised on arrival by the prevalence of the opinion
that the end of- the war is near. They have not mini*
mized the difficulties in which the German submarine
campaign has plunged the allies. _ They have not
attempted to encourage a hope which might prove false
that Russia will soon become an effective factor in the
eastern fighting. They have not suggested that starva
tion or revolution may bring down the central powers,
although this has been widely received in the rfhited 1
States. I believe the men who have intervlewd them
might epitomize such words as these in the mouths of
the two commissions:
“We are deeply grateful for what the United States
has done already. But our war is now your war. It is
absolutely essential that you do all you can—aa soon’s*
you can.” »
Many correspondents here report a growing warmth
of conviction that we should eend troops to France at*
once—as nearly at once as is humanly possible. This
has no particular relation to Colonel Roosevelt and his
ambition. Roosevelt is the great man of America to the
French people, and bis coming at the head of American
troops would buck up France as nothing else would, I
am convinced. But a feeling here Is growing’ that,
x.oosevelt or no Roosevelt, the troops should be sent.
Marshal Joffre’s recent interview added weight to It.
Officials and congressmen who are suspected of
having permitted personal or political bias to sway their*
action would be surprised to know of the bitterness of
the criticism. Little of this has been voiced as yet, for
there is a disposition to recognize that confusion has ,
reigned. The threads cannot be picked out of the tangle
in a hurry. Men who are agreed as to the end to be
gained may honestly differ as to methods. But men who
seem to obstruct progress out of mere crankiness or
partisan feeling may wake up‘some morning to find
themselves crucified. If Champ Clark had his ear to
the ground the day after he referred to "bloodthirsty
volunteers” it is probably tingling.
Correspondents here report from their homes that if
there is no particular enthusiasm for the war, as shown
by flag waving and red tire burning, there is a growing
determination to ‘go through with it.” Uncle Sam is
putting his back into the stroke. An announcement that
we will send troops across as rapidly as they can be
made fit would be welcomed. This change in the Wash- <
ington attitude would have come about in time, of
course. That it came within the last ten days seems
wholly due to the presence of the British and French
commissioners.
The Washington correspondents, on their part, have
been particularly careful to abide by the strictest rules
of interviewing. There is no suggestion thaX courtesy,
not to say confidence, has ever been violated. There is
no suggestion in that sentence that any one of the
commissioners has ever made a statement of signifi
cance and has sheltered himself behind the "do not
quote me” barricade to which political correspondents
are accustomed. It is merely that the commission*
have been far more candid than anyone here anticipated,
and that the effect of this candor has been heightened
by tone and glance The commissioners have created
an atmosphere.
