About Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 18, 1918)
4 THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL ATLANTA, GA.. 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST. A , Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail Mattei of the Second Class. si bsckhtion price Twelve months * aC Six months *® c Three months .....25c j The Semi-Weekly Journal is published on Tuesday and Friday, and is mailed by the short est routes for early delivery. It contains nawy from all over the wodd, j brought by special leased wires into our oftbe. it has a staff of distinguished contributors, with strong departments of special value to the home and the farm Agents wanted at every postoffice. Liberal | commission allowed. Outfit free Write R. R BRADLEY. Circulation Manager. The only traveling representatives we have are B. F. Bolton. C. C. Coyle. Charles H. Wood ' liff. J. M. Patten. W. H. Reinhardt. M. H. Hevil and John Mac Jennings. We will be responsible only for money paid to the above named travel ing representatives > ■ ■ ■ — z • * NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS. The label for a<Mre**‘ng your paper sho«» the nme year aubacrtptloa. eaptree By renewing at leaat two' week* be for the date on u>>» label, you in«ure regular aerviee. In ordertug paper changed, be *nre to mention yonr oM. a* wen as your new addreo* If co a route, please gi*e the route Bum&er. We cannot enter subs riotton* to begin with bark numbers. , Remittances ebMUa be sent by order or registered mail. Address all orders and notice* fur this Department to THK skSI-WEEKLY jnniXAX. Atlanta. Ga. Advantages and Needs of South eastern Ports. In view of the great congestion prevailing in Bie ports of the East and the struggle of the gov lemment railroad administration with this prob lem. the wisdom of diverting much of the Eu ropean export business through the, southern and eoutheasiem ports becomes more and more ap parent It appears that heretofore nearly all the ship ping of the country was routed through eastern ports. It can be readily seen how this brought "about the conditions which resulted in overflow ing warehouses and docks and delayed shipments to our allies. Commenting upon the subject, the Manufacturers’ Record says:- "It seemed difficult to awaken the ship | pers and the railroads and the financial pow ers controlling the situation to the fact that u endless contusion was certain to come about "by reason of the effort to drive the entire trade of this mighty country, crowded to the limit with the production of munitions for * * the allies, through the narrow throat of the funnel of New York and other North At lantic ports. Stretched out as a great funnel into which was being poured the vast traffic of the North and West and Northwest, and indeed of portions of the Southwest, the funnel ended at New York City, and yet rail road men, bankers, government officials, and shippers generally, tried to ram through a small funnel, throat or neck, a volume of traffic which filled the entire funnel to over flowing.” Record also calls attention to the fact that E. Clarke of the Interstate Commerce Com- Mssion,* in his testimony before the Senate in vestigating committee, "took the ground very in ■istently that more exports must be sent from Southern and southeastern ports to relieve the Bmtinued congestion at New York and New Eng- Knd ports.** The advantages of the southeastern ports in situation are obvious They possess good and excellent dock and wharf facilities the government, now that it has control of the will undoubtedly find that it can make- and greater use of them in getting ship- to Europe. grain shipments from the west will be to flow through these ports, too. as soon as elevator facilities have been constructed in Kdequate volume. Due to the fact that the grain shipments have heretofore been routed to north ern ports, southern ports for the most part have not been equipped for shipping grain in large , quantities. More bulk grain elevators are the present need of these ports, and will undoubtedly be forthcoming as the great advantages of the southeastern outlets are recognized and as they become more and more the means of relieving the heavy strain put by the war upon the export facilities of the east. • |W The Apple and the Peanut. It is always gratifying to note evidences that the work of diversified farming is going forward ■ln the South. The Tifton Gazette in calling at- I tention to the increase in the apple crop of this ■ State says: ■ “Apples are said to be plentiful in market I centers and good stocks are in reserve. Only ■ within recent years has the apple industry in [ Georgia •attracted much attention, but now the homegrown fruit is deservedly the prefer ence in this state. The Georgia growers are I reported to have harvested a fine crop, and many new orchards are being planted in the northern connties of the State.” The Moultrie Observer relates an interesting story of a farmrr who went in for raising pea nuts and found profit in it. "He planted 125 acres In cotton last year,” says the Observer, “and made sixteen bales, the boll weevil having been ■ especially pctive iu his fields. He planted twelve acres in peanuts and sold eight hundred dollars’ worth of peanuts and still has the hay from the crop. As the result he will plant 125 acres in peanuts this year and 12 acres in cotton." Commenting upon the Observer’s story, the Tifton Gaxette says; "This reminds us of the experience of a young farmer living near the line of Tift and Turner. This year from twelve acres he sold ISIO worth of peanuts, an average of S3O an acre, and he had the hay as a surplus crop.” It is generally known that the farmers, par ' tieularly of South Georgia, this year embarked more largely than ever before upon raising hogs and beef cattle. The velvet bean. too. has added Incalculable wealth to the State. The war has i changed methods of government, methods of financing, methods of doing business, and it is also changing, and changing rapidly, methods of farming. The oM ways and the old crops will no longer suffice under new conditions. The movement for breaking away from the one-crop system and the entering upon the production of varied food I •■'’■op.- has lone been insisted upon in the South. It (tj.ji.de slow progress at first but the war and the of war conditions have added a great ' impetus to it, and now almost dally fresh evidences I of its progress axe to be observed. ♦ The Nitrate Problem. Georgia cotton growers and the numerous in dustries dependent on them will be greatly relieved by the announcement that the Government has per fected plans for supplying Southern farmers with nitrate of soda in quantities sufficient for the pro duction of next season’s crop. Mr. Mell R. Wil kinson, who is rendering the country invaluable service as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture in charge of the distribution of fertilizers, is quoted by The Journal’s Washington correspondent to the effect that within the next fortnight or so a ship from Chile will dock at Savannah with some eighteen thousand tons of nitrate for sale, at cost plus freight charges, to the farmers of this State. It appears in this connection that, pursuant to a ten million dollar appropriation mad£ for the pur pose at the preceding session of Congress. The government has purchased, all told. 100.000 tons of Chilean nitrates for the use of American farmers in the production of their next crop. While it is probable that in ordinary times the farmers use in excess of this quantity of fertilizer, the government hopes to make the 100.000 tons meet the re quirement by rigidly regulating its distribu tion. That is one of the reasons why the government’s nitrate importation will be sold only to individual farmers on the recommen dation of county agents. Tn no circumstances will the government permit any one fanner to secure a larger quantity of fertilizer than he actually requires. It is fortunate indeed that the present emer gency is to be met by the Government in so thor oughgoing a manner. But this does not solve the basic problem concerned. Nor will that problem be solved until means are provided, through the development of the country’s water power re sources. for the production of nitrates from the air. For military as well as agricultural reasons the United States cannot afford to remain de pendent on a far distant, over-sea source of sup ply for an element without which not a round of ammunition or a bushel of wheat could be pro duced. Furthermore, the excessive cost of the im ported nitrate places a heavy and really needless burden on our farmers and Government alike. On every dollar’s worth of this commodity which we buy from Chile, we pay the Chilean Govern ment an export duty of sixty cents —a tax runs into the millions. What this means to the farm ers of Georgia may be inferred from the fact that this State, together with South Carolina, uses al most as much fertilizer as all the rest of the South, and together with North Carolina, nearly as much as all the rest of the Union. The development of this region’s water power resources, by making pos sible the cheap and abundant production of nitrate in the heart of the farming territory where it is most in demand, would solve one of the Nation’s largest problems, both of agriculture and of na tional defense. A Great Southern Achievement. In recording the fact that upwards of four hun dred million dollars’ worth of steel and wooden ships are now under construction or contract along the South Atlantic and the Gulf coast, the Manu facturers’ Record observes: "Georgia furnishes its quota at the ports of Savannah and Brunswick, the former having three plants with contracts for thirty ships valued at thirty million dollars, and the latter six yards, five of which have been established during the past year.” Georgia’s seaports are destined to a more and more important part in the material interests of the State, both in matters of transportation and in dustry. Their excellent harbors, their ample rail and ship connections, their proximity to great fields of iron and coal and also to the interior points from which lumber, cement and kindred supplies are drawn, all go to make these ports capital ship building centers. They thus will play a continually more im portant part in the affairs of the Nation as well as of the State. Shipbuilding on unexampled pro portions and at an unprecedented rate of speed is essential to the winning of the war. Without ade quate ocean shipping facilities we cannot main tain our troops in France or even transport them thither, much less send sufficient stores of food to our low-rationed Allies. Regardless of the sub marine menace, we must have more ships and still more ships to make our military and economic resources effective. It is indeed gratifying that the South is contributing so richly to this end. Along the entire Atlantic and Gulf coast from Maryland to Texas, there is not a single port which is not producing ships in one or more yards; and a vast deal, if not most, of this enterprise and ac tivity have developed within the last twelvemonth. The capital and energy and constructive thought thus invested will serve, not for the war period alone, but on through the stirring years of com mercial contest and expansion that will mark our national history when peace returns. There is rea son to believe that American dependence in mat ters of high-sea shipping will be shaken off and that as in the days of old our merchant flag will star every ocean path and revive our country’s sea traditions the world around. We dare not let the years ahead find us as miserably provided with shipping as we were at the outbreak of the pres ent war, when more than ninety per cent of our oversea trade was carried in foreign bottoms. An adequate merchant fleet of our own Is as vital a matter of preparedness as is the building of an invincible navy. Otherwise we shall never be able to play a prosperous or worthy serviceable part in the world development that will begin with peace. Happily, preparations of a most vigorous and far reaching character are going forward to that end. with Georgia and the South in the full swing of th? vast labor. •— Judge Wright's Election. In the overwhelming election of Hon. W. C. Wright, of Newnan, as the successor of Hon. W. C. Adamson in the United States congress, the Fourth district has not only chosen an able repre sentative. but has given unmistakable evidence that the people of this district are unitedly sup porting the president in the prosecution of the war. The Journal congratulates the people of the Fourth district on their patriotism and their good Judgment. An able lawyer and a loyal Democrat, Judge Wright well merited the honor which has been conferred upon him. Already he has ren dered conspicuous service to his district, his state and his party. Now he goes to Washington to serve the state and the nation and he goes with the full confidence of his people and with a mes sage of loyalty and patriotic support to the presi dent. The Journal wishes for him increasing suc cess and honor and a record of splendid achieve ment. VHE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA.. FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 1918. The Wolf at Germany's Door. W hile the food problem is admittedly serious with our Allies, wc may gather reassurance from the fact that it is more serious in Germany. A Hollander direct, from a sojourn in that wolf haunted land is quoted by the Berne correspondent of the New York World as saying. “Only the very rich can stave off the pangs of hunger.” Other reports do not go that far, hut all agree that civil ian Germany is feeling the pinch of extreme priva tion. The Kaiser’s subjects still may be a long way from actual starving, but it is evident from all accounts that they are succumbing physically if not otherwise to the effects of long-continued under nourishment. Herbert Corey described the situa tion conservatively when he wrote earlier in the winter, in one of his highly interesting war letters to The Journal, that while perhaps no one in Ger many was dying from hunger, no one had enough to eat —enough, that is. to meet minimum require ments for bodily strength and health. This con dition of affairs could be borne for weeks and months with fortitude and without threatening disaster. But when it is prolonged for years, dis ease and general impairment of national efficiency are inevitable. The situation is chiefly significant as showing that in the endurance test which is so important a phase of the war Germany is bound to lose if we do our duty in sending food to our Allies. Each winter has told more keenly on her ill-fed millions until this, the fourth and grimmeet, finds them approaching desperate straits. The effect upon the outcome of the war, however, depends in large measure on how well America performs her duty of helping to provision our low-rationed Allies. We must, keep them in supplies if the odds against Germany ate to be duly effective and the endur ance test is to continue in our favor. Every pound of food that we save to pour into the balance on the side of our friends in battle is a bolt against Prossianism. OVER THERE By Dr. Frank Crane OVER there they’re going, a million of the best and brightest. Over here why all this cry of Liberty bonds/ food conservation, and surtax? It means that the fathers, mothers, broth ers. and sisters are standing by, to feed, clothe, and arm their soldiers. Over there they are flirting with death In air planes, defying death in trenches, flouting death in the trumpeted charge. What are you doing over here? Criticising the government? Whining be cause you cannot use your free speech to dishearten your country? Complaining because you cannot ride vour pet hobbies? Over there they have the monster of red mil itarism by the throat. Over here are you talking of a peace that shall let that monster escape still strong to wreak his filthy will? Over there is e. Niagara of self-sacrifice. Over here are you seeking to water your crop of profits by the sneaking streams of self-indulgence? Over there is your son, even now perhaps in an unknown grave. Over here are you going to en courage the opinionated fanatics who can speak only slander and scorn for England and America, who are standing shoulder to shoulder against the onslaught of the three-headed werewolf that is ravaging the earth? Over there the mad mullahs of Prussianism are torpedoing peaceful ships, the assassins of the sea are destroying the commerce of the world, food and merchandise for the welfare of the people are piling up in the bottom of the sea, “spurlos ver senkt.’’ Over there they are carrying men away into captivity, mutilating children, outraging wom en. reducing cities to rubbish heaps, devastating fields as by fire and salt, still prating of world might and the mailed fist. Over here, if we are doing any less than our supreme best, if we are not placing at our country's disposal all our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor, we are recreants to the greatest duty des tiny ever ifnposed upon a free people, we are silent allies of the lords of hell. What are you doing—-over here? (Copyright. 1917, by Frank Crane.) TO ESCAPE PNEUMONIA By H. Addington Bruce The pneumonia season is once more under full swing. Already this dread disease has claimed thousands of victims. There is every reason to fear that it will claim thousands more before balmy springtime puts it to flight. To lessen the danger that you will be one of those seized in its deadly grasp, there are certain ’ precautions you should take —precautions that will virtually guarante yon immunity aaginst pneumo nia. In the first place, and of chief importance, avoid excesses of every kind. Practice temperance in eating, drinking, work ing, and playing. Make moderation your rule in all things. The man who clogs is system by overeating, who poisons himself with alcohol, tea, coffee, or other stimulant, who works or plays to exhaustion, is -precisely the man most likely to find himself laid low by pneumonia. Avoiding excesses, avoid late hours likewise. Get plenty of sleep every night. And while sleep ing, let plenty of fresh air into the bedroom. Good fresh air will never give you pneumonia. On the contrary, the pneumonia germ thrives where there is poor ventilation. That is why street cars, churches, theaters, stores, etc., often are danger spots during the pneumonia season. Keep out of these as much as you can, particu larly if fatigued. In fact, as far as possible make it a rule to go into no crowded places when tired. In crowded places it always is difficult to get ample ventilation. Besides, where there are crowds there is increased likelihood of pneumonia germs being in the air you breathe. These germs, remember, are let loose by cough ing, sneezing, and spitting. Therefore, beware the man who coughs, sneezes, or spits. Give him a wide berth. Remember also that germs may be conveyed by articles with which another person’s mouth has been in contact. D o not use drinking cups, towels, tooth brushes, or pipes that other people have been using. Keep your feet dry and your head cool. Wear warm clothing, but not clothing so heavy as to set you in a perspiration when indoors. Walk at least two miles every day briskly, with chest out and head up. Make it four miles if you can spare the time. Walking is one of the best forms of exercise, and to take exercise every day is one of the sim plest and surest means of safeguarding against pneumonia. But don't force yourself to exercise when tired. Don’t eat when tired. And don't do any really hard thinking when tired. At all times try to conquer any tendency to worry. Worry means physical as well as mental exhaus tion. It is a depressant that acts on the entire lodily system, lowering the physical vitality to a dangerous degree. And the secret of successfully warding off pneumonia is to keep the vitality up to the highest point possible. Bear this well in mind. Everything that reduces your bodily vigor is an ally of pneumonia. Everything that makes you more vigorous is your ally and pneumonia's enemy (Copyright, 1918, by the Associated Newspapers.) MAKING BEEF OUT OF DESERT How Science Can Replace Luck in the Arid West. By Frederic J. Haskin. WASHINGTON, Jan. 14. —On a sample bit of desert in southern ’New Mexico, the forest service has demonstrated how the desert can t>e made. not. to bloom, but into beef. It has shown how the arid western ranges upon which we are dependent for meat can be made to produce under scientific government management about twice as much as they are now producing. ♦ ♦ • The experiment of scientific range manage ment on the Jornada range reserve has been going on for several years. It will take many more years to show the full possibilities of scientific knowl edge applied to cattle-ranching, but what has al ready been done is of great promise and importance in these days of dwindling meat supply. The forest service selected for its experiment one of the most unpromising bits of desert in the southwest. The Jornada range reserve is in Dona Ana county, New Mexico, and takes its name from the fact that it lies mainly in a great basin which was named by the Mexicans the Valley of the Jour ney of Death. They gave it this pleasing name after a Mexican general tried to march his troops across it and most of them died of thirst. The average rainfall in this region is but a little more than eight inches a year, and is sometimes little more than three inches. Summer temperatures of 106 are not uncommon. High winds that drink up moisture like thirsty giants blow almost in cessantly. • * • Small stock owners tried to gain a foothold in this region, but one by one they failed and moved out. In years of good rain, their herds would in crease a little, but a bad year would wipe out all they had gained. Finally but one man was left, C. T. Turney, who made a success by utiliz ing all of the range and water for his one herd. This progressive ranchman agreed to place his stock and land at the disposal of the forest service, and to build all the fences and windmills they wanted, provided that he should be reimbursed for these expenditures with free use of government lands for grazing. That was in 1912. Today the number of cattle which the range will carry has been increased at least fifty per cent, the average number of calves born every year has increased about twenty-five per cent, silos have been built, and the prickly Spanish bayonet, hitherto consid ered useless, converted into excellent ensilage: the disease of blackleg has been largely eradicated, and the Valley of the Journey of Death is considered one of the best-watered cattle ranges in southern New Mexico. James T. Jardine and L. C. Hurtt, the government grazing experts who have charge of the work, say that it has just begun. « • • The government men found this range dotted with windmills at intervals of ten or fifteen miles. A low arid mountain range containing a few springs occupied one side of it. About the watering places the better forage grasses had been almost exterminated by overgrazing, while everywhere the capacity of the range had been greatly reduced. The watering places were so far apart that weak ened cows and calves often fell dead after trav eling over the desert to reach them and then drinking their fill. • • • Stock raising, as carried on by most of the ranchmen in the southwest, is a form of gambling in which the uncertain element is the weather. The task of the experts was to reduce this game, with the odds against the player, to a science. • • • They immediately saw what the untrained man had overlooked for a hundred years, that there were two radically different kinds of range within the experimental area of 200,000 acres. In the foothills and mountains grew a low grass which in the fall bore rich heads of black grain, known THE WAR, Y. M. C. A., AND YOU—By Booth Tarkington NO; there is no end to “subscribing,” because we have gone to war and “all rules are off.” The rules of peace-time, when we thought our money was something sacred to our selves, when we thought that it was our own money, because we had earned it, or because somebody had willecf it to us. or because invest ments had “made it” for us—those aih the rules which are most particularly and violently “off.” Nothing could give us a much greater shock than ■ the discovery that “our own money” does not ac tually belong to our own selves, after all, but does belong (and will cetrainly go) where it is most needed by the nation. This is a matter plainly revolutionary and of the greatest difficulty and even painfulness, in regard to our mental adjust ment to it; and yet it can be proved with the ut most simplicity. Thus: No one can interfere with the distribution of his money where it is most needed by the nation, and go without shame —both inward shame and notorious shame. That is, he has done wrong, and knows it himself, and, moreover, his neighbors know it Why is this true, if he has only kept tight hold of his own money? If it were his own, it wouldn’t be wrong for him to keep tight hold of it. No; the war is proving to us that all money belongs where it is most needed by the nation and not where it is most desired, selfishly, by the individual. And in war the nation needs money most where money will do the most good to the soldier. We say, "I gave to the Red Cross.” No; that is a mistake: we didn’t "give." Money consists of markets or “chips" representing accumulated labor, and when we part with money we release stored-up labor; that is, a form of energy. The Red Cross is working for us; it is working for the most vital possession that we have, in time of war, our soldiers. When we "gave" money to the Red Cross we merely transferred some of our energy to another form of our energy. War is teaching us to say "our” and not “mine;” for it is only as a part of the whole that an individual has value in a nation at war. A nation at war is not a nation going about its usual business in its customary way while an army fights for it. That would be like a man who sits in an armchair and reads the paper, with one groping fist engaged in conflict with an enemy. This will do well enough when the hostile party is a child, and it was thus we fought Spain in ’9B, and thus we subdued Geronimo and Sitting Bull; but this war is the World War! It is being fought by nations whose armies are only their cutting edge; and if our own nation is not a nation at war with its w r hole soul and body, then it is a nation on the way to pay the price for indifference to warn ings that blaze its whole sky blood red. The army is truly but the cutting edge of a na tion at war; the full strength of the nation must wield it, and it is the nation that must clean and sharpen it after battle. So much is mere self-pres ervation. What helps the soldier helps the nation. The nation depends upon him and he depends upon the nation; it is all one engine, and if one part fails the whole will fail. The foot is as much in battle as the cutting edge of the weapon in the hand; the laborer at home is as much a part of the war as the soldier. What helps the soldier helps me. Again, therefore I do not "give” when I do my share for him. I must, for myself, do my share "for him.” I must for my children. 1 must for my nation —■ or I shall have none, be part of none. lam in bat tle when the soldier is in battle: and he will not fail unless I fail him. He has "gone the limit;” be is the cutting edge and he never fails so long as his nation never fails him. When nations are at war, the soldier is not beaten until the nation is j beaten. An unbeaten nation, a nation which means not to be beaten, keeps its soldiers “fit,” morally and mentally and physically. If it doesn’t, do that it is Deaieu, or is going to be beaten —and let not as gramma grass, while in the flats a coarse green grass called tobosa was the chief forage. As long as the cattle were allowed to roam at will they sought the gramma in the summer while it was growing, and went down to the tobosa flats in the winter when the grass was dry and of little value. The experts immediately fenced off the gramma. They ranged the stock on the tobosa flats in the summer, and during the lean months from February until the sumer rains began in July, they had the dry but nutritious crop of gram ma to fall back upon. This not only greatly re duced the loss of stock from starvation, but it greatly improved the gramma range by giving It time to recuperate. • • * The water supply was the most serious ques tion. The method of getting water was to sink wells from 175 to 500 feet deep and erect windmills over them. This was expensive. In fact, it was the expense of sinking wells more than any other one thing which had squeezed out the small ranchers. The experts quickly determined how many wells they could afford to sink and still produce cattle on a paying basis. They then supplemented these wells by building dams across the arroyos so as to catch freshet water. They also built one pipe line eight miles long from some permanent springs in the mountains, thus carrying water to a part of the range which would otherwise have been useless. In this way they built up & watering sys tem such that cattle rarely had to travel more than two and one-half miles to get water. • • • It was found profitable in especially bad weather to feed some of the cattle a small amount of cottonseed cake; but this alone did not fill their needs. They must have some form of roughage. Accordingly two silos were built, and some tobosa grass was harvested and stored during the sum mer. In the winter the silos were opened and the gress fed to the cattle, but they refused to eat it. The experiment was then tried of cutting the desert plant variously known as yucea, Spanish bayonet and century plant, which grows abundant- * ly in the southewestern deserts, and is of no forage value on the ground. When this had been softened by being put through an ensilage ma chine and stored in the silos, the cattle ate it eagerly. • • • The experts found that the average crop of calves on this range was but 60 per cent of the herd per year. By all of the above methods and by Introducing bulls of the best Hereford blood, this was increased to 81 per cent in a bad year. • • • The need of scientific supervision of the arid * cattle range is shown by the difficulty of estimat ing the capacity of the range. On any given range a certain number of acres are necessary, on an average, to support one head of stock one year. The cattlemen, going at the matter hit or miss, nearly always overstocks his range in good years and then suffers heavy loss in bad ones. The sci entists found that it was necessary to divide the range on this one area into eight different classes, the carrying capacity of each class being deter mined by observations extending over a number of years. It was found that one head of stock re quires from twenty to one hundred acres of range for its support J” this region. • • • It is evident that if similar studies were car ried out upon all the arid range lands, and ths stocking limited according to capacity, losses would , be greatly reduced. • • • • Much has been said about the passing of the open range, with its romantic but unproductive methods. Few realize how complete the change is to be. Ths cattle ranch of the future will be operated tn as careful and scientific a manner as , a hothouse. one of us for a moment forget that while the Red Cross succors and restores the injured soldier, the most important working mechanism yet devised and put into practical operation for helping the soldier in pound and wholesome moral and mental and physical condition is the Young Menjp Chris tian association, as organized for war work. Now, thd government is putting the soldiers in the field, equipped with guns and*gunpowder, ready to fight: and the government is taking the money from us to pay the soldier and to pay for his weapons and transportation. The government has taken our money for these things, we say, but it has acted only as our agent—the nation’s agent— in this spending the nation’s money as the nation had to have that money spent in the cause of the nation’s ideal of liberty, without which the nation’s life is not worth living. But the government has left it to other agencies to do other things; yet two of these things are as necessary to victory (which depends on the soul and the body of the soldier) as are the soldier s weapons and his transportation to the field of battle; and these two things the work covered by the Red Cross and that performed by the Young Men’s Christian association behind - the lines. The work done by tlie Y. M. C. A. in prison camps is a work of humanitarianism, but that done behind the lines is one of the great in gredients of victory. We dare not neglect it or slight it We dare not refuse to “give” to it because we have “given to so many things.” The government does not act as our agent here; nor, in this, do we compel our selves, in the form of taxes, to recognize that we are all at war and all in the war. None the less, our support of the war Y. M. C. A. is compulsory, because it is compelled by three things: cqmmon sense, necessity, and conscience. Common sense tells us that whatever makes a man’s soul and body healthier, resting him and re- « vitalizing him after the unspeakable drudgery of the trenches, keeping his mind to wholesome alle viations and cheering cleanliness during his off hours —common sense tells us that whatever does this makes him a better soldier. And information tells us that this is precisely the work of the war Y. M. C. A. Our “contribution” is compelled by necessity because we know- that whatever makes a soldier a better soldier is an ingredient of victory, and victory is ane .essity. If we fight only a draw we are back where we were before the war began. We went to war to compel a nation, which would not be compelled save by force, to respect our lib erty. If that nation is not compelled, our liberty is not preserved, and whatever is vital to the force at-arms, with which we are compelling, is vital to our liberty, which is itself vital to us. The concre tion of our soldiers is the vital thing in our force of-arms. and therefore the work of the war Y. M. C. A. in improving that condition is a necessity. Our “contribution” is compelled by conscience be cause —well, examine your own in case you don’t “contribute!” No; probably you will not need to examine your conscience, in that case. It would do the examining and probably the examination would take place, at uncomfortable intervals, for the rest of your life. Paying in conscience is more expensive than paying in money. QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES i' ■ ■—- ■ - An Irishman went on a visit to a friend’s house recently. On his arrival he was met at the door by a fierce looking dog. which began to bark viciously at him. Pat drew back in alarm and asked his friend to call the animal off. “You needn’t be afraid.” remarked the friend “Remember the old proverb, 'Barking dogs don’t bite!’ ” “That’s all very well.” answered Pat. "You know the proverb, I know the proverb, but does the dog know the‘proverb?”
