About Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 8, 1918)
4 THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL *—ATLANTA, GA- S NORTH FORSYTH ST. Entered at the Atlanta Postofpce a? Mail Matter of the Second Class. SI'BSCRIPTIOK PRICE Twelve months Six months Three months The Semi-Weekly Journal is published on Tuesday and Friday, and is mailed by the short est 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 departments of special value to the home and the fa.m. Agents wanted at every pastofflce. Liberal commission allowed. Outfit free. rite 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. Bevil and John Mac Jennings. We will be 'responsible only for money paid to the above named tratel- I ing representatives. f . I NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS Tte Label nsrd tor c yonr p-per shews the time jcr scbM-ripticn expire*. By reueuing at least two week* be Ore the <trte oa this label, you injure regular aerxice. ■ n irdertns paper ehaaged. be sure to mention your o.a as «eU as }s> ar sew address. If o■ a route, plea.e give the route rrrher. . . . . ' . We eaarot enter sniweripttoas tn begin with back number-,. Remt’tancea »UuM be sent by p cetal order or roistered Kail Address all oniers ami aotie eu for this Vepartmet t to IHb JOCBXAL. AU* nta. Ga. The Journal’s Senice Flag In honor of the seventy-three Atlanta Journal men who have entered the service of their coun try. The two white stars are in memory of Captain Meredith Gray and Captain James S. Moore. Jr., Journal men, who gave their lives for our country in France. The End of a Criminal Alliance. THE breaking up of the Quadruple Alliance gives wonderful freshness to the old saw, -When thieves fall out just men have their dne.” The only bond between Germany and her accomplices was a common greed. There were no principles amongst them, no fraternity of convic tions and ideals, no faith on which they could trust one another and fight in glorious union to the end. They were simply four brigands in league for plun der. Turkey counted upon taking Egypt, Persia and portions of Russia; Bulgaria, upon ruling the Balkans; Austria-Hungary, upon gathering more millions of land-stripped Slavs, Rumanians and Italians into Hapsburg subjection; and Germany counted upon dominating all these after seizing a lion’s share of the loot. The scheme was entirely one of brutal aggrandizement, an unprovoked and utterly conscienceless plot to trample down the rights and take away the property of the innocent. Is it to be wondered that so criminal a coalition Broke and fell crashing apart under the test of ’urreme danger? The dissolution set in when the apparent success of the scheme was highest. -Russia and Rumania bad been betrayed; their rights and riches lay at the soulless conqueror’s feet; the division of spoils (a mere prelude to greater gorging, the accom plices thought) began. And the gods lafighed, for they knew that the sundering of the robber league had commenced. Germany and Austria, character istically enough, let their greed outrud their prudence so far as to arouse keen resentment in Bulgaria and Turkey. At the same time, the latter pair, from the outset mutually suspicious and hating, grew more and more antagonistic to each other as well as more distrustful of Vienna and Berlin. Month after month these sullen moods smouldered and burned while Allied pressure in the West grew continually more formidable. When it appeared at length that the utmost for which Ger many could hope was a negotiated peace and that certainly there would be no territorial spoils for her to parcel out, the sole incentive that brought Bulgaria and Turkey into the war was snapped. There was no principle for them to be loyal to, no right for them to defend. As the more frankly mercenary of the two, Bulgaria was the readier to get out of the contest on any sort of terms; and finally, with invasion thundering upon her borders, she welcomed unconditional sur render itself. This made the collapse of Turkey foregone, and left that of Austria-Hungary a ques tion merely of time and manner. It is safe to assume that these dissolved part ners in brigandage now detest one another more thoroughly than they ever hated their intended victims. The three lesser conspirators- detest Ger many for having induced them to follow a leader ship which promised marvels at the outset, but which proved at last to be empty of all things but shame; Germany detests them for having deserted the standard to which they flocked so eagerly when the future looked fat with booty; and they all de test one another, severally and collectively, because they know that honor was never amongst them and that at heart they meant as ill to themselves as to the world. The Entente Allies stood in unshakable union through long years of darkest peril, and un loubtedly they would have fought in solid phalanx the end, even though it had been to defeat. Serbia and Belgium were crushed, but they never wavered in fidelity to the common cause. Italy was* threatened with irretrievable disaster, but she stood magnificently resolute and loyal. The bond of sympathy and purpose between France and Eng land grew stronger as danger deepened about them. The covenant of faith between America and all those gallant nations burned the brighter as the shadow of Germany’s supreme offensive rolled to its blackest foreboding. Those who fought for free dom went steadfastly together to the goal; those who fought for gain fell coweringly apart at the first great test. Recalling Germany’s one-time boast, ‘"ihe more enemies, the more honor,” the New York Tribune splly quotes as descriptive of the real Hun spirit these lines written in the hey-day of Prussian ism by that "most clear-sighted of living Germans,” • Dr. Wilhelm Muhlon: "They are like barbarians, who become in toxicated with victory, even if it has been achieved at the expense of defenseless oppo nents. With wild hurrahs they are already distributing in their tents the treasures and the men taken as booty. But if a strong, courageous enemy of whose approach in their hour of victory they had no warning should surprise them they would again take hasty flight to their swamps and forests and would be as con tent with these as they were formerly eager to roam all over the earth, mere vagrants without any understanding of distances or world rela tionships.” • In his hour of ultimate trial the Hun s braggart fortitude forsakes him like his allies, because, like their fealty, it rested on gross materialism alone. But from the wreck of these brutal and sinister ambitions for which the Quadruple Alliance stood, rises the hope of a world order of justice and good will. ’ourna THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1918. Secession in Germany? QUITE unconfirmed though it ts, and perhaps altogether groundless, the report of a se cession movement in the German Empire offers tempting food for speculation. Bavarian dep uties. the rumor goes, are planning to form a new State, entirely divorced from Prussia, com posed of Bavaria. Wurttenberg, Baden and prob ably German Austria. No fnentlon is yet made of Saxony, but it could be counted upon, in the event of imperial disruption, either to go with the south ern confederation or to declare itself independent. These kingdoms and duchies are undoubtedly weary of dancing to the Hohenzollern fiddle. They constitute the more pacific and tolerable elements of th- j'i-1 <nt Empire. They had less inclination to the war, realizing as they did that if it were un successful it would hazard their amplj prosperity and that if it were successful it would but strengthen that Prussianism which was a menace to their autonomy and a burden upon their re sources. By the sword Prussia won her leadership of the German States, and in the spirit of the sword has she ruled them. But stripped of mili tarism, she will be, in deeper essentials, the least potent of them all. It is in no wise inconceivable, then, that they would grasp an opportunity to es cape the odium that hangs upon Prussianized Ger many and to set forth upon new paths for their re demption before the world. They have an impelling example in the Dual Monarchy whose component States are going their several ways in search of freedom and of wise ad justment to a new world order. Hungary has severed, or is preparing to sever, all connection with the Vienna Government. Bohemia, as the stronghold of the Czecho-Slovaks, is manifestly lost to Emperor Karl’s dominion, as are also those provinces which aspire to unite under the proposed Jugo-Slavia. German Austrians, accepting the in evitable. are organizing a German-speaking State. As far as the rights of the divers peoples are con cerned, they will be far better conserved than they were in the conglomerate Hapsburg Empire; and at the same time the world will be quit of an old menace to democracy and peace. Though the situation in Germany Is not analogous to that in Austro-Hungary, there being in the former a racial solidarity which the latter lack ed, the South German States might gain a vast deal in freedom and prestige by breaking away from Prussian tyrr.nny and shame. But the ques tion is yet entirely speculative. In the profoundly changeful period now at hand many things may happen in the German Empire, many overturnings and conversions; one of which may be the seces sion of the Southern kingdoms but none of which is safely predictable. If the kaiser runs for president of Germany, we know six votes he'll get. But it will take more than his own family to elect him. The Chivalry of the Turks. There is no doubt of the justice and moral necessity of blotting the Turk’s rule out of Europe. Yet it is worth noting, as a corre spondent observes, that “the soldiers who are driving him into seclusion in Anatolia like him better than any of his allies.” Mr. Masefield astonished an Atlanta audience some months ago when, in the course of a lec ture on Gallipoli, he told of the British leaving little gifts for the Turkish soldiers who were to take possession of the trenches abandoned by the Entente’s ill-starred expedition: the Turk had fought so fairly that the British sense of sports manship instinctively sought to express apprecia tion. Many witnesses bear like testimony to his chivalry as a warrior. "He poisoned no wells,” they remind as, "violated no flag of truce, used no liquid fire or poison gas.” In combat he proved a thousand times more humane than the Hun, and in all military dealings a thousand times more honorable. But strangely enough when he faced helpless civilian populations he became a monster after the Hun’s own heart. Some students of the Turk attempt to explain his horrible callousness in massacring the Armenians by pointing out that for centuries his fathers have been persecuting Christians so that now he acts by sheer habit. This construction of the case, incriminating as it is for the Turks of the past, cannot absolve those of today. True, there is more extenuation for the barbarity of this people than for the barbarity of the Prussians, but not enough to warrant the civilized world in leaving them any chance for fu ture outrages. Confined to their ancestral and rightful do main, the Turks in time may work out a destiny that will be worthy of their better traits; indeed, they may come to feel the regenerating impulse of a new world order. But first of all they should be made powerless for future harm. In the last analysis, the only argument the Re publicans have for their election is a desire to be on the inside looking out. Chanticleer ’s Crow. It was extremely inconsiderate in Bulgaria and Turkey to ignore Colonel Roosevelt so far as to sur render unconditionally without waiting for a formal declaration of hostilities from the United States. The Colonel insisted In his Ipse dixit manner that the Washington Government could not be true to the country’s cause or loyal to the Allies, could not play a worthy part in the conflict or make American power and influence count for their due unless it de clared war upon Bulgaria and Turkey ‘‘without the loss of an hour.” It seemed never to occur to him that in effect we were waging potent war upon the lesser as well as the greater members of the Quadruple Alliance in every blow we struck on the Western front and in our every act of assistance to the Entente nations. It seemed, moreover, never to occur to the Colonel that the Washington Government was employing keen and silent weapons of diplomacy as well as thundering military blows and that like Foch In the field it knew the peculiar value of flanking move ments as distinguished from frontal attacks. Despite the oracle of Oyster Bay the Bulgars and Turks suc cumbed, and Austria swiftly followed. There were no reservations to their surrender; it was uncondi tional, just as Germany’s will be. What marvels do we see! The war has been won contrary to Teddy’s advice. The sun has risen with out Chanticleer’s crow. Richer Than We Knew. How much greater than was generally com puted are America’s resources of available wealth is indicated by the fact that the subscription to the Fourth Liberty Loan exceeded by more than eight hundred million dollars the colossal sum of six bil lions which was asked. That excess itelf, authori ties point out, is "nearly three times as great as the proceeds of any public loan raised in a single operation prior to this war.” It was, of course, the cause that inspired this wonderful outpouring. To the rank and file of the vast army of sub scribers the impelling consideration was not the four and a quarter per cent interest nor even the incomparable security, but the fact that their money was needed to win the war. In all those millions of hearts patriotism burned with steadier flame than ever before and urged to intenser service. Yet the most ardent will could not have created those billions of wealth out of hand. The resources were there. It was love of country, glorified in man. instances by heroic sAf-denlal, that brought them forth as an offering In freedom’s name; but antec&ting this were the energy of character and the fertility of nature that mark America as a nation peculiarly blest. We are richer than we knew. THE SYMPATHY CURE By H. Addington Bruce HAVE you ever tried the sympathy cure for your nervousness? I can assure you that it has worked like a charm in innumerable cases. What is that you say? You wish you had a chance to try the sympathy cure, but the fact is you cannot find anybody who really will sympa thize with you? That is not exactly what I mean. To try the sympathy cure it is not at all necessary to find other people to sympathize with YOU. What is necessary is for you to sympathize with OTHER PEOPLE. Instead of requiring others to sacrifice them selves for your comfort and convenience, instead of perpetually demanding and never giving, in stead of insisting on being forever helped bj’ others, try the plan of making yourself helpful to others. There are countless ways in which you can do this, both inside and outside your home. You will find it a pleasant change from your present tedious habit of sitting around doing nothing ex cept to think of your nervous aches and pains, your indigestion, your insomnia, your obsessive fears. Hasn't It ever occurred to you that if you could find away to forget these for a time you might feel a great deal better? One way, one most admirable way, is to call to mind the fact that other people have troubles as well as you, and then bestir yourself to help lighten somebody else’s burden. This you will find is good medicine. It is such good medicine that it has benefited, even cured, people much worse off than you are. In a certain hospital for the insane there Is an interesting organization known as the Society of the Helping Hand. Its membership is made up of unfortunates who have had to be committed to the hospital be cause of mental breakdowns. Mentally diseased though they are, they busy themselves in altruis tic activities. On certain afternoons every week they meet to work for other patients. They make hoods and slippers for the tubercular insane who have to keep outdoors, mittens for the snow shovellers, and so forth. On at least one occasion they sent to Dr. Grenfell in Labrador a large box packed with useful articles they had made. ' As a physician who has seen them at work in cisively expresses It, “They act like ordinary human beings.” And the joy of it is that their work for others is of really curative value to themselves. You are not insane, you are merely nervous. But are you now acting like an ordinary human being? Surely to sit around in idleness day after day is extraordinary behavior. And remember, too, ordinary human beings prefer to be helpful rather than to be eternally helped. Make a start tomorrow in the sympathy cure. Lend a helping hand to somebody, and rejoice to lend it. Good results mill not be long in coming to you. (Copyright, 1918, by the Associated Newspapers) “GINA” By John Breck 4 4 INA of the Chinatown” is the tale of a I y dancer who lived out the. tragedy of a grasshopper life in the murk of a London slum. They are happy spirits w’ho carry enough sunlight in their to lighten the hearts of those about them; enough to help them to refuse the agony of apprehension, and to bring a resolute face to the inevitable end. Even now that the trees have cast their gar ments to the winds and garden leaves droop with the frost, the grasshoppers still dance beneath the sun whenever he warms their blood. I feel the chill wind more keenly in peace, to sleep away the last sparks of that vitality beneath the first snow? Then I found my Gina. She was one who re fused to dance. There on the edge of a new ploughed field she sat. She let me lift the frayed skirts of her wings, reaching her anxious antennae toward my hand, but she would not move. And then I saw that at this late hour she was rounding out her life by maternity. She was laying her eggs in the soft, mellow earth. Gently I loosed the tiny clods above her and watched. The segments of her body, usually tele scoped on each other, were drawn out to their full est extent; she was two inches long. And she had thrust this lengthened body into the ground, brac ing her forelegs to drive it deeper as I raised the covering. Through the transparent skin, between the horny bands I could see her eggs, held together by a white froth, slowly moving. And among them were infinitesimal black worms that wriggled at each effort on her part. Parasites of some sort, they were—enemies within to daunt that blithe spirit as well as all her enemies without. I sat down beside her until she should have completed her task. There in the stillness, except for her singing mates and the crickets that raised their translucent wing covers and played their mahogany fiddles, we were the only living things my eye could see. I gazed off at the distant woods, brown and sere, with only a dash of color here and there where autumn’s gorgequs plaid had lately hung; below ran a little stream, nested in russet cat-tails and the gray cloud of seeded goldenrod. Red osier stems echoed the lacquered stripes on her once agile legs. Then I looked back. Death stood beside her before her spider had her. She struggled stubbornly, not to save her self, but to finish what was so nearly accomplish ed. And he, se.ious and terrible, showed no rage, but only a doggeu impatience to have done witn some instinct imposed duty of his own. He bowed his furry body to the strain, tugging her this way and that, unsettling her braced feet as fast as she got her grip again. There was science in the way he used his weight. Slowly, surely he drew her forth; now she showed her weakness. As soon as her spent body left the earth she toppled to her side, kicking ineffectually at the empty air. A moment more and he had reached his lair, and backed down it, dragging his burden, limp and stift. The windblown leaves of the grass closed over it. So was the parable of Gina s life played out, save that only I knew where to find her grave. Did her lover still ply his fiddle in the orchestra whose tune suddenly seemed like the playing of those who must play, whatever tragedy wtrs in their hearts? Or had some sparrow snatched him long ago? Time matters not; but I patted down the earth above those eggs and gave her that last chance of eternity. QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES Robert W. Chambers, the novelist, was talking to a literary critic. "I heard a jolly good one, my boy, about a member of your craft," Mr. Chambers said. "The chap had roasted a popular woman novelist, and he met her that night at a party. "I think it was awfully mean of you to roast me," the novelist said to him, ’specially when you know that I have three children and a husband, who Is a literary critic, to support." It was at the "bull ring” in one of the French bases—where the new drafts undergo their final hardening process. The "sick, lame and lazy" had fallen out, and there paraded before an unsympa thetic M. O. a rare speclme of the genius lead swinger. "It’s my feet, sir. They’re all right while we’re running, but as son as we halts they 'urt something cruel.” ‘ Well, my lad," replied the M. 0., “when the company halts you go on markin time." WANTED —MORE FARMERS—I. The Farmer and Cost of Living— WASHINGTON, D. C., Nov. 4.—Every respon- j sible American citizen who wants a farm shall have one, fully equipped, provided he can pay the government as a first installment a small percentage of the value of the land. He will be given a long time to pay the rest of the price, and that price ■will be based upon the ac tual producing power of the land, and not upon a speculation as to its future value. The farmer shall further be given every possible assistance to make his farm pay. That, in brief outline, is the method by which the present administration expects to solve, after the war, the problem of feeding America, and also in part that oi replacing in civilian life the sol diers returned from Europe. The plan upon which it is working, through the department of the in terior, is based upon oue which has proved suc cessful in Australia, and also as a state measure in California. Dr. Elwood Meade, chairman of the California Land Settlement board, has been called to Washington by the secretary of the in terior, and is now here studying the problem of applying the Australia-California plan to the whole United States. At the same time, the interior de partment has several land experts in the field, studying arid, cut-over and swamp lands which may be reclaimed and made fertile for this pur pose. The department has an appropriation of $200,000 for carrying out these investigations. And independent study, but also under government aus pices, is being made by Benton McKaye, an ex pert in forestry, whose studies look to the appli cation of this colonization scheme to lumbering and mining as well as farming. Several measures have been introduced into congress which embody the general idea, but these will undoubtedly be su perseded by an “administration” bill, prepared by the experts who are now studying the problem. Although this land settlement plan goes under the name of a measure to provide farms for sol diers, it is really a great deal more than that. It is a plan to forestall food shortage in the United States. It aims to do this by establishing a scientific ally planned system of rural development, which will in every possible way insure the success of the farmer and thereby the productivity of the farm. ’ Heretofore we have had no ordered system of rural development. The country is awakening to the fact that it cannot feed itself much longer by the haphazard method. The war has shown that there are limi tations to our resources, so often called boundless. The American people have experienced want. Yet we undoubtedly have the land to feed a population much larger than our present one. The trouble, then, must be in the way the land is cultivated. It is. Land in nearly every sta|e of the union lies uncultivated or partly cultivated, or wastefplly cul tivated, because good farming in many parts of this country does not pay. There are two prin cipal reasons for this. In the first place, the price of the land is so high that an investment in land cannot possibly pay. In the second place, our sys tem of distributing the products of the land is such that a fair share of the price paid for them does not reach the man who produces them. The price of land alone is enough to check the development of farming which is necessary to feed the United States in the future. The difficulty 13 IS THIS AN ECONOMIC WAR?—By Dr. Frank Crane ji -- - - —— ■■ ■ ■■— The American Economist uses the„ following language, according to the New York World: "In the great issue of 1918, far more is in volved than‘the release of nations from the tyr anny of Germany. True, that is the rally ground— the reason why the Allies and the boys from Amer ica are fighting so desperately. "But back of all the shouts for liberty and free dom is the bare, cold fact that this is an economic war, a war for national supremacy and security." Continuing, the Economist says: “A conclusive and satisfactory peace in 1898 needed that undivided support of the American people. A conclusive and satisfactory peace in 1918 would likewise need the undivided support of the people, provided nothing but liberty and jus tice were involved. % “But the present war is now an economic This is a pretty fair glimpse of the snake we will have to scotch at home hi settling up after this war. If the suggestion of the Economist is to be adopted then we are to follow our armed conquest of Germany by a surrender to German ideals. When we went into this struggle it was with a flourish of trumpets announcing that our aims were lofty, that we sought only justice, that we THE FIRM FOUNDATIONS I History is making with dizzying rapidity. World-changes fairly crash upon us in each day’s news. Events that singly would daze are moving .forward in phalanxes. In Central Europe the very mountains seem to reel and nothing to stand fast upon the earth. Results which the enemies of Germany had thought of as possible only after long struggles and delays that make the heart sick are now fairly rushing upon us. We are almost los ing our capacity to be astonished at what we read in the dispatches. And though we all are filled with a kind of wondering and solemn joy at the great fruition of our hopes, we are not, and may not be for a long time to come, able to measure the significance of the mighty transformations sweeping upon the world. A good way to get our bearings is to go back to our state of 'mind four years ago. Then we stood aghast at the spectacle of a great interna tional crime attempted which we feared might succeed. The moral sense of mankind was suffer ing from a shock which seemed as if it might over turn the whole rder of ideas and convictions which had become a part of the common conscious ness. It would help to clarify our thoughts to day if we would turn back to such an article as John Galsworthy wrote in Scribner’s a month or two after the war broke out. It was the pouring out of the heart of an idealist, an international ist, a Christian, overwhelmed by the apparent de struction of all that he held dear. Yet he would not abandon hope. He cast about for desperate resources of comfort. One of them was the like lihood that such a bold and wicked act of aggres sion by a military nation would arouse among non-military nations a spirit that would never sub mit or yield. Thic implied prediction we have seen marvelously and gloriously fulfilled. But Gals worthy went deeper and, in that hour when the ruthless might of Germany seemed resistlessly sweeping on to brutal triumph, dwelt upon the un shaken assurance given by a belief in a fixed moral order of the, universe. If we were not to curse God and die, we could not admit the pos sibility that w’anton crime could enthrone itself ov.ir outraged justice. This it is, we can now see—the conviction that our cause was righteous—which was a firm foun dation beneath our feet even when the floods of iniquity were rising highest. That was our ulti mate reason for stubborn optimism though the heavens hung black above us. A world given over to domination by the sword seemed absolutely un thinkable. We knew that we would all rather die than have to live in such a world; and from that thought we rose to the confidence that such a thing could never come to pass. The indigna tion mingled with the invincible hope of the prophets we took for our stay. We read new meanings into the poets of indomitable resistance to tyranny, willing to make our own Shelley’s flaming words and to ‘‘hope till hope creates from its own wreck the thing it contemplates.” It was not a question of one country or race going up and another going down. The British empire might go the way of the Roman, for all we knew; but that was not the pain that gnawed at our hearts. I tha’t land is commonly held at a price based upon what it may be worth in the future, due to changed conditions, and not on what it will produce now. Thus, if a man buys a hundred acres of land for SIO,OOO, he will do exceedingly well to make a net profit of SI,OOO a year by farming it. If his time is considered to be worth only S6OO a year, he has then made on his investment only s4o* or about 4 per cent. He could invest it in a first mortgage on city real estate and make twice that amount. This case is hypothetical, but typical. It is usual to say that the farmer’s thousand dollars is worth more than the same amount in the city; that he feeds his family with the products of the farm, and so on. But this is sophistry. Figuring in every possible factor of profit, the fact remains that the farmer cannot make both day wages and a fair return on his investment. The natural re sult is that he quits farming and goes to a city. Or else he stays from force of habit, farming as best he can, financially crippled. Or else he sells his farm and rents land, which enables him to make more money, but quickly exhausts the land, which he does not own, and about which he cares nothing. The problem of distribution is not so simple. It is generally admitted that the farmer does not get his share. Even now, with the prices he gets for staples regulated by the gover:ntent. he oft en does not get his share, though he sometimes gets enough to make him temporarily prosperous. The “middleman” and the "profiteer” are gen erally blamed for the farmer’s losses in distribu tion. There is aot much in this. The middleman is generally a necessity, and the profiteer a myth. The trouble is that the forces of distribution are organized and the farmers are not. An organized force will always and inevitably exploit an un organized force. For these reasons, then, the farmer is quit ting the farm. Even now, when farmers are pop ularly supposed to be making money hand oyer fist, there is a steady flow of young men from.the country to the cities. The fact that thousands of young countrymen would rather run street ears and work behind lunch counters than farm shows about how attractive farming is to them. All serious students of the problem have long recognized this state of affairs. They have Seen plainly enough that farming is a losing game— much more plainly than have most farmers. They have realized that men will not stick to an oc cupation which holds forth so little hope of ma terial comfort or leisure. And they aTso realize that it will not help to give the farmer free nas turtium seeds, free literature or free hog cholera serum. It will help, but will not solve the prob lem for the government to lend him money. The only thing that will solve it is tb give him the land at such a price that he can make a fair return on his Investment. That is fundamental necessity for any business. • The administration plan is simply a recognition of these facts, with a special reference to the re turning soldier. For unless a considerable per centage of these soldiers are enabled to cultivate the land instead of going to the cities for work, the future for food production in America is not bright. The details of this administration plan, so far as they are worked out, will be presented in a second article. were not fighting for money but for principle. Are w’e now to take all this back, and, with consummate hypocrisy, declare that we were mis taken when tve said that "nothing hut liberty and justice were involved,” and that we now reveal our true purpose, that "the present war is now an eco nomic war?” We hardly think that the American people care to soil their record with such German duplicity. Speaking of the thousands of mothers whose boys have given the last full measure of devotion, the World says: "We wonder what they think of the claim that their sons have not been fighting for human freedom, have not been fighting for the liberty of mankind, but have battled merely for economic gain, for dirty dollars stuffed into the swollen pockets of Steel and Wool and Cotton. How many of those patriotic women would like to stand beside the garves that dot the fields of France and be told that these dead did not die for justice and civilization, but for Schedule K!” All along, German propaganda has been busy circulating the slander that America went into the war merely at the connivance of her plutocrats, merny for the advantages of material profit. All along we have said that this is a filthy lie. Are we now going to say that it is true? (Copyright, ISIB, by Frank Crane.) The fear that beset us that the whole process of civilization might suddenly be proved a ghastly mistake; that the slow conquest of science and ed ucation and religion might be squandered In one mad reversion to barbarism. Today we rejoice in the shining evidence that those apprehensions were needless. The world is to be habitable, as we thought of it before the Germans threatened to make a madhouse of It. This is the uplifting assurance into which we have entered. It is worth more than any military vic tory, however splendid; and makes all mere talk of bloody vengeance seem cheap and tawdry. The world-settlement is at hand, and it means set tling some things forever for all those who are hereafter to inhabit the woild. It Is settled that the conscience of mankind cannot be acronted without due punishment falling upon the gutlty. It is settled that the foundations of human progress and human faith rest too securely on earth’s deep est strata to be overthrown by marauders Insane with ambition. It is settled that the world is meant to move in the serene orbits of peace, and cannot be madly whirled into space at the. whim of war lords. Throughout the whole human so ciety there will be, as a consequence of the right eous ending of a war that began in unrighteous ness, an enormous strengthening of the forces that make for morality, for stability, for good faith be tween nations, and for belief in the divinity that ( shapes the ends of mankind. Devil-worship has received a deadly blow. We feel that the unceas ing purpose running’ through the ages has been demonstrated and vindicated. Compared with this mighty achiever..e._t for the whole race, triumph ing over a beaten foe seems petty. The victory at tained is indeed as the call of a trumpet to faint hearts, but it is a call’to lift up the eyes and see a new world, compact of justice and buttressed by peace, rising above the tears and blood and tor ments of the past four years.—New York Evening Po*t. 4. THE EDITOR-MAN When you reject our flowing verse, Wo mark you for a downright snob; And call you names that sound much worse. And wonder how you hold your lob; With heart and soul both waterlogged You sit upon your sanctum chair; A “gloomy Gus” with brain befogged, And owlish eyes that coldly stare. O editor-man, you are the devil! That’s straight goods now and on the level. But when you print our simple wall, No matter how uncouth or rough, We tell the world a different tale — We can’t find words of praise enough; A massive brain, a tender heart, A sense of Justice—fit and right— A soul that understands pur art, A being filled with holy light. O editor-man, you are most dear. And all the world holds not your peer. —JOHN WINGFIELD
