leasure are the steamship agents, who old out glowing pictures and false opes, and the more clever of their ompatriots, who, having found a pleas ng prosperity here, return to their ative land with what to them seem ke all the ear-marks of prosperity, such Es modish clothing, plenty of money to 11 appearances, and an air of elegance hich fascinates the gullible.

"Well," argues the dissatisfied one, if Tony or Jake can accomplish all his, why shouldn't we go to America nd become rich too?" Perhaps they o not possess the business acumen and Freat vitality and vision that their sucessful brothers had who made good ere, and after a few unhappy years f living in dark, crowded, noisy teneents, and slaving in even darker and hore loathsome sweatshops or factories, neir bitter disillusion determines their ffiliation with the Red army. Somehow r other, they feel that they have been eceived in the promises or vision of ne promised land and turn to anarchy O express their contempt for this and ll other forms of government.

This is merely one of the results of ur stupidity in allowing such overrowding in the big cities.

Reviewing the situation from every agle, I can reach no other conclusion han that immigration to this country or the next few years should be confined most exclusively to those who would me here with the intention of going ato the land, either as independent rmers or as helpers. It is my judgent that this is the only class that can rove a distinct asset to our National ad economic life at the present time.

Mention America to most of the pros

pective immigrants in Europe, and they mutter "New York." Mention Minnesota, Iowa, or Illinois, and they take it that you are talking about some foreign land of which they have never heard.

Through our American representatives in Europe I believe that special tives in Europe I believe that special literature giving information of the States where home-making opportunities are to be found should be distributed among those who plan to come here to make their home. If necessary, we could afford actually to help this class of immigrants. Think of the thousands of abandoned farms in the East and South and the millions of acres that lie in the Middle and Far West for the want of some one to work them. What would it not be worth to us in dollars and cents to place all our vacant lands under cultivation?

The land question in many parts of Europe to-day is aggravating the spirit of unrest that is to be found

(C) Keystone

everywhere on that continent. We can satisfy that craving for land. There is plenty to be had, and there is also plenty of work to be had on our farms and ranches. This would solve the labor problem to a large extent on the farms and result in cheaper production, lowering the cost of living.

I believe the Government should undertake some plan of distributing immigration so that it could be placed to the best possible advantage to this country. A wise policy of distribution would prevent congestion, and the gathering of too many of one nationality in a certain community would be obviated, thereby making their Americanization the easier. A system of distribution must be inaugurated and adhered to if we are to protect ourselves against this onslaught of foreign invasion which not only threatens peaceful and economic life, but also the bulwarks of democracy as well.

our

M

R. BERGSON's best-known book indicates by its title, "Creative Evolution," "the quality which has caused im to be eagerly welcomed by religious inkers. Creative is a word of theology; volution is a word of science. The ombination of the two indicates a man ho is both a theologian and a scientist; ho is familiar both with the facts conerning the material world which scientific bservation has given to us and with he life of the spirit of man as it has een studied and interpreted by prophetic inds. He sees with unusual clearness both he outer and the inner world, the world of latter and the world of the spirit, and beeves that there is no real conflict between hem, though they are quite different and aust be investigated by different methods. The student who lacks either the time or he training to study Mr. Bergson's larger nd more difficult work will find in this olume of essays1 clues not difficult to unlerstand and profitable to follow. Proessor Bergson has convictions and the courage of them, as witness this sentence aken from the first paragraph of his ddress on accepting the presidency of the Society for Psychical Research: "Still nore than the ingenuity and the penetration, still more than the unwearying perseverance with which you have continued your course, I admire the courage which it has required, especially during the first years, to struggle against the prejudices of a great part of the scientific world and to brave the mockery which strikes fear into the boldest breast." This is to challenge the scorn of that considerable school of unscientific scientists who scoff at the investigation of psychic phenomena because to investigate them is to deny the unscientific assumption that such phenomena cannot exist.

little

The four Gospels are not biographies; they are memorabilia. In them very attention is paid to chronology. This volume 2 is a connected and continuous biography. The author assumes the truth of the miraculous birth and the bodily resurrection and all the intermediate miracles. He does not discuss, he interprets. If he solves no questions, he raises none. His narrative is plain, simple, understandable, but not marked by either remarkable scholarship or remarkable insight. It will add nothing to the scholar's knowledge of either the life or the character of Christ, but will be profitable to the reader because it puts the familiar narrative in a new dress. The illustrations are original and striking.

Bertrand Russell is not a clear thinker. For example, in his preface he says: "I believe that communism is necessary to the world, and I believe that the heroism of Russia has fired men's hopes in a way which was essential to the realization of communism in the future." But he thinks that the method of Bolshevism is bad: "I do

Mind-Energy. By Henri Bergson. Translated by H. Wildon Carr. Henry Holt & Co., New York. 2 The Life of Christ. By the Rev. G. Robinson Lees, B.A. Illustrated. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York.

not believe that by this method a stable or desirable form of communism can be estab& lished." Yet throughout the book Bolsh evism is treated as a fanaticisin, and "fanatics are seldom genuinely humane, and those who sincerely dread cruelty will be slow to accept a fanatical creed." Thus it is really the spirit of Bolshevism not its method that Mr. Russell condemns, and he substitutes method for spirit without knowing that he has done so. The chief value of this book lies in the fact that it is

HENRI BERGSON

a condemnation of the spirit of Bolshevism by one whose prejudices for its avowed principles would naturally make him its apologist if not its defender.

The Book of Job is regarded by most modern scholars as a drama, an interpretation embodied for English readers in Professor Genung's volume entitled "An Epic of the Inner Life." This view Professor Jastrow rejects. The Biblical books, he says, are not to be regarded as literary units composed by some individual at some specific time. "As a matter of fact, with the possible single exception of the Book of Esther, which is a propagandist romance that may not be earlier than 100 B.C., there is not a book of the Old Testament that can be assigned to any individual author, as none represents in its present form a genuine literary unity. The composition of Job, dating in its earliest forin from the period before the contact with Greek culture, was produced under the time-honored method, prevalent throughout the ancient East, of anonymous and composite authorship." He regards the book as 66 a symposium, not a drama," and offers a new translation in which the separate poems of which it is a composite are indicated. Job has been classed by modern critics with such world dramas as the "Prometheus Bound". of Eschylus, the "Faust of Goethe, and the "Hamlet" of Shakespeare. We do not easily consent to the loss of so great a dramatic poem; but Professor Jastrow endeavors to reconcile the reader to this loss

3 Bolshevism; Practice and Theory. By Bertrand Russell. Harcourt, Brace & Howe, New York.

by insisting that both "the sympathetic portrayal of the inner struggle of a troubled soul" and "the overcoming of this strug gle by a supreme effort of faith to rise superior to it through the concentration of our thought on the larger manifestations of mysterious forces at work in the universe can still find a response." Whether that response will be as prompt and as complete for those who accept Professor Jastrow's theory of a composite authorship as for those to whom the Book of Job comes as the work of one inspired genius who saw clearly and portrayed frankly the insoluble problem of sin and suffering may well be doubted. Professor Jastrow's view will have to overcome not only traditional prejudice but also strong emotional attachment to the older view. But his volume 4 is one which students of the Bible cannot ignore.

THE NEW BOOKS

"Re

HISTORY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY Pilgrim (The). Vol. I, No. 1. A Review of Christian Politics and Religion. Edited by Williamı Temple. Longmans, Green & Co., New York. Published in this Tercentenary of the landing of the Pilgrims, the reader not unnaturally expects to find in this new view" an exposition of the theology of the Pilgrim Fatliers. What he does find is. an exposition of the theology from which they escaped. It promises to furnish to the student a modern and able interpretation and advocacy of the theological and ecclesiastical views which characterized the Oxford movement of the last century. It is, however, difficult to judge of a periodical by the first number, and future issues may correct a first impression.

Short History of Belgium (A). By Leon van der Essen, Ph.D., LL.D. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

No nation played a prouder part in the war and no nation has come back more nobly to the demands of peace than has Belgium. All readers, young and old, will want to be informed about that country, and this book admirably fills such a need.

POETRY

Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920 and Year-Book of American Poetry. Edited by William Stanley Braithwaite. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston.

Mr. Braithwaite in this year's "Anthology" continues the steady improvement which has gone on year after year in his annual compilations of the work of American poets. He has rendered a real service to American poetry by his conscientious research within this field and by his devoted labor as a critic and student of American verse.

As a book of reference the volume suffers somewhat from the fact that several well-known magazines are not represented in the attached bibliography. The absence of these magazines is not to be laid at Mr. Braithwaite's door. We wish that American editors generally would co-operate more fully with Mr. Braithwaite than they have done in the past by sending him such issues of their magazines as contain poetry. Poetry lovers might help by send

4 The Book of Job. By Morris Jastrow, Jr., Ph.D., LL.D. The J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.

ing Mr. Braithwaite individual poems which appeal to their judgment, and poets themselves would contribute to the value of Mr. Braithwaite's volume as a reference book if they would send to its compiler copies of their poems as they appear. Mr. Braithwaite's volume is so useful that we dislike to see it fall short of its complete opportunity.

POETRY

Book of Humorous Verse (The). Compiled by Carolyn Wells. The George H. Doran Company, New York.

An extensive anthology of poems of humor, English and American, classified under such titles as Cynicism, Banter, The Eternal Feminine, Parody, Nonsense, and so on. It contains many scores of familiar poems, from "Sally in Our Alley" down to "The Purple Cow." There are also a large number of fun-provoking efforts little known, many of them by our old friend Anonymous. Carolyn Wells was just the right person to make this collection, and she has done the work well. Contemporary Verse Anthology. Favorite

Poems Selected from the Magazine "Contem-
porary Verse" 1916-1920. Introduction by
Charles Wharton Stork. E. P. Dutton & Co.,
York.

has

The poems in this volume are selected from issues of "Contemporary Verse," the poetry magazine edited by Charles Wharton Stork." Contemporary Verse seemed to us a magazine of very uneven quality. The selections from it which appear in this volume, however, are, in the main, chosen with discrimination and taste.

TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION American Towns and People. By Harrison Rhodes. Illustrated. Robert M. McBride & Co., New York.

The unusually discriminating comment of this book is matched by exceptionally good pictures. People who live in the "towns" described will not always relish the characterizations, but they will always be interested in them.

Chance and Change in China. By A. S. Roe. Illustrated. The George H. Doran Company, New York.

China the Mysterious and Marvelous. By Victor Murdock. Illustrated. The Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. Two books have appeared on changing China. The first is no political or economic review. It is a book about everyday existence as lived there. It shows that millions of Chinese are only superficially touched by the profound political changes of years. We have a description of ancient customs into which but slight change has crept and about old ideas, especially those concerning women, which are now, we hope, becoming somewhat modified. The second book, by the well-known ex-Congressman, now Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, is also graphic in description. The volume is, like the other, picturesque and instructive, and indicates with the breezy conversational style of a Kansan how, after resisting change for forty centuries, China is at last changing.

WAR BOOKS

Dover Patrol (The). 1915-1917. By Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon. 2 vols. Illustrated. The George H. Doran Company, New York. These bulky volumes smack of the sea. They constitute a worthy memorial to the Dover Patrol. For two years Admiral Bacon was in command of it. The patrol was a monument to British naval genius.

Few of us knew at the time that the naval forces protecting the English Channel were meager. The whole account shows the author as a very human character and a typical British sea dog.

Average Americans. By Theodore Roosevelt. Illustrated. G. P. Putnaru's Sons, New York. One of the best records of individual experience in the war is this book from the pen of the son of the late ex-President. It is human, readable, and contains the record of a most unusual experience.

Fifty Years in the Royal Navy. By Admiral Sir Percy Scott, Bt. Illustrations. The George H. Doran Company, New York.

This work will be prized by every stuIdent of naval history. The recent development of the British navy covers a period from the time when warships were under sail to the present time when we talk of superdreadnoughts and submarines. It has been, coincidentally, a period of struggle against conservative Admiralty officialism, and some of the struggle has been waged by men happily still living, like Lords Fisher and Jellicoe, Admirals Scott and Bacon. Especially has this been true of Sir Percy Scott, a foremost advocate of gunnery reform. He was finally able to equip the ships of the British with his "Director Firing" invention, an equip ment which, it is believed, saved the Grand Fleet at the battle of Jutland. So much for the past. What of the future? The battleship is more alive than ever," say

66

some.

"She is dead," say others, like Sir Percy Scott. Hear him as he speaks in his "Fifty Years in the Royal Navy:"

Before the war I regarded the superbattleship as dead, and I think it more dead now, if that is possible. . . . She is vulnerable to aircraft and to submarines.

The future is with the airship.

Probably we shall also have submersible battleships.

What chance will the surface battleship have?

From Serbia to Jugoslavia. By Gordon Gordon-Smith. Preface by Dr. Slavko Grouitch. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. The collapse of the Serbian army before the German and Bulgarian invasion in 1915 is vividly set forth in these pages. In the author's opinion, Allied policy played a poor part in the Balkans. He declares that if the Allies had sent an early expeditionary force to Serbia both Greece and Rumania would have taken up arms against the Central Powers. Certainly Serbia cannot be blamed for the débâcle of 1915. The book is of absorbing interest.

Germany After the Armistice. By Maurice Berger. Preface by Baron Beyens. Translated by William L. McPherson. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.

devoted to details of practical interest to the most technically minded fisherman. Both the expert and the tyro will find good fishing in these attractive

Abandoned Farmers (The). By Irvin S. Cobb. The George H. Doran Company, New York.

"The Abandoned Farmers" represents Mr. Cobb at his happiest. It is the story of an attempt to build a country home upm an abandoned farm-a problem doubtless familiar to the contemporaries of Cato and Varro, but a "tale that is always new" to those who are confronted with the task of establishing a home beyond the city walk An agriculturist has been defined as a man who makes his money in the city and spends it in the country, while a farmer has been defined as the reverse of an agr culturist. Mr. Cobb belongs decidedly to the former class. Fortunately for him, he is a man who is able to coin any experience into literary material. Doubtless this book will go down in history as the most suc cessful crop which he ever raised on his farm.

Great Adventure of Panama (The). By Philippe Bunau-Varilla. Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City.

The Germans have apparently played a larger part than we realize with the opening of a canal between the Atlantic and Pacific. Not only France but also Ger many wanted to possess a great channel of world communication by constructing a trans-isthmian canal across either Panama or Nicaragua. In this volume M. BunaVarilla contends that this ambition on the part of Germany may be traced to Bis marck and his aggressive Prussian policy of gradual conquest. It had been shown in the wars with Denmark, Austria, and France. He even blames it for Napoleon III's action in Mexico; that action did much to determine the result of the FrancoPrussian War of 1870, and, as Napoleon's policy in Mexico had adversely affected French morale, Prussian victory was thus the more easily won. Up to the beginning of the present century Americans had been obsessed by the advantages of the Nica raguan route. As to the Panaman, the Ger mans foresaw that the concessions from Colombia to the French would lapse through non-fulfillment. Thus Germany's tumm would come. So it might have come but for one man, who by forceful argument in influential quarters turned American preju dice from Nicaragua to Panama, formed a new Panama company, and so molded conditions that when Panama appealed to America "to be protected against Colom bia's tyranny and greed" it was natural for our President to say, "I took Panama because Bunau-Varilla brought it to me on a silver platter." It was appropriate that the real creator of Panama should be later Ambassador of the new Republic to the United States and that John Hay should negotiate and sign the treaty guaranteeing our rights of construction and control of the Canal. Mr. Hay said to him: "It is not often given to any man to render such a service to two countries and to the civ

ilized world as you have done." Certainly his is a name we think of first when we think of the Panama Canal, and hence any thing he has to say on that subject, this volume, is sure to command wide

attention.

as in

CONTRIBUTORS' GALLERY

R. C. WARD CRAMPTON read in The Outlook for December 1 the controversy, "Is the Athlete an Ass?" dropped everything else, hunted up Mr. Pulsifer and Mr. Fuessle, and began to how the one where he was too easy on he easy chair and the other where even is argument for violent exercise might e strengthened. In his own contribuion to the controversy he writes, not as in excited amateur, but as a knowing professional. He was formerly Director of Physical Education, Athletics, and Hygiene of the Department of Educaion, New York City; Secretary of the Public Schools Athletic League; and President of the National Society of Normal Schools of Physical Education. He is widely known as an investigator of blood pressure and measurement of physical condition, growth, and adolescence. He was for two years Director of

Sanitarium. At the Olympic Games of 1914 he was awarded the gold medal for scientific research in exercise.

NE EWTON FUESSLE, the author of 66 Sunset," is the same Fuessle that started the athletic controversy. He is greatly impressed with New York. He once lived in Chicago. Readers are warned that The Outlook is not responsible for their inference. LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT is President of The Outlook Company. HAROLD KNUTSON, of Minnesota,

who is the Majority Whip in the House of Representatives, recently visited Europe for the purpose of studying conditions rising out of the war, and the Exclusion Bill reported to the House on the opening day of Congress is largely based on information gathered by himself and other members of the Immigration Committee during the summer recess of Congress.

MRS

RS. MARGARET SHIRLEY, who writes from Rheims, lives in Brooklyn, where her father was a well-known entomologist. Mrs. Shirley, while on a visit to her daughter, Dr. Alice Flood (a graduate of Michigan University and once attached to Bellevue Hospital), house physician at the American Memorial Hospital, gathered the data contained in this article. Her stay of two months, in daily contact with the hospital staff, gave her exceptional opportunity of becoming acquainted with the work inside and outside the hospital.

cost money. What is not so well known, though equally true, is that it also costs money not to build good roads. To hasten to the point, it has been estimated -and conservatively, too-that a waste of $500,000,000 annually can be directly attributed to unimproved roads in America.

Money spent in building good roads comes back in earnings from the completed roads, but money lost because of unimproved roads is forever gone.

The subject of improving the highways is one of growing importance. For instance, against 259,000 miles of railway available for transportation and 15,000 miles of inland waterways, there are 2,753,000 miles of highways in this country representing the transportation mileage available for the motor car. And recently motor transports have taken a tremendous jump in importance as carriers of freight. Motorvehicle registration figures show an increase of more than a million and one-half` cars since July 1, 1919. There are now

Courtesy of the White Company

nearly 8,000,000 automobiles and trucks in the United States. Motor trucks have increased in number by 300,000 within the last year.

If highway transportation is to assume the position which recent developments indicate it will, more miles of improved highways are imperative. To this fact there are signs of an awakening appreciation. Approximately $1,000,000,000 is now available for good roads building in the United States. Serious proposals have been made to add another billion to this amount, making a grand total of virtually $2,000,000,000 available for the building of good roads in the United States within the next five years.

This gigantic sum, it is estimated, will pay for more than 66,000 miles of the finest hard roads yet built on this side of the Atlantic-a mileage equal to onefourth of the total railway mileage of the entire country, exceeding the total mileage of the eight largest railway systems in the United States, and one-half again as large