purposes. The venerable Archbishop Lucon, who, like a true soldier of Christ, had remained at his post near the Cathedral throughout the attacks, solemnly pledged his word that it was not being used in any way by the French army. His word carries conviction. Apart from that, the repeated attacks by the Germans have been of such a nature as to indicate that no military purpose, but rather the refinement of cruelty and contempt, actuated these attacks.

Quite lately came reports that the Germans had fired more than one hundred thousand shells into the heart of the city of Rheims, that the beautiful Cathedral is falling stone by stone, and that there will soon be nothing left but its west front and a few columns. This attack on church and city had nothing whatever to do with any of the military offensives lately carried on by the German armies. The destruction has had no other object than to give on a huge scale an illustration of the German purpose of ruthlessness and frightfulness. Instead of inducing terror and weakness, it will inspire courage and devotion. It has been noted by more than one observer that the attacks upon Rheims Cathedral have invariably followed some check to the Germanic arms or some failure to accomplish a large object. It has been suggested that the last and most devastating attack of all was instigated by the thwarting of the German attempt to drive the British and French forces to the Channel. It seems almost incredible that such spitefulness and viciousness could exist in a great nation like Germany, but there seem to be very good reasons for thinking that they do exist. The result has been described by one writer in these words: "Almost in a moment, as time is measured in chronicles so venerable as those of Rheims, the barbarians, with no object in mind except devilish destructiveness, have reduced to dust irreplaceable monuments to an æstheticism that was ancient when modern civilization was young.'

THE DESTRUCTION OF WORKS OF ART

"Pillage is formally forbidden."

These four words constitute the entire text of Article 47 of the Fourth Convention of the fifteen conventions which make up the great Hague Treaty of 1907. Forty-four nations, of course including Germany and Austria, recorded their decisions therein. Contrast the language of Article 47 with the reported language of the Teuton General von Dithfur to the effect that “if all the monuments and all the masterpieces of art went to the devil it would not matter. . . . Let them call us barbarians! What does it signify? We are sufficiently tired of this wearisome outcry regarding the Cathedral of Rheims. A great many other monuments are destined for the same fate."

These ideals have found expression not only at Rheims, but in the fate of the Library at Louvain, of the Market Hall at Ypres, of the Town Hall at Arras, and of the Cathedral at Ancona.

War inevitably causes destruction. But the sacrifice necessary to gain victory is one thing; the encouragement of cruelty by explosions of insane and useless ferocity is another. So asserts Signor Corrado Ricci, the eminent Italian authority on art. He points out that history is not wanting in magnificent examples of careful respect for beautiful objects even amid the fury of deadly conflicts; that Demetrius besieging Rhodes wished to spare the "Gialiso," or, as we say, the "Ialysus," of Protogenes, the Greek painter; that Louis XIV at Cambrai commanded that the monuments of the town should not be hit; and that General Raffaele Cadorna gave similar orders on September 19, 1870, at the siege of Rome.

These remarks preface the report of the Leonardo da Vinci Society of Italy concerning the protection of monuments and works of art. The Society's creed is that "it is the duty of our generation to guard the patrimony of art and culture which has been transmitted and intrusted to it, and for which, as a sacred charge, it is responsible to future ages;" that "artistic and historical monuments, galleries, museums, libraries, and archives-in short, all centers and collections of art and cultureshould be scrupulously respected by the contending armies, both during and after the war, as noble witnesses of the past, which belong not to one nation only but to the whole civilized world." This proclamation was made by the Leonardo da Vinci Society in January, 1915. Later in that year Austro-German comment on it came in the destruction of Tiepolo's fine ceiling

in the Church of the Scalzi and in the grave damage to other Venetian churches.

The Society thereupon passed a resolution holding up to the reprobation of the world "a hostile system which, without any serious military aim, and only in the vain hope of intimidating? a dauntless and vigilant population, vents itself upon monuments and works of sovereign beauty which were created for the uplifting and joy of civilized man.'

The Leonardo da Vinci Society has now published an illustrated brochure showing the ghastly hostile bombardments at Ancona, Ravenna, and Venice. The Society's protests have found, we are glad to say, an echo in the following statement signed by a host of distinguished persons in England:

We, the undersigned, affirm that it is the duty of the present generation to preserve intact the heritage of art that has been handed down to us. We therefore record our indignant protest against every assault upon this heritage, and in particular against the repeated bombardment of Venice by enemy aeroplanes without any serious military objective. We hold such acts of barbarism up to the reprobation of the whole civilized world.

SEDITION

The Department of Justice has been criticised for not attending to more cases of pro-German sedition, for not publishing lists of the enemy aliens interned, and for not acting under the treason statute. This statute, the Attorney-General contends, is unworkable in sedition cases. The Department receives an average of upwards of fifteen hundred complaints of suspected sedition a day. All of them are carefully investigated. Most eventually prove unfounded. While it would be absurd to say that every hostile act has been successfully run down, energetic effort, we are sure, is being made to ferret out and punish hostile activities. Such effort would be more successful if there were sufficient law concerning sedition. It is true that one clause of the Espionage Act, passed June 15, 1917, is of value. But it does not go far enough.

In particular, in the secret opposition to the present effort to float a Third Liberty Loan there is a peculiarly subtle and insidious form of sedition among German propagandists. There is not enough law to reach them, either, in this activity.

Of course the Government should have the power to stamp out all disloyalty; in especial, it should have the power to float its Liberty Loans without secret seditious opposition. What is sedition?

It may consist of words or deeds. As defined in the Espionage Act, above mentioned, sedition may be―

any

The uttering, writing, or publishing of any disloyal or abusive language about our form of government, the Constitution, the flag, our soldiers and sailors, or the advocacy of curtailment of production necessary to the prosecution of the war. If enacted as originally drafted, the bill might have abridged the right of free speech, it might have prevented legitimate criticism of the President. In its present form, however, its sponsors declare that it has no power to punish any one who disagrees with the Government's policies, but only one obviously engaged in propaganda to spread abroad criticism with the intent to embarrass the Government machinery. The penalty is a fine not exceeding $10,000 or imprisonment not exceed ing twenty years, or both.

Sedition, however, may take other and less subtle forms than

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those above defined and with more immediate embarrassment to our Government. Sedition may mean the destruction or injury of war materials and war transportation facilities. War material comprises arms, armaments, ammunition, clothing, food, and fuel. The men who poison cattle and burn flour mills idating and injure munition machinery are not necessarily Germans; many are I. W. W. Americans. Only a fortnight ago, it was reported, a mechanic employed in the Liberty Motor plant willfully broke a complex machine, causing a loss in production of thirteen airplane engines. To deal with such mechanics Congress has now, we are glad to say, passed a bill imposing a still greater term of imprisonment than does the Sedition Bill above described. This, the Destruction of War Materials Bill, provides for fines of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than thirty years, or both.

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Thus, under these two Acts, if prosecuting officers now do their duty, there will be less excuse for lynch law as an evidence of patriotic Americanism!

COURTS MARTIAL?

The above measures (together with the Woman Spy Bill, just signed by the President) provide necessary additional law. But how about its enforcement, particularly with regard to hi spies? In some places judges, juries, and prosecuting officers are not above suspicion, not on account of over-zeal but on account of under-zeal. The New York "Evening Post's " Washington correspondent informs us as follows:

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The arrogant tactics of Germans in public office in Wisconsin angered the Senate Military Committee and brought about the proposal to suspend jury trials and try these offenders by court martial. Inability to get twelve true Americans on Wisconsin juries and other embarrassing difficulties due to the presence of a large German population in that State swung the Senate Committee on Military Affairs into line. .. The Federal Judiciary, which means judges as well as prosecutors, have been put on probation. If they do not handle it well, Congress will demand martial law. Mr. Wilson could, of course, proclaim certain zones under martial law, and if the situation does not improve in Wisconsin some such measure is sure to be considered. In that case precautions could be taken to send to Wisconsin the best lawyers who have enlisted in the Judge-Advocate General's office of the Army, so that the country will be safeguarded against any miscarriage of justice through incompetent military

men.

great reorganization of the war machine, so, it is expected, the Courts Martial Bill will speed up the prosecution of German agents.'

The New York "Times" calls attention to a decision rendered by the Supreme Court in 1866, which dealt with the case of a citizen of Indiana who had been tried by court martial and sentenced to death. The case was carried through the Federal courts to the Supreme Court, which by a 5-4 vote held that in a State which was not invaded or in rebellion and where the civil courts were still in unobstructed operation military courts had no authority to try a man who was not a resident of a State in rebellion or a prisoner of war. This bare majority decision was made at a time when the Civil War had just ended and when there was a general desire for reconciliation. In view of the fact that we are still in the beginning of our war with Germany, the Supreme Court, should a similar case be brought to it to-day, might possibly, the "Times" suggests, reverse its former decision.

In general, it may be said that as we are not in the throes of an insurrection it would be unjustifiable to establish martial law throughout the entire country. The present Federal law is insufficient. That, however, is no reason for transferring the issue from the civil to the military power. It is rather a reason for giving the Federal civil authorities a more effective law through which to work. If there has been failure to deal intelligently and vigorously enough with spies, we should apply our intelligence and at the same time increase our vigor.

WANTED-A STATESMAN

One of the greatest public offices in the world is the Chairmanship of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. That office was left vacant when William Joel Stone, senior Senator from Missouri, died on April 14. It has been nothing less than a calamity that during these critical years in the life of the Nation and the world this position of international power has been occupied by a man extremely unfit for it. It is an understatement to say that in his death the Nation has suffered no loss. He was a crafty politician, as his nickname. Gumshoe Bill," indicates. He knew how to appeal to the ignorant among his constituents without imperiling his own position by solidifying too much the opposition of the intelligent. During the months that elapsed between the outbreak of the war and America's entrance into it Senator Stone was one of the centers of pro-German propaganda; and he went so far as to throw his influence in favor of the yielding of American rights to Ger

66

mittee. The measure provides that spies shall be subject to trial by general court martial or by military commission of the Army or court martial of the Navy, and on conviction shall suffer death or such other punishment as shall be directed.

The announcement of the introduction of this bill created commotion. President Wilson took as regards this bill the same course that he took last January, on the introduction by the same Senator of bills equally repugnant to the White House; that is to say, he wrote a letter about the matter and made it public. He objects to the bill on four grounds:

2. It is inconsistent with the spirit and practice of America. 3. It would put us nearly upon the level of the people against whom we are fighting.

4. Recent legislation makes it unnecessary and uncalled for. The New York "Tribune" declares that, though to transfer jurisdiction over crimes of sedition and treason from the civil to military courts would be inconsistent with American practice, there is a rising demand that it be done, because the treatment of the enemy alien menace has been ineffective, and people are willing to choose the lesser evil and say, "Better that we should set up military courts, with all the risk that will entail upon civil rights, than that the enemy within should continue to be immune."

As to an immediate effect, the Washington correspondent of this paper says that the introduction of the bill will stimulate the Department of Justice to greater efforts. He reports: "Just as the War Cabinet and Munitions Bills were followed by a

tor Stone's attitude was nominally loyal, but his influence was and his remarks in the Senate were often the object of the still unwholesome. He was master of parliamentary camouflage, amusement of his colleagues, because in making them he was so obviously disregardful of the intelligence of his immediate hearers and so obviously directing his words to the uninformed in State, and his occupancy of the Chairmanship of the Senate Missouri. His presence in the Senate has been a discredit to his Committee on Foreign Affairs has been a discredit to the country.

A foreigner might well inquire why such a man comes to such a position. The answer is one which Americans cannot make with any pride. The Senate fills the chairmanships of the various committees by the unutterably stupid traditional plan of seniority. The man who happens to be the longest in service on a committee among the majority becomes its chairman. No other method could conceivably have put Senator Stone into that office. If there had been a man of statesmanlike qualities in that position, the whole course of the country with reference to the war might conceivably have been radically different, with a resulting saving of countless lives, the preservation of the country's honor, the securing of freedom for peoples who have been enslaved by Germany, and the prevention of untold misery through the shortening of the war.

It is expected that Senator Stone's successor will come to the leadership by the same road by which Senator Stone himself reached it-the road of seniority. In that case the chairmanship will be assumed by Senator Gilbert M. Hitchcock, of Nebraska. It is no compliment to Senator Hitchcock to say that he is an

improvement on Senator Stone; but Senator Hitchcock is not one of the men supremely qualified for the office. At such a time as this, when the country's destiny is at stake, political tradition and partisanship ought to be laid aside. There are two men on the Committee distinctly qualified for the chairmanship. One is Senator Lodge, one of the best-known authorities in the world on international relations; the other is Senator Knox, who has been Secretary of State. But both are Republicans, and Senator Knox is the junior of all the members on the Committee. It is too much to expect that intelligence will really rule in our public affairs when tradition stands in the way. Is it necessary for us to wait until we suffer as England has suffered before we put the Nation's welfare above party?

MR. SCHWAB

Charles M. Schwab has been appointed Director-General of the Emergency Fleet Corporation.

"Where is Hurley?" some one asks. “I thought he bossed the job."

So he does in respect to the operation of ships. He is the head of the Federal Shipping Board, established by virtue of the Act signed by the President September 7, 1916, to create a Naval Auxiliary, a Naval Reserve, and a Merchant Marine. The Board consists of five members, appointed by the President, one of whom is chairman. Not more than three are from the same political party.

The Board authorizes the construction of vessels; it buys and charters them. It may also form one or more corporations to construct or equip vessels. It did form such a corporation, the Emergency Fleet Corporation. While the Shipping Board has charge of the operation of ships already built, the Emergency Fleet Corporation is charged with the duty of actual construction. Although the Chairman of the Shipping Board is also the President of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, he has no power to appoint or remove that Corporation's General Manager. Hence Mr. Denman, the first Chairman of the Board, could not remove General Goethals, the first General Manager of the Fleet Corporation. Finally, at the President's instance, both went. They were succeeded, respectively, by Edward N. Hurley, a man of great organizing ability, and by Admiral Capps, an authority in nautical construction. When Admiral Capps's health broke down, Admiral Harris succeeded him, and retired some time since. The Vice-President of the Fleet Corporation, Charles Piez, a successful Chicago business man, took over temporarily the duties of General Manager.

Mr. Hurley, Mr. Piez, and the President, seeking to accentuate the General Manager's office, decided to call its occupant Director-General and to summon to it the strongest man in the country. Their choice fell on Mr. Schwab, the experienced steelmaker and ship-builder, and it was ratified at a meeting of the trustees of the Fleet Corporation.

This appointment, in our opinion, may be regarded as epochmaking in our war progress. The companies controlled by Mr. Schwab are turning out probably more than a fifth of the ships which are being supplied.

Mr. Schwab's chief work has been with the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. When he took control, it was a relatively minor organization. Its production now rivals that of the United States Steel Corporation. In war material and munitions production the Bethlehem Steel concern is the greatest in the world that is, unless the Krupp Company has been much enlarged during the war. Mr. Schwab's reconstruction of his corporation to fill French orders for guns and munitions is the kind of thing necessary to be done in ship-building also.

Mr. Schwab gets things done. Not only this; he makes men want to work. One reason why men work for him is because they know that he was once a poor boy. Before he entered the service of the Carnegie Company he used to drive a stage from Loretto to Cresson, Pennsylvania. Another reason is because of his persistent cheerfulness despite adverse conditions-just the kind of spirit we may be needing even more than we need it to-day. A hundred and fourteen thousand men work for Mr. Schwab.

The first move of the new Director General was to settle a question which for weeks has been disputed-as to whether the

railways should be given the full tonnage requested for railway construction. The Emergency Fleet Corporation insisted on its priority as regards steel and won.

Mr. Schwab's second move was to remove construction headquarters from Washington to Philadelphia, the center of the largest ship-building district in the country. Out of 730 ways in the United States 211 are located in this district, 165 of them being for steel construction; the Fleet Corporation has let contracts for over 4,300,000 tons of shipping there.

Such moves "mean business." Coming closely after the ap pointment of Edward R. Stettinius as Assistant Secretary of War, this action indicates that the Administration is beginning to see the necessity for effective business administration in the prosecution of the war.

HOW SHALL WE REDUCE THE PRICE OF MILK?

One of the indirect results of the war, as pointed out some time ago by The Outlook, has been a very considerable increase in the infant death rate in America. This, in the opinion of medical authorities, is unquestionably due to a decrease in the consumption of milk because of the constantly rising price of that commodity.

The sudden increase in price was very naturally ascribed to combination in restraint of trade, and Mayor Mitchel appointed a Committee to examine the situation and see why milk had increased in price and what could be done about it.

Beginning at the source of production, the Committee found that the cost of producing milk varied between 5 and 81⁄2 cents. The larger dairies produce milk much more cheaply than, the small ones do. The data from all farms inspected shows that 613 cents a quart is a fair estimate of the yearly average cost of producing a quart of producing a quart of average milk on the average farm under present conditions. For the months of October, November, and December seven cents is a fair estimate.

The Mayor's Committee was of the opinion that milk production can be cheapened by consolidations and co-operations among farmers. Larger herds are recommended. The Com mittee's data show that herds numbering seven to ten cows produced milk during 1917 at a cost of 623 cents a quart, while herds containing fifty cows or more produced milk for 423 cents a quart. Cows producing less than 4,000 pounds (about 1,900 quarts) a year should be eliminated from the herds. Collective hauling of milk is recommended, and the co-operative buying of grain. Commission merchants assured the Committee that if farmers would buy their grain collectively they could save ten per cent on the cost, which would reduce the cost of milk production one-fifth of a cent a quart.

But the greatest cost to the city consumer, the Committee found, was in the delivery. The Committee refers to the customary early morning delivery as a "relic of the days in which municipalities received their supplies from near-by farms, without the advantages of refrigeration."

The way to reduce the retail price, in the opinion of the Committee, is to eliminate the duplication of deliveries as now practiced by competing firms. The data show duplication in collecting, shipping, hauling, bottling, pasteurizing, and delivering milk. In Philadelphia milk has generally retailed for two cents a quart less than in New York. This is due to the fact, the Committee believes, that in Philadelphia retail loads average three hundred quarts as against two hundred in New York. In Ottawa, Canada, seventy-five per cent of the milk business is in the hands of one firm, which operates at a margin of 34 cents a quart above the price of production, as against the operating cost of five cents in Philadelphia and seven in New York.

Mayor Mitchel's Committee urges that steps be taken to bring about the immediate centralization of the delivery system. "Either the municipality itself might undertake the distribution," says the report, "or the companies engaged in distribut ing milk should be regarded and regulated as public service corporations. And just as now one particular water supply corporation is granted a franchise for a certain territory, so the distribution of milk in a given territory might be restricted to one corporation or to a single delivery agent of the combined distributing companies. Such centralization appears inevitable."

AGAINST THE WALL'

BY THERESA VIRGINIA BEARD

"With our backs to the wall"-Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, April 13, 1918
God spare thee not, America.
This penitential day!
Against the wall, in Flanders,
The nations stand at bay;

G

And thou, the strong, the mighty,
A laggard at the fray!

God drive thee hard, America,

So hesitant, so slow;

God smite thee in his anger,
And fling thee at the foe;
The last black dregs of sacrifice
May it be thine to know!

God save thee, O America!
The glory and the fame,

Once thy fathers', be thy children's,-
Not thine the deathless shame
That freedom fell in Flanders
Calling upon thy name!

ERMANY has all the summer before her. Spring has barely begun, and she has poured her armies into French territory that has not seen a German since 1914. She first rolled back the French. She has now rolled back the British. And we, a Nation of a hundred million free people, look on helplessly. It is true we have a few score thousands of soldiers at the front; but, spirited and brave as they are, they cannot count greatly when millions are engaged. We have been in this war for a year and longer, and the American forces at the front are to be ranked in numbers with the Belgians and the Portuguese. We read each day in the newspapers of what these brave and fine young soldiers of America are doing. We are proud of them. We believe in them. We know we can count on them. But they are few, pitifully few. And we have not given them even the arms that they need. They have no artillery except such as that of which hard-pressed France deprives hard-pressed Italy to give them. A while ago Mr. Baker, our Secretary of War, stood in a front trench in France and called it the frontier of freedom." Since then that frontier has been pushed back. Behind the armies that are defending that frontier are the liberties of the world. Behind those armies is the freedom of America. Our British friends and our French friends have been very generous in what they have said of America's preparations, and we thank them for their generosity; but we owe heartiest thanks to such a friend as Lloyd George, who did us a service in expressing disappointment at our slowness.

No one except our enemies will profit if we fool ourselves. We Americans will never count in this war unless we face the facts. It will help us to face the facts to listen to such a voice as that of Theresa Virginia Beard, whose poem, "Against the Wall," we print on this page. This country is, as Mrs. Beard says, a laggard at the fray. Our people have been led to imagine that there was no need for hurry.

Our Government has been deliberate when it ought to have been in haste. It has gone about its preparations as if there were plenty of time. Our Army has needed machine guns with which to meet the oncoming Germans, and our Government, instead of using machine guns already available, has waited to perfect a machine gun that may prove to be better than those in existence; but in the meantime the Germans have come on. Our Army has needed airplanes, and our Government, instead of using airplane motors already in existence and tested in war, has waited to perfect its Liberty motor, which may prove better

At this time, when our allies are enduring the terrific blows of the German offensive, this poem comes to us from Mr. Roosevelt with this note: "I have just read Against the Wall,' a stern and noble poem by Theresa Virginia Beard, which has recently been published in the Minneapolis Journal.' Mrs. Beard is the wife of a professor in the University of Minnesota. She is fit to be a fellowcountry woman of Julia Ward Howe." Some of the prosaic facts which this poem illumines are mentioned in the editorial which follows the poem.-THE EDITORS.

than any existing motor; Lut in the meantime our soldiers at the front are dependent upon the airplanes of the French, and our soldiers even at home have not had the planes which they need for training. It is right to aim at improvement, and even perfection, but we ought not to let action wait upon discovery of the best when need calls for the use of every resource available.

Our Government has acted as if there had been a chance that peace might be secured by negotiation before ever we got into the fight. We have thought that words, that persuasion, that argument, would weigh with a people who celebrated the Lusitania massacre, who glory in the bombing of women and children, who have been taught that they could brandish the sword and no one would dare resist. Our Government has so exalted the use of argument and negotiation that even when the President, openly acknowledging that reliance on persuasion has led only to "disillusionment," declares that America must now use "force without stint or limit," the most consistent supporters of the Government's policies cannot believe that the Presi dent means what he says. We quote from the "New Republic:" He [President Wilson] is appealing to force without stint or limit because unless he can command it he may not be able to win the indispensable political victory. He says nothing about using it to deal Germany a "knock-out blow." It is needed because German generals have been allowed to dictate terms of peace with Russia and Rumania, and because they will not abandon their military conquests and advantages until they have been defeated. But the unlimited force is asked expressly for the purpose of obtaining a revision of the proposed settlement in the east, and the German Government can always remove the threat by agreeing to abandon the treaties.

Does this sound incredible? Is it possible that there are sane people in this country who can see what has happened across the water and yet believe that our millions of soldiers, the billions of dollars we are paying by taxes, the billions that we are raising by loans, and all the preparations we are making through the Red Cross and through our Army Medical Corps for the care of the wounded and disabled constitute only the gun behind the door? No wonder America is a laggard if there are many who believe this.

And America is a laggard. The imputation that such a statement as this originates in partisan opposition to the Adminis tration and in a desire to supplant that Administration with another of a different party ought to be resented by all Americans as an attempt to divert public attention from facts to a futile discussion of motives. The facts are plain. They have been elicited by a Senatorial committee of which a majority were of the Administration party; and a majority member of that committee declared in the Senate: "I deem it proper to say that, without regard to the action taken by the Democrats of the committee, the action of the Republican members was particularly patriotic and loyal. They waived any possible political benefit which their party might have derived from denouncing those in power, and willingly joined their Democratic associates in pointing out what they felt would remedy the evils in the future." The Senator who said this was Mr. Hitchcock, of Nebraska, a Democrat, and we quote from his account of what the members of that committee found:

We found that we must depend on overworked and overstrained France for machine guns for ground use until nearly the end of this year, and that not over one-tenth of the new Browning machine guns on which we are to rely can be delivered before August.

We found that we are only now, nine months after entering the war, just beginning work on two great powder plants, costing $90,000,000, the powder from which will not be available until next August. We found that we need a million pounds of powder a day more than America is producing. We found that the need of this powder was known last spring, and that now for the first time we are beginning to build the factories in which the powder is to be made.

The present condition of our ship-building is nothing less than