great many people in this country as a most serious misfortune. Justly or not, it will have the effect of producing upon the minds of many who are concerned for the protection of the unprivileged the impression that our laws and our Constitution and our courts are somehow hampered by system or a habit of thought or something else that prevents or impedes justice. It seems to be out of accord with the recent tendencies of the decisions of this great Court. In our judgment, this decision will rank with that rendered in the Knight case and in the case of the New York bakeshops as an example of the need for judges who know life. An illustration of this is the phrase in Mr. Justice Day's opinion that this is "a purely local matter." In their effect, at least, the conditions of manufacture caused by child labor are far from local. The State that limits itself by restricting child labor finds itself underbid by a State that does not so limit itself. Therefore the State that exploits its children is benefiting at the expense of the States that do not. The very purpose of the Inter-State Commerce clause in the Constitution was to make it possible for local matters to be readjusted in the National interest.

In this decision, whether they agree with it or not, Americans will, of course, at once acquiesce. It is the law, and to it the Nation must adjust itself. Let us remember, however, that the Supreme Court has reversed itself on more than one occasion, and it is perfectly conceivable that the time may come when another Child Labor Law, framed in somewhat different terms, but putting, like this Child Labor Law, all States on an equality, will receive the sanction of the Supreme Court.

One thing is certain-that no single decision of the Supreme Court will prevent the movement for industrial freedom which has been one of the distinctive characteristics of the past two decades in this country.

"THE AMERICAN RAILROAD EXPRESS COMPANY The title above is the name which the "Annalist (the financial weekly published by the New York "Times") has created for the new Government express company. As everybody knows, the transportation of packages and merchandise for which the ordinary railway freight was too slow has been conducted for years by private express companies. The four great companies doing this business, which in Europe has been largely done by parcel post, and directly by the railways, are the American, the Wells-Fargo, the Southern, and the Adams Express Companies. The Government has announced that on and after July 1 these companies will cease to do business as private corporations. The Government has consolidated them and will operate them as a branch of the Government railways. Offices, wagons, and other equipment will be used in common by all the lines, and the present President of the American Express Company, Mr. George C. Taylor, will be the operating President of the new Federal organization.

The general system of conducting the express business under the new Government merger will be similar to that of the railways. Mr. Taylor will be Director-General McAdoo's first executive officer, and under him will be regional operating officers. The stockholders of the old companies will still retain their holdings, and it is believed that they will obtain a reasonable return on their investments. If under the new system profits should increase, there is an arrangement for a division of the profits between the Government and the stockholders. It is not yet announced what will be the new relation, if any, of the American Railroad Express Company to the parcel post system.

The "Annalist" recalls that Mr. John Wanamaker, when Postmaster-General of the United States, put in epigrammatic form the conflict between the private express system and the parcel post system. "There are four reasons," said Mr. Wanamaker, "why we cannot have a parcel post service in this country. They are the Adams, the American, the United States, and the Wells Fargo Express Companies." When the parcel post system was put into effect in 1913, it took away what the Annalist" calls the "unbridled power and amazing prosperity" of the express companies. The present solution of amalgamating all these companies under Government control is unmistakably welcome to the shippers of the country, and is

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apparently welcome to the investors whose capital has built up the private express companies from very small beginnings into a huge and necessary transportation system.

MEDALS AND PRIZES IN JOURNALISM AND LETTERS

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On June 3 the awards of the medals and prizes for preeminence in American journalism and letters during 1917 were announced. These medals and prizes were established by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, owner of the New York "World" and founder of the Columbia School of Journalism, of which Dr. Talcott Williams is Director.

The gold medal for the most disinterested and meritorious public service rendered by any American newspaper during 1917 was awarded to the New York "Times" because it had published intact the official reports, documents, and speeches of various European statesmen in critical times when it was neces sary to interpret to America the war aims and the spirit of our allies and our enemies.

A similar medal for the best editorial article written during the year, the test of excellence being moral purpose, sound reasoning, clearness of style, and power to influence public opinion in the right direction, was awarded to the Louisville "CourierJournal" for its editorials "Væ Victis and "War Has Its Compensations." Our readers will not be surprised to learn that these articles were written by the veteran editor of that paper, Henry Watterson.

The prize of $1,000 for the best review of the public service of the American press in 1917 was divided between two members of the outgoing class in the School of Journalism, Miss Minna Lewinson and Henry Beetle Hough.

For the best example of reporter's work during the year, the test being accuracy, terseness, and the accomplishment of some public good, the prize of $1,000 went to Harold A. Littledale, of the New York "Evening Post," for the series of articles published in that paper exposing the abuses in, and leading to the reform of, the New Jersey State Prison system. We learn that Mr. Littledale is now fighting in Flanders. He recently distinguished himself by sticking to his tank until the Germans were within forty yards, and then blowing it up.

For the best history of the United States published during the year, the prize of $2,000 was awarded to James Ford Rhodes for his "History of the Civil War.'

For the biography which best sets forth patriotic and unselfish service published during 1917 the prize of $1,000 went to William Cabell Bruce, the author of "Benjamin Franklin SelfRevealed."

For the American novel published during the year which best depicts the atmosphere of American life the prize of $1,000 went to Ernest Poole for the novel "His Family."

Similarly, the prize of $1,000 for an original American play performed during 1917 in New York City which best represents the educational value and power of the stage in raising the standard of good morals, good taste, and good manners went to Jesse Lynch Williams, the author of "Why Marry?"

A PERSONAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Mr. Theodore H. Price, who for several years has been a valued and regular contributor to The Outlook on financial and economic matters, has been appointed Actuary of the Federal Railroad Administration under Secretary McAdoo, DirectorGeneral of Railroads. As our readers know, Mr. Prices the founder, editor, and publisher of "Commerce and Finance," a financial and economic weekly of New York City. He has resigned the editorship and turned the paper over to be conducted by his associate, Mr. Richard Spillane, who has also been a contributor to The Outlook. At this writing we are not sure whether Mr. Price's Government activities will prevent his continuing his special work for The Outlook, but we hope that we shall get at least some first-hand comment on railway and affiliated subjects. The term "actuary of a railroad" is somewhat new. It is defined by Director-General McAdoo as follows:

His [the Actuary's] duties will be to compile and analyze statistics and make reports concerning the various economic

more honorable for them to do them, providing the acts themselves are justifiable.

Are reprisals justifiable?

The better word for the sort of act popularly called reprisal is retorsion. This is defined by Westlake' as follows: "Retorsion in war is the action of a belligerent against whom a law has been broken, and who retorts by breaking the same or some other law in order to compensate himself for the damage which he has suffered, and to deter his enemy from continuing or repeating the offense." Professor Westlake points out that there is an analogy in national law in the principle that if one party to a contract violates it the other party is released.

The reason why retorsion in war is sometimes necessary is very simple. Germany, for example, has broken the laws of nations in bombing undefended English towns. How can she be stopped? England cannot stop her by making war on her, because England is already at war with her. She might try to stop her by persuading a neutral to intercede or to threaten Germany with war if she does not stop breaking international law. For two years and a half America, while a neutral, watched Germany breaking international law right and left, and, though we finally protested in cases where our own interests were involved, we failed to take any real measures to restrain Germany until we entered the war ourselves, avowedly for what Germany had done, not to England, but to us. Now if Germany drops bombs on the civilian population of New York we cannot expect Holland or Switzerland or Spain to do what we failed to do under similar circumstances. There is only one alternative left. The offended nation must take measures to make Germany realize that her violation of the law of nations will bring evil consequences to herself, and that means retorsion. Unless checked by retorsion Germany can continue her atrocities with impunity.

It is generally unavoidable that in retorsion people are made to suffer who had no direct part in perpetrating the original offense. Professor Westlake, however, points out that the justification for this is that "for an individual to suffer by retorsion for the offense of his government implies that for the purposes of war he is held to be identified with his state." In the case of retorsion upon Germany this is doubly justified, because it is one of the cardinal doctrines of Germany that every German subject is merged in the Empire. Germany cannot hold this doctrine for her own benefit and escape having that doctrine applied to her for the purpose of holding her accountable. We shall not attempt to specify what acts of retorsion should be undertaken to check the atrocities of the Hun; but we venture to indicate certain principles that should govern any retorsion undertaken by America.

First, no act of retorsion should or will be sanctioned by America which would make the agent of it a personal criminal or would violate the absolute prohibitions which must be observed at all costs. What the Germans in Belgium and France and Poland have done to women, for example, not out of passion, but as a measure of frightfulness, demands the sternest retorsion, but by measures which will leave such horrors as one of the Hun's distinctions.

Second, the sole reason why retorsion is ever justifiable is that it is effective. Retorsion for vengeance, for the satisfaction of one's own vindictiveness, as a vent for even just and noble hatred of foul deeds, is of no value. Indeed, it is a detriment to those who undertake it, because it diverts energy which ought to be directed to effectual ends. Retorsion should be confined to acts that will prevent or discourage the enemy from perpetrating his barbarity. The use of men and material for acts of retorsion when such men and material could be more effectually used for the prosecution of military measures is wasteful.

Third, whenever possible, retorsion should be brought home to the perpetrators of the outrages which have been committed, or to those who are in that class of service identified with the outrages in question. Prisoners of war, for example, are ordinarily entitled to their lives upon surrender; but the crews and commanders of submarines have almost uniformly played the part of pirates and have forfeited their right to be regarded when captured as honorable prisoners of war. A justifiable

1The Collected Papers of John Westlake on Public International Law," edited by L. Oppenheim, Cambridge, England, at the University Press, 1914, p. 259.

measure of retorsion would be to make sure that no German submarine officer or seaman found and seized should ever be heard of again. The mystery of the disappearance of German submarines and their crews has been reported to cause among German sailors a dread of the submarine service.

Fourth, within such limitations as we have indicated, the particular measures of retorsion should be decided upon, not by public opinion, but by experts who can weigh their relative merits as effectual means of prevention.

PROFITS AND PROFITEERS

Profiteer is a derogatory term applied to one who successfully attempts to take advantage of his country's necessity to make money for himself. It is right and just that as thus understood it should be a term of reproach. The man who is a profiteer must be in these days either grossly ignorant or scoundrelly. By this time there can remain only a very small number of people who are ignorant of the acute necessity under which this country is laboring; and there are never many scoundrels. The profiteers, therefore, must constitute an extremely small, an almost negligible, minority of the people.

There is, however, a considerable and far from negligible number of people who are making profits as a consequence of the war. To call most of these people profiteers is a demoralizing misuse of language. They are making profits because they are producing things or rendering service of special value at this time, and they are receiving the monetary returns that are inevitable at a time when such goods and such service are in demand.

Let us suppose a case in point. A is the owner of a mine from which coal can be obtained at low cost. There is a great demand for coal. For the purposes of manufacturing munitions more coal is needed than the specially productive mines can supply. The price of coal in the market must be increased sufficiently to pay the cost of producing coal from mines where the cost of production is high. A price which will stimulate coal production from unproductive mines will give to A large profits. There is no doubt in the mind of every one who knows him that A is patriotic. He, in fact, offers his services to the Government at a dollar a year and works himself into a wreck for his country's sake; but his profits from his coal mine keep coming to him just the same. It is cruelly unfair to call A a profiteer.

Suppose, instead of a coal mine, it is a commercial or manufacturing business that A owns. It is highly productive, not because of natural advantages, but because of years of highly skilled management on A's part in the past. If there is a great demand for A's product, the price must be enough to make it possible for B and C and D, who are by no means skilled managers, to produce the goods. It is impossible under such circumstances for A not to profit. Yet it would be cruel and stupid to call A a profiteer.

Yet A ought to be taxed heavily, because it is unwholesome for individuals to reap large profits through conditions created by war, and, more particularly, because the simplest and the justest way by which revenue for the purposes of the war can be raised is by taking the surplus from the very industries which war stimulates.

In framing a war revenue bill the object should not be the punishment of profiteers; much less should it be the punishment of those who, without being profiteers, have by fortune or skill the goods skill the goods or the service that commands high returns. The object of a war revenue bill should be to lay the burden of financing the war chiefly upon those industries which the war itself has enabled to bear those burdens. To put it tersely, it should be to make the war as far as possible pay for itself. War is productive as well as destructive. It drives men into efficiency. It should be required to pay for what it destroys out of what it makes. A war revenue bill drafted on this principle will not try to look into the motives of men, but will, whatever their motive, approximately equalize the returns from war business. A war revenue bill thus drafted will very largely obviate the necessity for fixing prices, for it will allow sufficiently high prices to enable industry .to produce what is

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needed and at the same time make the raising of prices too high unprofitable.

The character and form of a tax bill will be largely determined by the spirit in which it is drawn. It is the business of the leaders in Congress to see that the spirit in which they draw up the forthcoming Revenue Bill, which will supply a large part of the money for our second year of the war, is the spirit, not of punishment, but of justice and good sense.

A KEEPER OF THE LIGHT

The Happy Eremite read the letter and read it again, stirred by its quiet acceptance of responsibility.

We are particularly fortunate, we think," the lette. ran, "to have all the members of our family united in being loyal Americans. Alfred expects to go to France shortly as a surgeon, Helen left with a hospital unit last week, and Hans is sending all superfluities to me from Camp McClellan, which indicates the early departure of his regiment. Harry belongs to the Public Service Reserve and has also volunteered for five other positions, so you see we are right in it. I am doing all my own work and practically earning the money for Liberty Bonds, Red Cross, etc. Knitting fills up spare moments."

He folded the letter, feeling huge respect for the woman who had written it.

For she was what is known as a German-American.

There could be no mistake about the classification. Her father and mother had been married in a little Saxon town at a time when all Saxon towns, small and great, were slumbering in the drowsy dusk of political reaction in the middle forties; she herself had been born there, coming to America and to Grand Street-quite gorgeous in those days-to live in a little Germany created by her father's vigorous "Hier wird deutsch gesprochen." She had run as a child and as a girl with German boys and girls; she had married a Saxon more completely German even than herself; she had belonged to German singing clubs and German sewing societies; her children had grown up, as it seemed, in a German world.

And now here she was, moving toward seventy, giving the work of her hands, the flesh of her flesh, and the blood of her blood for the downfall of a German conqueror.

For it happened that her father had been one of those in the little Saxon town whom the flame of democracy had kindled. He had been a Forty-eighter. He had seen a great light, and she had kept it burning.

The Happy Eremite remembered the cheerful friendliness of her home when he had run in and out of it as a boy, the simplicity of it, the democracy of it; with all the German customs and the German speech, the plain Americanism of it; the ignoring of caste, the emphasis on simple human worth.

And then he remembered another house where counts and barons had come to eat and drink and tell extraordinarily interesting tales of travel here and adventure there. The master of this other house had been a stalwart part of the later outpouring from Germany that followed hard times in the early eighties. No tyrant's lifted gun butt had driven him forth. He had come, a half-unwilling seeker of fortune in alien lands, dazzled by the splendor of the New World, yet always conscious of the glorious, the tender, the romantic memories of the Old. To the Forty-eighter America had been the Promised Land where the milk and honey of liberty were not wanting; to the other it had always been half a place of exile, to be left behind again on some not impossible golden day.

} The Happy Eremite had loved this other house also. He had liked the counts and barons with their brilliant talk, though he had wondered a little why, when the master of the house grew prosperous, he should spend his summers always at German watering-places to revel in German beauty with German generals and German Geheimräte.

The daughter of the Forty-eighter never thought of spending her summers in Germany. She just went to the seashore or the mountains like an ordinary citizen, rocked on hotel piazzas with her kind, and went driving in four-seated mountain wagons on dusty roads to get the view through the Kaaterskill Clove.

Her father and mother had come for liberty. The master of

the other house had come to seek his fortune. Her thoughts, when they went back, went back to bondage and oppression; his thoughts, when they went back, went back to an imaginary blessedness from which only the lack of a few dollars was excluding him.

And the war, mused the Happy Eremite, had like a bolt from heaven split open and revealed the heart of each. To one it brought only misery and resentment and bitterness, for his eyes had been fixed so steadfastly on the treasures of the old home that he had never thought to seek after the peculiar treasures of the new. But to the other it brought exaltation and the passionate longing to give.

"Of such as you, dear lady," murmured the Happy Eremite, "the foundations of America are made. And the blood in the veins is neither here nor there. The vision is all."

HELP FOR RUSSIA

Should we help Russia? Can we help Russia? In what way may we help Russia? These questions continue to grow in importance. The President, in his recent speech in New York, expressed his belief that we should help Russia and avowed his intention to carry out that purpose. He did not at that time intimate what course was the right one to pursue; but there have been indications that the Administration is weighing the question carefully and intimations that it is inclined to waive its former attitude of opposition to any course of action in Siberia involving Japan so far as that feeling might interfere with the adoption by the United States of practical measures of relief.

Sympathy for Russia's dreadful fate and hope and faith in a future Russia which shall be democratic in the true sense are universal in America. Assuredly, in the forward march of civilization Russia is bound in time to become a strong democracy. The Russian people in large numbers, probably in an actual majority, know that the rule of the Bolsheviki is not an extension of democracy, but a class absolutism which is at the same time weak and cruel.

But it is not enough to hope and believe in the future. What material aid can we give Russia now? The first reply is that the way to help Russia is to beat Germany. To-day Russia is under German bonds. Vast and valuable parts of Russia are under actual German control and subject to German demands. These divisions, such as the Ukraine and Finland, are even more vassals of Germany to-day than are Austria and Turkey. What Germany wills in these countries must be done. The rest of western Russia is nominally under Bolshevik rule. Practically, Germany is in a position to enforce any demand she may make. It would be exceedingly difficult for the United States to send soldiers, munitions, provisions, or money to Russia by any avenue of approach through Russia's northern or western or southern borders. These avenues are closed and marked "Verboten."

The only other way of approach is from the east. Japan must inevitably take a large part in any such action. Japan has the men, the ships, and the financial means, and Japan is near by. But Japan does not desire to act alone. She has said officially that she would act only with the consent and aid of her allies. The one course open to aid Russia and balk Germany is for the Allies to combine whole-heartedly in such a movement. It is quite possible for us to send a small army to the Siberian coast of the Pacific from our western coast. To this might be added British forces (a small British force is already in Vladivostok), possibly also some French and Italian forces. The combined army might be increased by a force not inconsiderable in number by gathering together from the East the Russians hunted out of their own country by the Bolsheviki, while in America itself there are thousands of Poles, Russians, and other Slavs who might be recruited in a separate body. Thus a joint expeditionary army might be formed in which the Japanese soldiers would be in the majority, but which would have for its purpose the protection of Russia, the encouragement of those hundreds of thousands of Russians in the eastern part of the Empire who are bitterly opposed to Bolshevist rule, and, as a secondary motive, the annoyance of Germany in the rear of its present military activities. This army might before long become the

nucleus of a great revivified Russian army. This plan is believed by many students of the situation to be sound in principle and practical in detail. It cannot be carried out without the approval and active co-operation of the United States. If there is any better plan for getting material and military aid to Russia, it remains to be put forward.

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The interviews.lately obtained by Mr. Gregory Mason, staff correspondent of The Outlook, with Count Terauchi, the Prime Minister of Japan, and Baron Goto, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Japan (the latter appears in this issue of The Outlook), throw a strong light on Japan's ideas on this great question. Thus Baron Goto says: Japan cannot tolerate a Bolshevik Government. The disruptive propaganda and disorderly acts of the Bolsheviki menace even our own nation. .. Japan is eager to lend strong support to a buffer Russian state between herself and Germany." Count Terauchi, in the interview with Mr. Mason, declared that "Japan's relations with the Entente Allies will continue unaltered after the present war." He also declared that in any movement in Siberia Japan would want co-operative action. Since these interviews were had, and, indeed, only a few days ago, despatches to London papers quote Count Terauchi as saying, "Such a contingency as a GermanJapanese alliance is impossible;" and that "Japan's future is just as dependent upon the victory of the Entente as is Great Britain's future." Baron Goto is reported as expressing the opinion that such an expedition as we have just described would eventually detract from Germany's strength in the west. Certainly this would be the case if, as many hold, the expedition should occupy the Trans-Baikal and there aid the liberal Russians to gather a force to fight any opposition that should confront them either from the Bolsheviki or from Germany. Eastern Siberia itself also must be guarded and saved from the baneful German control which will surely threaten it if measures are not taken in advance.

If there remains yet in this country any feeling that Russia as a nation can be helped by aiding the Bolsheviki, it is a mistaken belief based on a total misconception of the political nature of Bolshevik rule. Careless thinkers who believe that the cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy have wrongly regarded Bolshevism as an extension of democracy. It is just the reverse. The Bolsheviki are not the exponents of a new, peculiarly Russian, type of democracy. They would bring about-and have already brought about-class war and despotism by the proletariat. The rule of the unfit-the domination of all other classes by the class that is least enlightened—is not democracy. It is not even Socialism. It is class tyranny of the worst conceivable sort, and so long as it prevails there is no hope for Russia.

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This is true whether we regard the leaders of the Bolsheviki as conscious agents of the German autocracy or not. There is evidence that some of them have received pay from the Imperial German Government. For example, there was published in the "Petit Parisien " last February the following document. Inasmuch as that journal is the organ of M. Pichon, the Foreign Minister of France, the document may be accepted as authentic: Order of March 2, 1917.

The Imperial Bank to all representatives of German banks in Switzerland: for

By the present we inform you that demands for pacifist propaganda in Russia are about to be made from that country via Finland. Their demands will be made by the following persons: Lenin, Zinovioff, Kamenoff, Trotsky, Sumenson, Koslovsky, Kolontai, Sivers, Mereain, whose accounts have been opened by our Order No. 2754, in the agencies of the private German banking establishments in Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland.

All these demands must be confirmed by one of the two signatures: Dirschau or Wolkenburg. At sight of these authorized signatures the demands of the above-mentioned propagandists in Russia will be considered as regular and immediately executed. No. 7433, Imperial Bank.

;

Aside, however, from any such evidence, the Bolsheviki have, by their course, proved themselves the enemies of popular liberty. When, before the French Revolution, the nobles tried to disperse the States-General, it was not because the members of that assembly who represented the people were improperly chosen it was because the nobles feared any representation of the people. When, likewise, the Russian Soviets threw the first and only legal national Constituent Assembly out of doors, it was not because its delegates were not fairly elected; if it had been, the Soviets would have proceeded to institute new elections for delegates. It was because the Bolsheviki and their tools had a minority of the delegates in the Assembly. The Bolsheviki, in short, insisted that, not the majority, but the minority, should rule. Lenine, Trotsky, and the other prophets of the new philosophy hate the bourgeoisie worse than they do the capitalists; they even call a peasant who owns a bit of land a bourgeois. Lenine declared, not merely that the proletariat should rule, but that no one outside the proletariat should have anything to do with the Government or be allowed a seat in the Constituent Assembly. All this is as far as the North Pole from the South Pole from anything resembling democracy; it is purely and simply despotism by a single class.

It is to rid Russia of this despotism and to help put her on the road toward democracy that America's help is sorely needed.

NLY a few months ago I saw him-young Peter, the shipping clerk in our concern, a stalwart lad of twentyfour, eager to get into the great war. He came over to my desk to say good-by to me, no longer in the dirty little apron he wore when he worked out in the shipping-room, but clean and well set up in his khaki, a lieutenant now in the Army of the United States of America.

How good it was to see him, after his training-camp life, the fire of patriotism in his eyes, a flame in his heart, and something undreamed of before in his sonl! And to think that our young Peter was going away to fight for us--one of the millions to serve Freedom! How strange life is, since this boy who had known only shipping receipts, tags, figures, and horse-play was now going forth with a musket in his hand instead of a pen! And to France! It seemed incredible. I shall never forget how proud we were of our Peter as he marched out of the office. Some of the girls cried as they watched his broad back and his manly, fearless stride. I confess that I choked, and perhaps I preferred just then to turn and look out of the window.

That was only three months ago. And to-day a letter has come from him-in No Man's Land. Our Peter, our young Peter! He is in that country of barbed wire and bombshells.

He is in the trenches. And he has not had his boots off, he writes, sometimes for a whole week; and when he sleeps the rats race over him. But he is not afraid. He will give the Boche a run for his money! He will help to make this world a better place to live in. He will do his bit for democracy and truth. Oh, so modestly he writes down the words! There is seemingly no comprehension on his part of the big work he is doing. He merely alludes to it because he knows how interested we are in him our Peter. Now and then there is a simple French word. Think of our Peter speaking-and writing-French! Peter, who hardly got through the grammar school, and read only the baseball reports, and loved Briggs and Goldberg, and went to the movies with his best girl or his mother of an evening!

I think of modest Peter so often now. And yesterday, when I went out to my comfortable luncheon, in good company, and the tea dripped into the saucer so that I complained to the head waiter, I suddenly had a vision of him-in No Man's Land, with the rats racing over him while he lay worn out after days and nights in the foul trenches. And I was ashamed of myself, and wondered if I could ever complain again. For what matters anything in these desperate days to me-save our young Peter out in No Man's Land?