36

THE

President. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. The President's best friends are the men who give a whole-hearted support to the war policy, but do not hesitate to point out errors and shortcomings in particular policies or methods.

The American Government is not a comet, with the President for its head and Congress for its tail. Congress has its duty not less than has the President. Send to Congress a man who has the vision to see his duty and the courage to do it. This he is no time to convert the American Congress into a German Reichstag, a mere debating society, a "Hall of Records." There are too many men of the "Ditto to Mr. Burke" order in Congress. Do not add to their number. Elect a man independent enough to have an opinion of his own; enough of a mixer to work for a common end with men of a different opinion.

Do not elect a pessimist who is sure that the Germans can never be defeated, that the most to be hoped for is a stalemate. Despair never yet won a victory.

Do not elect an optimist who thinks a German victory is impossible, that we need not worry. Serenity never won a victory.

We can win if we have the will to win; we cannot win without the will to win. Elect courage, not cowardice; hope, not despair; resolution, not vacillation; a discriminating doer of deeds, not a blind follower of a leader.

A POOR WAY TO KEEP THE HOME FIRES BURNING

It would seem that one of the best possible ways to keep the soldier abroad in touch with his home and country would be to encourage and facilitate his reading of home newspapers and magazines. Much stress has rightly been laid on the fostering of close relations between American soldiers abroad and Americau families at home. The Government, in many utterances, has dwelt with feeling and insistence on this point. We all agree that the soldier should have his letters from home and his news from home quickly and continuously. Yet there has been almost a scandal about the delay in soldiers' letters, and now comes a proposal which puts a fine on the transmission of reading matter.

Under the not entirely beneficent Postal Zone Law now going into effect the Post Office Department proposes to charge the highest rate of postage possible on newspapers and magazines going to the soldiers. It may be that technically the wording of the law justifies this; if so, haste should be made to alter the law. If it is not positively obligatory upon the Department to make this ruling, the decision is not only deplorable but unpatriotic. If the law is capable of interpretation as to this point, it surely ought to be in the direction of making it as little costly as possible to give the soldier tidings of home and friends and what is going on in America.

Just what does this eighth zone ruling mean? It means that it will cost as much to send a copy of a newspaper or magazine from New York to the soldier in France as it will cost to send it to California. This, in turn, means that, instead of paying, as Wheretofore, at the rate of one cent per pound for the complete magazine, the publishers may pay one and a quarter cents per pound for reading matter and three and a quarter cents per pound for advertising pages during the year from July 1, 1918, to July 1, 1919. This would, so far as we can figure out this complicated system of paying postage, mean that for the first year of the operation of the law the cost of sending papers to the soldiers will be double what it has been, and that by the end of the third year (the rates increase as time goes on) the cost will be four and a half times the present rate.

It may be argued that, as this cost will fall on the publisher, no one need care. Probably it will fall on the publisher, at least for the present. Ultimately publishers generally will have to increase the price of their product to get what is necessary to meet the increased cost, or will have to go out of business. In any case, the effect will certainly be to discourage efforts to get papers and magazines to the soldiers. This will be seen at once when it is remembered that many periodicals, The Outlook among others, have tried to make it easy and inexpensive for

soldiers to see their home papers. Special terms, and terms under which there is little or no profit to the publishers, have been widely offered. This has been done, we sincerely believe, in an honest spirit, through a real wish to do something of service for the soldier and his friends; not merely through a desire to make money. Many tens of thousands of subscriptions to periodicals have been made under these special offers. To take The Outlook's experience simply as an illustration, we have over two thousand subscribers on our list resulting from this offer; many of the subscriptions come directly from soldiers and officers; a much larger number come from relatives and friends in this country who order the papers to be mailed to soldiers. Multiply this one example by the number of periodicals which are doing the same thing, and the weight of this penalty for trying to give the soldiers something to read from home may be judged. When it is remembered also that, as we are informed, most of this second-class mail goes over on Government vessels, with little or no extra cost for the carrying, the essential injustice of the rule is even more evident.

We are very greatly mistaken if, when the matter is fully understood, either the Post Office Department or Congress does not find it wise and right to remedy this injustice.

LYNCHING A NATIONAL OFFENSE

When a barbarous and cruel case of lynching occurs in this country, whether it be in a remote mountain region of the South or in a great and populous Northern State, the people in distant lands who read the accounts, which are sure to be cabled abroad, make no distinction as to locality. In each and every case it is the United States which bears the disgrace, and to foreign comprehension at least it is the United States which should make lynching impossible or punish it.

An attempt to remedy this has been made by the introduction into Congress of a bill which has the expressive title, "To protect citizens of the United States against lynching in default of protection by the State." If this bill becomes law, the very fact that a citizen is put to death by a mob and in violation of law and without protection by the officers of the State is to be evidence of a denial of protection by the State and to constitute an offense against the United States. If the bill becomes law, it will make lynchers subject to prosecution in the United States courts; if convicted, they may suffer capital punishment. Furthermore, the county, the State, or the municipal officer may be subjected to fine and forfeiture, and, in the case of an individual, to imprisonment, if it appears that the man lynched has not been properly protected, or if lynchers have not been prosecuted, or if the officer has allowed a prisoner to be taken away from him by lynchers. The county, in particular, is obliged to pay from $5,000 to $10,000 for the use of the dependent family of a citizen so lynched, or to the United States if he has no family.

Beyond question the sentiment of intelligent and influential people even in the remoter parts of the country against lynching is constantly growing stronger. We have called the attention of our readers to the earnest resolutions recently passed by the Tennessee State Conference of Charities and Correction. These resolutions ask the President of the United States to issue a special Proclamation on the subject, and they also ask Congress to pass National legislation to give Federal courts power to

act.

A correspondent of The Outlook urges it, "as a friend of the Southern people," to indorse the bill above outlined; the bill, by the way, was introduced by Mr. Dyer, a Representative from the East St. Louis district. It is both as a friend of the South and as a friend of the North that The Outlook urges that the disgrace of lynching be removed from the country's record. If National action can be taken under the Constitution, and if this is the best way of dealing with the subject, well and good; if not, then local sentiment and local love for justice must provide firm and efficient measures of suppression and punishment. As a matter of fact, the rage of the mob is rarely the purpose of the people; mob action can be foreseen and prevented if the wise and sensible part of the community will only see their duty and accept their responsibility.

I

T seems that it is with you that our new allies, the soldiers sent by the United States, are to be quartered. This is a great honor for your province-to be their host in the name of France. We are sure that you will be equal to the delicate task which the nation has confided to you and will show our new guests that hospitality which is one of the best traditions of our race.

An enormous granary, a colossal workshop, an inexhaustible bank, you know what material power the United States represents. Their fields produce twenty per cent of the grain which grows on the surface of the world, thirty-two per cent of the oats, and seventy-five per cent of the corn. Their soil furnishes in oil thirty-six per cent of the production of the world, fortyone per cent of the iron, and sixty-two per cent of the petroleum. Their factories use this material with a methodical precision and rapidity which astonishes the slower European. Their automobile factories can "turn out" one thousand motors a day. They have also the necessary capital to start and run these enterprises, for their wealth, which was estimated in 1870 as $30,000,000,000, now exceeds $150,000,000,000.

In every sense the United States is the richest nation in the world. Up to the present time she has been helping us with all this accumulated wealth. She has thrown with both hands into our side of the great balance her wheat and iron and gold, and this has meant, in a great modern war like this one, which is waged by material and money as well as by men, an invaluable support. If the United States had given us no help but this, she would still have deserved our eternal gratitude. But the Americans were not content merely to supply and lend, however useful that might be. Once their Government had declared war, they claimed their share, not only of privation, but also of danger. They were not willing, in the beautiful words of their President, to leave to us "the privilege of sacrifice." They held it a point of honor to give themselves, to let us see, on our soil torn with shells, the color of their blood.

And this is why, hurrying across the treacherous sea, their first regiments have landed in our ports, why they will be quartered in our villages to complete their training before taking their turn in the furnace. It is with you that they will spend their last night of watch and prayer beside their arms, before the battle.

66

You will see them, these good-looking_boys in khaki, come from so far-New York, or Chicago, or Illinois, or Massachusetts. You will watch them change their cowboy hats for our gray trench helmets. Under your eyes some of our most experienced soldiers, practiced in all the tricks of this terrible modern warfare, will teach them to throw grenades, to advance, to go over the top" under fire. There will be, at your doors, a daily rehearsal of the great tragic scene. You will see these sons of free America the country that desired peace but has now willingly accepted that load of conscription which she had never borne before-accomplish, with the same methodical eagerness that they give to sport, their training for the final match from which so many of them will never return.

Ah, as your imagination shows you the place they come from and the place to which they are going, these allies from afar, now so near to your heart, with what kindness you will wish to surround them! How glad you will be to welcome into your homes in their hours of rest these boys whose mothers are weep ing for them on the other side of the sea. You will remember that they also are helping to defend those homes, and that in coming to fight for the liberty of the world they insure your own province against those horrors of invasion which so many others have experienced.

Keep all these things in your minds and it will seem easy to you to bear the expense and annoyance and inconvenience which the quartering of an army brings to civilians.. You say that the cost of living will increase, that eggs and butter and chickens will be harder than ever to get or to pay for. The American Government has done all that it could to avoid this danger. It has sent after the ship-loads of men ship-loads of provisions. It does not mean that our impoverished land should have to feed its Army. But, in spite of all these precautions, it is clear that the American soldiers cannot expect that all that they eat will come from America. Of course they will want to add French supplements to their regular rations. They will pay well, and that will raise the prices. This is sure to happen; but, after all, the money which the American soldiers bring us is not lost.

The farmer's wife will not be sorry to swell her stocking by selling her butter and eggs at high prices to these excellent customers, and the old owner of the vineyard will not scorn to let them buy for a good sum his last bottles of wine hidden behind the fagots. Just so much money will come into the country and help to support it, even while it raises the cost of food.

And, besides all this, if you are forced by the presence of another army in the country to pay more for your daily living, it will perhaps be consolation enough if you realize clearly what you buy with this extra charge.

You have already seen in many villages soldiers of the older classes sent back to reap and store the harvest of wheat and grapes. This is a great happiness to their families, and also a source of riches for the country which comes back to life through their labor. Do you think that we could have had the unexpected joy of their return if the Government had not been able to count already upon the reinforcements of the American regiments?

are

And there is still something more to remember. The America troops, who are coming in ever greater numbers to add their strength to the active fighting force of our army, give to us the certainty that, whatever may happen, our reserves inexhaustible, while those of our enemies are growing less. So that what you buy by paying more for your butter and eggs. your bread and your wine, is, if you weigh the matter closely, the certainty of victory.

Who will dare to say that the price is too high?
C. BOUGLÉ.

N The Outlook of April 3 three writers- a woman farmer from New Jersey, a gentleman farmer from Maine, and an agriten thousand words in depicting the sad condition of the farmer. If the Kaiser should see these three articles, his heart would be made glad by the impression and belief they convey that the farmers of the United States have lost heart; that they object to the Government price of wheat, sugar, coal, etc.; that they are not making money, and are not trying or wanting to do their full share to win the war. To that extent these three articles will unintentionally aid the Germans.

What I wish now, however, to insist upon is that these three articles misrepresent the condition and the attitude of the farmers of the great Middle West, who produce more than threequarters of the Nation's food supply; and I confine myself chiefly to two assertions of the Maine farmer, Mr. J. L. Dean: (1) On page 533 of The Outlook he supposes a case, takes it as his major premise, conducts an argument, and proves to his own satisfaction that the farmer and his two sons get for their work only 5.09 cents each per hour, or just a little less, all three together, than their hired man got. (2) He gives on the same page the New York Department of Foods and Markets as his authority for the statement that out "of the average dollar paid by the ultimate consumer [for farm food products] the farmer receives thirty-five cents and the distribution system sixty-five cents." No wonder Mr. Dean calls that system "extravagant, wasteful, and inefficient."

To offset Mr. Dean's supposed case as to wages and his quoted "authority" as to what part the farmer gets of the ultimate consumer's dollar, I give a few actual facts concerning three of my near-by farmer friends. I vouch for all the facts given and assert that these three men are typical of the upper half of the farm-owning farmers of the great Middle West.

My neighbor George E. Selden sold last year (1917), by his actual book account, for cash, omitting the cents, as follows: Wheat, $1,722; potatoes, $1,940; heifers (besides those kept to replenish dairy), $230; milk (15 cows), $1,615; eggs, poultry, etc., $222; total, $5,729.

Expenses Seed and fertilizers, $312; hired help, including threshing, etc., and board of men, $472; mill feed, besides grain raised on the farm, $280; rent of five acres, $30; black smithing, harness repairs, etc., $50; taxes and interest on investment, $380; total, $1,524. Net income above receipts, $4,205. This represents the earnings of Mr. and Mrs. Selden (as they have no children) over and above free rent of home, garden, fruit, use of horses, carriage, and many uncounted food supplies, and above annual increase in selling value of farm. Assuming that both work ten hours every day, including Sundays, which is above the facts, each of the two receive 58 cents per hour. How does that compare with Mr. Dean's 5.09 cents per hour each, for his supposed farmer and his two sons, with nothing for the wife and mother? It is more than ten times as much.

Another case: Mr. Selden's nearest farmer neighbor is Mr. O. D. Bradley. This year in March he made and sold maple syrup and maple "cream" (a delicious confection) from his sugar camp of some 800 trees, occupying about ten acres of land, $957.80, all cash, to final consumers, of which he got the whole dollar each time, except cost of cans for syrup and freight where shipped-less than ten cents on the average for each dollar of the $957.80. What about Mr. Dean's 65 cents out of each dollar going to "our our extravagant, wasteful, and inefficient system of distribution "? This syrup and " cream were made and sold by Mr. and Mrs. Bradley with the help of one hired man and one son and daughter, both in school. The hired man gets $50 per month and house rent and certain food perquisites. Mr. and Mrs. Bradley together get $900 per month and house rent and more food perquisites free than the man gets. Does Mr. Bradley want to swap wages with his hired man? Meantime the March receipts from the dairy came in as usual, and the straw berries and winter wheat were growing for $1,500 or so besides, in their time. On these and on the potatoes he grows he will get, on the average, more than 80 cents out of each one of the

ultimate consumer's dollars. Some twenty-five years ago Bradley owned practically nothing. Now he owns two good 1772 acres, and a net annual income of about $3,000. Another instance: Some thirty years ago my neighbor Mr. F. F. Barlow was a farm hand with scarcely a dollar to his name, and with simply a "district school" education. To-day he owns a fine farm of 237 acres, which, with its buildings, live stock, and equipments, and with other property, stocks, and bonds owned by him, is probably worth fully $35,000. Nearly all of this was earned by "straight farming," producing and selling milk, wheat, potatoes, and other farm products, and by wise economy and sagacious investment. Meantime he has given a son and a daughter each a four years' course at the Ohio State University, the son in agriculture, the daughter in domestic science and home economics. I do not think he could have done all this on Mr. Dean's 5.09 cents per hour for his work.

These three men, whose names and addresses I have given for identification and proof, I assert are typical of the better half of the intelligent, energetic, farm-owning farmers of the Middle West. I personally know scores like them within ten miles of my home, and I know of hundreds and even thousands like them all over the great Middle West, where I have lectured before hundreds of thousands of them. I do not think they could have done as well, on the average, socially, educationally, and financially, with the same education and sagacity, in the city. They are not complaining of their lot, nor kicking at the Government price of wheat or other things, nor asking to swap wages with their hired men. Such men are not war slackers, nor are they leaving their farms except for old age, physical infirmity, or financial ability to retire from actual work. And when they sell their farms they get all the way from $50 to $200 per acre, according to fertility, buildings, roads, schools, and social and market advantages. Such prices for good farms would not prevail, as they do all over the great fertile corn, wheat, and fruit belt of the Middle West, if farming had not paid, on the average, for the last sixty years, or if it were not paying better now than under normal prices for farm products. Next, what about the 35 and 65 cents of the ultimate con sumer's dollar? Most of the facts already given bear upon this point. Where the farmer produces the final product in packages ready for family use, like cans of maple syrup, pound "bricks" or small crocks of best butter, sweet corn on the ear, potatoes, parsnips, beets, etc., by the bushel or peck, berries by the quart or crate, and sells to the final consumer, he gets the whole dollar, less freight, etc., if any. If these things go through a commission house, the latter gets a small percentage as commission. If through a retail grocer also, with distant delivery of quarts and pounds, and with credit and the cost of bookkeeping, collecting, and of bad debts, of course the cost to the consumer is greatly increased. And if the farmer's raw material requires intermediate manufacture, as of smoked breakfast bacon, sliced, of flour from wheat, of toasted corn flakes from corn, or of bread, crackers, cake, etc., from flour all ready to be. eaten, then this very costly intermediate manufacture demands proper pay for the labor involved, and deserves it just as truly as the farmer deserves pay for the labor involved in producing the raw material-wheat, corn, hogs, etc. And the vital thing is. this: that this costly labor involved in such intermediate manufacture is legitimate, is a thing of itself, and should never be confused with or charged against "our extravagant, wasteful. and inefficient system of distribution." It is not a part of distribution, in any sense. If consumers demand that their foods be ready for the table when bought, and be delivered in small amounts all over a great city, and on a credit basis, then they must pay for all that these various things cost-that is, they must pay for their own laziness and lack of good business judg ment. Some such confusion of costly intermediate manufacture with the "system of distribution" is the only possible way to explain the statement that the farmer gets only 35 cents of the final consumer's dollar, and the "system of distribution"

65 cents.

"gets

The speediest remedy for "our extravagant, wasteful, and

inefficient system of distribution seems to me to lie, not in the methods suggested in The Outlook of April 3, for they require too extensive combination and too much State or National legislation, but simply in the gradual increase of what are sometimes known as "Cash-and-Carry" stores, especially grocery stores. I think the credit and delivery stores, though a sort of convenience, especially in the case of food products, are financially a curse in our system of distribution.

The following is a specific example of the "Cash-and-Carry plan: A few years ago an enterprising citizen of Akron, Ohio, our county seat, a city of about one hundred and thirty thousand people, began to establish a chain of "Cash-and-Carry" grocery stores in various convenient parts of that city and of smaller cities and villages near by. He now has forty such stores, with total cash sales of about four million dollars per year. He buys always for cash by car-load, sometimes train-load, often the entire season's output of one or more creameries, cheese factories, flouring mills, etc., or the entire crops of potatoes from local farmers; he distributes to his various stores from the trains or mills or creameries by large motor trucks, has a good manager and needed clerks at each local store, cash sales to all, delivery to none, no personal bookkeeping (always expensive), no bad debts, daily reports to headquarters of all sales totals from the forty stores, frequent inventories, and absolute knowledge of profits. He finds that he can sell at about fifteen per cent above cash wholesale cost, which is exceedingly low because of his immense cash purchases, and this fifteen per cent is all that comes between the farmer or the intermediate manufacturer and the ultimate consumer. Such "Cash-and-Carry stores are sure to come. Producers and consumers can and should quietly speed their coming.

I declare that the intelligent, energetic, farm-owning farmers of the great Middle West have, on the whole, been reasonably

A

prosperous for more than sixty years, except during hard-times panics, and that they were never more prosperous than during our Civil War and thus far in this war with their very high prices of farm products. This last fact is chiefly because farmers sell far more dollars' worth of the products of their own labor than they buy and consume of the products of others' labors-far more, too, than under normal prices. Hence the surplus is much larger in dollars, and each dollar of that surplus will pay as much of debts and taxes and many other things as each dollar would pay under low prices and smaller surplus. I need not argue this point.

The greatest trouble just now lies in the shortage of hired help. This is being met increasingly by the use of machinery run by horse or gasoline or coal power. For example, the suction milking machine run by gasoline will do the work of four men. The twine-binder, side-delivery rake, hay-loader, horse fork, steam thresher, and ensilage cutter, etc., together do the work of scores of men. And, latest, the farm tractor run by oil or gasoline.

In conclusion, let me say: We find that we can produce more war food and make more honest money if we are optimistic and do our best than if we are pessimistic and dilatory and con stantly recount and magnify our difficulties and hardships. The farmers of the great Middle West have no soft job or bonanza. They work hard, make long days, and earn all that they receive, and are not profiteering or combining to boost prices unduly but they are not whimpering, or asking sympathy or special favoritism in State or National legislation; and the Kaiser should understand that they are doing and will continue to do their full share to win the war for freedom and for righteousW. I. CHAMBERLAIN, Associate Editor "Stockman and Farmer."

ness.

Hudson, Ohio, near Cleveland.

MERICAN history is fast being made across the water, and Château Thierry and Cantigny are now as much household words as Santiago or Vera Cruz.

Château Thierry, fifty miles east of Paris by railway or motor road, is the first large town on the Marne after Meaux. Motorists must remember the aisles of lofty trees along the avenues of the new part of the town south of the Marne and the imposing modern Mairie. A certain homely but delectable inn at the fork of the main shopping street near the stone bridge very likely lives in the grateful memory of those who have had the luck to lunch or dine there. Even in war time the rich brownish-yellow war bread was the best in France, the omelets and salads beyond compare, and the cheery proprietress could regale one with tales of the Boches of 1914 and the Prussians of 1870. Bismarck had his headquarters at the Rothschild villa outside the town, and the first peace negotiations went on there before the Chancellor moved to Versailles-and left the Rothschild cellars absolutely empty.

And just now, in 1918, came the lapping edges of the returning waves of the Boches, and the American Marines came to meet them and help hold the four bridges across the Marne until the French engineers could blow them up.

Gone is the old stone bridge, built in 1621, and the quay with its statue of La Fontaine, and even that philosopher's house in one of the old stony streets.

Gone, too, are the picturesque ruins of Charles Martel's old castle, from which one had such beautiful views of the town, the river, and the encircling hills to westward. That castle was built in 730. It was captured by the English in 1411, sacked by the Spaniards in 1501, captured by Charles V in 1544, and riddled with cannon shot in 1814, when Napoleon with only 24,000 men soundly thrashed some 50,000 Prussians! All the old town across the Marne has now been ground to rubbish and powder by high explosives, a desolate No Man's Land probably never to be rebuilt; and St. Crépin's square tower and its precious sixteenth-century stained glass no longer exist.

At the time of the first battle of the Marne, in September, 1914, Château Thierry was not greatly damaged by the Germans. Their stay was short, their exit hurried, and they had the intention to hold it and Epernay and Châlons for their own use as way stations to Berlin, as they did in 1870. They contented themselves with immediate plunder--jewelry, silverware, securities and money, food, wine, and supplies. Their retreat was so hurried that they had no time to burn or blow up. Racing southward along the valley of the Petit Morin a few miles, they reached the Route de Paris or Route de Châlons, the broad, direct highway that cuts from Meaux to La Ferte, Montmirail, and Epernay. At Viels-Maisons Château they spent a night and wrecked the pretty villa with their occupancy, and wreaked a speedy vengeance on the charming old Château de Villiers-les-Maillets. They defiled the little Château de Rieux near Montmirail, where Lamartine lived, and General von Einem, commanding the Seventh Army, occupied as his headquarters the great château of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld at Montmirail. Some Imperial prince was with him there during the four days of the German occupation. The staff put up at the hotel, where they incidentally packed up the linen and silver as methodically as the All-Highest one was doing at the château, and all the plunder was promptly despatched toward Germany on the second day. Cellars were emptied, of course. They laid the paved streets thick with straw while their artillery rumbled through, and installed a battery in the park behind the château, exchanging shots with a French battery across the Petit Morin until the German gun and crew were struck by neat French shots. Two crosses in the roads near the rampart mark the spot where they fell-one the grave of a von der Goltz, nephew of the recreator of the Turkish army.

As the French came on the Germans prepared to burn Montmirail in the pleasing way by which they had made sure the destruction of so many Belgian towns. Sacks full of tiny black pastilles were thrown in all the open doors and windows; but before the men with the flaming pinwheels could follow, the French came