ging at her anchor waiting only the signal to proceed, in a bare twelve hours. In the Newport training station just fifteen minutes elapsed after orders arrived before 1,000 men were in complete readiness to embark. Secretary Daniels wished to charter a large merchant steamer immediately as an auxiliary for the men-of-war off Tampico. Paymaster General Cowie, being instructed to that effect, reported in less than sixty minutes that he had secured the Ward liner Esperanza, then at Vera Cruz, and in only ninety minutes the wireless had notified Admiral Fletcher that the Esperanza was at his disposal. our own. It is no criticism of either our officers or of our enlisted men to wonder what would have happened if the navy had been called upon to prepare for battle with a foreign nation possessing fleets more powerful than In the present case no need was felt for the fitting out of ships held in reserve, as would have certainly been the case if war had been declared upon a great naval power. For such an eventuality the United States has neither adequate matériel nor a sufficient. reserve of trained men. Neither ammunition nor sailors can be created at an instant's notice even from the almost inexhaustible potential resources of the United States. The situation which would have confronted us in the case of a war with a great naval power has been recently discussed in an able series of articles running in the Scientific American," which we are glad to call to the attention of our readers. We wonder if out of the hostilities in Mexico the Nation at large will learn the lesson which it has failed to absorb from any of our previous wars, that the time to prepare for battle is during the days of peace. THE WAR IN COLORADO Four Americans killed and twenty wounded," said the despatches from Vera Cruz one morning last week: Forty-five dead, twenty hurt," said despatches from Colorado in the newspapers of the same morning. War with Mexico must not distract attention from the atrocious war within the limits of the United States-and it is one of the evils of foreign war that its news does make other matters of immense importance seem to receive far less attention than they deserve. It was literally war in Colorado, not rioting nor street fighting. The reports correctly describe the fighting as a battle. On one side were ranged two hundred of the State militia; on the other perhaps double that number of the striking miners. The fight was near or on the property of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. Sheltered by rocks, plentifully armed and supplied with ammunition these miners of several races-Italians, Greeks, Austrians, and others—received the assault of the militia and returned their fire. Reports state that fighting continued through a day and intermittently through a night. The worst horror of this battle is that two-thirds of the killed were women and children, if the reports referred to above are correct. These non-combatants had been gathered for safety in pits dug for the purpose at the Ludlow Camp. The reports say: The Ludlow Camp is a mass of charred débris, and buried beneath it is a story of horror unparalleled in the history of industrial warfare. In the holes which had been dug for their protection against the rifles' fire the women and children died like trapped rats when the flames swept over them. One pit, uncovered this afternoon, disclosed the bodies of ten children and two women. What is the cause of this war? One may ask this question in vain, so far as we have observed, from newspapers that give a detailed account of the fighting. Three months ago, when The Outlook published an article from a well-informed and fair-minded special correspondent about the Colorado coal strike, we noted that it had been going on for over three months, that fourteen thousand men were said to be on strike, that the district was under martial law, and that twelve hundred State troops had been called out. A Congressional investigation is now going on. Briefly stated, this vicious, long-continued, and injurious strike has been waged chiefly upon the issue of unionism and non-unionism. Other demands, to be sure, are made by the men, and some of them, we believe, have been recognized by the mine-owners as just. Probably peace could have been established long ago if it were not that the owners of the mines insist upon the "open shop" principle, and that the miners themselves declare that this means, not neutrality between owners and union men, but an anti-union policy on the part of the owners. We do not now discuss the merits of this controversy. It existed in the West Virginia mining war, and it exists in a large majority of all the serious labor troubles of the country. That such a question should be left for its decision to an industrial war is disgraceful. We cannot do better than to quote upon this point what the correspondent above referred to said as to the conditions in Colorado three months ago -conditions which have evidently grown worse instead of better: Our State Government sat powerless for weeks watching these forces gather for conflict; and now that the conflict is on, all that we can do is to suppress violence while twelve thousand men and their families suffer, a great industry is almost paralyzed, many related industries are seriously crippled, and the public caused much inconvenience and additional expense in securing one of the necessities of life. We provide for the protection of every property right except that of the capacity to labor. . . . The real bone of contention is recognition of tl.e unions. By far the most conspicuous lesson of this strike can be drawn from the failure of the State and the whole Nation as well to make the securing of industrial and social justice a function of government. THE NEW PHILIPPINE COMMISSION As the picture printed on another page graphically shows, the majority on the present Philippine Commission consists of Filipinos. The Outlook has already pointed out the significance of this fact. Heretofore, when Filipino legislators have shown unwisdom, there has been in the islands a safeguard against serious mistakes. For until now the majority of the Philippine Commission, which is the upper branch of the Philippine Legislature, has consisted of Americans who have brought to Philippine problems experience in self-government. Now the whole Legislature is in control of Filipinos. The safeguard, therefore, has been transferred from the islands to Washington, because now the only restraint upon Filipino action is the veto power that rests in Congress and the President. . Moreover, even the American members of the Commission are all inexperienced in Philippine matters. The Governor, the Hon. Francis Burton Harrison, was appointed because the President wanted a Democrat in that office. The selection of a Democrat was due to the present Administration's distrust of those who have heretofore had charge of Philippine affairs. One of the three Americans, however, is not a Democrat. Mr. Winfred T. Denison, a Progressive, who is the present Secretary of the Department of the Interior, succeeding Mr. Dean C. Worcester, has had the distinction of serving in the Department of Justice at Washington under both a Republican and a Democratic Administration. By selecting him the President was enabled to make a non-partisan appointment without having recourse to a Republican. He has not only a wide and thorough knowledge of the law, but has a broad conception of judicial and administrative functions. He brings to his new and unaccustomed duties an unusual measure of disinterested public spirit: No office in the Philippine Government calls for greater breadth of mind than the one he occupies, for it deals with the complex and difficult land question. The attempted assassination of Mayor Mitchel, of New York City, ought to serve as a reminder to the people of this country what they owe to the public servants whom they elect to office. It was at the luncheon hour of April 17 that Mayor Mitchel, accompanied by the Police Commissioner, Mr. Arthur Woods, and the Corporation Counsel, Mr. Polk. was about to leave the City Hall Park in an automobile, when a shot was fired at the Mayor at close range. Before there was time for another shot there was a brief scuffle and the assailant was thrown to the ground. Commissioner Woods, who seized him, had started forward as soon as he had seen the pistol raised. Partly because of the suddenness of the resistance and partly because the assailant was infirm, the shot missed the Mayor, but it struck and wounded the Corporation Counsel in the face. Fortunately the wound has not so far proved serious. The would-be assassin, an old man, apparently mentally deficient, had some rambling, incoherent, misspelled letters of his own composition, which indicated that he had some fancied grievances against the Mayor on account of the effort to amend the police laws and to secure, as Police Commissioner, Colonel Goethals. It is not difficult to understand why officials in an autocratic or oligarchical government should be subject to assault, but it is not so easy to understand why, in a free country like America, the men whom the people themselves elect should be so frequently the object of attack as they have proved to be. Mayor Mitchel's immediate predecessor was attacked, and undoubtedly the wound he received had much to do with his death. Mr. Roosevelt as a candidate for office was shot and wounded. Three Presidents have been killed by assassins. No man in conspicuous public office can feel himself free from the possibility of such attacks. When the people ask a man to be their servant, they ask him to assume such a risk, and they should remember this in their estimate of his services. More than that, they owe to their public servants the best possible protection against such possible assaults. Certainly the best possible protection is not now provided. The assailant of Mayor Mitchel was an irresponsible man whose low level of intelligence rendered him a danger to the community. The assailants of other American public men have been likewise of low mentality. Yet we allow such irresponsible, or semi-responsible, human beings to go about unregistered, unrestrained, and unsupervised until they commit some such crime. A community owes it to itself, as well as to its mental defectives, to establish some system of keeping track of them, and, when necessary, of segregating them where they can not only be kept from doing harm, but can be given such training as they are capable of receiving. Not only the city, but the Nation, has reason for gratitude that Mayor Mitchel escaped. He has undertaken a great work in raising the whole standard of city administration, and if he succeeds he will have made the whole Nation his debtor. Self-government is undergoing a severe test in our cities, and those who help demonstrate that self-government is enduring that test well are performing a task that is essential for the permanence of American institutions. DRY GOODS AND One of the chief arguments advanced against no-license is that it hurts business. One of the most convincing arguments made for no-license is that it represents a great economic saving. Between these two statements even a casual observer may notice a somewhat obvious discrepancy. The "Dry Goods Economist," an excellent trade journal; has recently published an article, "Will My Trade Be Hurt If My Town Goes Dry?" In an editorial note accompanying, the "Economist" discusses the reason for this publication. The editor says: From one cause or another many a merchant thinks he is going to be " up against it "if liquorselling is cut out in his town. We ourselves have heard statements in a "wet" center as to the dire results that have arisen in a near-by town which had recently gone "dry." The "Economist" holds no brief for or against prohibition, but it occurred to the editor that many of our subscribers would be helped by knowing how the change really does affect the trade. So we asked a merchant, himself "dry" as to his personal habits, but doing a successful business in a town which he describes as "positively saturated," to visit a dry town in his vicinity, make a thorough study of the conditions, and tell our subscribers all about it. Rockford, Illinois, with fifty-five thousand inhabitants, a large number of them foreignborn, a city which claims to be the second largest in the United States without saloons, was selected for the test. The reporter of the "Economist " visited not only all the dry-goods stores but talked with men in other lines of business as well. His findings make interesting reading. The manager of the largest dry-goods store in town told him: "We don't want to see a change. We have had business men's committees come here to see us, and we have had letters from three hundred municipalities of Illinois. . . We tell them all that a dry town is good enough for us." Another merchant said, Rockford is better without the saloons. In a small place things might be different." Even this, however, was flatly contradicted by still another firm operating a chain of stores situated in towns both wet and dry. To this merchant the reporter of the "Economist " said, "Surely you must have lost some trade from here to your wet neighbors. Beloit, Pecatonica, and Belvidere?" Nothing to it," was the reply. "This talk about losing trade when a town votes dry, that's all a myth." Some of the men do go out of town," another confessed, "but they are the fellows who have the least money to spend, and they only go Saturday nights, anyhow. If Rockford had saloons, they would be spending their money in them every night." This kind of spending this merchant evidently regarded as of no advantage to business. The best efforts of this investigator failed to discover any one actively engaged in the retail dry-goods business who favored a return to a "wet" city. On leaving the city the reporter of the .. Economist" sat opposite a drummer. Falling into a conversation, the salesman asked to see the data which the investigator had collected. After the drummer had finished reading he asked, “Well, is it wrong or right?" You've got it right," answered the drum No generation has a monopoly of bad taste, or rather it never has until it is seen in perspective by the more enlightened critics of the generation which follows. Plain maple gives place to mahogany, mahogany to black walnut, black walnut to cast iron and gilded brass; and each change is celebrated by a ripple of laughter that is stilled only by the ridicule of the adherents of a better because newer style. An illustration of the truth of this statement is to be found in an exhibition now being held in New York City of household furnishings of the decade between 1870 and 1880. In this merciless exhibit are many dear relics of that unforgetable, if not unforgivable, epoch-a zinc Venus de Milo with a clock inserted in her stomach, mustache cups labeled "For Grandpa," a rope-framed lithograph of Washington, a thermometer "appliquéd" upon the handle of a brass parasol, a cataract painted upon a wooden chopping-bowl, the inevitable what-not, china dogs, a velvet-lined bread-toaster, and worsted mottoes highly moral and satisfyingly sentimental. Of course the present generation that sits (when its clothes permit) in elephantine mission furniture built like a battle-ship and guaranteed strong enough to serve as a drydock; that lives (in high scorn of gingerbread work) in fragile bungalows, surrounded by colonnades of concrete columns that might with great propriety be used as underpinning for the Pyramids; that cannot ride from East Hohonkus to Hohonkus Center without embellishing its "car" with banners enough to outfit the North Atlantic squadron-represents an infinite advance from the trashy taste of 1880. It is strange what benighted heathen we once were. From the artistic to the attic, to the antique, the gamut ranges. The world certainly moves—in circles. THE CHILDREN'S BUREAU Somewhat more than a year ago there was established by Act of Congress a new bureau in the Department of Labor entitled the "Children's Bureau." The work of this Bureau was defined by the Act in the following language: The said Bureau shall investigate and report to said Department upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child-life among all classes of our people, and shall especially investigate the questions of infant mortality, the birth rate, orphanage, juvenile courts, desertion, dangerous occupations, accidents and diseases of children, employment, legislation affecting children in the several States and Territories. But no official, agent, or representative of said Bureau shall, over the objection of the head of the family, enter any house used exclusively as a family residence. The chief of said Bureau may from time to time publish the results of these investigations in such manner and to such extent as may be prescribed by the Secretary of Labor. Miss Julia C. Lathrop was appointed Chief of this new Bureau. She is a native of Illinois, the daughter of a former Congressman, a graduate of Vassar, and has for nearly twenty years been associated with Miss Jane Addams in the work of Hull House, Chicago. For twelve years she was a member of the Illinois State Board of Charities, and has been for some years Vice-President of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy. By birth, education, temperament, and experience she is peculiarly qualified to direct the work which is being done and is to be done by the Children's Bureau. This was the judgment of those best qualified to speak when she was appointed. Her first report. recently issued, justifies this judgment. Among other things, the Bureau has made a review of child labor legislation in every State and Territory of the United States. It reports on the actual practices and conditions of child labor. In other words, it gives publicity, after scientific investigation and under the authority of the Government, to the actual facts about child labor in all its aspects. In her report, Miss Lathrop asks for an appropriation of $164,000 to carry on the work of the Bureau in 1915. This at best is a small sum for so important a work. More than three times this amount has been appropriated to eradicate hog cholera! The Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives cut this sum down to $25,000. The House itself, however, with a larger and, in our judgment, a more statesmanlike view than its Committee, restored to the Bureau the full appropriation of $164,000. It is greatly to be hoped that the Senate will concur in the House action, and that in its concurrence it will clear up an ambiguity in the language used by the House in granting this appropriation. The House, apparently, although we can hardly believe intentionally, limits the expenditure of this appropriation to the investigation of infant mortality and dangerous occupations of children. The Bureau, of course, should be permitted to carry out the work of a complete, thorough, and comprehensive study of, and publicly report on, every phase of child labor. Employers of child workers cannot afford to let it be suggested that they urged their representatives in Congress to limit the activities of the Bureau in studying child labor conditions. A LECTURE HALL ON WHEELS Not long ago The Outlook published an account of the introduction on two railways of quick-lunch cars in conjunction with the regular dining-car service, as an extra convenience for the traveling public. Now comes the Chicago and Northwestern Railway, with another example of the modern spirit of the big railways of the country, so antipodal to the old spirit which was summed up in that classic remark of an old-school railway man, "The public be damned!" The Chicago and Northwestern has equipped an ordinary passenger coach as a moving lecture hall, which travels over the entire system of the country twice a year in order that the railway's employees may have an opportunity thoroughly to familiarize themselves with all signals through stereopticon lectures, that the public may thus be subjected to a minimum of danger from accidents caused by defective signaling or faulty reading of signals. One-half of the car is given over to the lecture-room, which seats fifty people. In the other half are the living quarters of the instructor, the heating plant, and a dark room and other facilities for the developing of pictures and the making of lantern slides. The car visits all the important points on each division, and at each stop lectures are given twice a day illustrated by pictures taken in the locality in which the pictures are shown, as it has been found that this adds to the interest of the pictures for the employees of the railway, and aids them in understanding the explanations and instructions given. Every possible signal or interlocking device and all difficulties and unusual problems that may arise to bother employees are fully explained, and the proper course of action in emergencies is impressed upon the men, who have shown that they appreciate the opportunity given to make themselves better all-around railway workers, and consequently higher wage earners. SAFEGUARDING THE SAVINGS The worst feature of the Siegel bankruptcy in New York City was the fact that the firm ran a private savings bank in connection with their business, and that as fast as they received their deposits they turned the money into their own business with no reasonable or adequate security, so that, upon the disastrous collapse of the firm, hundreds of people of slender means lost almost all of their money. That such a thing should be possible under the laws of New York State seems almost incredible. But tardy legislation is better than no legislation. We are glad to know that Governor Glynn, of New York, has just signed a new State Banking Law which, among other things, will prevent the recurrence of such an outrage as that just described. Hereafter depositors in private banks will have the same protection from the law that depositors in savings banks have already enjoyed. It will be illegal for a private banker to convert to his own use the deposits received by him, nor can he loan such moneys to a partnership of which he is a member |