were time for a serious effort by Kitchener's vaunted million.

The only palpable assault during the week by the western Allies was made by the French in the Vosges near Metzeral, and that has not developed into a large-scale movement as we go to press.

Up to the same time the Italian claim of the evacuation of Gorizia by the Austrians had not been substantiated, but reports indicated the imminence of the fall of that stronghold, an event that would greatly facilitate the Italian campaign against Trieste.

BELGIUM AND SWITZERLAND

We do not realize that the destruction during the past year in Europe is primarily due to the fact that Belgium had not prepared against war as Switzerland had. In the current number of the " Metropolitan Magazine " ex-President Roosevelt does a service by calling general attention to this fact. He says:

...

Belgium a year ago was an absolutely peaceful and exceedingly prosperous country. She had a great industrial population. For many years the wiser among her people, including especially, by the way, the wisest representatives of the labor element, the Socialists, and others, had preached preparedness, so that the country might be saved from invasion by its great military neighbors. But her international policy was determined by the pacifists and peace-at-any-price men, the men and women who said that it was "immoral to fight" and that " war settled nothing," and the other men and women who said that nobody would ever attack Belgium because she was peaceful and never committed aggression, and that all that was necessary to national well-being was business prosperity and attention to measures of internal reform. These persons were success

ful in preventing any adequate preparation. Only a very inadequate one had been attempted, and that only during the last year or two. This inadequate preparation was directly responsible for disaster so overwhelming as to wipe out what had been built up by generations of patient industry.

Switzerland meanwhile, the most peaceful country in Europe, had energetically taken full measures for her self-defense. Switzerland had an army of 400,000 men, highly efficient. Belgium, according to her population, on the same basis would have had an army of 700,000 men. If she had had such an army and had acted precisely as Switzerland acted, Belgian territory would now be in Belgian hands, and the line of western war in Europe, representing what has

been for ten months a stalemate, would have left Belgium on the right instead of on the wrong side; and she would have been free instead of trodden down and wasted under an appalling tyranny.

The small Belgian army fought valiantly; the conduct of the Belgian people during the last eleven months has been above all praise; and they have rendered mankind their debtor by their heroism. But the heroism came too late to be of avail. It was too late to prepare, or to make good the lack of preparedness, when once the Germans crossed the border. Switzerland had prepared in advance, and Switzerland is at peace now, while the soil of Belgium has been trodden into bloody mire.

Mr. Roosevelt repeated this tribute to Switzerland at San Francisco when he addressed the greatest throng that ever listened to a speaker in that city:

war.

Switzerland is the most democratic of republics, and the least militaristic; and yet, relative to its size, it is the one, best prepared against I firmly believe that there should be universal military service for our young men on the Swiss basis. In Switzerland the boys are trained during their last few years in the public schools, and after they graduate from the public schools they serve with the army for four or six months, and then for eight or ten days every year for the next ten years.

CHINAFYING THIS COUNTRY

Mr. Roosevelt's address at San Francisco was no political campaign speech, but a carefully prepared statement intended to "show up" to Americans the soothing belief of certain pacifists that, unarmed, the country's honor can be maintained. With the endeavor to introduce a non-resistance propaganda into our schools and colleges, it is appropriate that we should have a counter-irritant. It was applied by Mr. Roosevelt in a further comparison between two countries, the countries being America and China. He proceeded to deal vigorously with the attempt, as he described it, to "Chinafy this country."

While the best people in China are painfully endeavoring to raise the new China to a position of international aspect and of national selfrespect, well-meaning people here are doing their best to reduce this country to the level of impotence to which old China has sunk.

When has the necessity for "preparedness against war"-to use Secretary Garrison's apt phrase-been more forcibly stated than in these words of Mr. Roosevelt ?

Preparedness against war does not invariably avert war any more than a fire department in a

city will invariably avert a fire; and there are well-meaning foolish people who point out this fact as offering an excuse for unpreparedness.

Finally, and most important, let us remember that there can be no efficient preparedness against war unless we prepare our own selves. If we become soft and flabby physically and morally, we shall fail. No nation ever amounted to anything. . . if its sons did not have the fighting edge, if its women did not feel as the mothers of Washington's Continentals felt, as the mothers of the men who followed Grant and Lee felt. Men who are not ready to fight for the right are not fit to live in a free democracy.

As time goes on it will be impressively evident, we are sure, that these words were very necessary words to be uttered at the present time.

THE EASTLAND DISASTER

In the comment on the Chicago disaster of July 24, comparable only in its heartrending distress and loss of life with the General Slocum, Titanic, and Lusitania horrors, one word constantly recurs-" needless."

The disaster was needless. Whatever may be the result of the several official investigations, it is perfectly patent that the owners of the boat did know, or should have known (and this is one of the cases where ignorance is criminal), that it was unsafe to use that vessel in that way. No matter what licenses were held, how many people were allowed by law to embark, or what inspectors had certified, the mere fact that the Eastland could turn over on her side in quiet waters, at her dock, and instantly drown or suffocate many hundreds of people is incontestable evidence of culpable and deadly recklessness.

There is much to confirm the belief that the excessive instability was due to the letting out of water ballast in order to allow the boat to pass through the shallow water of the river, and that it was the practice to fill the water-tanks after she emerged into deep water. It is said that many boats do this, but with the Eastland the risk was frightful, especially as testimony increases that her reputation for stability was widely known to be bad. A special correspondent of The Outlook in Chicago, Mr. L. F. Wilson, who has had practical experience in the engine-room and knows steamboat conditions on the Great Lakes, writes as follows of the history of the Eastland:

Back in the fall of 1902 an order was placed with a Port Huron, Michigan, shipbuilding con

cern for a steamship which would carry 2,800 passengers and be speedy enough to "double " on the Chicago to South Haven run of approximately 85 miles in twenty-four hours (340 miles). Construction work on the Eastland was started on the following dimensions: Gross tonnage, 1,961; net tonnage, 1,218; length, 265 feet; beam, 38 feet; depth, 22 feet 8 inches.

Owing to the fact that a rival steamship was also building, the owners hastened the work on the Eastland, with the result that her trial trip developed many disappointing features. She did not come up to her contract speed of twenty miles per hour; she was unsteady in a sea, and there were many evidences of poor workmanship in the hull. A marine architect was employed to make necessary changes, and she was finally accepted and placed in service.

From the first her officers found that she must be handled very carefully. Her hull was light and her superstructure heavy (there were four decks). In order to cross the bar at South Haven it was necessary to empty the ballast tanks in the water bottoms. This was likewise done on entering the Chicago River. The upper decks were arranged for the cheapest excursion traffic. There were large spaces between deck-houses clear across the boat. These spaces were used for dancing and for cheap deck chairs and settees. This arrangement allowed for a rush of people from one side to the other when their attention was called to points of interest. It is said by persons who purport to have been passengers that one day while crossing the lake in a light sea she listed slightly and the people were ordered to the opposite side. Too many crossed over, and the boat heeled. Another order now sent the panic-stricken crowd to the other side, with like effect. Life-preservers were donned and many felt that the end had come, but a rapid filling of the ballast tanks, which had been emptied to lighten the boat for speed, resulted in finally restoring her equilibrium.

For some reason the boat went to Lake Erie in 1907, and her crankiness there resulted in the elimination of the top deck.

In the summer of 1914 she again made her appearance in Chicago Harbor and carried large crowds of pleasure-seekers in the excursion traffic. She was speedy, and for that reason was patronized by the lovers of cheap sport. Long and narrow, her two triple expansion engines and four large boilers were able to drive her up to twenty-three miles per hour, and she could pass nearly any boat on the lake.

The number of passengers allowed by the Eastland's license was about 2,500. It is said that a year ago it was 2,000, and that at Cleveland it was only 653. Why the change was made is a question which the

inquest should answer. Meanwhile it may be pointed out that the facts of this disaster show the fallacy of allowing a very large number of passengers for short excursions on the theory that rescue is close at hand. If a thousand people perish at the dock, how many would be saved five miles out?

THE FACTS OF THE CALAMITY

The Indiana Transportation Company, which operates three steamers of its own, had entered into a contract with the Hawthorne Club, consisting of Western Electric Company employees, to transport 7,000 people to Michigan City, Indiana, to attend a picnic. The boats were to leave the river as loaded, and the Eastland was to be loaded first. Government checkers counted the passengers as they streamed across the gangplank. Many of the excursionists were acquainted, and large parties insisted on being on the same boat. Moreover, the Eastland was preferred, as she was known to be the fastest of the fleet. For these reasons it was hard to stop the flow of people when the limit was reached. If the limit was exceeded, which is in dispute, these facts may account for but not excuse it.

As the Eastland was starting she listed first one way and then the other. There may have been some movement of passengers to one side of the boat. Needless to say, on a seaworthy, stable boat no such movement should have had any serious effect. What followed is thus described by our Chicago correspondent above quoted :

The steamer never stopped heeling after once well started. Without a sound or movement, with the captain still on the bridge, she increased her list until the people commenced to slide down the decks. Then a chorus of screams awakened everybody on or near the river to the situation. The big steamer turned clear over and rested on her side in nineteen feet of water (just half her beam). Those who were saved simply followed the turning of the boat by climbing over her rails and standing on the side of the molded hull. Not only did those who were on the port side go into the river, but hundreds who could not reach the starboard rail were shot down the vertical decks into the water. Those who were in the cabins on the lower sides. were trapped, those on the upper were also trapped, but above water. Those in

the cabins, extending the full beam of the boat, had little to hang to and were crushed in the panic or drowned. Those who were now standing upon the side of the vessel could not, for

the first few seconds, be made to understand that the boat could sink no farther, and persisted in jumping into the river.

Within two minutes many water craft, the fire department, and the police were at rescue work. For the first half-hour the largest number of recovered persons alive and dead were hauled out of the river. After that the steamer itself gave up its victims. Holes were burned through the plates of the upturned hull by the oxyacetylene process. This opened a way to the cabins, and many of the passengers were rescued in this way. By night on Saturday only about eight hundred persons were checked out alive, but there was no accurate count. Nine hundred and nineteen bodies were in the temporary morgues at this time, and there was no way of knowing how many people were in inaccessible locations.

The estimated loss of life three days after the calamity was from 1,200 to 1,500; over 1,000 bodies had been actually recovered, and there were then over 600 persons missing.

The Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Redfield, promises a thoroughgoing investigation. It ought to include a complete overhauling of the methods of inspection as well as of individual responsibility. The owners of a ship have a right to Governmental instruction as to what they may and what they may not do with her under different sets of circumstances. But they also are bound, apart from and beyond those instructions, by humane motives to know their own business and to let no motives of gain lead them to imperil life. We Americans are charged with lapsing from horror-stricken excitement immediately after such a disaster into tolerance with delay and with half-way reforms. The Eastland calamity should not be allowed to rest until guilt is fixed, punishment awarded, and practical, enforceable measures Frescribed to make its recurrence impossible.

STRIKES AND RUMORS OF STRIKES

In some respects the strike situation in this country improved last week; in others it remained threatening. The condition which -underlies the efforts of the unions to obtain better wages and better hours and further recognition is obvious. In certain industries the large war orders have caused increased activity; this has been reflected in the market price of the securities of these industrial companies. There has been much talk also of enormous profits, although those who know the facts fully recognize that there is another side to this, as the war orders have no per

manent or certain outlook for the future, and as, also, apart from immediate profits to certain industries, the orders represent payment for waste, not an increase in the country's wealth. Naturally the workers desire to share these new profits, and think the time opportune for forcing an issue by strikes if their end is not gained otherwise.

In many cases, as in the Bridgeport labor contest, already noted, and in the great strikes in the oil industry at Bayonne, the employers have come to terms or have made promises, and disturbance and threats have subsided.

The Bayonne strike for a time was dangerous; the attacks of the mob on the properties of the companies were fiercely criminal. Pictures on another page show to what lengths violence was carried. That this violence was ended without the intervention of the militia was largely due to the extraordinary efforts and personality of the sheriff of Hudson County, Mr. Eugene F. Kinkead, who used every particle of authority he had, and perhaps a little more, in urging peace and enforcing order. He went unarmed among strikers and hired guards; made them lay down their arms; arrested those who refused to obey or who broke the law, from officers of the companies down to individual strikers; managed the excited men, most of them foreigners, many of them ignorant of the English language-all with a sort of friendly firmness which had remarkable effect. The fact that many of the foreign -strikers called the sheriff" Kresni Ocec," or Godfather, throws an interesting light on his influence and methods.

Like the attack on strikers by armed guards at Roosevelt, New Jersey, some time ago, this Bayonne trouble anew, and for the hundredth time, enforces the principle that a State constabulary ought to exist to deal with just such matters. That armed guards hired by the corporations and acting for them should even for a day patrol the streets and order citizens about is intolerable and simply provocative of violence. The State, through its own officers, must control such situations. The necessity of a workable set of machinery for immediate arbitration is also shown in this strike. Apparently the difficulty has been adjusted by the sheriff and by mutual concession, but the lessons involved are none the less clear and forcible.

Up to the middle of last week the threatened strike of machinists and metal trade workers for an eight-hour day and higher

wages, undoubtedly caused by the increase of war work, had not taken place. Reports indicated that the first strike in this industry was likely to take place with a Brooklyn concern, the E. W. Bliss Company, which does some work under contract for the United States Government, a fact which raises a question as to the bearing of the United States law prescribing an eight-hour day for Government work. If the men in this company and in another large company in Plainfield, New Jersey, go on strike, it is quite probable that this may be the beginning of a general strike among machinists and other skilled workers whose products relate to the war. On the other hand, an amicable adjustment is quite within the possibilities.

The question continues to be asked as to how far German or Austrian influence is responsible for these strikes. Doubtless wherever that influence can be applied to existing conditions by individuals it has been applied in the Bayonne strike, for instance, one prominent figure was an Austrian who was in nowise connected with the work of the companies, nor was he a union leader. Other instances like this could be stated. It is not necessary, however, to infer that the industrial unrest and strikes have been planned by partisans in the war. The other considerations above adduced render such an inference needless, and a body of serious evidence to support it is not yet available.

2

BUILDING UP THE ORGANIZED MILITIA

In the illustrated section of this week's Outlook there are three pictures of vital significance to every American citizen. These three pictures show the organized militia at work.

It is no training-day frolic in which these men of New York and Massachusetts are engaged, for the maneuvers of the modern soldier represent as concentrated a form of mental and physical activity as can be obtained. One of the pictures shows mounted infantrymen of New York State engaged in a scouting expedition near the Fishkill plains. The second picture shows engineers engaged in constructing a pontoon bridge, an operation the speedy performance of which requires, not only knowledge, but long practice and rigorous discipline. Military bridge-building of this kind cannot wait on the convenience of contractors or the com