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THE READER'S VIEW

HELP SEND THESE CHILDREN TO THE

COUNTRY

One of our three-year-olds at Twin Island House said, mournfully: "I do not want to go home; there is no grass in our front hall."

You may perhaps wonder if our small East Side children really appreciate the country. It was a little crippled boy whom I watched throw himself down on the first grass he ever saw, whispering, while he rubbed his face up and down, "Nice, nice!"

The war brought much unemployment and great hardships to our neighbors. We hope they may never again know such a terrible winter. The heroic mothers need the good cheer of the country house, and their pale-faced babies are astonishingly transformed by the fresh air.

Two weeks may not seem a very long vacation; but in a happy fortnight one can store up many precious memories. The boy who said,

I know all about heaven; I was there two weeks last summer," expresses the feeling of many of the children.

One of our ten-year-olds, in describing some one he liked, said, "She has a heart for the kids."

Many readers of The Outlook are valued contributors to the Settlement; and some other friend of Jacob Riis, with a "heart for the kids," may wish in these hard times to help us in our efforts to keep Twin Island House open throughout the summer months.

JANE E. ROBBINS,
Head Worker.

The Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement,
48 Henry Street, New York City.

A LETTER FROM GERMANY An old subscriber herewith asks you to discontinue the mailing of your paper. I am a German who believes in the absolute justice of the German cause in this terrible conflict of nations. The Outlook, editorially, has from the very beginning of the war taken a different standpoint. This means that the perusal of your paper, to which in former times I looked forward with so much pleasure, has been more or less painful.

I know that the editors of The Outlook have never ceased to act and to write in the most perfect good faith, according to their best understanding; but what fills me with deep regret is the fact, evidenced by every number, that their knowledge of Germany is often deficient-at times to such an extent as to render their judgment positively unjust. I cannot think that the information of some of your editors about our country was "gotten at the source "-namely, through a sojourn in our midst of some duration. If

received through English channels, the picture is likely to come out biased, as I have had to witness.

I willingly acknowledge that you have given the pro-German side every now and then a hearing, but the editorial references have impressed me more or less as those of a patriotic English paper. Have I a right to criticise this? No. Every man has a right to his own opinion. But in my case I find this: When a year ago I renewed my subscription, it was done with the intention of getting an American weekly. Since the war broke out, on opening your paper and looking for the news which interests me before all others, I find myself in England. Do you blame your subscriber when he wishes to change?

It is my absolute belief that when the war is over with all its horrors, which nobody can regret more than we do, those who condemn Germany now will readjust their opinion after they have seen how our people will act in peace. The passions are running too high now to make discussions bear any fruit. The war which has been forced upon Germany-it is wrong to put it the other way-has to be fought to the bitter end. The bloodiest part of it is yet to come, thanks to the action of the United States Government, which allows the export of an unlimited supply of war materials to the Entente Powers. Our foes have freest access to the immense resources of your country, while we are shut out from everything. Your Government and many of your papers hold that this is in strict accordance with the neutrality laws. It is with the blood of thousands upon thousands of their children that Germany and her allies are paying for this particular construction of neutrality upheld by President Wilson, in spite of the growing protest of all true friends of peace.

A native American calls my attention to-day to a notice in the "Frankfurter Zeitung" of April 29, referring to a publication by an American writer (Dr. Hermann Gerhard), who points out that President Wilson, if he wished, could well declare an embargo, basing the action on existing American laws which had never been revoked. President Roosevelt is said to have based himself on such a law during the war between Russia and Japan. Not being a lawyer nor an expert in history, I cannot say if this statement is correct. But those whom it concerns should look it up without delay.

In your article "Arms and Advertisements" (Outlook of April 14), speaking against the embargo, you say: "To prevent the shipment of arms from a neutral country to a belligerent is to encourage rather than discourage militaristic ambition." This means that militaristic Germany is to be punished. And the United States,

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according to President Wilson, happens to have a chance-nay, it has the duty-to help to crush the German "militarism."

We protest against such a construction of neutrality as emphatically as against the everrepeated charge of "militarism." We are a nation in arms-by dire necessity. Happy America, so differently situated from Germany, cannot realize what it means to be surrounded by powerful enemies on all sides. Germany would have ceased to exist to-day had not all able-bodied citizens in time received a soldier's training. I am proud of my year of active service in the German army (1875-6), which service I did not resent as a burden, but considered a privilege and a civic duty. I more than ever so consider it now.

Not Germany, but England, is the despot of the world. England lays her hands upon the resources of America, as if your country were a British colony.

He who writes this is a plain business man (now retired) who saw a little of the world during the forty years he was engaged in trade, fifteen of which were spent in the United States. He is not of the class who condemns in bulk the nations we have to fight now, for he personally knows fine representatives of each, and hopes the relations of mutual esteem will not be lost through these terrible trials, but will, after peace is restored, prove the best of help for the period of reconstruction which is to give to all of us a new and better life. He does not claim that the Germans are perfect. But what he does know is that they are a great deal better than the English press and its following represents them to be. He feels sure that Germany, if victorious, will offer conditions of peace of which our present adversaries will say: "Look here! We have been unjust. Let us change our opinion." ERNST L. C. SCHULZ. Wittmannstrasse 40, Darmstadt, Germany.

MODERATE DRINKING AND INSURANCE An article contributed by Mr. Samuel Wilson in your issue of June 30, discussing the question, "Is Moderate Drinking Justified?" and giving the "Answer of Life Insurance" as conclusive evidence in the negative, would be overwhelmingly convincing were it not for the fact that all the truth has not been told, admitting for the moment that statistics are true.

The data from which Mr. Wilson says the insurance companies arrive at "The Answer" proves nothing, for reasons that are obvious to those who compile them.

No man has yet appeared who knows how to compute the death rate of moderate drinkers so as to furnish the proper rate which this large class of policy-holders should pay for their pro

ection; and, if he should appear, he would be in great demand by the insurance companies.

Some few life insurance companies, chiefly comparatively small British ones, maintain separate departments for total abstainers, and in most of these companies the continuance of their insurance at a lower rate of premium is contingent upon the policy-holder's annual avowal of unbroken total abstinence.

With these few exceptions, no regular life insurance company can exercise any supervision over its policy-holders or keep informed as to their drinking habits once they have been insured by it.

On applying for insurance the applicant is asked by all life companies whether he drinks wines, beers, or spirits; and, if so, which beverage he indulges in, how often, and in what quantity. If he admits or is suspected of using alcohol in any form to excess, he is rejected. If he is accepted and his policy issued, no company has either the right or the means of obtaining any information as to his drinking habits in after years, and cannot separately calculate the death rate of such of those as were moderate drinkers and thereafter remained so.

In the great majority of cases the life companies' chief source of information regarding the drinking or non-drinking habits of the applicant is the applicant himself, and the answers made to the medical examiners by the applicant are not unlikely to be biased in favor of himself.

Again, the answers deal only with past history as regards drinking or non-drinking habits, and even the applicant himself cannot say what his future habits will be.

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It is almost a certainty, however, that the applicant who has been written down as a total abstainer" or "moderate drinker" in his application will not remain in that classification for the duration of his policy. However truthful his answers at the time of the examination, his habits may change in future years for better or for worse, and there is no question that among the millions of policy-holders in American life insurance companies there are thousands who have become heavy drinkers, though they were not classed as such when examined by the doctor.

For the above-named reasons, heavy drinkers are certain to be included with, and swell, the mortality of those classed as "moderate drinkers."

. I maintain, therefore, that it follows that any conclusions based upon life insurance records thus compiled are practically worthless and misleading.

It would be an impossibility to dispose of the question," Is Moderate Drinking Justified ?" by the data now obtainable from life insurance records. EDWARD A. HOBBS.

New York City.

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Some of the many artists who are at the front in France make their sketches undaunted by shell-fire. The "Century" publishes a picture of the ruins of a farm-house, about which the battle had raged, drawn by Henri Jacquier, who took the first grand prix of the Salon. "While M. Jacquier," says a fellow-artist, "was finishing this drawing with very rapid pencil-strokes, a shell burst near him, and actually flung the earth into his car. But the drawing was finished."

Pupils of schools in Cincinnati not long ago enjoyed a novel contest-a kite-flying competition. Kites of odd shapes, resembling biplanes, stars, and butterflies, were entered, as well as box kites and the old-fashioned bow kites. One of the last variety won the prize for altitude flying; it rose to a height of 705 feet.

In a study as to ability to spell English words correctly, just published by Dr. Leonard P. Ayres, of the Russell Sage Foundation, it is stated that second-grade pupils, on an average, spelled 94 per cent of very common words correctly-such words as the, in, so, no, now, man, ten, bed, top. On the other hand, only 50 per cent of eighth-grade pupils spelled correctly the words judgment, recommend, and allege. Dr. Ayres says that fifty words constitute, with their repetitions, one-half of the words written, and that the child who masters the spelling of the 1,000 commonest words will make no spelling errors in nine-tenths of his writing.

San Francisco's debt to the Panama Canal is indicated in the statement that in three months that city's trade with Europe increased 100 per cent, and with New York and Atlantic ports 260 per cent; while the number of steamship lines which use the port has increased from three to sixteen.

The Robert Gould Shaw collection of dramatic photographs, portraits, autograph letters, and playbills, reputed to be the finest in the world, has been presented to Harvard University by its founder, Robert Gould Shaw, Harvard '69. The collection is to be housed in the new Widener library. There are more than 60,000 prints and hundreds of thousands of playbills in the 264 exhibits comprising the collection.

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lish that he found in the Kentucky mountains"holp for helped, " "whup for whipped, "wrop" for wrapped, "clomb " for climbed. "He's tuk a franzy spell," a phrase used to describe a mountain man suddenly bereft of his senses, harks back, says the writer, to Sir Philip Sidney. "To smother" in the mountains means to roast, (6 ambitious" is to be angry, "worrited" means tired, and molasses is always used in the plural as "these molasses."

People who say that all the subjects for the drama have been treated should read an article by Alfred Capus, the well-known French author, in the "Dramatist" for July. "New types are in the making," he says; "the types of old, even the passions, our intimate feelings, are undergoing the most radical transformation. Country life is entirely changed as well as the life of the capital. . . . As nature has but to add some slight line in the face in order to create a new and distinct person, so the artist need not continually create new and original forms, but add only such nuances and personal touches as come natural to him. . . . The history of the theater is one endless example of this."

An exchange, satirizing the grilling of children in the examination questions which were the delight of the schoolmaster of a past era, suggests that the children might "get back at" their elders by some such examination as this:

1. What was the net result of the efforts of the royal forces (both infantry and cavalry) to restore Humpty Dumpty to his former estate? Do you see in this any lesson as to the failure of a militaristic system?

2. Describe the co-operative expedition of Jack and Jill and the ensuing catastrophe. From the point of view of emancipated womanhood, ought Jill to have preceded Jack down the hill?

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To-day the good old American dollar commands a premium abroad and in our store," an advertisement proclaims in announcing a marked-down sale in a department store. It continues: "The United States dollar is worth $1.02 of English money, $1.09 of French money, $1.17 of German money, $1.18 of Italian money, $1.33 of Russian money, $1.34 of Austrian money." The moral drawn by the advertiser is that these good American dollars should be spent at home, gratifying as is the premium abroad.

The Automobile Club of America disapproves of the ancient practice of street-sprinkling. The sprinkling of streets causes automobiles to skid and is dangerous to horses as well. It also injures paved surfaces, especially the wood block pavements. Commissioner Fetherston, of New York, asserts that flushing the streets by night is far better than sprinkling, but that the ideal method is that of dry cleaning by a combination of the sweeper and vacuum systems. This method he is now seeking to per fect.

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Contents of The Outlook

VOLUME 110

Copyright, 1915, by the Outlook Company

AUGUST 18, 1915

NUMBER 16

PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY THE OUTLOOK COMPANY, 381 FOURTH AVENUE. NEW YORK.
LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT, PRESIDENT. N. T. PULSIFER, VICE-PRESIDENT. FRANK C. HOYT,
TREASURER. ERNEST H. ABBOTT, SECRETARY. ARTHUR M. MORSE, ASSISTANT TREASURER.
TRAVERS D. CARMAN, ADVERTISING MANAGER. YEARLY SUBSCRIPTIONS-FIFTY-TWO ISSUES-
THREE DOLLARS IN ADVANCE. ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE NEW YORK POST-OFFICE

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By subscription $3.00 a year. Single copies 10 cents. For foreign subscriptions to countries in the Postal Union, $4.56.

Address all communications to

THE OUTLOOK COMPANY, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York City

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