A new Zeppelin attack was made by the Germans on the British coast on March 5. London was not visited, but in several counties on the east coast bombs were dropped, with the result, as stated by the British War Office, of no appreciable material damage, and the death of three men, four women, and five children.

In a speech before the House of Commons on March 7 by the British First Lord of the Admiralty, Arthur J. Balfour, Mr. Balfour declared that a million tons had been added to the total tonnage of the British navy since the war began, while the air service had increased tenfold. Mr. Balfour recited the enormous figures of combatants, stores, and oil which had been transported for Great Britain and her allies in the presence of hostile submarines and pointed out what splendid work the navy had done in this direction. The navy, he said, "has become a sort of international fleet, serving many nations." The former First Lord of the Admiralty, Colonel, Winston Churchill, urged that Admiral Lord Fisher should be recalled to office, and intimated that there was a lack of driving power and mental energy in the present naval manage

ment.

NATIONAL DEFENSE

IN CONGRESS

At last definite and authoritative plans are now before Congress for improving the land forces of the United States. One plan has been prepared by the Committee on Military Affairs of the Senate, the other by the Committee on Military Affairs of the House. Mr. Chamberlain, the Chairman of the Senate Committee, introduced his bill on March 4. Mr. Hay, the Chairman of the House Committee, presented his bill on March 6. A detailed report of either of these bills or a comparison between the two would require considerable space and would call for more study of them than can be made in the short time since they have been printed.

In brief, it may be said that they provide, first, for an increase in the regular army, including the enlargement of West Point by the appointment as cadets of enlisted men. of the army (the Senate bill giving to the

regular army a peace strength of 170,000 men and a war strength of about 250,000); second, for the establishment of a real regular reserve, made up of professional soldiers who have enlisted and served actively for one or two years, and who then may be discharged into the reserve for the rest of the period of their enlistment, subject to service in case of need; third, for the creation of a body of reserve officers and for a training corps for students and others who may be rendered eligible as reserve officers; fourth, for the reorganization or so-called Federalization of the State militia or National Guard.

In these bills the acute question just now is not that of increasing the regular army or of providing the reserve. It is the question of the creation or organization of the citizen soldiery. Important as the enlargement of the regular army is, mistakes in providing for that enlargement may be remedied. But if at this time a serious misstep is taken with reference to the citizen reserve, it will be very difficult to retrace it.

Those who have followed the discussion in The Outlook concerning National defense need not be told that The Outlook regards as a grave error any attempt to utilize our present State militia or any force not directly responsible to the Federal Government as a reliance for National defense. It is in this respect that these two bills are defective and wrong, we believe. They both propose that the organized militia shall be paid, and specify the amounts that the Federal Government shall pay as salaries to militia officers. In return for this pay, these men are supposed to sign a contract with the Federal 'Government that they will obey the orders of the President. This is the essential thing in the so-called Federalization. It seems to us to be based on wholly erroneous views as to what our National defense requires. The privilege of citizenship involves an obligation. The citizen is as truly obliged to defend his country as he is to serve on juries or to pay his taxes. That seems axiomatic. To ask a man to volunteer to serve his country and to pay him for doing so is to deny one of the elements of democracy. And then to distribute those volunteers under the authority of forty-eight different States, making the authority of the Federal Government dependent upon a contract signed for value received, is not only to degrade the citizen soldiery, but to render it inefficient.

This is the feature that stands out in these

bills. it.

We do not believe the country wants Militia influence is organized, and public influence is unorganized. The higher officers of the National Guard have secured this feature in these bills. It now remains for the people of America to decide whether they are satisfied to let that feature stand as it is, or whether they want a real democratic citizen soldiery.

GERMAN INFLUENCE

IN CONGRESS

Under the administration of United States Attorney H. Snowden Marshall, a Federal Grand Jury in December indicted a number of men on charges of conspiracy to restrain foreign trade for the purpose of laying an embargo which would be in the interest of Germany. Among the men indicted was a member of Congress, Frank Buchanan. The most effective defense is said to be an offensive. Mr. Buchanan, acting on this plan, secured from Congress an investigation of the Federal Attorney's office. As a consequence, a sub-committee of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives has been hearing witnesses.

Among those whom it called was a reporter of the New York "Times" by the name of Holme, who had made some statements in a news article. Mr. Holme declined to state from whom he had received his information, and thereupon was held in contempt by the committee. At once Mr. Marshall wrote a letter to the committee, assuming the responsibility for the information stated in that news paragraph. In that letter he said that he told Mr. Holme that the sub-committee's expedition to New York "was not an investigation conducted in good faith, but was a deliberate effort to intimidate any district attorney who had the temerity to present charges against one of your honorable body." And he added: "I said that I regarded a Member of Congress who would take money for an unlawful purpose from any foreign agent as a traitor, and that it was a great pity that such a person could only be indicted under the Sherman Law, which carries only one year in jail as punishment."

Former Judge E. Henry Lacombe, of the United States Federal Court, has written to Mr. Marshall, the District Attorney, a letter, printed in the newspapers, pointing out that a man who is charged with having accepted money furnished by aliens for restraining and interfering with certain indus

593

The President, in his last annual Message, spoke of plotters working in the interest of foreign governments. What he then said was indefinite. The issue raised by this investigating committee of Congress is much more specific. Evidence has been published by the New York "World" to show that there has been a definite attempt to influence Congress in the interest of Germany, and the letters which the "World" has publishedhave been acknowledged as genuine. Instead of investigating others at this time, Congress itself ought to be investigated.

THE NEW SECRETARY
OF WAR

In appointing a successor to Secretary Garrison, who recently resigned his position as the head of the War Department, President Wilson has chosen a man whose qualifications are largely those of character and general ability. Newton D. Baker, whose nomination as Secretary of War has been confirmed by the Senate, is one of the most high-minded of the younger men in political life in America to-day. He was several years an associate and supporter of Tom L. Johnson, whose career in Cleveland elicited criticism and bitter opposition, but left its indelible impress upon the city. Mr. Baker has always been known as a reformer who does things. Under Mayor Johnson he was City Solicitor, and therefore was in the thick of the fight over the street railway franchise question. Afterwards he became Mayor of Cleveland, and administered the office for two terms with ability. Cleveland is recognized as one of the few cities in the United States that had successful municipal government before the recent tendency toward the commission form of government, the city manager plan, and the like made headway. For no small measure of this success credit must be given to Mr. Baker.

As a Democrat Mr. Baker has been influential on the side of clean politics. He belongs to the distinctly progressive, not to

say radical, wing of the party. Like many radicals of this type, he has had an inclination toward pacifism, though he is not an advocate of peace at any price. He was an advocate of Mr. Wilson's nomination, and helped to turn the votes of a number of Ohio delegates for him. This is not Mr. Baker's first experience in the Federal Government, for he was for a time private secretary to the Postmaster-General in 1896 and 1897. Mr. Baker is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, and took his law degree at Washington and Lee.

As he is reported to have said himself, he knows nothing of the duties of the office of Secretary of War, and will have all these to learn. This means that for a time at least he must be a figurehead, or else must learn his duties at the expense of the country. Coming at this time, when the most important domestic question before the Nation is that of National defense, it is peculiarly unfortunate that the Nation has at the head of its two departments of National defense, one Secretary whose incapacity as executive head of the navy is a matter of common comment, and another man whose capacity for the Secretaryship of War has yet to be proved, and whose unfamiliarity with his duties is admitted by himself. Under these circumstances it is a cause for special gratification that the new Secretary of War brings to his duties high ideals of public service.

THE MAYORS AND PREPAREDNESS

The emphatic vote of Congress to support the President in his stand for the rights of Americans on the high seas was not the only event of the week indicating that the American people are moving rapidly toward a position of firm insistence on the recognition and fulfillment of their rights and duties under international law and the well-understood principles of humanity. The action of the National Defense Conference of Mayors at St. Louis on March 3 and 4 was another sign that America is beginning to find herself and to want to maintain her respect for herself.

Two hundred and fifty representatives of eighty cities gave palpable evidence that, as one speaker said, "the present campaign for defense. . . is sweeping provincialism away, is making us think straight and think Nationally, and is cementing the people of all sections of the United States." The two-day Conference was concluded by the adoption

of a resolution demanding "the immediate authorization by Congress of the building programme of the General Board of the Navy of July 30, 1915," the increase of the personnel of the navy "in conformity with the requirements of the service as interpreted. by the General Board," the complete manning of coast defenses and the increase of the regular army as recommended by the General Staff," the immediate formulation of plans by the Federal Government for the organization and mobilization of the physical resources of the country," and the holding of four military training camps in different sections of the country before the end of this year.

The pièce de résistance of the Conference, however, was the indorsement of the principle of universal military training for the United States, which was framed in words much like those which The Outlook has used recently in advocating this reform. The mayors resolved that, recognizing the military obligation equally with a civic obligation as a fundamental duty of democratic citizenship in a republic, and to establish a system which will affect alike every man in the republic, we approve and recommend the adoption of universal military training under Federal control throughout the United States."

These resolutions were signed by the official representatives of cities from every section of this country.

AMBASSADOR MORGENTHAU

Henry Morgenthau, the American Ambassador to Turkey, has come home from Constantinople for a brief visit in connection with his official duties. His friends and fellow-citizens have taken the opportunity of his brief stay in New York to testify to him, through a series of receptions and dinners, their respect for his sterling Americanism, their admiration for his personal character, and their gratitude for the work which he has done as American Ambassador, not merely in behalf of American rights, but for the protection of human rights. No American diplomatic post has been more difficult to fill during the European war than that which he has filled at Constantinople. Not only are there many American citizens who are living as missionaries in the Turkish Empire, but there are in that country three educational institutions founded and conducted by Americans which have a European reputation of the highest rank for efficiency and influence.

We refer to Robert College at Constantinople, to the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, and to the Constantinople College for Women. The part which these institutions have played in the educational and political development of the Turks, the Armenians, and the inhabitants of the Balkan States is romantic in the extreme.

The trustees of these three institutions joined as hosts in a luncheon to Ambassador Morgenthau recently in New York, the guests being representative of various creeds and walks of life. It is not often that such tributes are paid to the statesmanship, justice, and human sympathy of any man as were paid at this luncheon by the Christian officers of these institutions to Mr. Morgenthau, who is a Jew.

He was born in Mannheim, Germany, in 1856, came to the United States in 1865, attended the public schools, the City College of New York City, and was finally admitted to the bar. His chief business activities have been connected with the development of New York City real estate, and he has been associated with many important financial corporations. He was Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Democratic National Committee in 1912, and was appointed Ambassador to Turkey in 1914.

Mr. Morganthau is president of the Free Synagogue of New York, and has been a personal worker in many Jewish religious and charitable organizations. In his business undertakings he is a man of large vision and courage, and the union of these two qualities has been one of the main factors in his success as a business man. To these may be added, as an explanation of his marked success as an Ambassador, his knowledge of men, his fairness, his desire to adjust difficulties and unravel problems, and his religious faith in God and man. His almost immediate predecessor as American Ambassador at Constantinople was Oscar Straus, also a Jew. The record of these two men as American citizens is an inspiring demonstration of the fact that at the basis of true citizenship and of true patriotism there is something much deeper than ecclesiastical creeds or racial associations. The real basis is a profound sympathy with human rights and human justice, and a belief, with the Prophet Micah, that true religion requires of a man "to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with his God"-nothing less and nothing more.

COLONEL HOUSE

595

The return to this country of Colonel E. M. House from his visits as the President's special representative to several of the capitals of the nations at war has naturally aroused speculation as to Colonel House's observation and report and renewed discussion as to his status and function. As to the first, it is well not to put reliance on the newspaper statements, for the report was confidential, and Colonel House is an adept in avoiding questions. It may be reported, however, that, according to these press assertions, the President was informed that the German Government is being urged on to submarine activity by public clamor, which insists that English commerce must be destroyed by any means available; that the German people do not want war with the United States; that the reports of ill feeling toward America in other nations have been greatly exaggerated; and that the time is not yet opportune for mediation offers by the United States.

66

'As for Colonel House's status as an envoy," the criticism by Mr. James M. Beck, formerly Attorney-General of the United States, that in sending him abroad the President has overstepped the Constitutional provision that no official representative should be sent abroad except with the consent and advice of the Senate, seems to ignore the statement by Mr. Lansing, Secretary of State, that Colonel House's mission was not of a diplomatic nature, but personal. There are precedents not a few upholding the right of a President to employ personal representatives to obtain information, to report conditions, and informally to discuss open questions with officials of other countries. Such an agent has not the right to enter into agreements that would bind his country, and in this is the difference between an agent and an officially accredited minister or ambassador. Our first President, Washington himself, took this course when he sent Gouverneur Morris to London, not as a minister, but because "I wish to be ascertained of the sentiments and intentions of the Court of St. James's " on certain subjects. Numerous other Presidents have acted likewise, down to and including President Wilson's own despatch of John Lind and Bayard Hale to Mexico to report to him directly; and, however futile or injurious the Mexican experience may have proved, its legal propriety was not at the time attacked. It is understood that Colonel House draws no pay and