ness discussion closely will heartily indorse this statement by Secretary Daniels.

IMMIGRATION AND AMERICANIZATION

The bill for preventing any immigrant from coming into the United States who cannot read or write or submit to what is called an educational test is again being considered by Congress. It is not surprising that such legislation should be urged by certain people of New England who look with alarm upon the marked and rapid change in the character of the population of the New England States. Unquestionably the problems of foreign illiteracy in New England are very great. The remedy, however, is not to prohibit the incoming of illiterate immigrants, but to make them representative and useful citizens after they arrive.

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What the problem is was very strikingly portrayed by Mr. Frank Trumbull, Chairman of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, in a recent address before the New England Society of New York City. The statistics which he presents are astonishing: Over one-third of the present population of Boston is foreignborn. The population of New England in 1910 was about 6,500,000, of which twenty-eight per cent were foreign-born. The foreign-born in Massachusetts are thirty-one per cent, as against fifteen per cent in the United States as a whole. In Massachusetts the foreign-born, or children of foreign or mixed parentage, are sixty-six per cent of the total. In the United States there are at least three million people fifteen years of age and over who are unable to speak English, and ten per cent of them are in New England. A single Massachusetts town of less than 7,000 population includes representatives of at least twenty-one different nationalities, speaking as many different languages. There are 1,269 foreign-language newspapers in the United States, of which eighty-one are in New England, printed in thirteen different languages.

This is certainly bad enough, but Mr. Trumbull goes on to state with unanswerable logic that these people would not have been in New England if New England had not needed them, for "New England's dependence on manual labor has made it quite willing to receive within its borders people who are alien in language and alien in thought."

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Owing to this unassimilated foreign element, New England, that supposed center of good order and culture, has suffered during recent years from some of the worst labor troubles which have occurred anywhere in this country. But," says Mr. Trumbull, pertinently, "how can we expect these foreigners to be profoundly impressed with respect for property if the first thing that happens to them when they land upon American soil is to be robbed?" He goes on to ask what is being done in really a large way to encourage the old New England habit of thrift among these people. He points out what the immigrants have contributed to this country, and the fact that we owe them at least an effort to help them to become Americans in return for what they have given to us, to say nothing of what we owe them on the basis of abstract human rights. Fortunately the intelligent business men are waking up to this fact. "A few weeks ago," he says, "I heard the head of a large enterprise in New England tell of a disturbance in a group of his workmen. He was asked to come out and talk with them, and did his best, but after a lengthy argument he was informed that the men had not understood a word he said. He then told the guards to push the men out of the plant. This simply increased the disturbance. He then ordered the guards to push the men back into the plant, and they all went to work, and have been there ever since. He added, however, that there ought to be some better way to get men to work than pushing them into it with guards!"

Now, Mr. Trumbull in his address did not discuss the Immigration Bill, but he did intimate that the solving of these problems of immigration lies, not in prohibition, but in Americanization. Whatever else Americanization may include, Mr. Trumbull believes that it involves two or three concrete things: First, free education; second, American standards of living third, better standards and better methods for the rite and ceremony of naturalization.

Fortunately, the subject of " Americanization" is attracting more and more National attention and interest, and the work

is being carried on as it ought to be, primarily through the avenues of free public education. The cities of Rochester, New York, and Detroit, Michigan, have been leaders in this direction. The proper way is by concerted and practical effort to enable the immigrants to make themselves, as most of them ardently desire to be, real American citizens.

BELGIAN RELIEF WORK

Some of our readers appear to have been surprised at the statements made in The Outlook of January 10 regarding the have played in the financial relief of Belgium. We reiterate wholly inadequate part which the people of the United States the main facts contained in that article.

The United States has contributed eight cents per capita to Belgian relief, while Great Britain and Canada have contributed eighteen cents per capita, Australia $1.23 per capita, New Zealand $1.98 per capita, and Tasmania $6.83 per capita. The profit of $15,000,000 on the sales of supplies to the Belgian Relief United States, on a conservative estimate, has made a cash Commission, which organization has spent over $125,000,000 in this country, while the people of the United States have contributed to the cause less than $9,000,000. In other words, we Americans have made more money out of Belgian suffering than we have given to the relief of that suffering. In originally publishing these figures we said: "Can any one doubt that as soon as the people of this country realize these figures they will change them?"

It is pleasant to receive a letter from Mr. Edgar Rickard, the Assistant Director in America of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, stating that since the publication of the foregoing figures in this country contributions are beginning to come in more generously. "We have had," he says, "during the last few weeks personal checks for sixty thousand dollars, fifteen thousand dollars, ten thousand dollars, five thousand, three thousand, and two for six thousand dollars." The Commission for Relief in Belgium of course is glad to have large gifts of this kind, but it welcomes with equal gratitude small gifts. Mr. Rickard sends us a letter from a contributor for Belgian relief which is so pertinent that we quote from it, as

follows:

I learn from the report of Mr. William L. Honnold, Director in America of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, in The Outlook for January 10, that the contributions of the people of the United States for the relief of war sufferers in Belgium and northern France amount to less than $9,000,000, while the computed profits to Americans on the supplies purchased in this country for this relief amount to $15,000,000.

This is a shocking and humiliating revelation. I cannot but feel that if the facts presented by Mr. Honnold could be given widespread publicity through the newspapers of the land it would result in such an increase in contributions from Americans as would greatly relieve the financial embarrassment of the Commission having charge of this great philanthropic work. The horror of the thing! We profit by the purchases made in this country of supplies for suffering cripples, women, and children! I want to get rid as quickly as possible of my share, if any, of this unholy profit, and I am therefore sending you herein my check for dollars, in addition to other small contributions made heretofore to your Commission. In doing this I am moved also by an article published in The Outlook for December 27, by A. Piatt Andrew, in which it is related that "France spent for us [Americans] during the Revolution no less than seven hundred million dollars," without any sort of subsequent recompense from us, for it is my understanding that the people of northern France share in the relief given by your Commission. Really, I cannot believe that my fellow-Americans are such "fat and greasy citizens," financially speaking, as to take any degree of satisfaction in the fact that we have actually profited by the destitution of the Belgian and French heroes and their wives and babies. In the light of the facts given by Mr. Honnold, "generous Americans" sounds like bitter irony, and I imagine the words would sound likewise in the ears of millions of other Americans if they could only know the facts as they are given by Mr. Honnold in the Outlook article.

While the Belgian Relief Commission is very desirous of increasing its income to one million dollars per month in this country (which sum would be about one-tenth of the total

requirements of the Commission for Relief in Belgium) in order to provide a much-needed supplementary meal for the schoolchildren of that suffering country, even with this one million dollars a month it can only provide a ration inferior to that given to war prisoners either in England or Germany, or by the English to the inmates of poorhouses.

In writing, the Assistant Director, Mr. Rickard, calls our attention to two errors in our former article, one of commission and one of omission. It was stated that Mr. William L. Honnold gave up his responsible position as a mining engineer in South Africa to take up the relief work of the Commission. This was not exact. He was on his way home after thirteen years of work in South Africa and took the occasion of this well-earned freedom to go into the Belgian work.

We also unintentionally omitted to state that the seven million dollars per month which are being advanced by the British and the French Governments to Belgian relief are in the form of a loan, and not of outright donations. But this does not affect the fact that private contributions which were outright donations from the British Empire have amounted to $13,000,000 during the last two years, while private contributions from the United States have amounted to only $9,000,000. In spite of the American failure to do its share financially for Belgium, it may still be a source of pride and satisfaction to the people of this country that the organization which is doing the relief work is distinctively an American creation and is manned almost wholly by Americans. The headquarters in this country of the Commission for Relief in Belgium is at 120 Broadway, New York.

THE NATIONAL SPIRIT IN THE WEST

The Commercial Club of Kansas City has for many years celebrated the anniversary of the signing of John Jay's treaty of 1794 with Great Britain by a banquet. This fact alone is an indication that the National spirit is not wholly dead in the Middle West, as it is sometimes said to be. At the close of the Revolution there were still some questions which lingered long undecided and were sources of bitter controversy between the young United States and Great Britain. One bone of contention was that Great Britain maintained her army posts and forts in what was called the Northwestern Territory. Under the Jay Treaty these posts were evacuated. Mr. Beveridge in his interesting life of John Marshall describes how that great lawyer and statesman, in his youthful experience as a member of the Virginia Legislature, participated in these controversies.

At the annual dinner of the Kansas City Commercial Club, in December, Mr. Dwight W. Morrow, a lawyer of New York City who has been especially interested in questions of American constitutional history and is now a member of the firm of Messrs. J. P. Morgan & Co., was one of the speakers. Mr. Morrow's main theme was the necessity for a National unity of spirit, and he pointed out as an encouraging symptom of such a spirit in this country that a prominent organization of Kansas City is now celebrating annually a treaty which at the time it was signed met with a storm of protest. "They burned John Jay in effigy in many States of the United States for the act which you celebrate! And an infuriated crowd marched to the residence of the British Minister in Philadelphia and publicly burned a copy of the treaty in front of his door.... John Jay was openly accused of corruption, and some of his friends were so shocked by what seemed to them a great injustice that they expressed the opinion that no country could last twenty years where such violence and passion could rage."

Not many years ago a Member of Congress, more distinguished for his activities as a vote-getter than as a student of history, made himself immortal in the annals of American polities by saying on the floor of Congress in the course of a speech, What do we care for abroad?" The lesson of the episode of the Jay Treaty is that we must care for "abroad," and think about it and relate ourselves to it. As Mr. Morrow rightly pointed out, the world war creates a new crisis for this country which is entirely comparable in its seriousness with the period of the American Revolution. He says:

With what spirit will America approach the new era? Can we acquire, without paying the great price of the warring nations,

the unity which the fires of war are burning into the people abroad? Shall we be able to assume our new international burdens free from the delusion that has done so much to bring about the European cataclysm, the delusion that successful trade abroad necessarily means the deprivation of some other nation of that trade? Can we learn from the European tragedy that leadership in world trade is not a thing to be sought by any nation to the exclusion of all other nations, and that that people will do most for the world and most for themselves who endeavor to determine what things are needed by the rest of the world which they can furnish, and what things the rest of the world can furnish in fair exchange therefor? Can we base our plans for foreign trade not upon the weakness of stricken rivals, but upon a more intelligent farming of our lands, the creation of new and better machinery, a greater breadth in our extensions of credit, a better understanding of our domestic problems, a fairer adjustment of our relations one to another? And, finally, will we have the unity and the courage to do our part in the great task of bringing the world a little nearer to a dependable international guaranty of the territorial and political integrity of all nations, whether they be large or whether they be small?

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Those who were present say that this sound doctrine was received with approval and applause by the members of the Kansas City Commercial Club. We hope the Club will continue to carry on this excellent American propaganda. There are some people who seem to think that industrial and political friendship with foreign nations constitutes an “ entangling alliance." It would be just as reasonable to say that if you live on terms of friendship with your neighbor you are exposing yourself to the danger of marrying into his family. International friendships, as Mr. Morrow so well says, based upon the very trite but very important principle of doing unto others as we would have others do unto us, are essential to our future prosperity as a democracy.

T

THE PRESIDENT'S IDEAL

HE President's address on world peace is, in every sense of that much-abused term, eloquent, and it will receive world-wide reading and world-wide praise. In this address he expresses a beautiful ideal, a noble aspiration, a spirit of humanity, and democratic principles, in a literary form well worthy of an acknowledged master of the English language. He affirms certain advanced views of liberalism which have not found recent expression so clear and cogent from any one occupying such a position of public responsibility. He treats the question of present terms of peace between the nations at war as subordinate to the question of what should be an adequately guaranteed and enduring international peace throughout the world. He recognizes the truth that to make such peace secure it will be absolutely necessary that a force be created so much greater than any nation or existing alliance of nations that no probable future combination of nations could withstand it; and thus frankly acknowledges that to ensure peace" it is necessary to "enforce peace. reaffirms certain principles of government, some of which as conditions of peace would certainly be rejected by some European nations, though they would be accepted as essentially just by nearly all Americans. Such are the equality of national rights, the doctrine that all just governments rest on the consent of the governed, the co-operation of the navies of the world in keeping the seas at once free and safe, and the acceptance of the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine as a world doctrine, so that no nation shall hereafter seek to extend its policy over any other nation, but every people shall be left free to develop their own life in their own way, unhindered and unthreatened, the little along with the great and the powerful.

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He

As an idealist's vision this is wholly admirable; but as a statesman's proposal to the nations of the world it is robbed of its real value by the declaration that the peace of the future must be a peace without victory." That the world may not misunderstand him, the President amplifies this phrase as follows: It must be a peace without victory. It is not pleasant to say this. I beg that I may be permitted to put my own interpretaupon it, and that it may be understood that no other interpretation was in my thought. I am seeking only to face realities and to face them without soft concealments. Victory would mean

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peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory, upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand.

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Not pleasant to say this? On the contrary, it is very pleasant to say this, and it would be very pleasant to believe this if only it were true. But it is not true. There never can be peace this world without victory. No man can have peace in himself except as he wins a victory over his baser appetites and passions. No city can maintain peace within its limits except as its police win and retain victory over the criminal population. Doing justice is the essential condition of peace. If a thug attacks a peaceful citizen, knocks him down, robs him of his watch and purse, and so injures him that he has to go to the hospital for repairs, justice is not satisfied by a promise of the thug not to do it again. He must restore the stolen goods and pay the hospital charges, and, if necessary, be made to feel such "humiliation" and "sting" that he will not wish to repeat the crime. Germany attacked Belgium, and at the same time her Chancellor said that his country was doing unjustly in this affair. Germany is still robbing Belgium, and at the same time her Chancellor affirms the right of small nations to their life. In such a case there can be no justice that is not expressed by the liberation of Belgium and by adequate reparation for the wrong confessedly inflicted upon her.

The beauty of the President's ideal is the fatal defect of his address. He assumes what is not true. He tells us that mankind is now looking for freedom of life. But the former King of the Belgians was not looking for freedom of life in the Congo, nor is Germany now looking for freedom of life in Belgium, nor is Turkey now looking for freedom of life in Armenia, nor are Austria and Russia now looking for freedom of life in Poland. If all men desired to do justly, a pathway to peace would be easily found; but all men do not desire to do justly. And so long as there are men who have the will and the power to oppress their fellow-men, those who desire justice must unite to defend themselves and their neighbors from the oppressor. A beautiful ideal may become as dangerous as it is beautiful. It is dangerous whenever it is unaccompanied with a spirit resolute and courageous to realize that ideal in life, whatever that realization may cost. Creed without deed is fatal to life. That is as true in the State as in the Church. "Dreaming fine things that are never done will not save the world." For us to affirm that government rests on the consent of the governed, that little nations have equal rights with great nations, that every people should be left free to determine their own policy, and that there must be freedom of the seas, and at the same time stand idly by while Germany denies to the conquered people of Alsace and Lorraine real participation in their own government, robs the people of Belgium of their inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, denies to the people of Serbia the right to determine their own policy, and violates the freedom of the seas by undersea war on peaceful merchant vessels, may deceive ourselves but will not deceive the people of other lands. To the question, "What doth the Lord require of thee?" the Hebrew prophet answered, "To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." There is infinite peril to our Nation and infinite peril to our individual souls if we substitute for the prophet's answer, To praise justice, talk of mercy, and profess humility.

REFLECTIONS ON AN
AN ORCHESTRAL

ANNIVERSARY

America is young, but so is the art of music. What the ancients called music we should hardly recognize as such. Masterpieces in architecture, sculpture, and painting which long antedate the discovery of America are to be found in all parts of the world; but where are to be found the musical masterpieces which Columbus could have heard? When America was discovered, the art of music was still primitive. Bach, who is counted an ancient, lived in George Washing ton's lifetime. Even in the European sense, therefore, it is

possible to speak of real age in connection with American music.

In the light of these facts it is not altogether surprising that one of the oldest orchestral organizations in the world is American. The Philharmonic Society of New York, which is described in Grove's "Dictionary of Music and Musicians" as "the oldest orchestral body in continuous service in the United States devoted to the performance of instrumental music" (though the Pierian Sodality of Harvard will take exception to this statement), was originated at a meeting on April 2, 1842. It is therefore celebrating its seventy-fifth anniversary this year. Before that time there had been orchestral undertakings in Boston (where for several years the only oboe player in the United States lived), and there was a real musical center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which was in communication with the great Haydn; but of the purely orchestral enterprises the Philharmonic Society of New York is the only one of that early date that has endured. The festival concerts, therefore, which the Philharmonic Society gave within the past few days (January 17 to January 21), capped with a dinner, commemorated an event of real significance in America.

Until very recently this orchestral body was a sort of communistic society. The members of the orchestra were selfgoverning. The players were chosen by vote. There were no wages paid, the members dividing equally among themselves the profits derived from the sale of tickets to the concerts. This communistic plan did not work out very well. It tended to fill the Society with dead-wood, and it did not provide really adequate income for good players. In 1909 the Society was reorganized. Gustav Mahler (famous as a conductor and notorious as a composer) became the conductor of the orchestra. When he died, Joseph Stransky, the present conductor, succeeded to the post. In the last few years, as a result of this reorganization, the orchestra has renewed its life. It has risen from something lower than mediocrity to a place of distinction among orchestral bodies. Its tonal quality has been transformed.

Unfortunately, with this improvement in the playing ability of the orchestra has come a falling off in its musical standards. One of the factors of the reorganization of the Society was the sum of a million dollars bequeathed to the Philharmonic by Joseph Pulitzer, the creator of yellow journalism in America. With that gift he imposed (not legally, but none the less effectively) his own artistic standards upon the body, and, unhappily, those who have been in control of the Society have welcomed those inferior standards as if they were a godsend.

There are two conflicting standards in music. One might be called the sensational standard. Those who judge music by this standard regard that form of music as good and desirable which thrills. If shivers run up and down one's backbone at the hearing of a composition, that, according to this standard, is evidence that the music is great. This is not in the least an exaggera tion. It is the standard avowed by people who occupy positions of influence and are regarded as expert in musical criticism and in the direction of musical affairs. This group of people judge music solely by its emotional effect upon those who happen at the time to hear it. Music, in their view, is great according as it produces vivid sensations. One critic, who is and has long been a stanch advocate of the Philharmonic, and who rejoices in its present status, frankly bases his judgment on emotion and records it in purely emotional terms. Does a chorus sing? It is a fine chorus because one is "thrilled by the verve " of its singing. Is a composer worth hearing? The answer depends upon whether he stirs his hearers' feelings. From this point of view the highest words of praise (we take these phrases from a single criticism) are such as "whirlwind of passion," " temperamental and emotional," "a warmth, a fervor in his seething tone," "sensuous beauty." According to these standards, real appreciation of music requires a gelatinous backbone.

This standard we should not dream of applying, for instance, to plays. If we did, the Bowery "thriller," the sensational melodrama, would stand at the top of dramatic literature. If we applied this standard, the worst of the "movies " would receive the greatest praise.

The other standard is the standard of perfection. Those who hold to this standard regard the function of art as not primarily to thrill, to send shivers up and down the backbone, to create

sensuous beauty, to arouse passion, tumultuous or otherwise; but to take the materials which are found in the world of dis order and confusion and uncertainty, and out of those materials to create something which is of itself orderly, unconfused, true, and, in the largest and most comprehensive sense, beautiful. This view of music (it applies as well to other arts) requires something of the hearer. It requires that he have the sense, intelligence, discrimination, with perhaps a degree of knowledge, to enable him to see beauty and order and truth when put before him, and to distinguish between that which is chaotic and anarchic and confused and that which, under perhaps an appearance of confusion, has real structure, form, symmetry. There is music that appeals merely to the passions, but it does not take the hearer anywhere. It leaves him as it found him; or, because every emotion that is unrelated to fact and has no outcome in action is injurious, it may leave him worse. There is another kind of music that appeals to the hearer's ideals. Some times this is called intellectual. It is intellectual only in the

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sense that it requires a mind as well as a group of senses to appreciate it.

The standards to which the Philharmonic Society of New York is to-day conforming are the standards of the senses. It is appealing to a wide audience just as the yellow newspaper appeals to the wide audience, and by somewhat the same means. This does not mean that under Josef Stransky the Philharmonic Orchestra does not really play the great and lasting masterpieces of music, but it does mean that the effect of the orchestra as it is now conducted is to exalt into high place those compositions which are primarily sensuous and sensational, and to render comparatively dull and uninteresting those works whose virtue is their lasting beauty. In its present form the Philharmonic is worthy of a higher service. It is capable of showing that the greatest music is not emotionless, but that rather, just because it is not superficially sensational, it expresses the profoundest emotion; for there is no emotion so deep and enduring as that which has its roots in a great and beautifully expressed idea.

To the Editor of The Outlook:

INTOLERANCE"

EAR SIR-In The Outlook for January 17, 1917, the "Journal of the American Medical Association" and its editor are criticised in an article entitled "A Case of Medical Intolerance." This criticism has for its subject a brief editorial comment in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" for August 12, 1916. The comment dealt with some claims made by a Miss Edith May, one of The Outlook's correspondents, for Dr. Barthe de Sandfort and his preparation "Ambrine." The Outlook, in summing up its case against the "Journal" and its editor, said:

Thus Dr. Simmons still persists in regarding The Outlook as indiscreet and lacking in common intelligence, in maintaining that Miss May, our trusted correspondent in France, is "credulous and uncritical," in considering that Dr. de Sandfort, in his paraffin treatment of burns, employs a "nostrum," and in looking upon Dr. de Sandfort himself as an exploiter."

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The Outlook's conception of the "Journal's attitude is entirely correct except that it has never intimated that The Outlook was "lacking in common intelligence." Unfortunately the readers of The Outlook are made to believe that the "Journal's " criticism was based on the therapeutic value of Ambrine. As a matter of fact, the " Journal's editorial did not criticise or discuss the possible or probable value of de Sandfort's" Ambrine." It did consider that Miss May's article indicated both credulity and an uncritical attitude, and it discussed the reasons for so considering it-reasons, by the way, which The Outlook has failed to give to its readers. The "Journal" also considered, and still considers, the preparation that de Sandfort uses a “nostrum” and de Sandfort himself an "exploiter." Reasons for this attitude also were given in the "Journal's " article and were further elaborated in letters written by the editor of the "Journal to the editor of The Outlook. But The Outlook again failed to give them to its readers. In order to justify the "Journal's" attitude, the points may be briefly restated:

1. Your correspondent, in her article, said: "I saw eleven men (there were more) who had had burning tar played upon them by the most recently perfected device of their so-called civilized enemy. (The Allies won't use it!) When they reached the hospital, the tar was still burning, their clothes were burned off."

As it was obviously impossible that burning tar sprayed on soldiers at the front should still be burning when the victims reached the hospital in or near Paris, the "Journal" called attention to the absurdity of the statement. Further corre-spondence brought out the fact (not mentioned in "A Case of Medical Intolerance") that Miss May had not seen the tar "still burning," but that she had mistranslated a French phrase which led her to write as she did.

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2. Miss May also described a case of a man that she saw every feature of whose face was then indistinguishable, eyes closed, lips and parts of his face burned to the bone, teeth all exposed like a grinning mask," and asked the readers of The Outlook to believe that in a short time "there will not be . . even a scar."

As all physicians and most intelligent non-medical men know that "burns to the bone" cannot heal" without a scar," the "Journal" criticised the statement, and was surely justified in charging a correspondent who made such a statement with being "credulous and uncritical."

3. In referring to de Sandfort's alleged discovery Miss May said: "But it has been the work of a lifetime; research which has taken all of his private income, and which has quite evidently left its mark on a deeply seamed and prematurely old face. He deserves the recognition and the thanks due a great benefactor of the human race. But he doesn't ask it. He is the most modest of men.'

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The facts: Ambrine was not the result of "research," was not "the work of a lifetime;" but de Sandfort, quoting from "A Case of Medical Intolerance," in the letter of Dr. S., "has little or no scientific training" and really" stumbled upon this treatment by accident. While readers of Miss May's article could not avoid the impression that "Ambrine is a new product, it has, in fact, been on the market for years, not only in France under the name "L'ambrine," but also in the United States under the names "Hyperthermine" and "Thermozine."

It must again be emphasized that the "Journal's " editorial did not discuss "Ambrine as a good, a bad, or an indifferent therapeutic agent. therapeutic agent. "Miracles in the War Zone," which was the title of the "Journal's " editorial comments, dealt wholly with the miraculous claims and the apocryphal virtues with which the author of "War Letters of an American Woman invested "Ambrine" and its exploiter. In brief, what the "Journal" criticised was the emotional, exaggerated, and sensational discussion of a serious, scientific subject. The "Journal" protested against describing as new and original a product that had been on the market for years. The "Journal" deprecated the idea of investing a rather ordinary mixture with miraculous healing powers. Finally, the "Journal" refused to accept Miss May's claim that the promoter of "Ambrine" was "the most modest of men," who asked for no recognition or thanks, because the "Journal" knew that, as a matter of fact, his name had for years been connected with the exploitation of the mixture.

If it is "ecclesiasticism in medicine" for a medical journal to criticise claims that are obviously or demonstrably false, made in quasi-medical articles by well-meaning but uncritical and credulous laymen, then the "Journal of the American