curious skids with springs in them that help to make the landing of an airplane easy, the pneumatic-tired wheels of a type quite distinct from that of the automobile wheel, the arrangement of levers and buttons and wheels and what-not for the airplane driver, the substantial appearance of the wings-as solid-looking as huge oars would be-all helped to stimulate the wonder of the uninitiated, though they are all perfectly familiar to the trained aviator.

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Then there were on exhibition some of the recent appliances that have helped to make aviation more of an art and less of a hazard. For instance, there was an instrument to measure what is known as the drift of an airplane. As every one must know, those who fly in the air are subject to the currents of the air, just as a boat is subject to the flow of the tide, and therefore the aviator must make allowance for what is known as drift. The instrument on exhibition, utilizing a telescope, showed on a piece of ground glass like that of a camera the direction of the apparent side drift of the ground beneath the airplane, and some parallel lines on the ground glass enabled the aviator to adjust his compass so as to show just how many degrees in steering he should allow for this drift.

One of the airplane accessories. was a rifle weighing 220 pounds, capable of firing a shell, yet without recoil.

There were dirigible balloons on exhibition, but they excited little interest.

There were also exhibited materials used in the construction of airplanes and airplane engines. For example, there was an exhibit of an aluminum alloy known as lynite. Cylinders were exhibited which were not cast in the ordinary sand molds, but by permanent metal molds, according to a French process which gave a hardness to the aluminum fiber that it would otherwise lack. Of course the use of aluminum in the engine of an airplane not only decreases the weight which the airplane has to carry, but reduces the vibration and the waste of power in the engine itself.

In addition, there were on exhibition devices which, while not yet practicable, pointed the way to future development, such as the aerial torpedo guided by wireless and the five-plane aero-battle-cruiser designed to carry twenty men and three large anti-aircraft guns.

While the first Pan-American Aeronautic Exposition bore witness to a growing interest in aeronautics in this country which should be welcomed, it furnished evidence of the unpreparedness of the United States for aerial fighting. European aviators who attended the Exposition remarked pointedly that not one machine on exhibit was good enough to be considered for service on a European war front. Some of the 'planes shown would do for schooling purposes, it was said; in fact, some were of a type which England is now using to train aviators. But not even these were fit to be taken to within scouting distance of the battle-line.

America has some excellent American airplane factories; but their output is not standardized. America has some excellent aviators and aviation experts; but the factories, the aviators, and the Government are not properly co-ordinated. A system of standardization and of Government support of aviation, with perhaps Government prizes offered for good accomplishment in flying or in aircraft manufacture, such as Germany adopted, to the great improvement of her air service, is needed in this country.

DAYLIGHT SAVING

The movement to gain more daylight for the country's work by changing the time of all clocks is gaining headway. It deserves to gain headway, for it contemplates many obvious advantages; but before the daylight-savers can convince the country of the, value of their proposal they must eliminate a good deal of confusion which still clouds that reform.

Simple as it is, the changing of the position of the hands of the clock in spring and fall, which daylight saving involves, confuses many people. What is the purpose of daylight saving? It is simply this: To get people up earlier in summer than they have been getting up in winter, in order to have them use more of the daylight hours. If your housemaid has been getting up at six o'clock in the morning, and you want her to

get up at five, the easiest way to get her to do it is to move the hands of her clock forward one hour. She will then still rise when the clock's hands indicate the hour of six, but, as the clock is now an hour fast according to the housemaid's former time schedule, she is really getting up at five. In the fall the hands of the clock would be moved back an hour, in order to keep the housemaid's working schedule in its natural relations to the schedule of the sun. There are other easier ways of getting one or two people up an hour earlier, but no other way possible of arousing an hour earlier a hundred thousand or five million people.

The recent conference of the National Daylight Saving Convention in New York City bore witness that this reform is already so popular among Americans that this country may soon follow the lead of ten European countries that have already begun to make the most of their daylight. It seemed to be the most popular view among the delegates to the Convention that five or five and a half months during the longer days of the year was about the right period for observing the new time. The city of Detroit, which recently moved from the eastern limit of the Central time zone to the western limit of the Eastern time zone, thereby unofficially indorsed the principle of daylight saving.

The most obvious advantage of this reform is an economic one; that is, the gain which results from the saving of gas, electricity, and other artificial light. But the gain to the public health through the saving of eye-strain and the gain of more time for exercise in the open air ought not to be overlooked. Not the least enthusiastic among the advocates of daylight saving are tennis players, baseball players, and others who covet the extra hour of sunlight after the day's work.

THE SCALLOP CROP

This is a good year for scallops. Perhaps this fact seems no great cause for elation to the general public, which hardly gives a thought to the scallop crop in the greater anxiety concerning

the corn crop, the wheat crop, the cotton crop, and other crops

more essential to the welfare of that general public though less interesting to the enthusiastic epicure.

Even more joyful than the epicures, however, are the fishermen of the Atlantic coast because of the size of the scallop crop. What with the wealth coming to the inhabitants of the little ship-building coast towns through the high war freights and this harvest of scallops, some of the quaint old salt-water towns of New England are doing just as well now as many humming inland munition centers.

When we speak of scallops, we refer to two varieties of this delicious shellfish, the small scallop (Pecten irradians) and the giant scallop (Pecten magellanicus), the latter also being known as the "sea," "smooth," or "great" scallop.

"The small scallop," so the Bureau of Fisheries informs us, is found from Cape Cod to Texas. It inhabits the shallow waters near shore, and is usually found where eel-grass is abundant. In size it is much smaller than the giant scallop, the maximum diameter of the shell being about three and a half inches as compared with nine inches for the giant scallop.'

The giant scallop's habitat is from Labrador to Cape Lookout, North Carolina, but this mollusk is taken principally on the Maine coast. This variety likes to lurk in deep nooks, and is usually found in beds shaded by forty to sixty fathoms of cool sea water. These scallops are caught in a special dredge of a netting of twine on an iron frame.

It is especially in their pursuit of the smaller scallops that fishermen have had their good luck this season. Indeed, reports of the prevalence of empty shells in the giant scallop beds near Rockland, Maine, led to the promulgation of the theory by the Bureau of Fisheries that starfishes had been preying on the huge but rather helpless Pecten magellanicus. But the scallop-catchers of Massachusetts, and particularly of the famous Buzzards Bay district, beloved by many famous anglers, have been very busy. For instance, this year the dredgers of the town of Wareham alone captured scallops worth in total from $75,000 to $100,000, which is about double the best previous record of that town, made seven years ago.

The Portland, Maine, " Press " recently printed an interest

ing article in regard to this bivalve, of which rather little is known by the public owing to the din of the louder praises sung by devotees of those more famous shellfish, the oyster and the clam. This paper reported that the Cape Cod folk were inclined to dispute the theory of biologists that it is impossible to plant scallop "seed" in a way to insure a good crop for the ensuing year. The "Press" tells us of a Massachusetts fisherman whose theory is that "if the scallops are planted well inside,' where they cannot be swept around by the currents of the ocean, they will stay there and prove ample reward

for all the trouble taken."

The prayer, we learn, was written by a military chaplain at Perugia, one Giovanni Sodini, for special use in hospitals. The text follows:

Our Father, who gave us for our fatherland a country beloved by thee, made by thee the center of a holy religion, which from thy Fatherhood assures us blessing and joy;

Our Father, who to free from the slavery of human sin and to make all men brothers allowed thy Son to die martyred and crucified;

Our Father, who art in heaven, help us, soldiers of Italy, who have been weakened by illness and loss of blood. We ask thee to restore health to us because we want to do our whole duty in securing to the fatherland, dear to thee, its liberation from enemies, its welfare, and its grandeur.

Thou knowest, our God, God of goodness, that many of the brothers whom thou hast given us are still separated from us under a foreign yoke. Thou, Giver of every holiest liberty, thou who aidest peoples beloved by thee to free themselves from every slavery, make stanch the hearts and the armies of the defenders of Italian liberty. Thou who hast trained us by the example and by the words of thy divine Son to a great obedience which we maintain, ready, respectful, absolute; thou who for his sake hast given us the grace to be strong, to suffer all distress, and to triumph over all of the struggles of the soul, grant us still the joy of sustaining all the fatigues and the sacrifices of the body, and, if it is necessary, the sacrifice of life itself, for Italy's salvation.

Protect, Most High God, our leader and brother in arms, the King, who shares peril and sacrifice with the combatants; illumine our counselors, save the sacred symbol of our military honor and our brotherhood, the flag, blessed in thy name, and bring about that, at a not distant day, all soldiers may return, more glorious than ever, to their homes, while we sing the glories of our fatherland and the goodness of the heavenly Father who protects and guides the armies that fight for justice and liberty.

So may it be through the merits of Jesus, thy Son, our Lord. So may it be by the intercession of the gentle, compassionate, and sweet Virgin Mary.

This is not mere glorified self-seeking, as martial prayers are sometimes supposed to be-not a prayer to a tribal god-but a prayer for the victory of an ideal.

THE AMERICAN PATRIOTIC ACRE

Recently we reported the "Patriotic Acre" work in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. In that paragraph we suggested that our farmers might well follow the example there set forth. We are gratified to discover that a movement to that end is already under way. Mr. O. F. Gardner, President of the Colorado Farmers' Congress, recently suggested that each farmer of that State should set aside the gross returns from one specific acre of land for war relief purposes, the proceeds to be turned over to the American Red Cross for distribution among the starving and homeless in wardevastated districts of Europe. The suggestion was taken up by the daily press and farm papers of the State. The move

ment is now organized by the Farmers' Congress, and well under way. Denver papers prophesy that it may produce over $2,500,000. For instance, in speaking of the possible early end of the war, the "Western Farm Life," in its issue of February 1, asserts that even under the most favorable circumstances there must be "a period of reconstruction lasting many months, during which America will have to bear a large share of the burden of aiding those in distress, of succoring the widows and orphans; of providing food for the hungry, clothing for the naked, help for the blind and maimed. It has remained," says that journal, "for the Colorado Farmers' Congress to devise a practical method through which the farmer may bear his share of this responsibility. responsibility. . . . We of the West are Americans, and we do not hestitate when it comes to digging down into our jeans to put our contributions into Uncle Sam's tall hat." In another column we read:

Charges have been going the rounds of the Eastern press that the Western farmer is cold-heartedly ignoring the suffering in the countries at war while enjoying prosperity due in large measure to war prices. There are two fallacies in that accusation. The first needs no refutation, namely, that the farmer of the West is heartless. The reverse is true. The second clause in the indictment is equally untrue. The farmer is getting good prices, but is paying out his surplus in meeting his part of the high cost of living as a consumer. Added profits on staple food products he has for sale are more than absorbed by the higher prices he pays for clothing, shoes, dry goods, implements, household and farm equipment, fuel and lumber, and such food as he is forced to buy.

Other Western States whose farmers have also been enjoying unequaled prosperity we hope and expect will join this movement for war relief.

COUPLING UP THE MAN AND THE JOB

One year ago the State of Pennsylvania created an employment bureau as an adjunct to the State Department of Labor and Industry. The State Commissioner of Labor, John Price Jackson, was given wide authority and wider jurisdiction to carry on the work of the new bureau, which was placed under the immediate supervision of Jacob Lightner. Director Light ner's first step was to try to couple up the man and the job and so relieve the unemployed. An office was opened in Harrisburg, the State capital, to serve as a State clearing-house for labor. Other offices were opened at Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Johnstown, and Altoona. Still other offices will be opened in other mining and manufacturing regions as fast as possible.

Employers wishing to secure workers and workers looking for jobs fill out blanks, which are forwarded to the clearing house at Harrisburg, and suitable applicants are put in touch with the proper employers.

The success of the plan was instantaneous. For instance, the Pittsburgh office was opened at nine o'clock on the morning of March 1. By noon more than one hundred and fifty applicants had appeared at the office. Eight industrial plants in the Pittsburgh district at once got into touch with the bureau, asking for fifteen hundred employees.

At the end of September the new bureau had been in opera tion eleven months. During this period more than thirty thou sand workers were asked for, more than twenty-four thousand workers applied for jobs, and more than eleven thousand of them found work. In short, more than forty-seven per cent of those seeking work were placed.

Of course the bureau was instituted at a favorable time. Employers are crying out for workers. Yet the fact that, in spite of the boom in industry, twenty-four thousand men wanted work indicates that the bureau was needed. A State employment system that covers the entire State can couple up the man and the job in a way that no strictly private employment agency can hope to equal. The bureau is empowered to study into the causes of unemployment. So far it has been too busy getting jobs for the jobless to delve very deeply into the matter of unemployment. But it has demonstrated one thing very clearly: the matter of unemployment is more or less a matter of poor labor distribution.

Although the law creating this labor bureau is "advanced legislation," Pennsylvania is by no means the first State to create

a State employment bureau. But Pennsylvania is at once a great manufacturing and a great agricultural State, and it is interesting to observe how the measure is working. As we swing further and further away from the idea that government is merely a policeman, and understand that government is right fully an agent for promoting human welfare, we may expect to see public employment bureaus in every State. There is already a Federal employment bureau. When the time comes that this shall serve as a central clearing-house for the workers of the United States, there will no longer be difficulty in securing necessary labor for wheat-field, apple orchard, and factory, and the problem of unemployment will in part be solved.

WHAT COULD AMERICA DO IN CASE OF WAR?

T

HE American people are rapidly passing from a perilous stage, that of neutrality of feeling, of unconcern and indifference. The causes of the war may still be obscure to many, but the course of the war is not obscure. The massacre of the Armenians, the enslavement of the Belgians, the Zeppelin war on non-combatants, the piratical undersea war on merchant shipsthese are not obscure. The report of them has been circulated throughout the country. The American people are slowly awakening to the fact that barbarism is making war-in a barbaric spirit and by barbaric methods-on civilization. When National airs are played at public gatherings, when the American flag is worn on coat lapels and displayed from shops and houses and even in churches, we may be sure that the American people are awake, or at least awaking. It is said that the Administration is deluged with letters from various parts of the country urging a policy of peace. We welcome this as a good sign, for it indicates that the spirit of indifference and unconcern is passing away, and that a sense of responsibility is beginning to take possession of the American people.

RAISING THE BLOCKADE OF FEAR, ACTING WITH THE ALLIES AND EXERTING OUR POWER

The outward and manifest sign of this National awakening in a National declaration of lawful war against lawless war- -of a war of humanity against inhumanity, law and order and justice against lawlessness and organized anarchy and barbaric injustice would of itself exert a moral influence which might not impossibly be sufficient to determine the undetermined issue, and to bring this terrible world tragedy to a perpetual end. It would reinforce, by one of those deeds which speak so much louder than words, the President's appeal for the recognition of democratic principles, and would do more than anything short of a decisive victory in the field to force the common people of Germany to realize that they are now being used as pawns in a war against the liberties for which their fathers fought in the futile revolution of 1848.

Such a declaration of lawful war against lawless war would raise the blockade of fear-or of incompetence, which is one of the causes of fear- a blockade which has been holding American vessels in port as effectually as if there were a cordon of hostile naval vessels off our coast. Such a declaration of lawful war against lawless war would end the process of waiting for some overt act on the part of those whose overt acts have already spread murder on the high seas-some overt act which would add fresh victims to those already sacrificed on the altar of lawlessness.

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Such a declaration of lawful war against lawless war should put this country plainly and unmistakably alongside of those allied nations that have been contending for two years and a half against lawlessness. To ask the question whether we should become the ally of the Allies is to answer it. If we go to war, what is our purpose? It is to defeat that Power which avows that necessity knows no law. There is only one way to defeat that Power, and that is to associate ourselves with those who through experience have learned the most effective methods of warfare against that same Power. If a man's house is burning down and he has his own private fire-engine, it would be folly for him to refuse to work with the village fire company that is

already engaged in fighting the flames. Military men know the supreme tactical folly of the proposal (heard in some quarters) that if this country goes into war it should "go it alone." If we should "go it alone," it is conceivable that Germany might make peace with her other enemies and then "go it alone" with us. If that should happen, it would be just retribution. The American people should dismiss the thought. If we go into this war, it will be for no selfish National purpose. It will be for a purpose we should have in common with those now resisting lawlessness; and a common purpose requires common action. But if we should join in this lawful war against lawless war, what could we do? It is evident that Germany does not want war with the United States. She does not think we are as powerless as some of our pacifists would have us believe. We cannot escape the responsibility of deciding whether we shall use such power as we possess to promote the cause of liberty and justice. We cannot escape our responsibility by saying that the war does not concern us. Neither can we escape it by saying to ourselves, "We would, but cannot; we have the will, but not the power." We have the power. The question for us to decide is whether we ought to use the power which we possess and run the hazards to our peace and prosperity-hazards not inconsiderable and not to be ignored which entering into the war against militarism would involve. There are things we can do.

A COMMERCIAL BLOCKADE OF GERMANY

Not only can we prohibit all shipment of goods between this prohibiting the shipment of goods to neutral ports intended for country and Germany, but we can join with Great Britain in Germany, and from neutral ports all goods obtained in Germany. We can thus make still more effectual the not ineffectual blockade which Great Britain has instituted. The indications are that this blockade is the weapon which Germany most fears, and has the most reason to fear. More than any other now neutral Power we could do much by reinforcing the blockade of Germany to compel Germany to sue for a peace based on justice and liberty.

MILITARY FORCES ON SEA AND LAND

We can make use of our navy. This is our first line of defense, and it is the first arm of the Government which could be used to enforce the purposes of this lawful war. What the navy can do we shall not pretend to say. That is something for the experts of the Navy Department to determine. It is sufficient to say that, though our navy is not as powerful as we would wish, it is by no means powerless. It is clear that the whole country should support the navy in every way possible and bend every effort to strengthen it as the first step toward effective warfare.

In this lawful war against lawless war we can contribute to the fighting land forces. Many thousands of Americans have already crossed the Canadian border and enlisted with Canadian troops for campaigning in France and Belgium. This they have done despite the fact that recruiting in the United States has been impossible. If recruiting offices were open in the United States as they could be in time of war-no one can even approximately estimate how many would offer their services. It is well known that the announcement in the papers that Mr. Roosevelt has offered to raise a force of volunteers in case of war has brought him a host of applications from all over the country. The Rough Riders who volunteered for the SpanishAmerican War, when the appeal to courage and chivalry was far less than now, and the militiamen who volunteered to guard the Texan border, though there was little to appeal to the love of adventure or to the love of country, furnish an indication that it would not be impossible to raise in six months a not insignificant expeditionary body of men to reinforce the French and English in the trenches. And though the number thus volunteering, compared with the millions already in the field, might not and probably would not be large, the moral effect of such a reinforcement, voluntary on the part of the soldiers themselves, but backed by the power of the United States Government and by the united public sentiment of the people of the United States, would be very great. It would at the same time hearten the French and dishearten the Germans. And the raising of that force in this country would not only have an immediate moral effect during the period of its training on

this side of the water, and a continued moral effect on its arrival in Europe for further training and for participation in the fighting under the American flag, but a real moral and political effect in the part that America would play in the settlement of the issues at the close of the war.

In addition to such an expeditionary force, necessarily not large, we can at once institute in this country a system of universal military training, and by that means announce the determination of the American democracy not only to defend its own territory from invasion, but its obligation to democracy and liberty from violation.

INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL POWER

We can mobilize our industrial resources. There is no question that if we enter this lawful war we can redouble our efforts in amount and efficiency in providing munitions for the Allies. What England has done we can do. England has not only raised an army of millions and equipped them, but at the same time has provided munitions in large quantities for her allies. Though the shipment of munitions abroad might be temporarily interrupted, the efforts for the supply of munitions, which have been so far largely unco-ordinated, would, under war conditions, be organized under Governmental supervision.

In this lawful war against lawless war we have at our disposal the resources of a continental country, and wealth derived from these we can put at the disposal of the other nations with which we should act in military concert. It is probable that in this respect more than in any other we can make our power felt in this war. Mr. Theodore H. Price (whom our readers know for his financial articles in The Outlook) quotes in "Commerce and Finance" from the Cleveland "Press" as follows:

With America in, it would be the men and money of practically the whole world against Germany. We are proud of America, but even in our pride we do not realize how wonderfully strong this Nation is what a gigantic weight of money power and man power America would place in the scales against a foe. In wealth we have:

Nearly double the wealth of the British Empire,

Five times the wealth of France,

Six times the wealth of Russia,

Twelve times the wealth of Italy,
Sixteen times the wealth of Japan.

Our resources are nearly a match for the resources of all the Allies, big and little, put together.

Our resources are two and a half times those of Germany, Austria, and Turkey combined.

Add Uncle Sam to the forces fighting Germany, and the balance of resources against that unhappy nation would be about

five to one.

This Nation has been of great financial aid to the Allies. It has lent large sums of money to Great Britain and France, and France and Great Britain have in turn financed the other Allies. The best judges believe that if we became an active participant in this war we should not only not have to withdraw our financial aid but would be able greatly to increase it. We should of course give our first consideration to our first line of defense-the navy; and we should have to give thought to the development of our military arm, though for some months its effectiveness would be chiefly moral; but financially we could be at once of immense benefit to the cause of liberty and law; for Congress could at once vote a very large loan, in the billions perhaps, putting it at the disposal of the Entente Allies, with whom we should be acting in concert. By means of financial assistance, which in concrete terms means a vast flow of goods and supplies of every sort, we could thus use our inexhaustible resources much more freely and legally and openly than we are now doing.

To the end that we use our power efficiently, public opinion in America should at once require Congress to increase the powers of the Council of National Defense, so as to make it a real executive body with large authority; and, moreover, public opinion should require that Council of National Defense to interpret its power broadly.

THE DUTY OF THE. CHRISTIAN

TO-DAY

1 As Christians we are chiefly interested in spreading the kingdom of God on this earth. Can this object be helped by fighting and killing, or does such action hinder its attainment?" 2. Does Christ in any way justify our killing our fellow-men for any cause?

3. What is the duty of a Christian in the event of war at this time?

***

1. The kingdom of God on the earth was unquestionably advanced by the war of the Netherlanders for religious liberty, by the war of the English Puritans for civil liberty, by the war of the American colonists for independence. We have no doubt that it will be advanced by the deliverance of Europe from German militarism.

2. Jesus Christ says nothing about killing men. He counseled his disciples not to resist injuries threatened to themselves; but he did not counsel them not to defend others. When he was falsely accused, he made no answer. But when his disciples were falsely accused, he defended them. When he was maltreated, he did not defend himself. But when the people were shut out from the outer court of the Temple by a corrupt ring, he drove the ring from the Temple with violence. When the Temple police came to arrest him in the garden, he confronted them with such majesty that they were thrown violently to the ground. Then, when his disciples had escaped, he delivered himself up unresisting to his death. Self-defense may be the first law of nature, but defense of others is the first law of love.

3. The duty of the individual Christian depends upon a variety of circumstances. But the Christian spirit is well illustrated by the thousands of Americans who have crossed the border and enlisted in Canada to set Europe free. Some of them may be animated by pure love of adventure, some by mere love of combat; but it is safe to assume that the great majority are inspired by a chivalric desire to have some part in doing to its death the militarism which has invaded an unoffending country, massacred its non-combatants, raped its women, and sold its citizens into slavery. The duty of every Christian man is to sympathize with the spirit of these American volunteers and do what he can to achieve their purpose. And the Christian Church has no higher duty at the present time than to instruct congregations in these fundamental principles and imbue them with this Christian spirit.

THE CATSPAW CARRANZA

His master's voice sounds through every note of Carranza's proposal for a league of neutral nations to end the European war by an embargo "on all kinds of elements" which would stop "the merchant traffic with the nations of the world until the end of the war is achieved." The ostrich-like guile of German diplomacy is evident throughout Carranza's entire communication, but especially in the naïve admission that this proposition "steps aside a little from the principles of international law."

Carranza's suggestion is worth considering only as further evidence of the strength of German influence in Mexico. But in that regard it is very important that we do not ignore it. Of course the plan was made in Berlin. The pursuance of Carranza's suggestion by neutral nations would be all to the interest of Germany. So far as Mexico herself is concerned, her severance of commerce with the belligerent nations would chiefly affect England. Without the Mexican oil-fields the British fleet would be hamstrung, England could not tolerate any attempt to cut off her oil supply. Thus if the United States should be foolish enough to fall in with Carranza's proposal, it would find itself at once facing the alternative of neglecting the Monroe Doctrine or of opposing England in Mexico. What could be more to Germany's pleasure?

tions with Germany German agents have been flocking to Mexico. From reliable sources we learn that the anti-German Mexicans are fearful that the Kaiser's agents and his Mexican allies will succeed in embroiling Mexico with the United States by means of German-financed border raids.

Let Carranza not deceive himself. As a German catspaw he could undoubtedly help Germany. But in doing so he would

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"P

obliterate himself. Treachery by Carranza at such a time as this would so enrage the whole American people that there would result, not an "in again, out again" Vera Cruz invasion or Pershing expedition, but the wholesale, thoroughgoing, "cleaning-up" intervention which for the four years since he rose from the obscurity of State politics has been the First Chief's nightmare.

LAYS which present only the sordid, the brutal, the disgusting, are not true to life. They are not art."

David Belasco, the “dean" of the American stage, was speaking. He was attacking the so-called amateur dramatic organizations which have multiplied rapidly within the past two or three years. Many of these theaters are not amateur at all, within the exact meaning of the word. But all of them have, or pretend to have, the amateur spirit; all of them profess to aim first at the presentation of distinctive plays, and at profits only secondarily. Mr. Belasco had discharged a broadside at these "toy" playhouses through the columns of the New York "Herald," and now he was being asked to explain his outburst and to make it more specific.

"Sit down." He indicated a chair with a hand which was as white as a lily, and which his interviewer had just found was as limp. So pale was the visible skin of the veteran producer in the dim light of the office that it was difficult to distinguish between it and the white linen that emerged at wrists and neck from the dead-black garments like a clerical costume which Belasco has worn for years. But while the famous director's skin was of that pallor which marks both plants and men who have lived long in semi-darkness, his eyes were full of color and emotion and his hands gestured quickly as he bore on in a torrent of words to denounce the "amateur" theaters.

"I do not decry all so-called amateur organizations. I except the schools, the colleges, and the settlements. They do not pretend to be more than they are. I was an amateur player and producer myself once. I first produced my plays in a shed in San Francisco, then I moved about from one improvised theater to another. The things I produced then were pretty poor. And I knew it. But these amateurs to-day don't know how bad their plays are. They walk out of school or college onto the stage and say, 'Look at us! we are the great artistic We Are.' They believe they are better than the men on Broadway who have been play writing and producing and acting for years, and they expect the public to believe it.

"But how can they act or write when they know nothing of life? What do they know of the criminal courts, of the slums, of the gutter? I know of these things. I have studied them. "Then what do they know of nature? They throw a gob of red paint on a back drop, smear yellow over it, stand back a few feet, and, squinting at it through cigarette smoke, begin to rave about it. What is it?" you ask them.

"A sunset,' they tell you. But you would never know it if they did not tell you. They are the cubists of the theater. Why don't they go to God's skies for their sunsets, as I do? Then they would know that God's sunset is one thing in Norway, that God's sunset is another thing in China, and that God's sunset is still another thing in God's sky in San Francisco.

"These young men and women accentuate the sensational in life, the morbid, the degenerate. Most people go through the streets of life like sponges, absorbing something of the good and something of the bad. But these self-styled 'uplifters,' these devotees of what they call the 'new art,' are like sponges that absorb only the bad.

"Yet what do they know about life? What do they know of the honest married woman who makes a misstep? And perhaps below that, what do they know of the well-meaning but weak working-girl who slips from the right path? And below that, what do they know of the woman of the streets? Nay, still lower, what do they know of the white woman in Chinatown? And lower yet he followed imaginary characters down

several more steps of moral depravity, describing each step with the realism and vividness of the good actor, and at each repetition of the word "below" or "lower" dropping his right hand a few inches until with his description of the lowest abyss of degradation, which we will not share with our readers, his hand rested on the rug.

All this time Mr. Belasco had been speaking with a rapidity which precluded any questions from his auditor, and for some time he continued with the same impetuosity.

Any man can act the sort of stuff these mistaken people put on. For instance, a tramp comes on the stage." (Here the producer rumpled his hair and clothes and began to walk the floor with a kind of "weary-Willie " shuffle.) "He sees whisky on the table." (Here the veteran actor-producer did some excellent business" indicative of the quick swallowing of whisky and its effects.) He sees a woman lying asleep on a lounge. He sees a knife on the table." (A paper-cutter served.) "He leans over the woman. He kills her. He falls to the floor spewing in drunken stupor. Curtain. Is this art?”

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Not waiting for an answer, Mr. Belasco continued: "Why, I can make you act as well as that," and, coaching his interviewer, began to put him through various poses and struts suggested by another play that the producer had seen at one of the "little" playhouses. For a minute he was wholly lost in the enthusiasm of a man who loves his work. But a request for him to be more specific in his criticism brought him back. He made it evident that included in his indictment were the Prov. incetown Players, a group of writers and actors who recently moved from a tiny theater on a wharf at Provincetown, Massachusetts, to a tiny theater in New York; the Portmanteau Theater, an organization which has little unwieldy paraphernalia, as its name suggests, and which is now touring the country; and the Washington Square Players, a group of young. enthusiasts who achieved such success in their first small home, the Bandbox Theater, that they have moved into the larger Comedy Theater in New York.

In particular he denounced one of the four-act plays which was being produced by the Washington Square Players as "fit to be seen by no decent married woman.'

Again and again he decried the plays of the little repertory theaters on the grounds of their appeal to sensuality and morbid or perverted instincts.

"They might go in Paris," he said, "where there are several thousand degenerates, but not in New York, where the class of such people amounts to not over a few hundred. The Princess Theater appealed to this class of playgoer, and failed because it could not get an audience. These other playhouses will fail for similar reasons."

Here one of his business associates called Mr. Belasco out for a few minutes and the interview was suspended. When he returned, his mood had changed.

"After all," he said, "the real trouble is not with the play at these small theaters or with the acting. The real grievance is that they are so overpraised. Why, in lauding one of these young actors a critic said, 'I await his Othello," How absurd is such talk when for years I have been unable to gratify David Warfield's wish to play Shakespeare simply because I can't find enough good Shakespearean actors to support him!

"The public, and especially the newspaper critics, are losing their sense of proportion. The public loses its perspective and raves over these little theaters, but the critics are more to blame when they give columns to describing the doings of these cub