The Outlook

E consider ourselves fortunate in having most abundant stocks of Linen to offer for our January Sale. Nearly all of these goods are marked considerably below present-day market prices; this is made possible by the fact that most of our supplies were secured many months ago. Notwithstanding these comparatively low prices, we propose to give during the entire month of January, in accordance with our custom of several years' standing,

a discount of 10 per cent

on all of our Table and Bed Linens, Towels and Bed Covering; also on Lingerie, Corsets and Children's wear. We have some special lots of Damask Table Linens purchased almost a year ago specifically for this January Sale, which we are able to offer at prices that are approximately 25% less than present-day values. Particular attention is directed to our wonderful stock of Pure Linen Towels of all kinds, as well as to Bed Linens and other Bed Coverings.

We are also showing our usually full assortments of French, Madeira, Irish and Philippine Lingerie. Our Lingerie buyer made her regular visit to Paris last August, making it possible for us to offer what is latest and best in Lingerie direct from Paris.

Our Infants' Wear Department, in addition to being fully supplied with all the staple goods for Infants' and Children's Wear, has a beautiful assortment of dainty French handmade Dresses for Children from six months to eight years of age; also a beautiful line of English hand-made Dresses of fine White Dimity and Mull-Cord, smocked in Pink and Blue, for Children two to eight years old, and other very attractive and desirable hand-made Garments for Children.

The 10% discount will be allowed throughout the entire month of January.

Send for illustrated "Annual Sale" booklet.

James McCutcheon & Co.,

Fifth Ave., 34th & 33d Sts., New York

Making Your Wishes Come True

Insured happiness awaits Winton Six buyers. The keynote of our plans for 1917 is to satisfy your desires and to make your wishes come true.

Closed Cars

$3,000 and up
Open Cars
$2,685 to

$3,500

very Winton Six will be harmonized to its buyer's expectations and ideals. The beautiful individualized car you have pictured to yourself is the car we shall build for you-a car performing its duties with celerity and ease, always ready to go and always equal to your needs; a car that redeems every promise of happy ownership.

The Winton Six 48, now in its tenth year, and the 33, now in its third year, are superb. Their superiority is due to no pretended wizardry and to no special genius on our part. Little by little, thru ten years of making sixes exclusively, we have solved the problems of building highly perfected motor car mechanisms. So, also, by long and earnest practice in meeting the tastes of the most desirable class of buyers, we have evolved the art of creating for each buyer personally just the car he most desires-an art that is beyond imitation. Consider us at your service. Simply telephone or drop us a line today.

The Winton Company

102 Berea Road, Cleveland

THE STORY OF THE WAR:

JANUARY 3, 1917

Offices, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York

GERMANY REPLIES TO PRESIDENT WILSON

President Wilson's notes to the belligerent Powers met with a prompt response from one of the Powers, namely, Germany. The reply made jointly by Germany and her allies in substance repeats the proposal in their note of December 12 to their enemy nations, but a little more explicitly, for it proposes "an immediate meeting of delegates of the belligerent states at a neutral place." As to the prevention of future wars, Germany declares that this "great work can be begun only after the end of the present struggle of the nations." No reference is made to President Wilson's advice that the warring nations state their peace terms.

The stress laid in this reply to President Wilson on the word "immediate " (which occurs twice in the short note), together with the surprising promptness of the reply, as compared with ordinary diplomatic methods, has led some commentators to infer that Germany's situation, and especially her economic and food situation, is more pressing even than has been supposed. No comment that has been made, however, regards it as at all probable that the Allies in their formal reply to Germany will agree to any conference until Germany has set forth, not perhaps the precise terms of her view of peace, but at least the large principles which should govern them.

The utterances in the parliaments of all the Allies and by the Premiers of those countries, of which the speech of Mr. Lloyd George, already reported, is the most conspicuous example, have foreshadowed the formal reply, which will probably reach our readers before they see this report. Mr. Lloyd George's phrase, "Complete restitution, full reparation, and effectual guarantees," expresses the spirit of all the nations fighting Germany. Switzerland has issued an appeal for peace, and it is reported that Sweden is on the eve of doing the same thing.

AN EXPLANATION OF THE EXPLANATION

It will be observed that the Swiss note just mentioned, while it sets forth the urgent desirability of peace for the peoples of all countries, carefully abstains from anything like President Wilson's much and justly criticised phrases which put the Allies on a par with the Central Powers by saying that the general terms suggested" seem the same on both sides," and that "each side desires to make the rights and privileges secure," and which warn the nations at war "lest the situation of neutral nations, now exceedingly hard to endure, be rendered altogether intolerable."

of small nations

...

The opinion prevails pretty widely that this, last phrase in particular was intended not so much to influence countries abroad as to impress the people of the United States with a feeling that the Administration, however unsatisfactory its dealings may have been in the past with war questions, has now assumed an attitude of firmness. The remarkable utterances of our Secretary of State, Mr. Robert Lansing, may in that case have been intended to emphasize this intention. Perhaps in the fear that the phrase had not received the notice desired, Mr. Lansing said:

It isn't our material interest we had in mind when the note was sent, but more and more our own rights are becoming involved by the belligerents on both sides, so that the situation is becoming increasingly critical.

I mean by that that we are drawing nearer the verge of war ourselves, and therefore we are entitled to know exactly what each belligerent seeks in order that we may regulate our conduct in the future.

But within a few hours, and after a visit by the Secretary of

State to the White House, Mr. Lansing issued an explanation of his explanation, in which he said that he had not intended "to intimate that the Government was considering any change in its policy of neutrality," and that he regretted that his words were open to any other construction, as he now realized that they were. It was at one time intimated that a second explanatory note had been sent to the nations abroad as regards Mr. Wilson's original note; this, however, has not been confirmed. No formal reply to President Wilson's "peace note' has been received, as we write, from any of the Allies. The tone of the German press has been laudatory of the note; the tone of the press in the other countries of the Allies has varied from mild deprecation to angry criticism. Elsewhere in this issue some quotations from the press on this subject are printed.

ON THE WAR FRONTS

The week has presented little of interest or importance in the military field.

The most notable action has been that of the army under General von Mackensen by which the Russian and Rumanian forces in the northern part of the Dobrudja have been pushed back to the Danube, which here bounds the Dobrudja peninsula both on the north and on the west. It seems probable that these Russians and Rumanians will be obliged to cross the Danube by pontoons, and withdraw their line back to correspond with that which they now hold northwest of the Dobrudja.

made a Marshal of France. He will be the first to receive It is announced from Paris that General Joffre is to be that title since the days of Napoleon III.

The capture of Torreon by Villa, if true, as reported, is perhaps even more important than his recent capture of Chihuahua. Torreon, a city of about thirty thousand, although slightly smaller the fact that it is an industrial center, and the most important than Chihuahua, has greater strategic importance by virtue of Torreon commands the important "laguna district," one of the railway focus in the north, with the exception of Monterey. most fertile regions of northern Mexico, where a great amount of cotton is grown.

That Villa's name is rapidly regaining its former terror is indicated by the wild reports of his movements coming from Carranza sources as we go to press. Simultaneously he is reported as threatening Chihuahua, Monterey, Saltillo, and Tampico, while a not very credible report has it that San Luis Potosi has fallen into the clutches of the desert fighter.

acquirement of a seaport would make his future campaign It is not unlikely that Villa's objective is Tampico, as the easier. It is noteworthy that as his successes have multiplied the reports of his atrocities against Americans have decreased. Can it be that he is again dreaming a favorite dream of Mexican warriors and politicians-the dream of American recognition?

The termination of the time limit for Carranza's reply to the proposals submitted by the American-Mexican Commission with no word from the First Chief might indicate that he believed the patience of the United States to be inexhaustible. But on

December 27 it was said that a reply had been received by the Commission. Of course the extension of the time limit two or three days may seem to hurt no one, but when this is done more than once the effect is damaging on the morale of MexicanAmerican relations. And this is hardly the sort of "kindly firmness" which Carranza has asked for in our dealings with him.

CITY ACTIVITIES PICTURED FOR · THE PEOPLE IN THE MOVIES

Park Commissioner Raymond V. Ingersoll, of the Borough of Brooklyn, New York City, in order to familiarize the people of that borough with their own parks and playgrounds, has been showing in the movies the varied forms of recreation work that he and his assistants are carrying on. These films were put on the screen in a large theater as a part of its regular programme, and they elicited fully as much applause as Miss Mary Pickford Mr.Charles Chaplin or other movie favorites in their respective specialties. To most of the audience the varied activities of a great city's park department were a revelation. The films showed, among other things, the work of beautifying a city by the planting of trees on one street alone in Brooklyn seven hundred trees have recently been planted; the saving of trees by "surgical operations" and by spraying; the construction of a Japanese garden" in one of the parks; the work of the greenhouses; the development of small parks in congested districts a most valuable feature of park work; playgrounds, baseball fields, tennis courts, farm gardens, wading pools, and other recent forms of city recreation work coming under the jurisdiction of a park commissioner who realizes the opportunities that are open to him.

The parks of a city have in the past too often been regarded merely as the pleasure grounds of the well-to-do who could afford to use their drives; or they have been located at too great a distance from the overcrowded districts. Commissioner Ingersoll's movies showed new small parks in the heart of crowded industrial sections, bringing light and fresh air and trees and flowers home to the people. Still more important were the playground features that his administration is promoting. Hundreds of children were shown having "the time of their young lives" in these healthful play-places, which are furnished. with swings, seesaws, slides, and other gymnastic apparatus of a simple kind. For the hot summer days the men, women, and children who have no vacations are provided with outdoor swimming pools, and with a municipal bath-house at Coney Island. One of these pools was used by three thousand persons in a single day, at a charge of only five cents each for a suit, soap, and towel, and the pictures showed how joyous is the influence of this opportunity for cleanliness.

Children who like to see things grow-and are there any others?-have plots assigned them in "city farms" by Brooklyn's Park Department. An illustration on another page shows a grateful young city farmer presenting a part of the produce of his plot to Commissioner Ingersoll.

It may be instructive here to quote some of the figures placarded in these movies-for the films give an opportunity for enforcing the lessons of the pictures by helpful statistics. Brooklyn has a population of nearly two millions. It has forty parks, nine playgrounds, and fifteen parkways. The Park Department cares for 80,000 trees and helps individual owners to plant and care for their own trees; it keeps in good condition 36 miles of roadway, 56 miles of walks, 26 miles of fences, and 70 buildings, including 46 comfort stations. And it is doing all this in a most economical way under Commissioner Ingersolltoo economical, it would seem, for while in 1913 the budget appropriation for Brooklyn was $922,974, in 1917 it is only $705,990. Work of this sort done by the Department-civilizing, health-promoting, and brain-resting, such as is sorely needed amid the strain and worry of congested city life-should be encouraged by at least as liberal appropriations as the merely corrective departments of city administration. The head of a great park system needs and ought to have an ample staff of efficient and well-paid assistants, for such an investment will return to a city large dividends in human betterment.

Commissioner Ingersoll's method of bringing the beneficent

activities of a park department to the attention of the public is novel, commendable, and deserving of wide imitation both by other cities and by other municipal departments.

THE ZULOAGA EXHIBITION

Americans in many sections of the country will have an opportunity this season of seeing one of the most important exhibitions of pictures by any European master ever held in the United States. These are a collection of the paintings of Ignacio Zuloaga, the famous Spanish artist. About forty of them are shown, several of which have never before been exhibited. At this writing they are on exhibition in the Brooklyn Museum, whence they came from the Copley Society Galleries of Boston. Later they are to be shown in New York City at the Duveen Galleries, in the Albright Gallery at Buffalo, the Carnegie Institute at Pittsburgh, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Art Institute at Chicago, the City Art Museum of St. Louis, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Two paintings from this collection are reproduced on another page.

The status of Zuloaga in modern art is indicated in this extract from an admirable essay on the artist by Christian Brinton: "These canvases are instinct with passion and fatalism. They are primitive, sinister, and full of tragic implication, and as such unflinchingly reflect certain fundamental national characteristics. With its innate structural strength, its superb graphic energy, and confident grasp of what may be termed the technique of the whole, the art of Zuloaga is perfectly adapted to the task at hand. It depicts with convincing eloquence that Spain, at once Gothic, romantic, picaresque, and legitimately modern, to which it is dedicated. In its affiliation with the master tendencies of contemporary thought and feeling it has transcended Fortuny, Vierge, and the agreeable devotees of the rococo. It reflects something of the reasoned verity of Manet, the vital intensity of Daumier. . . . He makes all things conform to his own sovereign creative consciousness. The impression produced on most of those who see these pictures-and they attract crowds wherever they have been shown— is that of an artist of genuine force, originality, and power of expression, a man who will by later ages be acclaimed as old master," a painter who paints because of an overpowering passion for expression-it will be remembered that Zuloaga never set foot inside an art school or academy, but painted from the first with vigor and decision.

Whatever may be the differences of opinion as to Zuloaga's technique, his choice of subject, or his limitations as to atmospheric effect, etc., there can be no question as to his rank as an artist of a very high order, or as to the importance to art-loving Americans of the present exhibition of his works. We may here repeat what we said in reproducing a painting by Zuloaga in The Outlook of November 10, 1915: "In his fullness of activity Zuloaga may be called in many respects a worthy successor to Velasquez and Murillo in the interpretation of Spain." And Velasquez, it may be recalled, is regarded by many critics as the supreme master of his art.

THE KING OF MAKE-BELIEVE

The make-believe of a child is fascinating, not because it is unreal, but because it is the realest thing in the world. The prince and palace of a child's fancy are very much more substantial than any stout broker and his Fifth Avenue mansion. The child owns its palace as only the intangible can be owned. For the deeds to fairyland need no safe-deposit vaults for their protection, nor can they be attached by the writ of any human court.

It is Sir James Barrie's chief claim to distinction that he possesses one of the few enduring keys to the world of makebelieve the land from which almost all other grown-ups are excluded by a decree more drastic than any imperial mandate. Not only does he possess a key, but he has the happy thought whenever he enters the land of make-believe to leave the gate ajar, so that the rest of us, by standing on tiptoe and craning our necks, can catch glimpses of all that happens within the forbidden walls.

He has not often left the gate wider open than he has done in

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