PRESIDENT WILSON CALLS UPON CONGRESS TO ACT

Even more memorable than the President's address before Congress announcing the breaking of relations with Germany was his momentous declaration on April 2 before the Sixty-fifth Congress, specially assembled for the purpose, that a state of war lready exists, not only against American rights and lives, but. s the President phrased it, against mankind and against all ations. The address was received with tokens of approval and courageous indorsement by Congress, by the American press, and by the American people. No state paper of recent imes has been so almost universally praised, and its specific recommendations and general purport will in all probability be followed by appropriate and positive action by Congress before these words are read.

Single sentences scattered through the address will long be quoted as concise and admirably worded illustrations of its spirit. Such sentences are: "Property can be paid for the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be ;"" We will not choose the path of submission;" We are now about to accept the gage of battle with this natural foe to liberty, and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the Nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power;" "We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward them but one of sympathy and friendship;" "A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by partnership of democratic nations ;" and, finally, this eloquent passage from the President's concluding paragraph:

The right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts-for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

What does the situation as it stands and the action required from Congress involve? President Wilson gives the answer to this question in a passage which must be quoted at some length because in general terms it indicates the programme of the Administration:

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my Constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it, and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense, but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war.

What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable co-operation in counsel and action with the Governiments now at war with Germany, and as incident to that the extension to those Governments of the most liberal financial credits in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs.

It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the Nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible.

It will involve the immediate full equipment of the navy in all respects, but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy's submarines.

It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war, at

least 500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training.

It will involve, also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well-conceived taxation. I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation because it seems to me that it would be most unwise to base the credits which will now be necessary entirely on money borrowed. The specific measures to carry out this general plan will, the President announced, be embodied in bills having Governmental approval to be at once urged for action in Congress. Meanwhile the resolution presented on the following day in the Senate, and which will almost certainly have been acted upon by Congress before the end of the week in which the address was made, reads as follows:

Whereas the Imperial German Government has committed repeated acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of America; therefore be it

Resolved, By the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, that the state of war between the United States and the Imperial German Government, which has thus been thrust upon the United States, is hereby formally declared; and that the President be, and he is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial German Government; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.

Elsewhere we discuss the war situation as related to the action of the President, Congress, and the American people. No more striking or concise comment has been made than that of the German-American paper the New York "Staats-Zeitung:" "We see but one duty as soon as Congress has spoken the last word-America!"

THE WAR AGAINST AMERICA GOES ON

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Cable despatches from Berlin via London declare (apparently with semi-official approval) that there will be no change in the German attitude because of the President's address or the expected action of Congress; "Germany will not declare war nor take any step to wage war against the United States." The despatch should have said, instead of "any step,' any new steps." for the sentence above quoted is immediately followed by the declaration that the submarine war will be continued as before, and that neither the United States nor other neutrals will be exempt. As a matter of law and fact, however, a new phase has come into the submarine war. When the American steamship Aztec was torpedoed off the island of Ushant, on April 1, by a German submarine, for the first time a German naval force deliberately attacked a United States naval force. The Aztec carried a gun, or guns, furnished by the United States Government, manned by a United States naval crew, and was commanded by a naval officer, Lieutenant Gresham. It is believed that one of the naval gun crew perished, and over twenty sailors are missing, several of whom undoubtedly have perished. Whether or not a gunner has been killed, it is certain that an American ship under the direct and immediate protection of the United States Government has been destroyed, and that in attacking that ship Germany fired not only upon the American flag but upon the American navy.

So long has the list of outrages on American rights at sea become that American sensitiveness to insult and injury has

been blunted, but it should be stirred (as it was stirred in the case of Austin Hoy, the son and brother of the two women so pitifully murdered on the Laconia, who has now renounced his allegiance and enlisted in the British army) by the patriotic words uttered just before he sailed by the first mate of the Aztec, Ingolf J. Anderson, who was married only recently, and who may very probably be among those lost. Mrs. Anderson told a reporter: "My husband was born in Norway, but he is a naturalized citizen. 'I am not a coward,' he said, when I asked him to stay at home. I must serve my country. How would we sail our ships if I and others were afraid?" "

NEW SUCCESSES OF THE ALLIES
IN THE WAR FIELD

From both the eastern and western fields of war cheering reports were received during the week ending April 4 from the armies of the Allies- -our allies!

It is now clear that the British and French followed up the German retreat in the Somme section with marvelous rapidity and energy, despite the difficulties caused by the devastation of the intermediate country. It is at least probable also that their attacks near St. Quentin have found the Germans not entirely ready. General Haig's army was on April 3 reported to be within two miles of St. Quentin, and the French to be within three miles, while the guns of both were pounding the defenses of the city and have the connecting railways under fire. The Allies' line is so close both to St. Quentin and La Fère, and the advance along a front of over ten miles in the vicinity of those places has been so steady, that many observers believe that the original German line of defense is in serious danger of being broken. In the eastern campaign a notable success has been made by the British troops in Palestine. The London despatches declare that these troops crushingly defeated a Turkish force of twenty thousand in a two days' battle, capturing the general commanding the Turkish division and all his staff. This action took place near Gaza, famous in Biblical lore for Samson's exploit in carrying away its gates. On the field of British advance in Mesopotamia there are reports that the British and Russian armies are approaching each other to the north of Bagdad, and that General Maude is ready for an immediate movement toward Mosul when the armies meet. A despatch of April 2 asserts that the British and Russian armies are only fifty miles apart (the Russians coming from the direction of Persia), while a second Russian army is engaging the Turks far north of Mosul.

GOOD APPOINTMENTS IN FINLAND

Mr. George Kennan, of The Outlook's staff, has just received the following cablegram from Baron Serge Korff, until recently Professor of Government and Constitutional Law in the University of Helsingfors, Finland:

Hearty greetings. Free at last. Am Assistant GovernorGeneral of Finland. (Signed) KORFF. Baron Korff, who is one of the ablest of the Russian Liberals, has several times visited the United States, and when he was last here he spent a few days at Mr. Kennan's country home in Nova Scotia, fishing the trout pools of Cape Breton Island while he discussed with his host the future of the Russian bureaucracy and the Czar. His wife, the Baroness Korff, is the daughter of Rear-Admiral Van Reypen, of Washington, D. C. This appointment, taken in connection with that of F. I. Rodichef as Minister for Finland, shows that the new Provisional Government is giving excellent officials to that longoppressed but never conquered country. A better man than Baron Korff for the assistant Governor-Generalship could hardly be found, and the distinguished Constitutional Democrat Rodichef is almost ideally qualified for the place that he is to fill.

When, before the war, the then reactionary Duma passed the bill which deprived the Finnish Diet of the autonomous authority granted to it by Alexander I, the Black Hundred Deputy Purishkevitch exclaimed triumphantly from his seat, "It is the end of Finland!" But he could not see far into the future. Finland did not die, and under Rodichef and Baron Korff she will have a glorious renaissance. We may now say, with truth, "It is the beginning of Finland!"

CONGRESS AND

UNIVERSAL MILITARY TRAINING

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Now that the President in his address to Congress has outspokenly recommended universal military training and service, the attention of the country will be directed to the definite posals for such a system which Congress must consider at the present session. Two universal military training bills will be considered. One is known as the General Staff Bill, the other is the Chamberlain Bill. They are essentially the same in prin. ciple, although in one important detail there is a difference so marked that it amounts almost to a difference in principle.

The Chamberlain Bill provides, in brief, that every able bodied American young man when he reaches the age of nine teen years shall undergo a period of six months' military or transported, fed, and clothed by the Government during the naval training; that men thus undergoing training shall be training period; that members of religious sects whose creeds forbid the bearing of arms shall be trained in the non-combatant branches of the military or naval service; that no substi tutes for training shall be accepted; that no man shall be ex physically unfit, or persons who are the sole support of a family; empt except members of the regular army and navy, persons that those who are exempt at nineteen years of age for physical disability or because their families are dependent upon them shall report each year for six years to be examined as to whether the exemption still holds; that notoriously bad characters or convicted criminals shall be trained in separate units; that no man shall hold office of any kind in the Government of the United States unless he can show a certificate of training or of exemption; that no firm or corporation may employ any man training or exemption; that the President shall determine under the age of twenty-eight who cannot show a certificate of whether citizens shall be trained for the army or navy, but that personal preference as to the branch of the service will be collsidered as far as possible; that men thus trained shall be liable to service in the army and navy on the call of the President to twenty-eight years of age; and that every man trained this way shall be supplied with and entitled to wear a distin guishing rosette showing the year's class to which the wearer belongs.

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It will be seen from this brief statement that the Chamberlain Bill is thoroughly democratic, and that six months' training at nineteen or twenty years of age will not interfere with the school or college or other life-preparatory work which a young man may be engaged in, for the training can be done in the six months which are often taken by American young men for vacations.

The radical difference in the General Staff Bill is that the training for every young man of nineteen. This provision General Staff proposes a period of eleven months of intensive perhaps based on the technical army point of view that no man can receive even the rudiments of the education of a soldier in less than a year. This, however, has not been the experience of Switzerland, and many experts on military affairs, as, for instance, General Leonard Wood and ex-Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, approve of the shorter period named in the

Chamberlain Bill.

The Outlook supports the Chamberlain Bill rather than that of the General Staff, and urges its readers to do so. It is a grave question whether American young men of nineteen, an age at which they are preparing for their life-work, should be asked to give up an entire year to training in the National service. They may, however, be asked to devote six months to that training. We believe that the fathers and mothers of the country who would not support the General Staff recommenda lain plan, therefore, has an excellent chance of being adopted by tion will support the Chamberlain plan, and that the Chamber Congress, while the General Staff plan has no chance at all.

THE MERIT SYSTEM

As was anticipated, the President has now issued what has been justly called one of the most progressive Executive Orders ever issued by any President. It stops the shameful spoilmongering that has been going on in our post-offices for gen

erations.

The Order compels appointment by civil service examination

of all first, second, and third class postmasters. It is even more stringent than the Poindexter Bill, which passed the Senate, but not the House, a month and more ago, as it compels the appointment of the highest eligibles on the list instead of one of the first three.

The fourth-class postmasters, who were put under the merit system by Presidents Roosevelt and Taft, have been since then appointed under a "rule of three "-that is to say, any one of the three highest stand men may be chosen. This rule has much to recommend it, because to select the highest stand man only might be a merely mechanical merit system. But, while postmasters might well be given freedom of choice among the highest eligibles on their lists, it may be that such freedom should not be had by the Chief Executive. Certainly the "rule of three" has made the Postmaster-General's life difficult, and has indirectly bothered Congressmen. The Civil Service Commission having certified three eligibles, what follows is that Congressmen are bombarded with petitions and requests to use their influence with the Postmaster-General to appoint this or that person. Thus at the very source of the merit system political influence seeks to creep in. The way to prevent the "rule of " from becoming merely mechanical would seem to be to improve the methods of the Civil Service Commission, particularly in the direction of certifying eligibles who have not only large technical knowledge but who have also executive ability

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of a high order.

Be this as it may, the President deserves all possible credit for the step which he has taken. Yet it is already opposed by those who claim that the Executive is interfering with the Senate's right to confirm appointments to first, second, and third class postmasterships-the right not extending to those of the fourth class. It is true that no person who has been nominated for confirmation by the Senate is required to be classified or to pass an examination; but it is also true that the President may use any method he selects in choosing candidates before the nomination is made, as is now the case with consular appointments. Instead of being obliged to choose only those politically acceptable to local bosses, the President will now be enabled to choose the fittest, just as in the consular service, which by the Roosevelt and Taft Executive Orders has already been reclaimed from the spoils system. The Senate has not interfered with these services, though it still has the right of confirmation. Hence any complaint that President Wilson's Executive Order deprives the Senate of its right of confirmation is unfounded.

We have not hesitated to criticise adversely the present Administration because of its lack of progress in civil service reform-indeed, because it has taken certain backward steps. Hence it is now an especial satisfaction to chronicle the first practical extension of the merit system made under President Wilson. Great as is this extension, we even dare to hope that the President will not stop with his present action, but will proceed to attack the still sizable army of political agents on the Government pay-roll-the collectors of customs and internal revenue, and the United States marshals. All these-and even possibly the United States district attorneysshould also be put into the merit system.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN GREAT BRITAIN

The news from Great Britain concerning woman suffrage is certainly interesting. It is that the hitherto most powerful opponent of woman suffrage, ex-Premier Asquith, has become converted. He announced the cause of his change of view in these words, as reported: "Wherever one turns, women may be seen who, without detriment to the prerogatives of their sex, are performing work which, three years ago, would have been regarded as falling exclusively within the province of men; hence, after the war, a readjustment must take place in which women shall have as clear a right to speak as have men."

Thus the war has served to destroy a deep-rooted opinion which no other argument had sufficed to remove. And yet, in a recent British Cabinet, other arguments had sufficed to remove any feeling against woman suffrage which such members as Mr. Lloyd George (now Premier), Viscount Grey, and Viscount Haldane might have cherished. These men, however, warned the

suffragists that they themselves had made their task much harder by their "mad wild work," to quote Mr. Lloyd George's words. He especially called attention to the bodily assaults upon Mr. Asquith, which had made it difficult for Mr. Lloyd George and his two colleagues in the Ministry to continue to labor for votes for women. The principal features of woman suffrage as presented in the legislative proposals considered by Mr. Lloyd George were:

1. That every woman who, if she were a man, would be entitled to be registered as a Parliamentary elector in respect of household qualifications; or who is the wife of a man entitled to be so registered, shall be entitled to be registered, and, when registered, to vote as a Parliamentary elector in the constituency in which she lives.

2. That a woman shall not be entitled to be registered unless she has attained the age of twenty-five years.

3. That a woman shall not be disqualified by reason of marriage from being registered and voting.

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It may be that, in addition to the war record, the record of woman suffrage in the United States may have had something to do with inducing English conversions. Even so determined an opponent of woman suffrage as the London Times has been may have been dismayed at the discoveries of its own special correspondent in the United States, who, instead of finding too much fault with certain unfavorable conditions in the woman suffrage States, came to the conclusion that "there is an insistence upon higher standards than men respect.' Moreover, he did not find in the States where woman suffrage prevails any general desire to do away with it. Nor could he discover that decay of chivalry predicted by some antisuffragists; on the contrary, "a common opinion," he said, “is that greater courtesy and chivalry prevail at public meetings since women were admitted to the franchise."

This was emphasized on Monday of this week in the House of Representatives at Washington, when Miss Jeannette Rankin, the first woman ever to be elected to the House, took her seat. from the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the Diplomatic Corps, Members of every political hue, together with representatives who were on the floor of the House to hear the President's Message, vied with each other in paying their respects to the new member. For the moment not even the President of the United States was so much the center of attention as was she. That she will appeal to the instinct of justice and chivalry among the members we do not doubt.

IS REVOLUTION IN GERMANY PROBABLE?

It is natural that the apparent ease with which Russia has gained self-government has in Germany raised hopes of a similar triumph of democracy there. In the Reichstag Socialists such as Bernstein and Leinert and in the press journals like "Vorwärts" and the Munich "Post" have spoken with astonishing freedom. The "Post," for instance, remarks: "By failing to introduce universal suffrage the Chancellor missed a golden opportunity of showing that Germany no longer was dominated by reactionary Prussia." And Leinert is reported as saying that the German nation would one day sweep Junkerism from the earth. Even before the Russian revolution Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg had declared that the German Empire must be democratized.

All this is most encouraging as to the future, and the Chancellor at least was only looking forward to possibilities beyond the war. But it would be ultra-optimistic to expect anything like an immediate political revolution in Germany. Prussianism is still in the saddle, and (unlike the condition in Russia) the army is the tool of autocracy. The Hindenburg type of patriotism is still rampant; it means absolute control by the group of Junkers, military heads, and imperialists; blind obedience from the people at large; the army as the exponent of might against right, at home or abroad.

Moreover, the very form of such representative government as Germany has stands in the way of a constitutional political revolution. Fourteen votes in the upper legislative branch, the Bundesrath, can defeat an amendment to the Constitution, and its members are appointed, not elected-seventeen out of fiftyeight by the Kaiser himself acting as King of Prussia, the others by the heads of the other German states. In the election

to the Reichstag a complicated "rotten borough" system exists; for instance, twelve districts with 170,000 voters elect as many members as twelve districts with 1,900,000 voters. The wonder is that the Socialists have such strong representation as actually exists, and that the Reichstag dares ever to be anything but an echo of the Imperial will. After the war, no matter what the result, there will surely be such a pressure from restrained democracy that a remodeling leading to representative government must follow; but those who hope for revolution at once, whether by popular uprising or by political reconstruction, are, in all human probability, doomed to disappointment.

That the opponents of autocracy and militarism are growing more audacious daily is shown by such additional incidents as that when Deputy Hofmann, a radical Socialist. ridiculing a complete German victory, declared:

When we attain this, no German soldier will be left alive. The German nation is bleeding for the sins of those in power. Absolutism has hurled Germany into the horrors of war and turned the whole world against us.

This feudalistic Government must go.

And Deputy Kunert, answering the Vice-Chancellor and referring to Russia, retorted, amid Socialist applause:

Because I compared German reactionaries with Russian revolutionists you say I insulted the Fatherland. I should be proud if such progress were made in our country as has been made in the Russian Empire.

The two wings of the Socialists find expression in "Vorwärts," the Socialist organ of Berlin. Speaking for the majority group, the conservative Socialists, their leader, Philipp Scheidemann, asks:

Why postpone till to-morrow what is absolutely necessary to-day [Prussian electoral reform], what even the King himself declared years ago was one of the most urgent matters of the business of the state? . . . The Prussian people, as well as the other German states, will stand as one man at his [the Chancellor's] side if he acts decisively.

Speaking of continued warfare with Russia, "Vorwärts" itself thus tersely summarizes the radical Socialist view:

We shall not be fighting against Czarism, but against an alliance of democratic peoples which wishes to break Germany, the last bastion standing for reaction. Shall the world say that all the nations on earth are free except Germany?

But deeds speak louder than words. Dr. Franz Mehring has been elected to the seat of Dr. Karl Liebknecht in the lower house of the Prussian Landtag. Dr. Mehring is a member of the Socialist minority which is opposed to the war and which was led by Dr. Liebknecht up to the time of his imprisonment on charges of treason. The new Deputy has also incurred the displeasure of the authorities, and at one time was put under "preventive arrest."

THE VIRGIN ISLANDS UNDER THE AMERICAN FLAG

On the last day of March the formal transfer to the United States of the Danish West Indian group of islands took place. In Washington a Treasury warrant for twenty-five million dollars was handed to the Minister of Denmark with some ceremony, and at the capital of the islands, St. Thomas, the Danish flag was formally lowered and the American flag raised. In handing the

warrant to the Danish Minister Secretary Lansing remarked that by so doing there was saved the trouble of transporting forty-eight tons of gold, which would be the weight of twentyfive million dollars. A despatch was immediately sent to the American naval officer stationed at the islands, saying, "You may receive the islands in the name of the Government of the United States." And simultaneously the Danish Minister to the United States sent a message to the Danish Governor to give possession of the islands.

In accordance with the wish of the people of the islands, they will retain the ancient title, the Virgin Islands, instead of being given a new name, as had been suggested by some people in this country. There are fifty of these islands, only three of whichare of any importance. St. Thomas, the largest island, has one of the finest harbors in the West Indies. Less important are St. Croix and St. John. The main product of the islands is sugar. Commercially the islands are, of course, of small value compared with the price paid, but from the point of view of military and strategic value they are almost priceless to the United States.

GENERAL GOETHALS'S NEW WORK

Instead of the Administration at Washington, it is the administration of the new Governor of New Jersey which is to gain prestige through General George W. Goethals. He has just accepted the position of State Engineer, created by the present Legislature.

He will thus have charge of the construction of the new State highway system, and will counsel concerning the coast and interior canals, and especially concerning the proposed transState ship canal, the water-front development on the New Jersey side of New York Harbor, the tunnels under the Hudson River, and the bridges over the Delaware River.

While this appointment will doubtless add immensely to Governor Edge's administration, it is of far more than mere State significance. It will serve to concentrate public attention more than ever on the highway. This trend has already been emphasized by the course of affairs in France and Italy, where the war has resulted in emphasizing the value, not of railways, but of chaussées, or main highways, upon which much motortrucking has taken place. This result in France is natural, because in Europe the highways came long before the railways.

While in this country, on the other hand, the railway often preceded the highway, now, with the development of the automobile, the ordinary road is seen to be even more essential to the farmer. When a State like New Jersey ventures to ask the services of one who has justly earned an international reputation because he has built the Panama Canal, and when such a constructor is willing to give his services for the time being to a single State, there is new promise for the development of roads in this country.

PRISONERS' MAIL

Our attention has been called to a most interesting little pamphlet entitled "Prisoners' Mail." It is written by the Hon. J. J. Sanders, Parole Clerk of the Arizona State Prison at Florence, Arizona. The purpose and the character of the pamphlet are well described by its sub-title, which is as follows: Summary showing Medieval Custom being practiced in the Restriction of the Mail of the Inmates of most American State Prisons." Mr. Sanders gives a report of what each of the fortyeight States does with regard to the prisoners' mail. New York, for example, until recently, allowed prisoners to write only one letter a month, and to receive weekly papers and current magazines but no daily papers. Under the reforms largely influ enced by Thomas Mott Osborne, the restriction on letter-writing in New York has lately been removed. California permitted the prisoners to write only one letter a month until recently. This restriction has also been lately removed. Indiana allows prisoners to write two letters a month; Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania one letter a month, and Virginia one letter every two months. Arizona gives its prisoners an unlimited daily mail privilege. Subscriptions to all the leading American magazines and periodicals and several of the leading daily news