been through the "Judgment Day." That is how she describes that terrible moment on February 12 when the Austrians, flying over a then almost defenseless Ravenna, dropped fire and death on the city.

The tale the woman tells us is very simple. She had just finished sweeping the church, and had left her cousin to work in the second side-altar on the left. She was barely out of the little side door which opens into the cloisters when the bomb fell. It struck the left corner of the façade, the cornice of which fell on the portico, crushing half of it, and penetrated the roof into the interior, where it exploded near the main entrance. The woman's cousin at the sidealtar was the only eye-witness to the horror, and she escaped without injury.

"The Byzantine Madonna," said the sacristan's wife, "saved our churches from even worse harm when the Austrians came again, for they threw many shells upon the city, but none exploded." Then, with a decisiveness which was shrewdly Italian rather than irreligious, she added, "At all events, now, when the Austrians come, I run into my trench." We looked about for military works in those peaceful surroundings; she understood and explained, smilingly: "My trench is under my bed; that's where I go now when the air-raiders come."

A woman of stouter heart was acting custodian of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, at the other end of the city; for women seem to have supplanted most of the sacristans in showing the sights to the occasional visitors.

My gaze was resting on the blue and gold of the mosaics of the vaultings, lost in wonder at the artistry which could produce such firmness and clearness of colors, lasting through centuries, when the white-haired woman said: "You should see them with the sunlight shining through the alabaster of the windows;" and she pointed, with a pathos which I can never forget, to the narrow openings in transepts from which the

alabaster panes had been removed, in the hope of saving them from the wrath of the enemy.

"We have taken those away," she said, simply, but with a fine gleam of courage in her old eyes, "and we have given up our

children; now we deserve to win."

All through the day I thought of these words, as I went down the streets which had seen Odoacer and Theodoric and the Ostrogothic soldiery, and which to-day showed upon many doors a large, red-painted circle to mark the places where citizens may find refuge if the twentieth-century enemy comes suddenly over the city; and I thought of the old woman's words as I walked back from the piazza in the twilight, following the military band which passed almost like phantom musicians over deserted streets.

But most stirring did those words seem when, in the late evening, I lingered in the shadow of the house of the Polentas, close to the tomb of their immortal guest. By daylight I had seen that ugly, unworthy monument which marks Dante's restingplace, the poverty of the artistic conception dignified by a barrier of sand-bags which shielded his mortal dust from possible harm, as embattled Italy seeks to protect all her great treasures of art. In the darkness of the night, which enshrouds the city lest the sky-raiders pounce upon it too easily, the cupola of the monument surmounting the sepulcher rose white and calm, bereft of its shoddy artistry and mystical in the starry blackness of its background. Then the invocation of the poet of Italy at war-of the poet who to-day, in the sternness of struggle and battle, has risen above himself-came to me with a new significance:

"For the oak and the laurel, and for the flaming sword,

For victory, glory and joy, and for thy sacred hopes,

O thou, who hast tasted of hatred, and seest and knowest,

Dante, High Custodian of our Destinies,
We await thee!"

W

ISE people have always thought that work is good for grown folks and play is necessary for children. But until rather lately the serious-minded believed that the more the play period could be shortened the better it was for all concerned; much less was there any thought of prolonging it into maturity. But now a different theory has been developed, and those who make a study of the forces in life that help people to become good and happy are agreed that play is to be counted among those forces, and that it is necessary, not only for the young, but also for the adult. Those who love their fellows are striving to get the working hours shortened and life made easier in some other ways, so that every one may have a few more play hours. But meanwhile, if there is some way in which we may get the spirit of play into the work hours, that will be a clear and immediate gain. That is the purpose of this series of papers.

We must understand the difference between work and play in order to see what we must put into work or take out of it before we can make it into play. We could not form one list of activities headed "Work " and another headed" Play," for the reason that many things people do would appear in both lists. Wood-chopping, for example, would certainly be counted work under ordinary circumstances. But for the tired city man who gets away to the woods on his vacation, chops an hour or so a day, then with pride feels the swelling muscles on his arm, it is play. Golf is great sport; but suppose you don't like to walk and don't enjoy swinging a club, can you imagine anything more like work than being obliged to play golf all morning? The same performance, even to the same person, may be sometimes work and sometimes play. The little girl who is grievously burdened by

the task of hemming towels joyously hems the skirt of her youngest child while her little foot rocks the doll's cradle.

It has been said that what we do because we are obliged to do it—to make a living or for some other reason—is work, and what we do because we like to do it is play. This is partially true. Play is something we do for the pleasure of it. If we do not like it well enough to do it for that reason only, it is not play for us, whatever it may be called. For instance, if you do not like games, but join a little club that play because you like the girls and enjoy the social chat afterwards, the game is not really play for you; but the social part, which you do like, is your play.

But is it true that the activity by which we make our living or fulfill our duties in the home is therefore bereft of joy and the play spirit all driven out of it? I think not. Why do not the prosperous men who have comfortable incomes stop business and play golf? Because they have found a game that beats it. Why does mother hum so cheerily while she sets the table, puts over the coffee, and bustles about in the kitchen? It is not to keep up her spirits; it is because her spirits are up. She likes what she is doing; her pleasure in it has not been spoiled by the fact that the family breakfast depends upon her efforts. Sometimes mothers do not enjoy these tasks, but perform them willingly for love of the home. But then they do not sing at their work, and they are more tired at night.

Clearly, then, play is an attitude, and not dependent upon the form of the activity nor its purpose. Yet there are reasons back of this attitude, laws to which it conforms. These are to be observed in the plays of children, and the succeeding articles will consider some of these principles and suggest ways of applying them to our workaday lives.

N°

OT long ago I was talking with the superintendent of a large manufacturing establishment in New England. He had about six thousand employees under him. I asked him how they were going to vote. He replied that, though they lived in a State that was nominally Republican, and most of them usually voted the Republican ticket, as he did, he thought they would nearly all vote for Wilson next election. I inquired why. Well," he said, "there are two reasons: first, Wilson has kept us out of war, and these people feel that if there had been any fighting they would have had to take the bullets, though New York might have had. to raise the money; second, they have had more work at better wages than ever before in my recollection."

I reminded him that the Republicans claimed that our remarkable prosperity was not due to the Democratic Administration, but existed in spite of it; that they urged that the advantage of a protective tariff had been demonstrated by a war which shut out all foreign competition; and that they insisted that the loss of our National honor was the price we had to pay for peace.

"That's all very well," he retorted, "but Wilson has given us prosperity-he hasn't asked us to be content with promises; and as to our honor, time enough to consider that when the rights of some of those who live here and are willing to stay here are attacked. Most of those who are here, or their fathers, left Europe to escape the enforced military service that would be their lot if we went to war, and Wilson is right in leaving a lot of bloated aristocrats to fry in their own grease. while they hide behind the poor devils that they put on the firing line.

"These fellows here are brave enough," he said, "but they care a lot more about their wives and children than they do about all the kings and princes that ever lived."

I report this conversation because it expresses what I am convinced is the attitude of a large majority of the wage-earners of the United States.

Their political conclusions are admittedly subjective. They have no use for economic theories. Most of them are spending the larger portion of what they make. The first duty of government, as they conceive it, is to provide them with an opportunity to earn a living and to live in comparative happiness and comfort. The party or the administration that does this will get their votes and retain their support until employment is not to be had, or the purchasing power of the wages paid is seriously diminished. I do not mean to indorse this view. From the standpoint of the political or the patriotic idealist there is much to be said against it; but there is also much to be said in favor of it, if it be true that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the chief end of government. Since it is the view that will largely control in the approaching Presidential campaign, it is in order to review the politico-economic development of the United States under the Wilson Administration, and to contrast the conditions that prevailed in 1912 and 1913, which were the last years of Republican ascendency, with those which exist in 1916, after only forty months of Wilson.

It would not be difficult to present pages of figures that would show the marvelous economic progress of the United States since 1912-13, but they would be tiresome in the monotony of expansion that they would disclose, and the following brief comparison between the more important indicia of business activity and progress under Wilson and his Republican predecessors will suffice. Wherever possible this comparison is made between the figures for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1916, and that ending June 30, 1912, but in many cases the statistics for these dates have

Population....

National wealth (official estimate Commerce Department)

U. S. debt to Europe (official estimate Commerce Department)...
Bank clearings as per "Financial Chronicle " year ending June 30..

National bank resources as of May 1.

1916

Increase or decrease

Percentage of in. crease or decrease

1912 94,736,000 101,200,000 + 6,464,000 + 6.8% $187,000,000,000 $228,000,000,000 +$41,000,000,000 + 21.9 6,500,000,000 3,160,000,000 3,340,000,000 51.4 166,408,000,000 224,338,000,000 + 57,930,000,000 + 34.9 10,792,149,000 14,195,595,000 + 3,403,446,000 + 31.5 11,135,322,000+ 3,119,811,000 + 38.9

8,015,511,000

National bank loans as of May 1

$5,882,167,000

Money in circulation as of January 1

3,276,786,613

$7,606,428,000 +$1,724,261,000 + 29.3 4,018,043,555 + 741,256,942 + 22.6 1,818,000,000 2,439,000,000 + 621,000,000 + 34.1 4,278.000.000 6.531,000.000 +2.253.000,000 + 52.7

2,204,000,000

Farm lands (Census valuation 1910. Estimated valuation 1916).

35,899,000,000 + 4,060,000,000 + 12.7

8,500,000 + 1,600,000 + 23.2
5,320,000,000 + 1,560,000,000 + 41.5
27,500,000,000 + 6,500,000,000 + 30.9
22,800,000,000 32,200,000,000 + 9,400,000,000 + 41.2

not been available, and others covering an interval nearly as significant have been used. There are other facts equally important that cannot be subjected to the telling comIn all parts parison of the parallel column.

of the country transportation lines, rail and water, are taxed beyond their capacity. Freight embargoes have been resorted to in many instances. Shipbuilding is progressing on a scale unknown since the Civil War.

So far as labor is concerned, we have the word of Samuel Gompers that never before in the history of the world were so many people employed at such high wages and under such excellent conditions as is the case in the United States to-day. No capable man need be idle. Throughout the West farm-hands are offered $3 a day and board, and farmers themselves have rarely experienced such prosperity.

According to an analysis made by the Bureau of Statistics and Information of the State Industrial Commission of New York, the number of employees was twenty-one per cent greater and wages paid were thirtyseven per cent higher for factory employees in New York State in April, 1916, than in April, 1915. The same thing is approximately true of most other industrial communities.

Another interesting sidelight on present business conditions is furnished by a comparative summary of the number of agate lines of advertising published during the month of June this year and last in the newspapers of the larger cities. Here it is:

SUMMARY OF TOTAL ADVERTISING FOR JUNE.
Papers.
1915.

1916.

Gain. 17 New York.... 9,434,822 8,510,585 924,237 7 Philadelphia.. 3,268,200 2.599,800 668,400 7 Chicago.... 4,967,650 4,344,372 623,278

6 Los Angeles.. 3,864,000 3,566,700 297,300 5 Baltimore....

5 St. Louis.

4 Cleveland..

4 Minneapolis

3,240,867 2,490,693 750,174

3,148,301 2,566,642 581,659

3,083,475 2,612,325 471,150

2,580,988 2,308,937 272,051

4 San Francisco 2,181,252 2,070,932 110,320 4 Detroit....... 3,770,914 3,000,816 770,098 4 Washington.. 2,337,210 2,126,173 211,037 4 Cincinnati 1,877,100 1,673,700 203,400 267,084 234,464 32,620

2 St. Paul

.....

Total........ 44,021,863 38,106,139 5,915,72 Commenting upon this showing, the New York" Evening Post" says:

Business conditions throughout the country have an excellent general barometer in the counting-rooms of the leading daily newspapers in the large cities. When the advertising columns of such newspapers show substantial gains in all cities, there is but the one conclusion

to be drawn-the public has money to spend and is spending it. The big manufacturers, who constitute the National advertisers, and the stores and shops are enjoying increased prosperity.

Facing this summarized record of the Nation's growth since they were removed from power, the Republicans, through their candidate, endeavor to belittle the showing by saying: "No intelligent man is deceived by the temporary prosperity due to abnormal conditions." The implication intended is that the European war is entirely responsible for a prosperity that we would not otherwise have enjoyed. Let us analyze the facts. It will be admitted that whatever profit the United States has derived from the war in Europe is measured exclusively by the increase in the balance of trade in our favor.

As our imports have varied but slightly since 1912, the increase in our exports must include everything that we have gained from. the expansion in our foreign trade.

This increase in exports is about equal to the increase in our trade balance, and while it cannot all be profit-for the cost of producing the things exported should be deducted from it-we will, for the purposes of this argument, assume that our war gains equal the entire amount by which our balance of trade has exceeded the normal average before the war.

For the four fiscal years ending June 30, 1914, our favorable balance averaged $550,000,000 a year. For the last two years it has been as follows:

For the year ending June 30, 1915. $1,094,000,000 For the year ending June 30, 1916. 2,136,000,000 Total.....

Normal for two years, $550,000,000 each..

Increase for two years of war. $2,130,000,000

This increase of $2,130,000,000 is manifestly in excess of our entire gain from the war. It is equal to our profits plus the cost of production, and it is only through the increase in our foreign trade that the war can have profited us at all. Our maximum possible gain from the war is therefore $21.30 per capita.

This, then, is the measure of our abnormal prosperity. Against it we find that our National wealth has increased by $41,000,000,000, or $410 per capita. Our debt to Europe has been reduced by $3,340,000,000, or $33 per capita; ou total bank deposits have in