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lessness of some camper who did not obey the first law of the great woods-Put out your fires. The combination of a high wind, a careless camper, and a burning match is enough to set at naught the most careful provisions of skillful and resourceful fire wardens. We can be glad that our own Government has moved forward in the last few years in the organization of a system to prevent such a fire as has swept northern Ontario. The preservation of our forests from fire is a work to which too much attention cannot be given.

"NEXT DOOR TO A VOLCANO"

The marvel of the great explosions at the Jersey City terminal early on Sunday morning of last week was that so few lives were lost; only four deaths are positively known to have been directly caused by the disaster. In the two terrific blasts-one at a quarter past two in the morning, the other half an hour later-hundreds of tons of explosives by their crash rocked or shook buildings twenty miles away and farther; Ellis Island with its frightened immigrants was bombarded; barges filled with deadly missiles floated about the harbor; Manhattan and Brooklyn Boroughs were terrified by the concussions and by the glass falling from hundreds of windows. One can imagine the panic and injury that would have followed in lower New York if the explosion had taken place when the streets were crowded. And yet the list of injuries was small; that of deaths as compared with innumerable less startling disasters, as in railway collisions, insignificant. As to damage, the cost to the insurers of glass alone is put at $300,000, and the uninsured glass was probably worth at least as much. No one knows the value of the explosives destroyed, but it is stated that every day a thousand tons of high explosives are loaded on barges at the terminals near New York and sent out to ships in Gravesend Bay. Here is a bit of description from one account, that in the New York" Sun :"

Between the two mighty explosions came the manifestation as of an American Verdun. Bombs soared into the air and burst a thousand feet above the harbor into terrible yellow blossom. Shrapnel peppered the brick walls of the warehouses, plowed the planks of the pier, and rained down upon the hissing waters. Shells shot hither and thither, exploding under the touch of the terrific heat and shooting their missiles at random. Some of the shrapnel shells

fell even in Manhattan. On the pier arose a white glare as of a million mercury vapor lights.

What caused this terrible eruption? The persons responsible for the safety of the railways, the pier, the barges, and the storage in warehouses of the enormous amount of explosives on or about Black Tom dock are struggling each to prove himself guiltless. Meanwhile the public is asking whether existing laws for protection against explosives are inadequate or whether they were flagrantly violated. Investigations, municipal, State, and National, are under way. Arrests have been made of the president of the lighterage company, whose barge (No. 24) was left, it is asserted, in contact with Black Tom pier, contrary to law; of the superintendent of the National Docks and Storage Company, in whose warehouse vast amounts of munitions were stored; of the railway agent in charge of the dock; and the arrest of the presidents of the Lehigh Valley and Jersey Central Railways is expected as we write. It has been stated that a fire alarm was sent out from the pier over an hour before the first explosion, but whether fire started on the pier itself, on loaded cars, or on a loaded barge is in dispute. No proof of incendiarism has been produced, but the president of the lighterage company is quoted in newspapers as saying that there have been numerous previous fires of an incendiary origin in that yard, and that the fire began on the freight cars.

Whatever the exact cause or the exact law, the nature and extent of the explosions prove that the terminal has been a frightful menace. Jersey City, as has been said, is a city living in the midst of an arsenal; New York, the North River, its shipping, and the islands near by are constantly exposed to a potential volcano. It seems evident that as city, State, and inter-State questions are involved, there should be intelligent co-operation in the work of protection. How long should loaded munition cars be allowed to stand at the terminal unloaded; how many cars may be on the pier at once; just how should explosives and loaded shells be transferred from train to barge, and barge to ship; how shall the pier be protected; how much explosive material be allowed in one storehouse; and how far away from other buildings must the storehouse be? These are some of the questions that must be considered and answered-and that quickly. Regulations and rules do exist already, but that they are inadequate or un

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enforced needs no proof other than the events of that Sunday morning.

THE STREET RAILWAY
STRIKE IN NEW YORK

One might almost write the history of any city's street railway strike by repeating the story of former strikes of the kind in other large cities. New York's strike in the Bronx and on the Third Avenue line has not as we write reached the proportions of the famous strikes of years ago in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, and may be settled without rioting or widespread public injury. But the early stages are much the same: demands of the men (usually, and in this case almost solely, for union recognition), refusal by the company, futile attempts at arbitration, the hiring of professional strike-breakers to take the strikers' places, the breaking of car windows, policemen sent to guard the cars, and, if the altercation goes on, street rioting and the calling out of the militia. The cure for all this needless industrial war is easy to see but hard to get. It was well stated in broad lines by Mr. Henry Moskowitz in a recent article in The Outlook as follows:

The primitive way of settling disputes between employers and employees is by some kind of struggle in which one side tries to enforce its will on the other. A great advance over that method is the method of arbitration, but in most cases arbitration is simply a compromise between the demands of the two sides.

The next step will be the creation of machinery for ascertaining the facts in each industry. The machinery will be constantly at work collecting and recording the facts about the ever-changing conditions. Based on these facts, standards could be determined. . . . Under the operation of State and Federal wage boards a commission should be automatically created whenever a dispute arises in any industry, and that commission, utilizing the facts already ascertained, will then be enabled, after hearing arguments from both sides, to apply the standards to the particular case in controversy with real understanding of the needs of an industry from the view-point of both sides. When the decision is reached, it will have the authority of neutrally gathered facts and be backed by the sovereignty of civilized law.

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This applies to car strikes as well as to cloak strikes, such as that which still continues in New York despite the tentative "settlement described in the last issue of The Outlook. The legal right of employees to organize is indisputable; the moral justice of organization as the only way of dealing on

fair terms with employers is clear. But unions may be used to oppress non-union men, and so-called "open shops" may be used by employers to kill labor organizations. Hence the need of such authoritative dealing with industrial troubles as is above advocated. It might be perfectly right, for instance, to forbid by law employees of public utilities, such as street-car lines, to strike without notice given a reasonable time beforehand; but it would be totally wrong to pass such a law without adequate provision for the full consideration of the employees' demands, and the enforced grant of those demands, if they are right and are fair to all three parties concerned-employers, employees, and the

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Robert A. Woods is one of the most publicspirited citizens of Boston. For many years he has been the head of the South End House, one of the pioneer social settlements of this country. He has been serving on the Licensing Board of the city of Boston. experience of close contact with many sorts of people and acquaintance at first hand with the consequences of intemperance and the power of the liquor trade equipped him for this service. There are those who believe that in a city like Boston it is a disqualification to serve on a licensing board for a man to be a student of the liquor problem and an opponent of the evils of drunkenness. There is no question that Mr. Woods encountered the opposition of low-grade hotels and people who supply them with beer and hold mortgages upon them. He also encountered the opposition of some respectable dwellers of the suburbs. When Mr. Woods's term of office expired, he was not reappointed by Governor McCall. In his place was put a man whose associations do not warrant the belief that he will be any such opponent of the liquor evil as Mr. Woods has proved to be.

One of the occasions for the dropping of Mr. Woods from the Licensing Board appears to have been a controversy about the granting of licenses to two of the largest and best hotels in the city of Boston for so-called afternoon tea, for which admission of a dollar was charged, and which included the privilege of dancing. In this case, however, the two hotels held licenses received from the Mayor of Boston to use their ball-rooms as public halls. The matter was

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finally adjusted when the hotels agreed to certain limitations. The Board was able to insist upon these limitations because it had the power to renew or withhold the hotels' liquor license at the beginning of the next license year. It has thus followed the policy of making suggestions and issuing 66 requests " which are in the way of letting the licensee know what kind of conduct on his part will be likely to make him eligible for a renewal of his license.

It was by following this policy that the Board was able to eliminate some glaring evils; and in this it had the co-operation of some of the hotel-keepers.

Certain attorneys for hotels, including immoral hotels, have declared, however, that this policy was arbitrary and beyond the law.

In addition, the Board felt that it was unjust to put all the licensed places in the poorer quarters and keep them away from the regions occupied by the rich and influential. As a consequence the Board, and particularly Mr. Woods, incurred the hostility of certain suburban dwellers.

The Licensing Board controversy is the old one between those who fear to trust a large degree of administrative power to public officials and those who believe that in the exercise of such power lies the only possibility for just and efficient government in a democracy. In such a controversy selfish interests, whether of unscrupulous men or of perfectly honest people who are satisfied with conditions as they are, tend to unite to limit administrative power. In this case, the position taken by Mr. Woods is the only one that will lead to efficiency and self-government. The dropping of Mr. Woods from the Board means, therefore, not only the loss of a useful public servant on the Licensing Board of Boston, but a backward step in American municipal government.

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NEW YORK'S ZONING LAW

New York City has recently taken one of the most progressive and forward-looking steps for the protection of its future development that has been made by any American city. The vast property values affected by New York's new law, and its far-reaching possibilities, not only from the standpoint of the financial interests involved, but from the social standpoint as well, make the step which has been taken worthy both of record and of the highest commendation.

In short, New York City has now districted

its great area, determining definitely both the kind and height of buildings which can be constructed throughout the city in the future. This new law creates residence districts from which all kinds of business and industry are excluded; it creates business districts in which both residence and business uses are permitted, but in which industrial uses are prohibited entirely or limited as to the percentage for space which they may occupy in any given building. It creates unrestricted districts for which no restrictions or regulations as to use are provided. It is assumed that the development in these regions will be largely industrial. There are, furthermore, certain undetermined tracts differing from those unrestricted areas in that it is expected that when their appropriate use is more fully disclosed it may seem wise to restrict them in part to business or residence use.

Not only does the law look forward to the time when the city will have become an orderly system of construction units within each of which property values will be protected and social values conserved, but it also definitely provides for the conservation of those two most vital elements of life, light and air.

No longer may a sky-scraper be erected without regard for its environment and its neighbor buildings. The new law provides for five classes of height districts, limiting the height, of the building at the street line to a varying multiple of the street width. The multiple of street width rule, however, limits the height of a building at the street line only. Above this limit a building may be carried higher provided that such extended portion is set back from the street in a prescribed ratio. The present tenement-house law of New York already limits construction in this particular class of buildings to a height of one and one-half times the city street width, so that the new law is in this respect an extension of an old principle rather than the creation of a new one.

The enforcement of this law is vested in the Superintendent of Buildings in each borough, the Fire Commissioner, and the Tenement-House Commissioner, under the rules and regulations of the Board of Standards and Appeals. In detail its provisions represent a careful and exhaustive study of New York conditions begun by a committee appointed by the Board of Estimate early in 1913. This committee made its report in June, 1914, whereupon the present Commission on Build

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ing Districts was appointed. The resolutions of this Commission were accepted practically in toto by the Board of Estimate in its passage of the new zoning law.

VICTOR CHAPMAN

It is worth while to have lived, if one may win a eulogy from those ripe in years and in wisdom. There are those who, though dying young, still obtain such eulogy. In the latest number of the Paris "Temps" to reach us we find the virtues of the young American aviator Victor Chapman, recently killed while fighting for the French, immortalized by Émile Boutroux, the most venerated philosopher in France.

Every day, M. Boutroux affirms, France receives from America some testimony of the sympathy with which Americans follow the fortunes of the Entente Allies, and, in especial, the fortunes of France. But the most touching of all witnesses to our sympathy is the going to France of some of our own young men to fight in the ranks of the French army.

Such a one was Victor Chapman. When the war broke out, he was in Paris, a student of architecture. He immediately entered the Foreign Legion, and chose the section of the mitrailleuses. He passed the winter of 1914-15 on the Somme, where he took part in several attacks. In the spring of 1915 he begged to be allowed to enter the aviation service. Some Harvard and Yale graduates, wishing to organize an American squadron, had gone to France, where they took courses in aviation. Among these men came Victor Chapman, after due apprenticeship. M. Boutroux, who knew him, speaks of how he impressed every one : "He was charming in his simplicity and good nature. As I complimented him on his French: 'Oh,' he said, 'my French is only the French of the poilu. I do not understand all the words that I say, and I am not sure that all are in good usage, but I talk naturally as my comrades do." It was impossible, asserts the French observer, to unite more young and tranquil gayety, more sweetness, more limpidity of sentiment, to more elevated thought, decision, energy, character.

Victor Chapman had the military spirit in its highest degree, declares M. Boutroux, "He was duty incarnate; disdaining all danger, he dreamed only of doing his utmost in a useful task. He was intrepid in the extreme, and through all the violent nervous

tension which his expeditions caused he kept a calm spirit and an absolute presence of mind."

After describing these events and the tragic end, M. Boutroux concludes:

Such is the devotion, such the elevation of view, such the simple and true grandeur of which the American soul is capable. Such is the esteem, such the profound and enthusiastic love, which France inspires in men who are the honor of humanity. What effort of ours can recompense such testimony given by such witnesses? No, the great interpreters of the human conscience were not wrong; to die rather than to betray the cause of right and justice is not to die; it is to immortalize one's self. Nor does that mean to live in posterity's imagination only; it means to bequeath the seed of faith and virtue, which, sooner or later, will assure the triumph of the good. Amen.

The words of this French philosopher are welcome not only because they praise an American, but also because they will serve to let the people of our sister republic of France know that in the keeping of such men as Victor Chapman is the real soul of America.

One of the world's remarkable women is the Pandita (learned Hindu scholar) Ramabai. Her institution for the Christian education of Hindu child widows rescued from horrible degradation and suffering has been for years the nucleus and heart of Mukti (salvation), a village of two thousand child widows and orphan girls, mothered by her and her noble daughter, Mano-ramabai. Here they learn many arts and crafts, domestic and industrial, and the practice of pure religion. Ramabai holds four hundred acres, employs eighty oxen, raises food for Mukti, is her own architect, runs a printing establishment, sends her pupils to instruct the peasant women and children of the vicinity, and is preparing a new version of the Bible for them in their dialect. Other high-caste Hindu women have been stimulated by her work for child widows to similar enterprises. A visitor from Rhode Island gives a fascinating account of Mukti in the recent report of the American Ramabai Association, of which Professor Harlan P. Beach, of Yale, is President, and Dr. Lyman Abbott Vice-President. Those who are interested to learn more about this beneficent work can write for a copy of the report to Mrs. S. W. Lee-Mortimer, 170 Huntington Avenue, Boston.

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