the almost 5,000 gallons of gasoline carried were needed.

The adverse conditions encountered and vanquished added to the value of the accomplishment, the first transatlantic voyage of an airship lighter than air, for the navigators had unexampled opportunity for studying the difficulties of over-ocean sailing, and already illuminating discussion has followed the account of the observations made on this remarkable voyage. General Maitland, who sailed on the R-34 as an official observer for the British Air Ministry, is quoted as saying that he believes that in a few years we shall see regular commercial service between England and the United States by dirigibles, and that the future may develop an airship five times as big as the R-34, capable of making one hundred miles an hour, and with a lifting capacity of two hundred tons.

It is hard to visualize such a future monster of the air. The R-34 is longer than the height of the Singer Building and her measurements are those of a big ocean steamship. Imaginine an airship five times as large. It would be truly stupendous.

The summer of 1919 will assuredly go down in history as a marvelous period in aeronautical accomplishment, for the Atlantic has three times been crossed by aircraft, and three widely different types have shared the victorious record-the airplane, the seaplane, and now the gigantic dirigible.

THE MONSTER DIRIGIBLE

The R-34 is the largest aircraft in the world. Not long ago it was on the point of beginning a transatlantic flight when orders suddenly sent it eastward to the Baltic. That voyage was a demonstration of the Allies' readiness to advance into Germany if the Treaty of Peace was not signed by delegates of the German Government.

It is known that this airship and at least one other of the same type had long been under construction by the British Government as an answer to the Zeppelin. It was to have carried eight guns and to have been capable of dropping bombs weighing five thousand pounds. A formidable military weapon, indeed!

The R-34 is almost 650 feet in length and a little over 78 feet in diameter, has five cars connected by a deck, is propelled by five engines of 250 horse-power each, with a total horse-power of 1,550 (less than that of the NC-4), and has a maximum speed of about sixty miles an hour. She holds 1,600,000 cubic feet of hydrogen gas. Preparations on a large scale had been made to receive her at Mineola, Long Island. The total time consumed was 108 hours. Her course was from East

Fortune, Scotland, to Newfoundland, thence over Nova Scotia, and thence to Long Island. Her commander is Major G. H. Scott. She carried thirty officers, crew and passengers, one stowaway, and a cat. On another page will be found a group of pictures relating to the R-34.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW

Of few leaders in the struggle for woman suffrage can it be said, as it may of Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, who died on July 2, that she had been an active participant in that struggle from pioneer days until its victory in a large number of States and, in the belief of its advocates, the near approach of National triumph. When Dr. Shaw's friend Susan B. Anthony became the head of the National Woman's Suffrage Association, the women she led were widely regarded as a little band of theorists, fanatics, or plain cranks; when Dr. Shaw succeeded to the presidency in 1906 (Miss Anthony died in 1904 and Mrs. Catt held the office for two years), the movement had assumed importance and had scored many successes; under her own leadership twelve new States were added to the suffrage map, and the ratification of the Amendment, framed originally by Miss Anthony and this year approved by Congress, was under way. Dr. Shaw's speeches, her writings, and her personal influence had much weight in this change of public opinion.

And it was not only what Dr. Shaw was, but what she was not, that availed. She avoided rant and sensationalism, she thoroughly disapproved of violence and illegal demonstrations, she was a patriotic American, a lover of peace but an enemy to German insolence and lawlessness. As a speaker she was persuasive rather than objurgatory, with a keen but quiet humor which gained attention and appreciation even from hostile audiences. Some one has classified woman suffragists as those who wanted to get the vote because men said they shouldn't have it, and those who wanted to use the vote for the good of humanity. Dr. Shaw emphatically belonged to the second class.

Apart from the suffrage question Anna Howard Shaw had a life history unusual even among the careers of ambitious, independent, and energetic American women. She grew old graciously, with a hopeful, friendly spirit. But the calm and serene woman of over seventy in her youth fought physical and social obstacles with tremendous determination. A schoolteacher at fifteen at four dollars a week, a college student beginning with a capital of fifteen dollars, a sharer in the privations of Western pioneer life in Michigan, a breadwinner for her family when its men were fighting in the Civil War, she

emerged from her struggles to carry out her early dream of becoming a preacher And a preacher she became, licensed by the Methodist Church as a laywoman, then graduated regularly from Boston Univer sity's Theological School, and pastor of a little Cape Cod church. Lecturing first for temperance under Frances Willard's guidance, then for suffrage, brought her into friendship with Miss Anthony, "the torch that illumined my life."

The advocate of woman suffrage lived to have the right to vote in New York State, but illness, we believe, prevented the actual exercise of the right. Her life was spent in trying to make women finer, broader-minded, and stronger citizensand not by any means merely through suffrage alone.

A NEW CHARTER FOR
PHILADELPHIA

Philadelphia is to have a new Charter, the conspicuous features of which are a single-chambered Council of twenty-one members and a provision that the cit shall do its own street paving and repair ing and its own garbage and waste re moval.

The first of these means that the voter. of the city will have a large say in the selection of their representatives, for the system under which the city has beer: run since 1854 (the year of consolidation was clumsy and out of date, consisting o two chambers-one the upper body, mod eled on the United States Senate and consisting of forty-eight members, and the lower (consisting of ninety-six) modeled on the National House of Representa tives. In other words, the city possessed the "Federal system " with a vengeance and of course a political machine was a absolute essential. The public works pro vision is aimed at the contract rule, whid has so long discredited the city and mag nified the power of the famous, or sha we say, the notorious, "Philadelphia a ganization."

o

If the Charter contained no other pr vision, it would still be an importan piece of legislation, but it contains man other features which make it in many r spects one of the important contribution to charter revision. Among other thing it provides for the elimination of the polic and firemen from politics, punishing suc activity by loss of office and by fine an imprisonment. The ballot is shortene by providing for the appointment of th city Solicitor by the Mayor, heretofo the city's law officer having been electiv

Other important sections provide ft. a budget prepared by the Mayor on est mates submitted by the Comptroller an for doing away with the accumulation floating indebtedness, the Charter requi ing on this point that "from the receipt

the city from taxation and sources ther than loan funds the Council shall ppropriate before the beginning of the suing year a sufficient amount for the tinguishment of the floating indebtedess (other than that accruing within one ar from condemnation of real property) hich the city Comptroller may estimate be outstanding on the 1st of January llowing; and for the payment of all wful obligations due by the city during e fiscal year commencing January 1; d for such expenditures to be made om such receipts as may be authorized gty the Council." The Comptroller is foridden to countersign any warrant pergaining to any of the appropriations until the Council shall have first passed all ppropriations necessary for the expenses or the current year, in itself a reform of 10 mean proportion. The improvement f the civil service section makes it one f the best and most modern in any american charter. A provision for the evision of the assessor's lists of voters, dhich are made the basis of councilmanic trepresentation, constitutes another most aportant reform in view of the fact that eretofore there has been no official resion of these lists and it has been posble for designing politicians to increase eir ward representation practically ithout let or hindrance.

ere

wher

The Council of twenty-one is elected very four years in the various State enatorial districts, of which there are ight. There is to be one Councilman from ach district and one additional Councillan for each unit of 20,000 assessed vot8. The Charter contains an interesting rovision that "if at any time hereafter The women of the Commonwealth shall be iven the right to vote, the unit of reprentation shall be 40,000 assessed voters stead of 20,000, so that the Council all continue to be composed of twentyhe members."

OW PHILADELPHIA
OT ITS NEW CHARTER

This modern Charter, which is a odel of draftsmanship, was drafted by a presentative committee of citizens and cked up by Senator Boies Penrose and State organization and by Governor proul, who, combined, outgeneraled and tmarshaled the Philadelphia machine, hich has been under the control of the ntractor bosses, the Vare Brothers, one whom is a State Senator and the other Congressman.

The same allies-the Independents, the own Meeting Party, and Senator Pene-succeeded in putting through a ries of electoral reform measures, reoring personal registration to its former trength and usefulness and curtailing the angerous inroads which the Vare organi

zation has made on the electoral machinery of the State. Other laws designed to prevent tampering with places of election and to give effect to the voters' intention were passed. Heretofore where a voter marked a straight party ticket and a candidate in another column partisan election boards regarded such ballot as void so far as that office was concerned. Under the new law, the vote will be counted for the candidate whom the voter specifically marked, which is in line with the practice elsewhere.

John C. Winston, the Chairman of the Charter Committee, says: "I do not hesitate to assert that the passage of the legislation is primarily due to organized public sentiment. The assistance of the administration, including the support of Senator Penrose and Governor Sproul (without whose aid all our effort would have been in vain), was a commendable recognition of this overwhelming sentiment of the people, to which the public press gave expression. If this same public sentiment can now be organized for the purpose of electing Councilmen who are free from allegiance to contractors and who will serve the public interest, then we shall get the full benefit of the new Charter.

"It must not be overlooked that we have not only secured a small singlechamber Council, but for the first time in a generation this Council is to be elected on a representative basis, the number of Councilmen from each district being in proportion to the number of

votes.

"The people can now have the kind of government they choose to vote for, which before was not possible, owing to the grossly unequal ward representation in councils."

CANADA'S FINANCES

Canada's financial statement was presented the other day by Sir Thomas White, Minister of Finance, in his annual budget speech. In the years previous to the war a national debt of but little more than three hundred millions was regarded with some degree of alarm by many Canadians, in view of the fact that the population was under eight millions. When all expenses in connection with demobilization are paid, Canada's national debt will be almost two billions. The annual interest charges were less than thirteen millions in 1914, but they have now increased to one hundred and fifteen millions.

Undoubtedly, this is a heavy annual charge on a country with a small population. It is, in fact, almost as much as the total of Canada's annual expenditures in pre-war years. Canadians are congratulating themselves, however,

on the pleasing circumstance that threequarters of the securities representing the national debt are held by Canadians. The balance is owing to British and American investors. Interest payments sent out of the country will not be much greater than in 1914. Before the war practically all Canadian public loans were placed in Great Britain, domestic borrowing being considered impossible. Thrown upon her own resources during the war, and with the unusual experience of a balance of trade heavily in her favor, Canada discovered that she could do her own financing. Her Victory Loan in 1918 of eight hundred millions was a greater accomplishment, in proportion to population, than any of the Liberty Loans in the United States. It is not surprising, therefore, that Canadians are calmly confident to-day that the new and heavy financial burdens can be carried without impoverishing the country. The financial impossibilities of 1914 are the commonplaces of 1919.

Nevertheless the burden is heavy. For the current financial year ending March 31 the total expenditure is estimated at $620,000,000. More than half of this sum represents demobilization expenses and war gratuities. As the estimated revenue is only $280,000,000, a loan for the balance will have to be floated in the autumn.

In the face of this situation, the Canadian Government has nevertheless made some substantial concessions to the freetrade sentiment of the western provinces, compensating itself for the resulting loss of revenue by increases in the income tax and excess profits taxes on corporations. There is a strong sentiment among the organized farmers of the Canadian west in favor of sweeping reductions in the tariff; and, although substantial concessions have been made to this sentiment, they have not been sufficient to satisfy the western demands. Twelve western supporters of the Union Government voted against it on this issue, led by the Hon. T. A. Crerar, who resigned his portfolio as Minister of Agriculture in protest. Mr. Crerar is head of a farmers' co-operative company which is probably the biggest grain-buying organization in Canada, and he is generally considered the leader of the western farmers.

There are indications of an early return to party government in Canada, but probably the alignment will be different as a result of the political upheaval of 1917.

THE AMERICAN LEGION

For those of our readers who have been interested in the accounts of the American Legion which have appeared in our columns we give the following: information relative to the requirements;

for eligibility and other facts concerning application for membership, etc.

The American Legion originated in two meetings of soldier, sailor, and marine delegates at Paris and St. Louis on March 15 and May 8, 9, and 10, respectively. The Executive Committees appointed at these meetings have combined to form the National Executive Committee of the American Legion, with temporary headquarters at 19 West Fortyfourth Street, New York City. Its immediate programme includes co-operation with the Government and other existing agencies to find employment for ex-service men, and to assist ex-service men in matters of War Risk Insurance, Liberty Bonds, allowances, compensation, and service pay. In order to extend its scope, it also plans the immediate organization of State branches and local posts. These posts must have a minimum membership of fifteen, and application for a charter must be made to the State branch.

Any soldier, sailor, or marine who served honorably between April 6, 1917, and November 11, 1918, whether at home or abroad, is eligible to membership in the American Legion, as are also all women who were regularly enlisted or commissioned in the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps. We are informed, furthermore, that all Americans serving in the armed forces of our allies are eligible.

A leaflet has been issued by the Legion which contains useful information for those desiring to join its ranks. In it are given the names and addresses of the secretaries in the various States, Territories, or territorial possessions of the United States to whom application for membership should be made. For example: the New York State Secretary is Mr. Wade H. Hayes, whose address is 140 Nassau Street, New York City; the Hawaiian Secretary is Mr. J. P. Morgan, Box 188, Honolulu. Copies of this leaflet may be obtained at the headquarters of the American Legion.

A competition has been arranged for a design to be used as the official emblem of the Legion-just as the circular copper button has been the well-known emblem of the G. A. R.-for which cash prizes are to be offered. Artists and others interested are invited to submit designs capable of reproduction in bronze or other suitable metal. Full details concerning the conditions of this competition can be secured by addressing Mr. Charles Parsons, Secretary Emblem Committee, American Legion, 663 Downington Avenue, Salt Lake City, Utah.

"UP-AGAINST-IT" FIGHTERS

One of the best types of fighters that the war brought out is "the boy who has been down and out and up against it."

This is what Mr. Butcher, the Superintendent of the Brace Memorial Newsboys' Home in New York City, told a representative of the New York "Globe," and he proves it by showing the splendid service under the flag of boys and young men connected with that Home. No less than 2,820 of them volunteered. Long before America went into the war these boys began to be missed, and soon letters came from one after another showing that they had enlisted in France or England or Canada. After we went in four hundred of them passed the enlistment officers in one week.

What kind of a fighter was the exnewsboy? Mr. Butcher answered: "He's the greatest fighter in the world. He's used to standing on his own feet. His wits have been sharpened. He's aggressive, full of pep, courageous. When it came his time to go' over the top' he went, and nothing that walked the earth could stop him." Some sixteen hundred of these boys are still in the Army

66

among the first to go, among the last to come back." Many have citations or decorations. Some won commissions. Their names are largely foreign in sound, but they are fine Americans in grit and spirit.

If ever there was a better argument for saving and Americanizing the boys who are "up against it" than this record, it would be hard to find.

THE NATIONAL EDUCATION

ASSOCIATION

At the fifty-seventh annual Convention of the National Education Association, held in Milwaukee June 29 to July 5, Mr. George D. Strayer, President of the Association, gave the following analysis of our present education and future needs:

Millions of Americans, boys and girls, are being taught during a six months' school term by boy and girl teachers who have less than a high school education. The great majority of our children receive no education beyond fourteen years of age. It is a matter of common knowledge that ideals and which purposes govern in life are commonly developed after fourteen, and we know that the intellectual maturity required to understand the principles underlying our republican form of government is not developed before that age.

The future of our American democracy depends upon a recognition of the necessity of developing in the United States a system of public education (1) which will remove illiteracy; (2) which will provide for the Americanization of every foreigner who would continue to live among us; (3) which will include a programme of physical education and health service, providing for every boy and girl an opportunity for normal physical growth and development; (4) which will guarantee sufficient support for public education to make

possible a well-equipped school in which a properly trained and adequately paid teacher will teach for a minimum of one hundred and eighty days in the year: (5) which will make compulsory education to eighteen years of age, on full time for boys and girls until sixteen years of age, and on part time, in daylight hours, on the employer's time, for those who work between sixteen and eighteen years of age.

Three especially important general sessions of the Convention were held; one to discuss "The New World and the Demand it Will Make upon Public Education," another in which the central theme was "Education for the Estab lishment of a Democracy in the World," and a third in which the Child Welfare

agencies co-operating with the schools were given a hearing.

Mr. Henry Sterling, a representative of the American Federation of Labor, traced the history of the attitude of the American Federation toward education and concluded by pledging the support of the American Federation for the SmithTowner Bill, which provides for a Secre tary of Education in the President's Cabinet and an annual appropriation of one hundred million dollars for co-operation with the States for National school improvement.

In its resolutions the Association rec

ognized the defects in our National life which President Strayer pointed out and the inadequate organization and supervision of rural education. Against such defects the Association proposes a vigorous, continuous campaign.

the technical terms of their trade and can clearly understand directions. Accidents are fewer, the workers being able to read warning signs or to take in verbal cautions. In this connection it is a significant fact that seventy per cent of all applicants for accident compensation require the services of an interpreter.

Many employers also report increased output through better understanding of instructions, the mental waking up of language study, and the general healthy atmosphere of good will fostered by a common medium of communication. Most of them are agreed that plant classes will tend to prevent strikes. Labor difficulties not infrequently arise through misunderstanding of English, and strikes are most readily fomented and prolonged among workers who can be easily swayed by agitators who speak their tongue, while these workers are as a rule well-nigh out of reach of their employer, who does not understand their talk.

THE NEW METHODS

Massachusetts did not originate "plant classes." The "English for Safety" campaign of the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration dates back to 1917.

The Ford plant, the Goodyear plant, and the Goodrich factory at Akron, Ohio, certainly had introduced factory English before Massachusetts began. But so new is the movement that only here and there are statistics forthcoming.

All over the country, however, the factory class is supplanting the night school for the teaching of adult aliens. Aside from the ignominy of being put to school in mature life, the grown alien is not helped by the night school. His brain is too fagged after a day of hard labor. If he is to grapple with the formidable difficulties of English, it must at least be when his powers are at their height. Moreover, the ideal place for him to learn practical English is in the place where he works, where he can get the peculiar vocabulary needed in his particular trade.

In Massachusetts a powerful co-operation between the school board which supplies the teachers, the factory which gives the men's time, and the State Bureau of Uni-. versity Extension which provides special training for the teachers and prepares sample lessons and a valuable teacher's manual insures that the teaching-by the dramatic method—shall be scientific and

effective.

A bill now pending in the Legislature would shift the whole burden

of Americanization classes to the State for all towns whose total property valua tion is under a million dollars, larger towns paying half. Free from any taint

of coercion or of patronage, neither of which the intelligent foreigner can stomach, the plant class is perhaps the most thoroughly practical and hopeful offshoot of the Americanization movement.

COMMUNITY SERVICE

The War Camp Community Service has done an immense amount of useful work during the period of the war, and any effort looking toward a continuation of this work will make a strong appeal to all those who have participated in its endeavors. For this purpose there has been formed a National organization, nonpartisan and non-sectarian, to be known as Community Service, Incorporated. It is proposed to use to the full the experience of the War Camp Community Service (an outgrowth of the Playground and Recreation Association of America) in its social and recreational work, and of the force of trained workers and

volunteers which it has enlisted in its

service.

Requests have come to the War Camp Community Service from National officials acquainted with its work, from governors and mayors, from citizens' organizations, from newspapers, from business men, to continue this work into peace times. This as an organization it cannot do, as its funds cannot be spent for other than war work.

It is to meet this demand, to carry over into peace times the accumulated social power or "good will" which the War Camp Community Service has helped to develop and which it would take years to re-establish, and to utilize this power in the solution of our peace problems, that Community Service has been organized.

The aim in all its work will be, not to impose a cut and dried programme from without, but to draw out the strength that is in the people and make them efficient directors of their own affairs. As Governor Sproul, Chairman of the War Camp Community Service in Chester, Pennsylvania, aptly said: "This movement is not something handed down, but an organization of the people themselves, representing all elements of community life, called together under the auspices of the United States Government to develop popular activities and relationships which enrich and strengthen community life."

The programme proposed by Community Service, particularly in industrial cities, contains, among other features, the following:

Play and athletics, such as new parks, playground and athletic fields, municipal beach and bath-houses, boating, swimming, camping, meets, hikes, etc.

Social and recreational activities, in

cluding dances, movies, picnics, spelli bees, dramatics, school centers, clubs, a home hospitality.

Plans for concerts, recitals, music f tivals, and the development of the eve popular and much to be commended co munity singing.

The establishment of club-houses, co munity clubs, and camps; plans for cor munity mass-meetings and celebrations

Community Service is not a theory, b an accomplished fact. In the cities ( Chester, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.O and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, its wo is now in progress. An interesting sum mary of its efforts in those cities i given in a little pamphlet, copies of which may be obtained at the National Headquarters, 1 Madison Avenue, New York City.

The amount of money required for the first year's work is two million dollarsThis will provide for the organizing of four.hundred communities, to be selecter principally from among those in whic the War Camp Community Service i already working, at an average cost five thousand dollars each. It is propose to apply this amount about evenly to th expenses of the central office and to ten porary contributions toward starting th work in the poorer communities. In thi way it is hoped and believed that ther may be developed better moral and indu trial conditions, health and welfare, pla and recreation, higher and more adequat community and neighborhood expression and a better social life.

WHAT WE OWE TO FRANCE

D

O we owe anything to France? Ha

we not just paid our debt? In the already legendary exclamation, "We an here, Lafayette!" is there not expressed or at least implied, the judgment tha the score is settled?

To think of our relations with Frand or with any other country in that way i to commercialize a spiritual thing. What ever debt America owes to France fo her understanding of the aspirations. the American colonists is a debt that wil remain as long as France retains the love of liberty, equality, and fraternit that impelled Lafayette and Rochambea to come to these shores. Such debts ar not canceled.

But even if that ancient debt could b wiped out by anything that America ha done, a new debt greater than the old ha been incurred. For nearly three years. while we in America debated and hesi tated and vacillated, France defended with her life-blood the frontiers of ou freedom. We in America know that we have been at war. At least we think we