TH

There were deft and cunning touches on the part of folk who knew what they were about. Little touches-even to the cow stable-the haymow and manure pile thereof!

It made me ache to see those buddies getting off their shoes. And here and there, if you will pardon me, ladies, there were men in that audience who unconsciously quite unconsciously -scratched while they guffawed. And do you remember, sergeant, how furious "madame" was when we "policed" those barnyards?

As for the company mess-well, you could actually smell those beans and that amazing coffee, so useful in getting gravy or grease off your mess kit. There were our late friends the "M. P.'s," of course, getting earnestly and grievously misunderstood, as usual, and oh, well, it was the real stuff, right down to the mademoiselles. And the buddy behind me forgot he was not in Bar-le-Duc, or Martignas, let us say, and whispered, "Oh-la-la!" in my ear.

And suddenly just as it came to us the war arrived. There was the roaring by of interminable trains of

motor trucks jammed with men. And there was Jerry in a plane who swooped down and got you with his machine gun. And there was the abiding horror of trench warfare, barrages far too real, and that worst of all things, a heartbreaking "walking charge," timed walking, against those murderous machine-gun nests, with the wiping out of men-rows of men, who dropped like stone or who sank and scrambled about.

Well, it is all there, good people-incredibly real, incredibly tragic, and therefore true to nature. Such a picture as this should be kept ready and waiting, and when saber-rattling numskulls begin prophesying war they should be made to see it again and again-many times. They will go away quiet and abashed. The Great War may well have been the "war to end war" it was said to be if, "war to end war" it was said to be if, now and then, people can see it as it really was, without the glamour of romance so usually cast over it.

"This is no picture," declared the man behind me; "this is the real thing. You can't fool me! That there's the road through Fismes! And you don't get a bunch of hard-boileds like that hanging bunch of hard-boileds like that hanging around movie studios!"

Neither do you. The actual war scenes were so obviously true that if you forgot for an instant you were only looking at a picture you caught your breath and wondered how the Signal Corps ever did it, and how King Vidor ever got those films released for his picture!

HIS is how it was. The whole battle was planned by general officers of the Second Division, and it was carried out to the bitterest detail by thousands of overseas men who simply re-enacted performances indelibly branded into their memories. It was a duplication of Belleau Wood; the harrowing advance, with everything complete-artillery, barrage, tanks, planes, and ambulance corps. The whole personnel of a Legion post took over a "billeting" episode in a French village, largely improvising as they went along, and simply brought down the house!

So, for the background of a wellworked-out plot we have army life at the billet and at the front, and the story is that of three buddies and a farm girlthe buddies from as diverse homes as was usually the case, and all exceedingly well acted. The farm girl, Renée Adorée, had only to re-enact her own experiences, having been among the refugees fleeing from the Belgian border.

"The Big Parade" will bring back poignant as well as hilarious memories to members of the old A. E. F. It will fascinate and thrill innumerable men who did not and could not go over. The schoolboy will learn at first hand what war really is like as will the aforesaid saber-rattlers. And many an old "vet" will go back again and again and see it, for, with all its cruel realism, they will recall comrades, places, doings, tragedies, and heroisms one never will, or can, or should forget. CHARLES K. TAYLOR.

By DON C. SEITZ

NOR the century and a half since

F

the clash at Concord and Lexing

ton the press has been acclaimed, largely in its own columns, as the Palladium of Our Liberties. Before it came into being the statue of Pallas Athene, erected in public places, was considered the special guardian of these precious entities. They were wholly taken over when the new Constitution guaranteed the freedom of the printed word by the able editors, to whose credit it must be said that most of them were faithful to their trust. That they were bitter, partisan, and unfair can be readily admitted. But, like the watch-dog, they had an honest bark and did not sleep on duty.

It may be stated, however, that a wellfed watch-dog is less apt to be vigilant than one with an unsatisfied appetite, and profound observation leads to the conclusion that this rule applies to editors. The old vigilantes were not overfat. Their occupation was hazardous, their support small, and their friends few. Fighting party issues with savage zeal, they were only too frequently not supported by the party. Yet each stood by his colors and grew lean in purse and person for the cause.

URSE and person have become plump in the profession to a degree unimagined so late as a decade ago. The self-constituted Palladium is groggy, and there are cracks in its pedestal. One of the many discoveries that came with war-time inflation was that profit-making could be made the rule and not the exception in journalism. The discovery came first in London, where the amazing Harmsworth success, following upon the creation of a halfpenny paper for people who had just learned to read, had made it possible for that astute publisher to capitalize his property and unload a great share upon the public without disturbing his control. This gave him real millions.

Millions made millions. Soon the Harmsworths, Alfred and Harold, were magnates. The war made other men rich, and these saw in London newspapers a great source of income from investment, with the result that colossal

Don C. Seitz

FOR many years Don C.

Seitz has played a leading part in American journalism. As the business manager of an outstanding metropolitan daily during the period of its greatest success, as a student of American history and a fearless critic of American life, he has made for himself an international reputation.

For twenty-five years his hat has been hanging on a peg in the office of the New York "World." With the beginning of the new year he transfers his hat and himself to The Outlook office. He joins The Outlook as a member of its Board of Directors and of its staff.

The Outlook Company rejoices in the addition of this notable voice to its editorial council. His vigor, his forthrightness, and his knowledge of men and affairs will mean much to readers of The Outlook during the coming

months.

capitalization followed, in which were bulked all the publications of consequence except the "Times" and the Labor Party's "Herald," with the public holding the bag. The "Times" was taken from the Harmsworth interests by the lusty purse of the American-bred Astor family, and still thunders in solitary grandeur. The others are pocket pieces, profitable, unimpressive, and of no sort of public use. Noble lords preside over their boards, just as they do at directorates of soap and rubber companies.

E have not yet reached this stage

WE

in America, but seem to be on the way. Traditional newspaper poverty has kept the public out of the newspaper field. Frank A. Munsey once floated a bond issue covering his magazines, but none are outstanding. Bernarr Macfadden, of physical culture fame, advertised a stock issue a year ago to float his "Evening Graphic." The rush to subscribe did not upset Wall Street. William R. Hearst recently mortgaged a batch of his publications to the amount of $12,000,000 in bonds, but how far the citizenry invested is not revealed. Readers of Mr. Arthur Brisbane's "To-Day" column get the impression that he bought most of them out of his salary as editor of the "Evening Journal." Mr. Hearst, is, however, something of a syndicate himself, owning ( twenty-six daily newspapers and a halfscore of magazines. He will be in a good position to capitalize as soon as he can secure a chartered accountant's certificate that he is making money-which is the British method of pocket-picking.

Beyond this, American newspapers are the properties of individuals, estates, partnerships, and close corporations. Few are longer owned by their editors. The work is done by hired men, some of whom are paid nearly as well as the union compositors, though working under a less certain tenure of employment and a more shifting scale.

Wages have more than doubled in mechanical departments, but have enjoyed little hoisting in the brainery, save to those favored beings who can have their output syndicated. These pets of

he press are egregiously overpaid, but ost their employers nothing. Their lubrations are distributed at a profit ver the land, and aid in keeping down he earnings of other men. Mr. Hearst extremely liberal in this respect. Bedes the gilded Brisbane, who illumiates eighty-five papers each day with is scintillations, a score of artists and riters are richly rewarded at the exense of competing sheets in the rural istricts, in many of which the parent ublication is on sale before the syndiated matter gets to press. Mr. Hearst nus has his cake and eats it, while there more frost than frosting on the article applied the local editor.

This system of syndicating is a large actor in destroying individuality in our ewspapers, besides shutting the door of pportunity in the face of talent. It lds to the number of mute, inglorious liltons and suppressed Hampdens of the ountryside. Few realize the enormous tent upon which the press in general lies upon canned goods for filling. umerous syndicates exist profitably rough the supply of features, and all rge dailies maintain syndicate departents. The sale of their by-products ns up to a pretty penny, permitting, as ready noted, the payment of large salies to specialists, comic artists, and en poets. The incomes of Edgar A. est and Walt Mason, for example, ould make Tennyson and Longfellow el like pikers. The creator of "Mutt d Jeff" has been at it for a quarter of century, and can almost be suspected using stencils. He has become rich ough to maintain a racing stable. H. Webster and Maurice Ketten would rdly care to change places with many nk presidents. George McManus is a tocrat, and Tom Powers deserves to

These cases are cited, not in a carping rit, but to show how small a part indiualism has in making the common den variety of newspaper, and also to lain how the exclusion of latent talent m the field tends to make the sheets monplace and uninfluential. yndicated editorials are also sent out n a central plant, and are used to a siderable extent. Thus newspapers ome standardized, like Ford cars, se parts are said to be available at -and-ten-cent stores, and have the flavor of cold buckwheat cakes.

Howe are some Kansas specimens. Both have become appanages of syndicates and punky. Whoever hears anything any more from a Cincinnati, Louisville, or Springfield, Massachusetts, newspaper? Yet once the exchange editors followed with eager shears the leaders of Murat Halstead, Colonel Henry Watterson, and Samuel Bowles. Their papers still exist, but life is gone from them. The Field Marshal rides no more, and the StarEyed Goddess of Kentucky sleeps with the daisies. The Springfield "Republican" lives on, but not up to its reputation. What has happened? Are the communities less intelligent, or are the editors.

The fault, perhaps, lies with both. We recall the Athenian jester who held up a dried fish by the tail and so caused an audience to turn away from the oratory of Anaximines. "See," he cried in triumph, "a dried fish is more interesting than Anaximines." To meet dried-fish competition editors have been swept off their feet and have followed the false gods to their own moral destruction. Their business managers are of the sort who are able to only sell circulation, and not results. The buying power of the mass has become the fetish of the advertiser,

land, and what "your Uncle Dudley" says is supposed to "go." But it is always what "Uncle Dudley" says, not the "Globe," which escapes responsibility -and power!

For, much as the critic may cry out against the anonymity of the press, that is the source of its might. The opinion of a great newspaper represents a consensus of the courage, the learning, the wisdom, and the judgment of the men who make it. An editorial signed John Smith is John Smith's opinion, and nothing more. There are plenty of John Smiths, but mighty few New York "Worlds" or Manchester "Guardians." Their words weigh accordingly.

"But," says the critic, "we should know who it is that attempts to influence us. Why should this writer who assails be allowed to hide behind the name of his newspaper?" For the good reason cited above, and for the further reason that the newspaper does not hide. It is the only force in the world that performs all its acts in the open. It needs more than the insight of an individual's view to stand guard over affairs of public concern. We look out for the locomotive, not the engineer.

OULD it not seem the first of all impulses on the part of the owner of a widely circulated publication to exert himself in the interest of his subscribers? Apparently it is not. The greater the circulation, the less appears to be the unselfish impulse. Eager minds do not develop with financial success, and money is notoriously timid. The monks who took vows of celibacy and poverty were on the right track. They know that singleness of purpose could not be maintained in any other way. Perhaps some time we shall see such a dedication to editorial duty, but it is not likely to appear in the daily field. The costs of operation are too great, the energy required can only be generated by industrial effort. Asceticism can have no place from now on in great establishments beyond the reportorial staffs. The boys. are, and probably will be, kept lean and hungry, like the pigs that hunt truffles under the oak trees in Picardy.

Thus the newspaper has come to make itself more of a convenience than an influence. It prints the department-store bargains and gives radio programs each day. It also chronicles with much detail the doings of the movie heroes and heroines, their hectic lives and complicated marital affairs. It also reveals in pages of agate the incomes of our fellow-citizens. Some news is printed if it happens early enough in the day to get in. Mo

declines to hurry for this purpose, and the bulk of it gets into "replate" editions that nobody reads, but which perfect the scores of the editors. This passion for early publication is responsible for much newspaper weakness, bad writing, and misinformation. It also leads to much forecasting which is not always correct in outcome, but which curtails the value of events in the editorial mind when the thing really comes to a conclusion. The last-minute morning paper no longer exists, except in the rural regions where people go to bed early and nothing happens. There they do get the Associated Press stuff in all editions. It sometimes takes a great metropolitan journal two days to catch up with the review of a play. The show does not get under way until the "morning paper" has gone to press. The editions thus issued are sent to unlucky mail subscribers and sold in the subways, where their first-page headlines are glanced at in the dim light by returning theater-goers and then are trampled underfoot. Much of the matter is railroaded and bristles with errors. To get a decent account of anything hap

W

pening after eight o'clock at night in New York is well-nigh impossible. If it gets in at all, it is usually telephoned from some booth uptown by a "kid” reporter and mangled by a "rewrite" man in the office.

This same "rewrite" man is a great offender. He all too frequently puts the reporter in a false position with the source of his information and makes him appear untrustworthy; all too frequently he affects a "style" that has no reflex in what the reporter himself would have written if properly trained and allowed to do his own work. Thus the reporter degenerates into "legs" and steadily increases in inefficiency. He does not learn his business and loses his individuality. So does the paper he works for.

day and a pillar of fire by night to gui people who are helpless without it on t right roads of life? What right has it be a mere medium of amusement, three-ringed circus exhibiting only antics of clowns? It was awarded 1 postal rates by the wise fathers that might fulfill its true mission. Jus enough, the Government is slowly cram ing the privilege. It sees no reason w car-loads of "Mutt and Jeff," "Pota and Perlmutter," or "Get-Rich-Qui Wallingford" should swamp the mails the interest of pocket-filling and to t moral detriment of the Nation. I clowns do the amusing in their prop field, inside the sawdust circles.

The country shivers at the thought an invasion of "Reds." It will r "recognize" Russia as being a land blood. It fears longer to receive imm grants unless morally vaccinated. Is perhaps, aware that it has sapped its o mental strength to an anæmic point accepting the kind of things that ha come to rule in American journalism a takes to the defensive by crawling in a hole?

HENEVER two or more football-minded men meet nowadays the subject of "Red" Grange is almost sure to come up for discussion. Is Grange a menace to college football? Or is he a downright blessing? I take the latter view most emphatically. For Halfback Grange has turned the glaring sunlight on the gross commercialism of college football. Sunlight is good for every ill of man or beast. It will be most beneficial for college football as well.

A most astute and successful football coach was quoted in the press recently somewhat as follows:

"The biggest menace to college football to-day is the yelping alumni. A team must win. A coach must turn out a winning team or the Roman mob turns thumbs down and off comes his head. The more idealistic things of football, such as manhood, character, and ability to stand punishment, are almost lost sight of in the everlasting cry of 'our team must win.'"

Where does Grange come in on this? Simply by furnishing good, hot copy for

far as the yelping alumni are concerne to win or not to win is not the question Not by a whole car-load of diplomas To win is the only question!

Why the Team Must Win

CAN

AN any one conversant with colleg sports deny that college football ha been perverted? Can any one learn o the salaries paid to coaches, trainers, an other staff officers without wonderin where the money comes from and why What's a few thousand dollars spent of equipment, special Pullman cars, or any thing else believed necessary for the ease and comfort of the football squad What's mere money, anyway, when the yelping alumni, aided and abetted by rabid undergraduates, must be satisfied The team must win, mustn't it?

The faculty, usually headed by som man whose chief job is to secure funds stands by in helpless amazement as col lege football continues to overshado other college activities, including the old fashioned one of imparting learning t the students. Many among the faculty

e openly in favor of the win-at-anyice policy. Those who are not keep eir own counsel lest curses be heaped on their heads. To be sure, several table exceptions to this statement are itters of record, but no concerted facy war has ever been waged against. e perversion of college football. Halfback Grange is a quite natural olution of the college football system. is simply the forerunner of other r players who will join professional ams. A star football player is glorid, deified, and his true importance on e campus magnified until all sense of lues is lost. Why not? The team ust win, musn't it? Then is the star ayer to be blamed for carrying on his od work after leaving school? Playing professional football is not shonorable, and if Grange's college aining best fitted him for carrying a gskin before the admiring eyes of his low-students why should he not keep carrying the pigskin before the ually admiring eyes of those who never tended a college? Is the money paid at the ticket window by college stunts and alumni any less negotiable an money paid in by those who never outed themselves hoarse for good old ma Mater?

If those who condemn Halfback ange, a clean exponent of the game, entering professional ranks will intelently consider all aspects of presenty college football, they surely must ce the blame upon the system now vailing in college athletics rather than on the pupil and product of that sys

he is told, along with many others, to turn in his suit. But he is still filled with ambition to play football, and makes a protest.

"Why can't I stay on the squad?" he asks.

"We have enough material without you players who made reputations with high school teams. We must spend our time developing them for next year's varsity." That's the answer he gets.

If he protests some more, he is given a highly beneficial lecture on how to be a freshman and how he should be glad to submerge his own identity in the major effort of turning out a winning team. So his football career is ended unless he cares to play on class teams in a hit-ormiss fashion without proper training or supervision. And only in a few colleges are class teams available for him to play with.

Generally speaking, his football playing ends at the moment he is told to turn in his suit so that the coaching staff can concentrate on the potential stars.

Do you see what I am driving at? The boys who actually need the coaching and the physical and mental development don't get it! The stalwarts who need it least get all of it! That's why I say that football in colleges has been perverted.

Give Them All a Chance

WHAT'S the remedy? Well, that

recent meeting of college representatives at Middletown, Connecticut, came near the solution when they adopted resolutions favoring a four-game schedule with neighboring colleges of similar prowess at the game. But I should go even further than that. I should recommend that the coaching staff organize as many campus teams as possible at the beginning of each season, without regard to the previous year's varsity. Games between these teams should be played as often as playingfield facilities would permit. coaches supervise these games, arranging the teams so that they will be evenly matched. Give every boy who wants to play the benefit of coaching and training. Keep these campus teams playing until the first of November. Keep out until the first of November. Keep out in front the idealistic things about foot

Let the

ET us take the case of a youngster V entering a big college. He is filled h ambition to play football. Let us ime he came from a high school -re he had played a fairly good game n his school team. He reports for the hman squad along with fifty other s. The coaches look over the squad, learn that many of the boys came preparatory and high schools which st of winning teams. Some have been cially urged to come to this particucollege because they were considered llent high school players. The play-ball-the courage it takes to lose as well who possess good reputations are kly singled out for the attention of coaching staff. Our boy from the -winning high school is shunted aside

the majority of others who are not idered worthy of much, if any, attenIn a few days after practice begins

as to win. Let the game develop manhood and character, as it so easily can.

Around the first of November let the head coach make his selections for the varsity, which would thus be a varsity in fact as well as in name. Those students not selected for the varsity squad should

be urged to continue playing on the campus teams. But even though the campus teams be disbanded, every student will have had his chance to play the game whether he is good enough for the varsity or not-and will be a better man because of this chance. Those selected for the varsity squad would be given final drills and welded into a team-not a highly polished machine whose only object is to win and advertise the college, but a team which will play for the game's sake, regardless of how many thousand spectators have paid money to see the stars perform.

My fanciful team is now ready to play two or three games on successive Saturdays in November. Let these games be played with natural rivals only! Each college has its own dearest enemy. Let the final game be between these bestloved rivals. Play these few games only on campus fields. Stop once and for all the ceaseless grind of training and the long trips. Stop making Roman holidays for the mob and the mob's golden tribute!

Keep scholastic requirements high for those finally chosen for the varsity. Put football back into its original place in the scheme of college things. Show the public that colleges are institutions of learning, after all, and that athletics are conducted not for the sole benefit of a few stalwart students who can win, but, on the contrary, for all students who stand in need of intelligent coaching, training, and physical and mental development.

J

Let's Kill a Custom

UST one thing more. Now that Walter Camp has passed on, let's stop this nonsense of choosing "All-American" teams, or any other kind of "All" teams. Walter Camp and All-American teams were synonymous. There is no one to take his place, as the 1925 selections so readily demonstrated. Even the gifted Walter Camp, during the last ten years of his life, must have realized that picking All-American teams was a superhuman task, and that his selections did not meet with favor everywhere. let's be reasonable and stop this peculiarly American brand of nonsense.

So

I hope this criticism of the greatest college game ever devised will provoke discussion. For by free discussion the friends of the game can help along the good work started by Halfback Grange. The yelping alumni need not fear professionalism if college football will cleanse itself.

Let's get back to normalcy!