uted to the fund, and these contributors are largely self-supporting women on small or moderate incomes. The story of the fire and of the way in which the emergency was met furnishes the most convincing evidence of the soundness of the educational spirit and methods of Wellesley College, and is a noble addition to the endowment of the College.

THE SHIP PURCHASE BILL

In the Administration's Ship Purchase Bill as originally planned there was great peril to this country. Whether that peril has been averted by the revolt of seven Democrats in the Senate last week, which seemed to insure the recommitting of the bill to a Senate Committee for revision, we are not sure. The sudden turn of affairs which has interfered with the progress of the bill may, it is conceivable, be followed by another turn of affairs that will tend to hasten it toward enactment. If the country at large had realized the evil possibilities involved in this measure, public opinion would have demanded what the party in power has been unwilling to allow thorough and deliberate discussion of the proposal or its complete abandonment. As it is, the country owes a great deal more than it knows to the Republican Senators who have stood stanchly against the rushing of this bill through the Senate, and to those seven Democratic Senators who, at considerable political sacrifice, have broken party bonds in order to serve an interest larger than that of party-the interest of the country as a whole.

It is not possible to understand what peril there was and still may be-in this Ship Purchase Bill without keeping in mind what it is that makes the present war radically different from every other great international war that was ever fought.

This difference is not a difference of guns or armaments, a difference of strategy or tactics, a difference of mechanics as exemplified by aircraft, motor transport, and wireless telegraphy. It is a difference in the character of the participants-a difference in the nature of the armies engaged.

This difference is inscribed in huge characters upon the face of the Continent of Europe those lines of trenches stretching from the Alps to the Channel and across dis

united Poland. Never before have such vast masses of men been engaged in war. Fighting is no longer carried on by armies as they used to be known, but by armies of a new kind. In earlier days the soldier, whether professional or volunteer or conscript, was marked out from the rest of the people. To-day every able-bodied man in such a country as Germany or France is, will be, or has been a soldier. In earlier days the ruler went forth to battle, leading as his troops a body of specialists, if we may so call them. To-day nation rises against nation. In earlier days it was easy to distinguish between the combatant and the non-combatant. To-day in such a country as Germany or France that is an exceptional family which has not supplied or is not prepared to supply to the army a fighting man. Once on a time soldiers constituted as distinct a class in the country as the policemen, or the office-holders, or the lawyers. To-day in such countries as France, policemen, office-holders, lawyers, and all other classes, including the clergy, are (with the exception of those who for some reason are incapacitated) soldiers. This change is one phase of the growth of democracy. Just as the people no longer leave their public affairs to the management of a class, so the people of the Continental countries of Europe have taken from the warrior class and to themselves the waging of warfare.

To this rule of popular warfare England, of all the countries involved, is the sole exception; and this is due to her isolation, and is evident in the minor part which her armies have taken in the fighting. Moreover, as the war proceeds it will become more and more an exception in form rather than in fact. Of the other countries involved the rule is without exception. It is no longer a selected body of troops that is fighting for France, but it is Frenchmen; it is no longer a selected body of troops that is fighting for Germany, but Germans. This change in the character of warfare was foreseen. As a French military writer says in a book published before the war: "It must not be forgotten that it is not 200,000 or 300,000 men, but 1,500,000 or 2,000,000 who, for instance, will be engaged on either side in a Franco-German war; and we may anticipate a battle which will bring to grips 3,000 000 of men on a front of 150 to 250 miles." This was foreseen because such countries as France and Germany have made military duty a part of

the obligation of every competent man. this respect, therefore, the army of monarchical and oligarchical Germany is as democratic in its make-up as the army of republican France. Indeed, perhaps of no country in Europe can it be said with so little qualification that the nation's army is the nation in arms as Germany. Of this fact the Germans are proud. The semi-official pamphlet entitled "Truth about Germany: Facts about the War," repeatedly calls attention to this character of the German army. It speaks of the "universal military service, which, as is well known, requires every able-bodied German to serve a number of years with the colors, and later to hold himself ready, first as a reservist, then as a member of the Landwehr, and finally as a member of the Landsturm, to spring to arms at the call of his supreme war lord, the German Emperor." It quotes Bismarck's saying to the effect that "the German army, since it is an army of the folk itself, is not a weapon for frivolous aggression." It speaks of this war as "the people's war in the truest sense of the word," and says that in order to be free the Germans have been forced to become a nation of soldiers."

What has all this to do with the American Ship Purchase Bill?

This change in the character of armies engaged in war changes the position of every neutral country. In the old days, when the army of a nation could be easily distinguished from the people of the nation, it was comparatively easy to separate supplies intended. for the people from the supplies intended for the army. To-day, when the people are the army, this is no longer possible.

Therefore the duties of a neutral Government, at best beset with difficulties, are made more difficult and delicate by the new conditions of warfare. What shall we say of a neutral Government which under such circumstances undertakes to add to its duties new complexities?

Merchants in a neutral nation are free to supply to any belligerent they can safely reach munitions of war and other contraband. This right of private parties is unquestioned, and it is a right that should be preserved. If it did not exist, every small and peaceably inclined nation would be forced to build up a great machinery for the manufacture of its own war materials. The denial of this right to neutral merchants would be a great in

centive to the expenditure for armaments on the part of the very nations who are least inclined to military aggression. But this right to supply munitions of war and other army supplies to a belligerent is a right that should be exercised only by private concerns and never by a neutral Government. Under modern conditions in which such a belligerent as Germany is a nation in arms, all food, all material for clothing, and a great many other articles of commerce may well be considered contraband. If, for example, cotton is shipped to France from America, it is certain that that cotton will help to clothe Frenchmen in the trenches. American merchants have a right to help clothe those Frenchmen who for the time being are soldiers, but the American Government has no such right; and if it undertook to do so it would occasion a just cause of grievance to the German people. Every ounce of food that goes into Germany helps to sustain the German people, and as they are a people in arms, it helps to sustain the German army. The American merchant

has a right to ship such food to Germany if he can; but if the American Government undertakes to do so, it occasions a just cause of grievance to the Allies.

This is exactly what the Administration's Ship Purchase Bill, in its original form at least, would have enabled the American Government to do. And any measure that would enable the American Government to do this would inevitably arouse suspicion and unfriendly feeling in the minds of the people of that nation whose enemy would be most likely to benefit. It happens that Germany would be most likely to benefit; but the peril and the difficulty would be just the same if it were England or France that would be most likely to benefit.

Let us suppose for an instance a situation contrary to present facts. Let us suppose that Germany by her great skill in devising and in navigating a new kind of submarine had succeeded in isolating Great Britain. Suppose, as a consequence, British commerce had been driven from the Atlantic. Suppose that British shipping were virtually interned in American harbors. And then suppose that such a bill as this Ship Purchase Bill were to be passed, which provides for the purchase of ships by the American Government for use in transoceanic trade. Would not there be a just complaint on the part of Germans that the United States was undertaking to offset the advantage which Germany had won through

its skill in submarine warfare? Suppose such a ship owned by the American Government and loaded, not with munitions of war, like cannon or ammunition, but with food and cloth, were held up by a German submarine and seized. Would not American public opinion become aroused at German defiance of the American Government? Could anything be more surely devised to create misunderstanding and enmity between Germans and Americans? Let those German-Americans who have been advocating the Ship Purchase Bill contemplate such a situation as that.

As a matter of fact, the situation is reversed. German shipping is virtually interned in American harbors, and German steamships are for sale to any one who wishes to buy. England, by her naval superiority, has swept the seas of German commerce, and is able to intercept practically every vessel that is bound with contraband to a German port. With the seizure of stores of food in Germany by the German Government for the sake of conserving the food supply of the army, there is additional reason for regarding all food supplies as contraband. The private merchant who wishes to risk the purchase of a German ship now in an American port, and load it with food supplies for Germany, is well within his rights if he takes the risk; but he has no ground for complaint if, when he encounters a British cruiser, his vessel and its freight are seized by the British Government. But suppose it were a vessel belonging, not to a private concern, but to the Government of the United States. We could not expect any other outcome but the inflaming of British sentiment against the United States and the inflaming of American sentiment against Great Britain.

It has been said that such a course on the part of the United States would not lead to war, because as soon as an American Government vessel was seized by Great Britain the rights in the case would be the subject of argument before a British prize court, and if the decision went against the United States the matter could be submitted to arbitration. True enough, so far as the legal questions involved are concerned, but not true at all so far as those deeper questions of national sensibility are concerned. Moreover, there are other considerations besides the chance of war. To create unfriendliness in a friendly people for the sake, not of a principle, but of

an imagined money profit is to commit the sort of blunder that has been called worse than a crime.

Moreover, the United States has its own future to think of. The sympathies of the people of America have been overwhelmingly for the cause of the Allies, because the American people believe that the Allies are fighting for democracy against autocracy. They cannot help feeling that way, and therefore they cannot help the unfriendliness of the Germans, however much they may deplore it. The United States has failed, on the other hand, to give that support to the cause of Belgium which many English people believe it ought to have given. As a consequence, there has grown up in England a feeling of disappointment in America which in some cases is akin to unfriendliness. Whether the United States could have helped that or not, it is too late now to prevent it altogether. Russia does not forget that we abrogated an important treaty with her in a spirit of criticism and reproof. Japan does not forget that her citizens have been treated with suspicion in this country without any exhibition of effective interference on the part of our Government. And all of these countries, as well as other countries, have found little to please them in our attitude toward Mexico while the property and the persons of their citizens have suffered. We have not been storing up a treasury of friendship in other nations. It cannot be that they are all at fault and we are right; but whether they are or not, we have no great margin of friendliness on which to draw. To invite further friction would be folly; what shall we say of an attempt to buy such friction by the payment of millions of dollars? That is what the Ship Purchase Bill was and still may be.

When this war is over, we shall still have to live in the same world with the belligerents. If we have to suffer any consequence from the unfriendliness of any one of them, let us see that we do it in a matter, not of dollars, but in a matter of principle. And if the United States is to have any part in the attempt to bring about a just peace, as President Wilson believes that it shall have, it will not be by inviting the suspicion of any of those nations that are now in the struggle.

On that day when the Ship Purchase Bill finally expires there will be good reason for every patriotic American to breathe a sigh of relief.

THE VETO OF THE IMMI

GRATION BILL

Among President Wilson's state papers few will rank with his veto of the Immigration Bill. It may fairly be called a great. document. Its greatness is twofold. It is one of the most happily and effectively expressed statements made by a President whose felicity of phrase is unusual; that in the first place.. In the second place, it records one of the most important of his Executive acts. It would not be unreasonable to count this act as the most important in his career as President.

Few Presidents have shown

reluctance to exercise the veto power as has President Wilson. His conception of the close connection between the executive and the legislative branches of the Government has made him feel that such disagreement between Congress and the President as. is indicated by a veto is something to be greatly deplored and avoided if possible. That is why at the very outset he expresses his "unaffected regret" that he has felt compelled to veto the bill. But he puts so potently the reasons why the bill should be vetoed that we hope those members of Congress who have not felt the force of those reasons will feel them now.

The two points. "of vital consequence which he selects for disapproval are the two points which have occasioned alarm in the minds of many who have watched with anxiety the progress of this bill from its introduction to its reception by the President.

The first point that he speaks of is the most important-the provision respecting the exclusion of revolutionists. Of this the President says: "It seeks to all but close entirely the gates of asylum which have always been open to those who could find nowhere else the right and opportunity of constitutional agitation for what they conceive to be the natural and inalienable rights of men. . . ." It is this provision which, if it had been enacted, would have subjected every such revolutionary as Kossuth, or Carl Schurz, or Tschaikovsky, to a secret trial without counsel, and an unappealable decision to return him to the hands of the tyrannous Government which he had opposed. It is a monstrous provision. President Wilson's condemnation of it ought to be fatal to it.

The other point that he speaks of is the

Of

provision establishing the literacy test. this he says that "it excludes those to whom the opportunities of elementary education have been denied, without regard to their character, their purposes, or their natural capacity." Though the arguments for this provision have appealed to many people. whose intelligence and Americanism are unquestioned, they are specious; and President Wilson's statement of the case which we have quoted puts the real nature of that provision in a nutshell. And President Wilson goes to the root of the matter in pointing out that the literacy test is a test, not of selection, but merely of restriction. And he adds: "If the people of this country have made up their minds to limit the number of immigrants by arbitrary tests, and so reverse the policy of all the generations of Americans that have gone before them, it is their right to do so. I am their servant, and have no license to stand in their way. But I do not believe that they have." We do not believe that they have, either. And on this ground President Wilson stands with President Taft and President Cleveland.

No man in Congress who votes to override the President's veto of this bill and to enact its un-American, un-Democratic, unRepublican, unjust provisions, should fail to be severely called to account by his constituents.

SOME OLD NOVELS

The announcement of the death of Miss Anne Warner, at the age of eighty-seven, recalls a group of stories read with deep interest by our fathers in the fifties and sixties of the last century, and now as completely out of fashion as the coats and gowns worn when "The Wide, Wide World was as provocative of tears as was Miss Kate Claxton's acting in "The Two Orphans " in the seventies; it was said that in the throng that crowded Union Square on a late Saturday afternoon those who had seen that emotional drama could be recognized by the condition of their eyes. There had been good, though not great, fiction since the deliIcate art of Hawthorne had touched the imagination of American readers with its crepuscular charm, but the popular novels in those primitive days, unvexed by monthly reports of the "best sellers," were as remote in quality and style from "The Scarlet Letter " as is "The Eyes of the World" from

Men and women were not ashamed of tears when, earlier in the century, "Charlotte Temple" appealed to the emotions; and they were not frightened into good taste when Poe amused himself by tearing that absurd story "Norman Leslie to tatters. There were Americans who knew and loved good writing, but the average reader was as innocent of art feeling as the Pension Office in Washington or the Post-Office in New York is innocent of any semblance of good architecture. And, to make matters worse, people loved to weep. To-day many of the novels which run into large editions indicate that people no longer weep; they swear!

"The Wide, Wide World," "Queechy," "The Hills of the Shatemuc," which some of us found in our grandfathers' libraries, were gentle, well-bred stories written by two refined gentlewomen of the old school. They were as far removed from some of the women who are trying to convince the world that what they call free love has any relation to freedom or love as their stories are from such extraordinary examples of disrobing in public as "Three Weeks." It was possible to read the novels of the Misses Warner and not feel the need of immediate fumigation. When one reads Mrs. Parnell's account of her acquaintance with her late husband, one understands how Adam and Eve felt when they suddenly realized that they were naked. We began by nibbling at the fruit of the tree of knowledge of evil and disrobed so slowly that we do not realize how far we have gone in the direction of nudity until we compare some of the novels of to-day with some of the novels of day before yesterday.

"The Wide, Wide World" and "Queechy" were as tearful as they were gentle and clean; their heroines wept freely and fainted often. Man was an object of fascinating terror to them, a being whose appearance was greeted by blushing and a shrinking modesty which is now only a memory; and the men were often prigs of an intolerable loftiness of bearing. In one of the stories a theological student black with broadcloth and rigid with professional dignity is parting

for a time from the ingenuous girl to whom he has "plighted his troth." She is a human creature and tries to embrace him. He gently but firmly disentangles himself and says:

My little children, keep yourselves from idcls." It is a very lofty and affecting scene, and one small boy who read it felt that he was in the presence of a superior being. How unlike the superman of to-day!

These fine old absurdities have gone into the attic, with the old bonnets and the preposterous waistcoats and high hats of the mid-Victorian period. Many of the popular novels of to-day are cheap and showy and vulgar; a few are indecent and offensive to every instinct of wholesome thinking and living; but, compared with "Queechy" and "The Wide, Wide World," and the stories of Mrs. Ann S. Stephens and Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, which succeeded them in popular favor, they are much more alive. quickened pace of the world has imparted rapidity to the contemporary novel; even when it is devoid of art it often has vitality. Life is the source of art, and when life stirs, even in crude forms, there is hope for the future.

The

Thackeray gave great offense to local patriotism in a Southern city when, in answer to the question, "What do they think of Miss Evans in England?" he answered, "They do not think of her at all." "Beulah" and "St. Elmo " showed wider range of reading than "Retribution" and the other fifty or sixty stories which bore Mrs. Southworth's name, but they are written in a preposterously inflated style, pretentious, rococo, and as "colorful " as early Pullman or mid-North German Lloyd; a kind of decorated encyclopædia style, highly impressive to the intellectually immature. One small boy who recalls the spell they cast upon him can think of nothing that seemed to him so tremendous and overpowering until, later, he fell upon "Faust" for the first time.

With "The Eyes of the World" ravaging the taste of the "big public to-day," one wonders if the taste of that public has improved; but, recalling even the most uninspired "best seller," it is evident that there has been a gain not only in vitality but in simplicity. Mr. Howells, whose work is literature and has little in common with many popular novels, has not preached and practiced the gospel of sincerity and naturalness in vain.