is the horde that they fear-the swamping of our civilization by aliens in the mass. Their rule would be: Reduce the numbers and you reduce the danger.

Those who thus see primarily danger in immigration see also special danger in new forms of immigration. The more unfamiliar the type of immigrant, the more dangerous he seems to be. The American of English descent sees no danger in the English immigrant; the American of Irish descent sees no danger in the incoming man or woman of Ireland; the American of German descent sees no danger from the immigrant of Teutonic origin. On the whole, Americans see no great dangers from any of those peoples who have already become incorporated in the American population-the English, Scotch, Irish, Germans, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, and, on account of early colonial experiences, the Dutch and French; but it is the newer comers that excite distrust-to some degree the Italians and Portuguese, to whom we have not yet become altogether accustomed; and, to a much larger degree, the Jews from Russia, Rumania, and Poland, the Hungarians, Poles, and other Slavs, the Armenians and Greeks. So those who regard immigration as primarily a source of danger see special danger in mere unfamiliarity. It is the stranger that they fear. Their rule would be: Retard the incoming of the newer, stranger types, and you reduce the danger.

Those who look upon immigration in this way are favorably inclined to any method of exclusion that promises to be effective. Whether that method is a good one or not depends in their view not so much upon whether it will select the good from the bad. as upon whether it will reduce the number of immigrants and whether it will keep out especially the immigrants of a newer type.

It is the point of view of the exclusionists, if we may so term those who look at immigration in this way, that is embodied in the Immigration Bill just passed by the Senate. This fact is shown in most of the chief provisions of the bill, but is most emphatically shown in the provision that would establish the literacy test.

According to this provision no alien adult could be admitted without passing an examination in the reading of some language. With a few and not important exceptions all illiterate aliens over sixteen years of age would be excluded. This test would unquestion

ably have the effect of appreciably reducing the number of immigrants, and especially of keeping out the immigrants of the newer and stranger type. In the early days of the country it was natural that emigration should be particularly marked from those countries in which education created discontent and 'a spirit of pioneering; it was natural that this migratory movement should not affect until later the countries in which education was less common. It is the people, then, who are coming to this land of promise from countries in which there is the least promise who would chiefly be affected by this literacy test—and these are the people who seem strangest to The literacy test is thus typical of the exclusionist view.

us.

Over against this point of view, with its distrust of the immigrant and the consequent policy of exclusion, is the point of view which we like to think is more truly American.

It is not in numbers that the danger lies, and not even in racial or national types, but in the immigrant's character. The ideal immigration policy would keep out all the bad; but it equally would admit all the good. Who constitute the good immigrants?

First, those who are constitutionally sound in health. Health is essential for two reasons physical weakness and disease do not constitute a good heritage for future generations, and they do not constitute a help in the building up of the country. This Nation has a right to say that it will not turn itself into an almshouse for the support of those aliens who cannot support themselves; and it has the duty of saying that it must protect from disease and physical weakness those who are already here and their descendants.

Second, those who have the energy, foresight, and thrift to undertake the search for their own fortunes in a strange land, and to provide themselves with what is necessary for that undertaking.

Third, those who have good moral character and are free from the blight of crime or vice.

Fourth, those who are desirous and capable of becoming American citizens, and whose descendants are likely to become assimilated into the still formative National race of America.

Illiteracy is no test of physical fitnessthat is evident. It is no test of enterprise, for the man who has not learned to read may never have had the chance to learn, however enterprising he may be. It is no test of character; for the criminal may be the more dangerous because he is literate. It is

no test of the power of a man or his descendants to become truly American; for, though illiteracy is an obstacle to democracy, it is an obstacle that can be removed by the simple process of education.

What are the constructive and practical principles upon which the exclusion and admission of aliens should be based will be discussed in another editorial.

In the interest not only of those aliens who are looking across the ocean to America as a land of promise, but also in the interest of America herself, this Immigration Bill, passed by the House of Representatives and amended and passed by the Senate, should be defeated. If it cannot be defeated by the failure of the House and the Senate to agree, it can be, and we hope it will be, defeated by the interposition of President's Wilson's veto.

LAWS AND CHARACTER

Mr. Oliver Herford has a genius for turning staid proverbs into merry wisdom and bending experience to the joy as well as the instruction of the race. In this country, where many of us are so intent on educating ourselves that we cannot keep our hands off other people and are always trying to impose our wisdom on them, the philosopher who touches experience with a light hand and refrains from oppressing his fellows even in the interests of virtue adds to the joy of living, but goes largely unrewarded.

Life is certainly not a playground; but neither is it a penitentiary. If some people are too much at ease in Zion," many people have such a genius for making others uncomfortable that they are open to the suspicion of adding to the discomfort of the stool of penitence for the pleasure of it. To make virtue more difficult than it is, is neither wise nor helpful; and it must not be forgot ten that the real object of bringing the sinner to repentance is his deliverance from evil, not the pleasure of seeing him in sackcloth and ashes. The fatted calf was killed for the prodigal; there was so much pleasure in getting him back that his wandering was remembered only by himself. Putting thorns in the path of the returning sinner is itself a sin, often of ignorance, but sometimes of satisfaction in the humiliation of a fellowsinner who has gone further in the wrong way than some of the rest of us.

The fight against evil is one of the chief

occupations of the world, but there is a choice of methods. Some evils can be overcome by law, and at this moment many people seem to believe that the salvation of men is merely a matter of passing laws. As a result the country writes about twenty-five thousand laws a year, and is the greatest lawbreaker in the world! And the reason for this curious contradiction is obvious: our laws are far in advance of our character! We are trying to do by statute many things which can be done only by moral education.

Some one described the people who are voluble in pious talk and slovenly in conduct as having been "ironed before they were washed." We are doing a great deal of ironing in this country, but we need washing a great deal more than we need ironing. A man of wide observation recently said that the country is suffering chiefly from dishonesty, not of a class but of all classes, not of a section but of all sections. There is a great capital of integrity in this country, but there is also an immense amount of dishonesty. It is easy to point out the sins of the capitalists; the searchlight has been on them for a long time past; but the official reports on short weights and measures, on the adulteration of foods and medicines, on the use of drugs, on petty peculation in small as well as large communities in dealing with community affairs, show how widespread among the poor as well as among the rich, in the country as well as in the cities, is the lack of simple, elementary integrity. Many people are eloquent in denouncing railways, but regard the cheating of a road out of a fare as an achievement to be privately celebrated. We need laws, but our need of character is a great deal more pressing; we need the preaching of righteousness to others, but we need, above all things, to practice righteousness ourselves.

If we preached less and practiced more, the country would be not only a much better but a much pleasanter place to live in. It sometimes seems as if the Puritan habit of defining the will of God for other people had survived the Puritan endeavor to obey that will. If we were more eager to be good ourselves and less bent on making others good there would be fewer murders, breaches of trust, divorces, and mean little dishonesties in the country. "Make truth lovely, and do not try to arm her," is a rule of life as sound as it is winning and Christlike.

HE twenty-second week of the warDecember 30 to January 6-which nearly coincided with the first week of 1915, was marked by a good deal of action. It is true that in Flanders and along the northern slant of the French battle-line persistent bad weather kept the infantry pretty close to their trenches, while the artillery of both sides was banging half blindly through the mists; but in Alsace the French followed up their December advance and captured the town of Steinbach and the seemingly impregnable German positions near Cernay, and began a drive toward Colmar, on the road to Strassburg, the capital of the lost province. All Paris is a-tremble, expectantly waiting till she can fairly exult at a solid step toward the revanche. In the Caucasus the Russians and Turks fought in Russian territory with results yet uncertain. Austria had apparently abandoned her Servian campaign to concentrate her forces against Russia, but, despite this act of desperation, which opened the way for another invasion of the Dual Monarchy by the Heroic Guardian of the Balkans," the Czar's thousands were reported sweeping through Carpathian passes into Hungary and overrunning Bukowina. The Germans made material gains in another advance on long-coveted Warsaw.

THE LOSS OF THE FORMIDABLE

The most dramatic event of the week was the destruction of the British battle-ship Formidable in the Channel somewhere off the Devon coast, with the loss of all but 200 of her complement of 750 men. The British Admiralty, as we go to press, has not announced whether the ship got her deathblow from a mine or a submarine, but Berlin is claiming another triumph for her fleet of power-driven steel whales, and Paris despatches reinforce this claim. This coup puts Germany ahead in the naval duel with England, which bids fair to match for bitterness if not for duration the ancient rivalry between Carthage and Rome; for while Germany has lost thirty war-ships to England's seventeen, in men, tonnage, and armament Great Britain's

loss is the greater. However, it will be remembered that in the House of Commons on November 27, after the blowing up of the battle-ship Bulwark, a sister ship of the Formidable, Winston Churchill declared that so great was England's superiority in the number of war-ships under construction that she could afford to lose a superdreadnought each month for a year, even if Germany lost none, and yet maintain the same advantage which she held on August 4, 1914.

Indeed, within a year England will have added fifteen battle-ships to her fleet while Germany is adding three, and Germany must accelerate her "campaign of attrition" her efforts will be wasted.

or

To maintain her control of the sea Great Britain must be, and is, willing to sustain a number of annoying blows like the loss of the Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue, and of the Audacious and the Formidable. Nevertheless, there are several aspects of this latest loss which must try the tempers of the English Admiralty. If a submarine accounted for the Formidable, then the mine field laid by the English north of the Straits of Dover to keep these craft out of the Channel has failed in its purpose. There has already been evidence that German submarines have succeeded in keeping a patrol in the Channel-either by diving under the mines or slipping through themin the torpedoing of the refugee ship Admiral Ganteaume and the sinking of the cruiser Hermes and the gunboat Niger, as well as the destruction of the merchant ships Malachite and Primo off Havre. As nearly as one can determine, the Formidable went down at a point more than three hundred miles from the Belgian coast and more than five hundred miles from Germany's closest naval base. If she and the Audacious, which sank off the north coast of Ireland, were done for by submarines, the Germans are to be congratulated upon their daring in venturing so far abroad with these little gadflies of the sea. But even yet it will not do to herald the passing of the modern battle-ship before the submarine, for the English cruiser raids in the Bight of Heligoland in August and against

Cuxhaven the other day proved that it is possible for alert seamen in high-speed warships to keep out of the way of the slowmoving submarines.

On the other hand, if the Formidable was sunk by a mine, two explanations are possible. Either some of the British mines in the Straits of Dover have slipped their moorings and drifted east, or a German mine-layer, perhaps under neutral colors, has evaded the vigilance of the British patrol ships. Incidentally, although no one not in the confidence of the British Admiralty knows the exact disposition of these ships, or of the other vessels of the English fleet, the presence of the Audacious off North Ireland and of the Formidable near the Devon shore may indicate that Great Britain is keeping a large proportion of her navy near her own coasts. However that may be, the sporadic blowing up of English ships by hostile torpedoes and mines cannot be improving the morale of the men on the great gray ships cruising back and forth in the damp murk off the shores of the tight little island.”

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The only claims of gains by either the Germans or the Allies along the muddy battleline from the Aisne to the North Sea sound like the telegraphic reports of the progress of a football game. Fifty yards, fifty yards, fifty yards onward," is the refrain of the modern "Light Brigades," boring through the Flemish sand dunes. At this rate, if Germany is to be driven back to her former borders before peace is concluded, we may expect another Thirty Years' War, while if you postulate a cessation of hostilities only upon the capture of Berlin by the French and English, you may look for another War of a Hundred Years.

The second French invasion of Alsace has not yet penetrated as far as the first one, but apparently the thrust this time has more weight behind it, and, at any rate, the value of this enterprise cannot be gauged entirely by its material progress. From Belfort to Dunkirk, wherever Piou-Piou in the trenches hears that the tricolor is again in Alsace, he will take the news as a good augury and fight with renewed assurance that the gods and the larger interests are with him. Were Joffre's Were Joffre's men to make a clean sweep of the thirtymile-wide plain between the Vosges and the Rhine, from Colman to Mülhausen, all France would thrill with renewed confidence of ulti

mate victory, as we in the Northern United States thrilled after Gettysburg, and as Japan thrilled after Port Arthur.

This feat, however, is not so easy as it may seem to rocking-chair strategists in America. But with the Vosges behind them at Steinbach, the French now have driven in the edge of their wedge and can be counted on to fight for further gains with the renewed spirit of men who have taken up aggressive tactics after months of defensive warfare. The French victory on the Vosges is the only clear-cut advantage gained by either side west of the Rhine for several weeks.

TOUCH-AND-GO IN POLAND

From the outset the campaign in southern Poland and western Galicia has been a game of touch-and-go between the Russians and the Germans, with Cracow and Warsaw as their respective objective points. If the Russians were to take Cracow, the cradle of Polish liberty, which was given to Austria in 1846 by Russia and Prussia, all Silesia-a very wealthy district-would lie at their mercy, with the valley of the Oder open towards Berlin and the railway west of the Carpathians leading into Vienna. On the other hand, were the Germans to win Warsaw, the ancient capital of Poland, situated on a rolling plain beside the sluggish Vistula, they could paralyze the Russian communications in Poland, for from Warsaw railways run out like the ribs of an umbrella to Petrograd, Berlin, Danzig, Kiev, Posen, Breslau, and Odessa. Furthermore, without holding Warsaw it is impossible to control the Vistula, which carries the whole commerce of its own fertile valley.

Each time the Russians have threatened Cracow their attention has been distracted by German menaces against Warsaw, and every time that Hindenburg has rolled over against Warsaw he has been worried by the possibility of the Czar's men getting through Cracow and into Silesia before he could complete the investment of the ancient Polish capital. The contest reminds one of a game of hockey, with Cracow the goal defended by the Germans and Warsaw guarded by the Czar's men. Every time that either side has seemed about to score it has been suddenly forced to hurry back to defend its own goal.

Now the Russians are again sweeping against Cracow, which, it is worth remembering, held out for two months against the

manual of instructions which was evidently meant for distribution among the German gunners. This has been published in full by "Le Temps" of Paris. It begins by advising caution in the use of ammunition, "first, because the lessons of war are at variance with the teaching given in time of peace; second, because German industry, even when providing its maximum output, cannot indefinitely supply our army with ammunition."

There follows a recital of methods by which the expenditure of ammunition can be kept at a minimum :

"Never fire unless sure that the mark is worth while. Use projectiles appropriate for the result to be obtained. Do not fire at night, as observation is then impossible.

"When infantry is co-operating with artillery, the foot soldiers should begin the charge at once after the bombardment to get the fullest advantage from it. Strong positions are ready to be attacked after a bombardment of an hour or two. If the assault does not follow immediately, ammunition has been wasted. When on the defense wait for the right moment before opening fire. A long cannonade is a waste of ammunition."

The manual repeatedly cautions the German gunners against what the French call "arrosage," which means the maintenance of a veritable hail of shells over a given area to exterminate all life within it.

Military observers at the front, with both the British and French armies, have reported noticing a recent change in the use of artillery by the Germans. During the first months of the war the Germans were extremely lavish with ammunition, though hardly so wasteful as some untrained artillerists whom I saw with the Mexican revolutionary army nearly a year ago—who went at a supply of shrapnel like small boys with torches blundering into a cache of fireworks saved up against the Fourth of July, apparently caring little what they hit if they got plenty of flash, bang, and "hurrah" at their end of the firing range. During the heavy fighting of the first phases of the war the Germans took long chances, and were apparently willing to waste many shells for one hit; but lately they have been much more cautious, both with artillery and small-arm ammunition, although even with the latter they have not yet reached the point of applying Bunker Hill tactics and waiting to see "the whites of the enemies' eyes" before firing.

Last week I mentioned that, among other