"When you're traveling to Los Banos, Dos Palos, or Gustine,

Or any of the stations that are strung along between,

You get a sandwich egg,

Or a storage chicken leg, While you're speeding through the valley of the San Joaquin.

All aboard for Alameda, waiter, bring a ham-onrye,

All out for Goshen Junction, how's the huckleberry pie?

You can have a roll or muffin,

Or a slice of veal with stuffin' While the locomotive's puffin' through Madera on the fly.

Change cars for Sacramento, have some sugar in your tea;

Next stop is Modesto, cottage cheese and cream for three:

You can eat from Niles to Ceres, At a pace that never wearies, And a little coin will feed you from Fernando to the sea."

On the first of last month the Pennsylvania Railroad put on its service between New York and Philadelphia a lunch car very similar to that of the Southern Pacific. It seems to The Outlook unfortunate, however, that the Pennsylvania has not instailed the same lowpriced menu that the Southern road has adopted; in this luncheon car the same prices are charged as in the regular dining cars. seems to The Outlook that this robs the lunch car of its chief point of value to the public. A picture of the interior of this car appears on another page.

It

Any institution that tends to reduce the cost of living is desirable in this age, and such is the low-priced quick-lunch car. There is no doubt that the installation of such cars would be greeted favorably everywhere by a large class of people who have to travel, but who shy at dining cars as beyond their means.

MINISTERS AND AGRICULTURE

IN CALIFORNIA

Between four and five hundred California ministers, representing all the sects in the State, were entertained from December 1 to December 5 by the University of California at its Farm School near the little town of Davis. The railways gave them free transportation and the University furnished them with free beds and meals. The meeting was called Ministers' Week, and its purpose was to make a closer connection between the organized work of the ministry and the organized

work of the College of Agriculture for community welfare.

The initial idea of the meeting came from the Rev. F. I. Drexler, who had been brooding over the typical little white church of the country neighborhood. "standing on its hilltop in magnificent isolation from the every-day interests of its community," and who wrote to President Benjamin Ide Wheeler to ask if the University could not do more to help the social life of the rural districts and at the same time to help the church to realize itself as a social center. Dean Thomas Forsythe Hunt, of the University's College of Agriculture, was planning new departures in extension work, and President Wheeler asked him to consult with Mr. Drexler.

A CLASS OF

MINISTER-STUDENTS

As finally worked out, Ministers' Week was much such a conference as those recently held at Amherst and Cornell, an account of which appeared in The Outlook of August 30, though it was probably unique in the number of lectures devoted to technical agricultural problems. It amounted, in fact, to a brief continuation school, not in theology but in agriculture. All branches of rural sociology are taught in the modern agricultural college, and of course the clergymen gathered at the University of California Farm School in Davis were deeply interested in lectures on rural hygiene and sanitation, community work in country schools, and ornamentation of home and school grounds; but one of the surprises of the meeting was the zest with which these ministers attended demonstrations or lectures on judging beef, cattle, plant breeding, soil formation, poultry raising, irrigation, citriculture, plant diseases, the handling and storing of fruit, and other technical farm problems. Every one seemed to have taken to himself Mr. Drexler's brusque statement that when a rainister can talk to a man about that man's business without making a fool of himself, he gains that man's respect." Every talk was interrupted by keen questions from the crowd which gathered around the speakers at the close of each lecture. The evening meetings were devoted entirely to the country life movement in its socia! aspects. Three round-table discussions were devoted to the social activities of the rural church.

The University Farm at Davis is only one

of the various units which make up the College of Agriculture; the Farm School itself is comparatively new and still a small institution. To make room for the ministers the boys in this school gave up their beds and slept in cots set up in the basements of the dormitories and in tents. Boys volunteered

as extra waiters in the dining-room; boys lent baseball suits to the ministers when a preachers' nine was organized to play against the students. Good fellowship and gayety were everywhere, mingled with eagerness to get the most out of an unusual and unexpected opportunity.

Many of the ministers went home hoping to have the talks which had interested them most repeated in their own communities. The majority seemed to have gained a more or less definite plan for broadening and vivifying the social organization around them. One man said that he had walked fifteen miles over a mountain to reach the railway, and might have to walk twenty miles back, as his wife would not know when to meet him with a horse; but the twenty miles would be lightly walked, for he was going home to start a farmers' club and some sort of civic league. Nearly every man took down a list of books and bulletins which would be useful reading in his community, and the spirit of the meeting was expressed by one minister who said, Religion is relationship." Another said, "In the year 1913 science has discovered the church."

AN ACTORS' TRADE UNION

"The only classes of workers that haven't organized for self-protection long ago are actors and washerwomen, and now even we are beginning to get together," recently declared Mr. Francis Wilson, President of the Actors' Equity Association, in commenting upon the turn of a long downtrodden wormthe actor. In America, with the centralization of capital and the crystallization of class feeling have come strikes with increasing frequency in widely divergent trades and industries. We have had miners' strikes, textile workers' strikes, and strikes of railway men, of course, and more recently we have seen waiters and even barbers at war with their employers. But does any one remember a widespread strike of actors? Have the boards ever been empty while Roscius and his fellows fought for shorter hours and higher wages? Never, that we remember,

and never will they be, we hope, for the play's the thing, and many would rather be obliged to eat from sideboards and do their own barbering than to miss their evening at the theater. Yet with the formation of the Actors' Equity Association for the protection of the members of the profession against theatrical managers an actors' strike becomes not an improbability.

The abuses which the Actors' Equity Association is fighting are many and long-standing, but their existence is due wholly to the passiveness and faint-heartedness of the actors themselves. An incapacity for co-operation seems to be one of the traits of the artistic temperament. At any rate, all past attempts of players on the legitimate stage to organize have failed. In view of this fact, the success of the present movement is all the more notable.

The Actors' Equity Association, founded for the protection of the rank and file of the profession by a number of actors whose reputation made them virtually independent of theatrical managers, has set out to combat, first of all, certain faults in the contract system. It has made the following concrete demands:

First, that transportation expenses to and from all points "on the road" and the city in which a company is organized be provided to all members of a company.

Second, that no actor shall be forced to give more than three weeks' rehearsals without compensation.

Third, that there shall be a two weeks' notice of dismissal.

Fourth, that there shall be extra pay for extra performances, and full salary for all weeks played.

Fifth, that actresses shall not be forced to bear the expenses of an unlimited stage wardrobe.

These provisions have already been the rule with some managers, including, it is said. Belasco, Ames, Frohman, Brooks, and Fiske, and several others have already agreed to grant the demands of the actors.

For the payment of slight dues legal protection and advice is assured to members of the Association, who already number more than a thousand. Unlimited funds are assured by the fact that at any time a production could be arranged with a cast of an all-around brilliancy never before equaled in the United States.

The Outlook believes in the right of all

labor to organize; and even though the artist has certain rewards which the factory laborer, for instance, does not have, there is no reason why artists should not unite for common protection, if in so doing they do not degrade their calling. Certainly in the dramatic profession an organization that will not only shield its members from outside aggression but that will discipline them and build up an esprit de corps as well is needed. Incidentally, in working out their own salvation the players may bring about certain great benefits for the theater-going public.

AN ART GALLERY IN A SCHOOL

A municipal art gallery in a public school is a new thing, at least for New York City. The new Washington Irving High School, the plans of which provided for such a gallery, recently held its first loan exhibition.

This school is situated in the vicinity of many large mercantile and manufacturing establishments, and invitations to the exhibition sent to these places were freely accepted; during the first week it is estimated that no fewer than twelve thousand visitors passed through the galleries. The traditional coldness of a large institution is delightfully absent from the Washington Irving art gallery; a huge fireplace with a cheerful blazing fire is the first thing to greet the visitor's eye on a winter day. The exhibition rooms are on the first floor; they open directly on the street; and they are so arranged that they can be kept open for visitors throughout the day without interfering with class-room work. An exhibition of the work of two rising young American artists, Mr. Hermann V. Murphy and Mr. Ettor Caser, filled the walls and aroused interested comment. This initial exhibition will be followed by two others already arranged; and it is hoped to secure the co-operation of the Metropolitan Museum and other great repositories of art in lending some of their unused treasures from time to time for the benefit of residents of downtown districts who find it difficult to visit the distant museums.

The Washington Irving school embodies in many respects the new idea that the school-house is to become the people's social, recreational, and intellectual center. It has a fine hall that seats nearly a thousand people ; in this are given lectures, moving-picture entertainments, and concerts. It has a large assembly room in which dances, under care

ful chaperonage, are given once a week. There is also an employment bureau for the benefit of pupils who are leaving and who wish to obtain situations. Well-lighted rooms in which the work of pupils in the various departments is shown as a permanent exhibition are provided.

The opportunities offered for the advancement of art through wisely planned exhibitions in such a school may be realized when it is learned that this great educational building houses nearly seven thousand pupils and has a teaching staff of almost three hundred.

PRACTICAL CONSERVATION

We have heard the objection from many practical business men that the policy of the "conservation of National resources" has been advocated too much by theorists and visionaries. Too little account, they say, has been taken by the Government of the pressing daily material needs of the farmer, the miner, and the manufacturer, whose business, life, and welfare depend almost wholly upon the use of our natural resources. There is undoubtedly considerable ground for this objection. It must be remembered, however, that no practical application of any principle can be effectively made until the theory of that principle has been carefully and scientifically worked out. We could not have had the electric light in our homes and offices if the theorists had not first worked out the laws of electricity in their laboratories.

So the first task of the conservationist was to create and foster public opinion to believe in the theoretical principle that it is the business of the people, through the agency of Government, to protect their own welfare by stopping the waste and destruction of those natural resources which form the essential material basis of our social and National life.

The second task is the practical application. of the principle, and the time has now come for taking hold of that task in earnest.

The Government officer upon whom devolves the greatest responsibility both for the theoretical statement and the practical application of the doctrine of the conservation of National resources is the Secretary of the Interior. It is fortunate for the country that the present Secretary, Franklin K. Lane, is pre-eminently a man who by education and experience understands both phases

of the question. This is shown by his annual report, just published, which is so readable and understandable that any periodical of the day would have been fortunate if it could have printed it as a popular article.

Although Secretary Lane represents a change in political administration, he represents no reversal of the general policy which has been developing for the past ten years in this country.

Mr. Lane was an accomplished journalist on the Pacific coast before he became a lawyer, was a successful lawyer before he became Chairman of the Inter-State Commerce Commission, and from that Commission was promoted to his present office. He therefore has the legal mind for the apprehension of a principle, the journalist's ability to state a principle so that the layman can understand it, the Westerner's knowledge of what National resources mean to National prosperity, and the railway man's comprehension of the problems of production and transportation.

The text of his report is that the West is now reconciled to the change in attitude of the Government toward the public lands and the wealth that those lands contain. The West, he says, no longer asks that the Government shall give away the land and its wealth to the private individual. It is reconciled to the Government making all proper safeguards against all monopoly.

But it asks that the machinery be promptly established in law by which the land may be used. And this demand is reasonable."

Having announced his text; Mr. Lane proceeds to make a practical application of it. The four main heads of the application are coal lands, oil lands, water power sites, and Alaska. To all these sources of natural wealth he would apply the leasing and royalty system. He advocates using coal; he utters a warning against hoarding it under the "fear that some day the coal supply may be exhausted." For the wheels of industry will not cease nor our houses go unlighted and unheated so long as dams may be built upon our streams."

We have tried two plans of dealing with coal lands, both of which have been unsatisfactory. The first was to give away public lands without consideration of the contents of those lands; the second is to sell the land at a price based on a scientific estimate of contents. The first has led to coal monopoly by private interests; the second has led to

the purchase of coal land by private owners who hold it undeveloped for future increase in value. In the Secretary's opinion, the proper solution of the problem is to have the Government lease the coal lands to private operators for a fixed term of years at a modest royalty, the terms of the lease reserving to the Government some measure of control over operation. He recommends that only a limited tract of coal land should be leased to each operator.

He applies the same principle to oil lands. He would license the private prospector to search for oil on exclusive tracts for fixed periods perhaps two years, and if oil is discovered he would permit the prospector to market it on a royalty paid to the Govern ment. He refers to the great advance in oil-burning and gasoline-burning engines on both land and sea as an illustration of the need, on the one hand, of thwarting monopoly, and, on the other, of promoting production. The lease-and-royalty system would accomplish both these ends.

How to deal with water power sites is, the Secretary admits, one of the most perplexing problems that confronts his department, but the principle which he applies to the problem is clear. Do not permit private power companies, which already hold the most accessible power sites in, the country, to obtain a monopolistic control of the remainder; and at the same time do not assume so forbidding an attitude towards private enterprise and private capital that there shall not be a further and rapid development of our water powers for making electricity. Mr. Lane's solution is to lease water power sites for a term of years at a merely nominal rental; to give the private company practically the entire proceeds of the plant, subject to a State regulation as to prices of the electric current; but to agree in the lease that the reservoirs, dams, water rights, and rights of way shall revert to the Government at the end of fifty or sixty years, or that the Government may buy the complete plant at an appraised price at any time after twenty years.

We have left to the last the most important application which Secretary Lane makes of his theory of Government regulation of National resources-namely, his proposal as to Alaska.

Alaska is, to use Secretary Lane's words, "the largest body of unused and neglected land in the United States." Its actual

riches in fisheries and its potential riches in agriculture have already been proved. How rich it is in gold, copper, coal, oil, iron, and zinc no one knows. All we know is that it is richer in mineral promise than any other section of the United States. The Government fortunately, and commendably, has taken steps to prevent the exploitation of these great riches for the benefit of the privileged few, but it has done little to provide for their productive development for the benefit of the many.

How can exploitation be prevented and development be promoted at the same time?

Secretary Lane would have a board of directors or a commission created by Congress, the members to be appointed by the President. "Into the hands of this board or commission," he says, "I would give all the National assets in that Territory to be used primarily for her improvement. . . . Congress should determine in broad outline the policy which this board in a liberal discretion should elaborate and administer, much as is done in the Philippines."

There are, however, two things which should be done at once in Alaska, without waiting for the creation of an Alaskan commission. First, the Federal Government should undertake the construction and operation of a system of trunk line railroads in Alaska; and, second, the rich Alaskan coalfields should at once be opened to private development and operation under the leasing system.

We have here endeavored to give merely an outline of a report of twenty-six pages which the Secretary says is in itself the merest outline of the work and hopes of his department. Every man interested directly or indirectly in the greatest economic problem in this country to-day-the problem of the readjustment of the relation between Government and business-should read this report. As we said in the beginning, it is as interesting as a magazine article. It does not mention the "New Freedom," but it embodies the only principle upon which the "New Freedom" can be established.

We cannot have industrial freedom if the Government endeavors to lash and enslave private initiative, private enterprise, private efficiency, and private profit wherever they show themselves.

Real industrial freedom and prosperity can come only from individual and private energy so regulated by Government super

vision that it shall be for the advantage not of one individual or of a group of individuals, but of all the individuals-that is to say, the Nation.

LETTERS TO UNKNOWN
FRIENDS

In your remarks in The Outlook of October 25 last you said much that was deeply interesting but painful and distracting. "From a child I have known the Scriptures," and it is very clear to my mind that our Saviour taught us to look upon God as our Heavenly Father in whose house are "many mansions," who so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son into the world to bring us into everlasting life. Those who have known the tender love of an earthly father can let the imagination (by which we take hold of things unseen) mount heavenward until we can conceive the presence of our Father in heaven, who made man in his own image, and of whom Stephen said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God."

Our Saviour said, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God," but how can they if there is no "beatific vision"?

How can we love God with all our heart, as we are told to do, if, instead of God the Father, to whom Christ taught his disciples to pray, and who said, “This is my beloved Son," there is only in his place. a glorified mist filling the universe, and from which come emanations of strength and purity and goodness and other wonderful attributes of which all mankind may feel the influence?

When, instead of our Heavenly Father, who has been our strength and support in hours of anguish, we have only a "Universal Presence" given us, we can exclaim, as did the women at the sepulcher, "They have taken away our Lord, and we know not where they have laid him!"

I know I am talking on great mysteries, which faith alone can reveal to us, but think how wonderful and comprehensible are the revelations of science in these days, so we can easily believe that God can be in heaven his dwelling place" and in touch with all his creation at the same time.

Your desire for a definite image of God is almost universal, and it has led men in all ages and nations to form images to serve as symbols or interpreters of the Deity, to which they have often transferred their reverence and paid their worship. It is true that we cannot worship a "glorified mist." This would be simply to substitute for a definite image one that is indefinite; it would be to substitute one idol for another idol.

The Bible tells us where we are to look for an image of God and what kind of image we are to look for. In the declaration that God made man in his own image it declares that in