difficult mountains between their Burmese possessions and China. In a few years the traveler will be able to buy Cook's tickets and take through Pullmans from London to Cape Town, to Aden, to Hongkong, and to Peking. The Peace Congress will not build those routes, but will bring about a state of order and protection in which they can be built.

Both the sea routes and the intercontinental routes depend for their success on

an

enormous international trade which will be called into life by new means of transportation and will be kept up by very free exchanges. A peace which does not encourage and facilitate trade on a great scale will fail to make itself permanent. Of what use greater freedom of the sea or of the land if new obstacles be put in the way of shipping and of cargoes? An elementary principle of economics and commerce is that the cause of international trade is the ability of one country to produce something on more favorable terms than another country, and with those exports to buy imports which it could not so well produce. For instance, the Argentine and the Ukraine have the right sort of climate for wheat. It pays the people of these regions to raise and sell their wheat elsewhere. What can they take in exchange? Manifestly, what Europe can more easily make. There is also the question of raw materials which are producible only in favored parts of the world, such as iron ore, rubber, and cocoanuts. The country that imports them must pay for them with some kind of exports. Hence the world is intensely eager to know what will be the point of view of the Congress toward international trade.

President Wilson has urged the removal of barriers to international exchanges; but the Congress will be confronted by two serious obstacles to an unchecked current of persons and of goods; and questions of commerce will much affect the treaty of immediate peace and the chances of a world organization. The first disturbance is a desire to penalize Germany by boycotts or other limitations on her foreign trade; the second obstacle is the protection policy of various nations, and particularly of the United States. In this effort to regroup foreign commerce, as in most other conditions of the peace, Germany is in a weak position. She lies crushed as no other European country has been crushed since Napoleon overwhelmed the Prussians in 1806, smashed their country and "acquired" for the time being the bronze horses from the triumphal Brandenburg Gate at the end of Unter den Linden. Victorious Allied troops pen the Germans within their own boundaries, while some of the aforesaid victors stand sentry well inside Germany, so as to be sure that there is no mistake as to who is present master. Germany worships force, she set out to establish a régime of world force, and cannot fail to understand the situation of a world power which for the time being has no power in the world.

In addition, the Germans know perfectly well what they had made up their mind to exact from France and Great

Britain and Italy and the United States, or all of them together, if the situation had been reversed. France would have bled coal and iron ore and vineyards and manufacturing cities, besides African and east Asiatic territory. Great Britain would have been despoiled of part of her merchant fleet, the Suez Canal, immense areas of tropical territory, and very likely Gibraltar. Without doubt the Germans would have rearranged the trade of the world for their immediate and future benefit. They have tried to throttle industrial rivals by systematically battering down factories in Belgium and northern France. They would have compelled the rest of the world to give specially advantageous trade in tropical products to Germany and her allies. Even the powerful United States, whether neutral or belligerent, would have been made to feel the strangle-hold of an arrogant and selfish trade policy. Nevertheless that is not a policy for the Allies to imitate, because it is one which in the. long run does as much harm to the favored as to the restricted nations. Suppose Germany had been able to lay upon the Allies indemnities equal to the money cost of the war and as much more as could have been squeezed out. After "coughing up their specie and their credits in other nations, the Allies could not have paid such indemnities in anything but their own natural products and manufactures. It would have been physically impossible for Germany to shut them off from raw materials and prohibit or limit their export to the Germanized parts of the world without stopping the flow of indemnity.

The industrial and commercial situation is just the same when the parties are reversed. We talk about levying on "the wealth of Germany," not realizing that most of the German accumulations of specie and goods and movable property have been swept away by the war; that the present "wealth" is chiefly the arable land, buildings and cities, roads, streets, and other public improvements, mines, mills and factories, shipyards, and ports which cannot be dug up and carried away to another country. The German bonds are only a transfer to a small part of the German population of power over a considerable part of the future earnings of a larger part. They are not available funds. The only present considerable cash asset of Germany is the two billion dollars of property and investments owned in the United States, South America, and elsewhere.

Hence the only security for indemnity is practically the real estate of Germany. is practically the real estate of Germany. It is legally possible to transfer outright ownership or mortgage interests to other countries. That process, however, would turn the Germans into land-tilling serfs and workmen paying a direct tribute to people of other nations. It might be good for the German soul to put it through the process which it designed for others; but it would be extremely disadvantageous to mankind, and particularly to the United States. We have not rid ourselves of human slavery and set out to improve the status of our own wage-earners in

order to introduce methods of personal servitude into other countries. We have not complained of absentee landlordism in Ireland in order to introduce it on a great scale in Central Europe. Bondage means poverty. The United States, as a manufacturing and exporting Nation, wants customers who can buy something rather than debtors who cannot pay up. What the world should aim at is to give a fair opportunity to the Germans to restore themselves.

If peace had been made on an even keel, so to speak; if the four Centrai Powers with their commercial lean-tos of Russia, Rumania, and Serbia were still banded together, the result of the war would have been two world combinations, political and military and commercial, planning revenge upon each other, undermining each other, giving preferences to their own friends and discriminating against the other fellow. Providence, along with the Tommies and poilus and Alpini and Yanks and gallant Belgians, upset that programme. The completeness of the victory makes it possible to reorganize the world without creating a like combination of the Allies and the newly created states against Germany and German Austria, which are the only solid parts left from the former Teutonic combination.

The proof is irresistible that the Germans are amazingly deficient in diplomacy, in foreign policy, and in military methods, because they thought everybody else was a German and also that nobody else was a German. On one side they supposed that all the rest of the world really accepted the German doctrine of superforce and had no moral principles that stood in the way of conquest and autocracy. On the other hand, they felt sure that nobody could approach the Germans in organizing to fight and win a war for cherished national ideals. Nevertheless the Germans are undoubtedly efficient in agriculture, manufacture, and commerce. There is no reason for depriving the world of their industry and science and skill-provided certain neces sary checks and guarantees are laid upon them. Measures must be taken to prevent their repeating the process of secret and dangerous absorption of capital and enterprises in other countries.

The United States must never again be caught napping by German promoters, investors, and grabbers who, we now know, have wriggled their way into the heart of American business, have become a formidable financial force in South America, and expected to own eventually a considerable part of the world. That danger can be avoided without denying them a reasonable use of raw materials from outside and a reasonable outlet for their manufactures; nor must the reconstruction be so arranged that all the profits are absorbed in interest and principal of indemnities; unless they have part of their profits to furnish capital for new enterprises there will be no profits for any one, for business cannot be done without the encouragement of profits; and we can have no market in Germany for our ex

ports unless they have some markets for exports outside their country. There is no need of the world loss which would result from forcing the Germans back on their own different lands. The Russians for centuries have tried that process on the Jews, who have been poor farmers, while their country was deprived of their commercial abilities. The result of the policy of the "Pale" was worse for the Russians than the Jews.

It is possible, though not likely, that the Allies will make up a general trade combination for all the world except the Germans and their Austrian kinsmen. Within the Allies are many cross-purposes. The great British colonies which have earned the right to participate in the

Empire seem inclined to a system of trade preferences within that Empire. The United States has for nearly sixty years maintained a protective tariff, and the forces which favor still closer protection are mighty. The war has shown. the ability of the United States to turn out prodigious exports under the stimulus of high prices and special Government organization. Within this country it is still uncertain whether the pressure de.cidedly to limit imports or the pressure largely to increase exports is the stronger.

If we are protectionists, we cannot deny to other countries the right to put a stumbling-block in the track of our trade. If we are in favor of a broad policy which will stimulate trade, we must still keep in

mind the absolute necessity of keeping

up our own manufactures of military materials and ships till the millennium or until a world court shall arrive. Certainly broad trade under some sort of general international understanding ought to remove some of the present tension between nations, and therefore to aid world peace. The United States must "either fish or cut bait." We must either come back within our own boundaries and try to live our own lives in isolation from the rest of the world or we must accept the conditions of participation in world affairs. We cannot at the same time keep up a Chinese war of tariffs and claim the right to share in the commercial policies and destinies of other nations.

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F

REEDOM of the press is not one of the written guarantees of the Constitution. Hamilton said it had no place in the organic law of a people, for the reason that no people could be free that denied its existence. Neither Magna Charta nor the English Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech except to members of Parliament, but the genius of the English Constitution lies in the fact that the existence of such a right would lose its force if its existence were made the subject of declaration. The English colonists in America brought with them the spirit of the English Constitution. The early state-builders in this country acclaimed freedom of speech to be the birthright of every freeman. Royal proclamation could not deny it; legislative enactment could not abridge it. As the

press more and more became the vehicle of expression, its freedom came to be recognized as a right no less sacred than the right of free speech. Just how sacredly this right was regarded by the early colonists is illustrated by a noted trial which was held in the city of New York in the early part of the eighteenth century. At a time when the right of free expression has become a subject of grave concern reference to that epochal event may serve us in good stead even to-day.

The "Weekly Journal" was the second paper established in the city of New York. Its editor and proprietor was John Peter Zenger. In the year 1734 one Rip van Dam, as President of the Council, became interregnum Governor of the colony upon the resignation of the Acting Gov. ernor. After an interval of several

months the newly appointed Governor, William Cosby, arrived from England. A dispute immediately arose between him and van Dam concerning a division of the salary and fees that had accumulated during the interregnum. Each made appeal to the courts. Cosby requested Chief Justice Morris to have his case tried in equity. This request was denied by the Chief Justice upon the ground that the Governor had no right to establish courts of equity, the power to establish courts being vested solely in the legislative branch of government. For this refusal the Chief Justice was promptly removed and one James de Lancey appointed in his stead.

These proceedings provoked Zenger to publish in the "Journal" a statement to the effect that the liberties of the people of New York were in a precarious condition, and that they and their children were likely to be brought into slavery if "some past things be not amended." For this indulgence Zenger was indicted for "being a seditious person and a frequent printer of false news and seditious libels, printer of false news and seditious libels, but more especially for traducing, scandalizing, and vilifying his Excellency William Cosby, Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the Province of New York." Arrest followed indictment, and Zenger was kept in jail, without trial, from November, 1734, until August, 1735.

At the outset of the trial counsel for the defense, James Alexander and William Smith, the two most noted lawyers iam Smith, the two most noted lawyers in the Province, excepted to the commission of de Lancey upon the ground that

he had been appointed "during pleasure instead of "during good behavior." This so enraged the Chief Justice that he promptly disbarred both Alexander and Smith, and refused to permit them to participate in the trial on behalf of the imprisoned editor. Public opinion, which had quietly favored Zenger, took on a more turbulent aspect at what was deemed to be an arrogant assumption of power on the part of the Chief Justice and the sitting Justices, and as a result the immediate friends of Zenger employed Andrew Hamilton, of Philadelphia, Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and the most noted lawyer in all of the English colonies, to represent the defense. Under the adroit and skillful management of this astute lawyer, the trial of Zenger has become one of the most noted jury trials in America. His address to the jury, which was printed and circulated throughout the colonies and reprinted in England, contains many passages that are fully worthy of Burke or Erskine, Grattan or Fox. Measuring its effect by results, it may well be doubted if there is a single document extant that so much explains the growth of that sentiment which resulted in the independence of the colonies as the speech of Andrew Hamilton delivered in behalf of Zenger. So thoroughly did it take possession of the people of New York at the time, that the newly famed Hamilton was presented with a gold box and given the freedom of the city. Gouverneur Morris, a relative of the ousted Chief Justice, years later, in a notable address, referred to Hamilton as "the day star of the American Revolu

tion," and to the trial of Zenger as "the germ of American freedom."

Zenger obtained from twelve unknown and forgotten jurors the right of free and fair criticism. For two centuries, almost without impairment, that right has been recognized by all functions of government in this country. Hitherto no exigency has arisen that would sanction or even warrant its abridgment. But if the press of to-day be not held in terrorem by legislative intendment and executive ukase, it is certainly near that regrettable state. A healthy public opinion and a bridled press are not coexistent. The freedom of no people is safe, the perpetuation of no form of government is certain, where there exists a craven or even a timid press. To-day, as never before, there is laid upon the press of America a duty which no other agency can perform. At a moment when we face the most critical period in our history a bold and outspoken press will be more potent to save than cabinets or halls of state. The words of Andrew Hamilton, spoken two centuries ago, are as full of force and meaning to-day as they were then. Once sufficiently powerful to lift the ban from the paper of an imperiled editor, they would serve a yet more enduring purpose if they might lift the ban that imperils the press of to-day.

Apropos of the present situation, no risk of tedium is involved in making quotation of a single paragraph from that great speech:

"There is heresy," he said, "in law as well as in religion, and both have changed very much; and we well know that it is not two centuries ago that a man would have been burned as a heretic for owning such opinions in matters of religion as are publicly written and printed to-day. They were fallible men, it seems, and we take the liberty, not only to differ from them in religious opinion, but to condemn them and their opinions too; and I must presume that in taking these freedoms in speaking and thinking about matters of faith and religion we are in the right; for though it is said there are very great liberties of this kind taken in New York, yet I have heard of no information preferred by Mr. Attorney for any offenses of this sort. From which I think it pretty clear that in New York a man may make very free with his God, but he must take special care of what he says of his Governor. It is agreed upon by all men that this is a reign of liberty, and while men keep within the bounds of truth I hope they may with safety both write and speak their sentiments of the conduct of men of power; I mean that part of their conduct only which affects the liberty or property of the people under their administration. Were this to be denied, then the next step might make them slaves. For what notions can be entertained of slavery beyond that of suffering the greatest oppressions, without the liberty of complaining; or, if they do, to be destroyed, body and estate, for so doing?"

The sentiments here expressed are not wholly foreign to present-day conditions.

Only once since the adoption of the Constitution has there been an attempt to abridge the rights secured to Zenger in his trial, and that was sufficiently disastrous to destroy a great National party. The enactment of the Alien and Sedition Laws destroyed the Federalist party, and opposition to them gave vitality to the party of Jefferson. In view of the fact that the sedition clause in the present Espionage Act differs from the Sedition Act of the Federalists under Adams in words rather than in meaning, it would indeed be a strange freak of fortune if the application of the present Sedition Law should dethrone the party that came into being through opposition to a similar law. In discussing those laws the founder of the present reigning party gave as his reason for pardoning every person that was convicted under them that "his obligation to execute what was not law involved that of not suffering rights secured by valid laws to be protected by what was no law." Of like tenor were the criticisms of the author of "A History of the American People." "The Sedition Act," said this author, "cut perilously near the root of freedom of speech and freedom of

the

press;" ""there was no telling where such exercise of power would stop," he said, since their only limitations and safeguards lay in the temper and good sense of the President and Attorney-General."

Our pre-President historian might have gone a step further and have imparted to us the information that there is no law more imperiling than one which permits the operation of a law to be suspended by Executive proclamation, or which permits an Executive order to become law. As a student of Lord Coke in his early years, he might have recalled the words of that great law writer, who characterized such a law, passed in the reign of Henry VIII, as Henry VIII, as "an unjust and strange act, that tended in its execution to the great displeasure of Almighty God and the utter subversion of the common law." Inasmuch as the present Espionage Act does itself "cut perilously near the root of freedom of speech and freedom of the of freedom of speech and freedom of the press," have we not reached a point where the press must be its own defender? Has not the Creel Deletion Corps by its many unwarranted assumptions of authority given sufficient admonition to the press of the country that there is " no telling where such exercise of power will stop"?

And if it be true now, as it was under the Administration of Adams, that the "only limitations and safeguards against such assumptions are to be found "in the temper and good sense of the President and Attorney-General," is it not clear that all limitations and safeguards have been removed? As illustration have we not seen the powers granted, or assumed, under the Espionage Act carried to the extent of refusing to permit some of the leading dailies of the country to print in their foreign editions the report of the Senate Investigation Committee with reference to the Airplane Board? Through like acts of intimidation has not the press become so subser

vient that it will not protest against the very harsh, if not illegal, acts of the Administration in creating postage rate zones or the wastage of a billion of dollars by an incompetent administrative board? Assuming that the press of the country has not reached a state of servility, that it is just as virile as it has ever been, that it has submitted to the Creel régime only through a sense of patriotic duty, what will be its attitude now that we are no longer at war? There are times when a statement of fact is so conclusive that argument only weakens it. This country is no more prepared for peace than it was for war. We face problems fraught with more peril than any we have yet encountered. Our entire social, commercial, and political fabric is in a state of transition. Given the whole truth, public opinion seldom goes wrong; given only a part of the truth, it seldom goes right. The future welfare of the country depends on the course which the press may pursue. It will be for the press to determine whether we shall come out of the war less a democracy than any nation that entered into it. The elements of autocracy and unbridled democracy are both in evidence to-day. Neither has any place in a real democracy. The press was once potent to save us from the curse of Government ownership. It alone can save us now. When a single individual is clothed with that power which enables him to raise or lower the wage scale of a great public utility millions of dollars, that enables him to raise or lower the rates exacted from the public, in like manner, if we have not reached the danger-point in the exercise of that power, certainly we have reached the point where the danger signals ought to be raised by the press.

Whether it arise from subserviency, timidity, or indifference, it must be admitted that the public press has not discussed these and kindred subjects with that freedom that has characterized its action in dealing with subjects of great moment in the past. The founders of that party to which the President pays allegiance once denied the right of the Government to even appropriate money out of the treasury for any kind of a public improvement, or to hold stock in or give direction to the management and control of a public utility of any kind. From this absurdity the press directed the country to a sane and Constitutional basis. Now that the President has carried his party to the opposite extreme, what but the press of the country can carry us back to a safe and secure position? The flight of certain straws indicates a disposition on the part of the press to assert its independence once again. In solving the great problems of reconstruction it will be the press rather than any party or branch of Government that the country must look to for guidance and direction. Must we not, then, have a free and untrammeled press? Has not the time come when the press, released from official restraint, must lead rather than continue to fight rearguard actions with public opinion?

IN a that mi an alley be

a building that formerly was an tween Ninth and Tenth Streets, in Avenue D, Washington, two gentlemen sit from morning until night every week-day, and sometimes Sunday, signing checks. That is what they are paid to do-sign checks. It is not an ordinary pen they use, but a piece of machinery fashioned like a pen and operated by electric power. Every time they make the motions necessary to form the characters their signatures are produced simultaneously on five checks. Then, automatically, the five signed checks pass out of a hopper-like arrangement and five blank checks take their place. They write their names again, and signed checks move from the hopper and unsigned ones come in. So it goes hour after hour, day after day, month after month. Sometimes they have to work at night to keep up with the insistent demand for money.

An average of 30,000 checks go out of that hopper every day in the year, and there are few parts of the world to which they do not go. On some days the total has gone as high as 150,000.

That former warehouse in a blind alley in Washington is the disbursing office of the War Risk Insurance Bureau of the United States Government.

Of all the magical changes the war brought to America nothing, perhaps, is more remarkable than is this one of insurance. To-day the Government is the greatest insurance company on earth. It is so much greater than any other as to dwarf all others. In two days it wrote more insurance than was ever written by an insurance company in a year. In a few months it more than doubled the amount of life insurance in all the world. To-day it has more than 4,150,000 policies outstanding for a total insurance of more than $38,000,000,000. The magnitude of that sum may be appreciated only when it is said that it is nearly fifty per cent greater than the estimated national wealth of Japan or Italy or AustriaHungary.

It is not unlikely that this Insurance Bureau will be considered in future years one of the most remarkable and constructive features in connection with the great war. Few persons to-day appreciate its magnitude and ramifications, or its widespread benefits individually and Nationally.

It had its beginning in those dread days of 1914 when the world was stunned by the European cataclysm. The rates for insurance on vessels and cargoes suddenly vaulted to undreamed-of heights. The British Government, appreciating the difficulty which private companies would meet in providing the enormous money protection essential against the hazards of the sea in such a war, determined to assume the risks on vessels flying the British flag.

Without insurance-ample insurance

commerce in war time would be an unthinkable gamble. It would threaten ruin to every shipowner or shipper whose property went to destruction.

The British Government had all it could do to provide for its own commerce. That left neutrals to look after themselves. It was necessary for America to cover the risks on American vessels and cargoes.

Secretary McAdoo asked authority to establish a Bureau of War Risk Insurance as an adjunct of the Treasury Department. Congress passed a bill at once in accordance with his request, and the Secretary called William C. De Lanoy, a prominent insurance broker of New York, to Washington to establish and direct the new bureau.

He could not have made a better selection. Mr. De Lanoy began business on September 2, 1914, with an office force of four persons. Then and there began a new era in the history of the American merchant marine. That first day he wrote insurance in the name of the Government against hulls and cargoes of American vessels. Immediately rates began to come down from the cloud heights to somewhat easier levels.

It was nearly three years later, or in June, 1917, that Congress amended the original War Risk Bill in a form that paved the way to what some insurance persons term the Great Adventure. American ships were being sunk, American cargoes lost, and the Government was providing insurance. But what about the men who sailed those ships?

Congress gave authority to establish a Seaman's Division of the Bureau to insure the lives of the officers and crews of American merchant vessels in sums ranging from $1,500 to $5,000, according to their scale of pay.

In these two divisions a remarkable showing has been made. The Marinethat is, the ship and cargo-Division has written policies aggregating nearly two thousand million dollars. Premiums of $45,614,885 were paid and the losses amounted to $29,670,598.

To conduct this business for four years has cost less than $150,000, which is an annual average of less than one-tenth of one per cent on the average annual premium receipts. It must be appreciated, however, that there has been no brokerage however, that there has been no brokerage to pay and that other economies make this unprecedentedly low expense possible.

So, too, in the Seaman's Division. On policies aggregating $187,398,586 it received premiums of $783,311 and paid losses of $281,768. The cost of operation was $33,628.

In these two divisions Uncle Sam certainly has made money in the insurance business, thanks, in part at least, to the very fine work of Mr. De Lanoy and his assistants.

Then came the Great Adventure. We

entered the war in April, 1917. We had insured our ships, the cargoes of our ships, and the men who sailed in our merchant ships. We had gathered within six months of our declaration of war a million and a half men for service in our Army and Navy. We had sent troops abroad. We had a mighty force in training. We had a Navy that was growing in wonderful style. We were to call millions more of men to the colors. The size of our Army and Navy depended only on the length of the war.

Why not insure the human material we were putting into the mighty conflict? Why not make provision or make it possible for our fighting men to make provision for the loved ones at home and for themselves? Why not do something to minimize the colossal waste of the old pension system that followed other wars?

On October 6, 1917, Congress passed and the President signed the War Risk Insurance Act, which entitled all officers and enlisted men in the service at that time to obtain insurance for any sum up to $10,000 if they made application within one hundred and twenty days, and provided that all men enlisting thereafter must make application for it within one hundred and twenty days after their enlistment. For men already in the service the insurance might date back to the time they entered the service. Incidentally, a soldier or sailor might make allowance out of his pay to any one dependent upon him.

Immediately upon the passage of the Act voluntary applications began to pour in. The first came from Lieutenant Čoke Flannagan, of the Army, for the maximum amount-$10,000.

If the insurance plan was to be the great, broad, beneficent work intended, every man in the service should be insured. To get the one million five hundred thousand already in the Army and the Navy and sign up the thousands and tens of thousands being added daily and weekly to the war force was a herculean task even if a big organization had been devised for the work. But there was no organization. The War Risk Bureau had two rooms in the basement of the Treasury Building. It had to get thousands of clerks to handle the colossal volume of papers. It had to spread out its canvassers in camps in America and camps in Europe, in Navy stations in America, in England, in France, and elsewhere. It had to jump in a few weeks from a bureau with twenty clerks to one with thousands of clerks.

Washington was overcrowded as was no other city on earth. The various departments had overflowed their regular quarters and spread out until there was hardly an office in the capital unoccupied. Various old departments and not a few new ones were having structures built for them hastily, and meanwhile were camping out" wherever they could find space. There was a great scarcity of labor, particularly skilled labor. There was a still

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greater scarcity of office workers, particularly trained office workers.

Was ever a man confronted with a problem more difficult than that of insuring 1,500,000 men within one hundred and twenty days under such crippling circumstances? First he must get the million and a half to understand what the insurance was to them. Then he had to get every one of the 1,500,000 to sign the application, with every detail as to family, home address, and other necessary information. Then, if allotment of part of the soldier's pay was to go to dependent relatives, that was to be designated with all the necessary detail. Meanwhile another army was in the making, every member of which had to be insured.

And the organization that was to do all this was unformed. Within five days of the passage of the Act the Bureau sent insurance applications to every military and naval station. At the same time the Adjutant-General telegraphed every department commander, explaining the opportunities and privileges the new law extended to the men-how, for an average cost of $8 per $1,000 per year for policies up to $10,000, any and every officer and man in Army or Navy could insure his life and make provision for wife, child, mother, or dependent in case of his death or disability.

A few days later representatives of the rank and file of every military unit in the United States met in Washington, summoned by telegraph by the Government to receive first-hand information concerning the construction and operation of the Insurance Act. The Secretaries of War, Navy, and Treasury, and many officers and men spoke. Then the soldiers and sailors went back to spread the news. They were followed by civilian experts who went to every naval station and Army cantonment to co-ordinate work in the field.

Immediate steps were taken to write insurance for our soldiers overseas. Captain, now Colonel, S. Herbert Wolfe, of the Quartermaster's Corps, who was in Paris on special detail, was ordered by cable to form an organization, and at the same time a special section of the Adjutant-General's Department was organized by Major Willard Straight in this country for service overseas. It consisted of thirty-four officers and sixty-seven enlisted men, and sailed for France December 7, 1917. It included Colonel Henry D. Lindsley, formerly a life insurance president, who succeeded Major Straight when the major was called to other service abroad.

The task of "writing" the many thousands of men in the numerous and widely scattered camps overseas within the time limit fixed by law and under the peculiar and difficult circumstances which existed was greater than can be pictured in words, but it was accomplished.

Simple certificates of insurance were issued at first in lieu of ordinary policies. To write and mail these certificates was a monster job.

The first insurance certificates were delivered personally by Secretary McAdoo.

Applications were pouring in at the end of 1917 in enormous volume, enough, in fact, to swamp and appal the Insurance Bureau force; but even at the rate they were being received it was evident that unless there was a tremendous increase there would be one million men uninsured when the time limit, which was February 12, was reached.

Insurance men had been most patriotic and enthusiastic in their efforts to assist the Bureau. They were called in for a conference, and as a result a "drive" was planned that was a wonder. The plan was to have the canvassing done by the officers and men themselves in every unit of the Army and Navy, directed and assisted from Washington by a so-called Soldiers and Sailors' Campaign Council.

The aim was to be 100 per cent in every unit, and any figure lower was to be considered short of success. Stirring messages went daily, and sometimes twice a day, to every unit, even by wireless to the battleships, the cruisers, the destroy

ers, and the U-boat chasers far out upon the seas, even to the far Pacific.

Battle-cries for the insurance campaign were flashed across the continent. The "movies were recruited. Speakers and salesmen went wherever soldier or sailor was to be found. They were battling for billions upon billions,. for something never imagined by insurance men before. It was a man-to-man, campaign with man measured by millions of men.

The actual selling in this whirlwind campaign was done in mess shacks, in Y. M. Č. A. huts, and in the open field. No opportunities were overlooked. Some of the men signed for $10,000 of insurance as soon as the proposition was presented to them. Others required persuasion. Still others required arguments and technical exposition of the law.

By January 18 more than 470,000 men were insured for more than four billion dollars. The campaign was well under way. Already some regiments were reported "100 per cent insured." The enthusiasm grew as February 12 approached.

Army officers, from the highest generals down to the rawest recruits, vied with one another in spurring on the drive. The spirit swept from camp to camp and around the country and across the seas.

By January 28 more than 550,000 men were insured, with fourteen days still to go, and the watchword, "A Million Men Insured Before February 12," was flashed to all military and Navy units.

Meantime the competition among the Army camps and cantonments grew increasingly keen, as well as the rivalry within the divisions. Daily bulletins and telegrams were rushed from Washington to keep the spirit high and the competition close. Every camp in the country bent every energy to be the first "100 per cent" camp.

On January 28 all records were broken by the receipt of 32,004 insurance applications, aggregating more than $260,000,000, and bringing the grand total of insurance close to the five-billion-dollar mark.

In the next three days insurance came in at the daily rate of about $200,000,000 a day.

On February 6 Camp Dodge reported that it was 98 per cent insured. Five other camps were close behind with 95 per cent.

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By midnight, February 12, the goal of one million men insured had been reached and passed. Practically every Army camp was more than 93 per cent insured. The onrush of business was so great that the applications could not be tabulated promptly, but it was clear that the drive was overwhelmingly successful.

But the end was not yet. Just before the time limit fixed by the original law, February 12, was reached, the time within which applications might be received from men in active service at. the time the Act became effective was extended by Congress for sixty days, and the drive continued. New men joining the colors.