"Kitchen Statesmen," by Ethel Wadsworth Cartland, and as my name is "Beatrice" and I have "five kids," I promptly read the article through, even though it made dinner a little late.

Certainly mothers, as a class, have the greatest opportunity to influence the future through their children, especially the mothers on the farms, who live so close to their families in both work and play.

However, mothers must have far-seeing judgment and balance to cope successfully with political problems, whether through their own efforts or through their children. Mrs. Cartland errs by inferring that mothers will be all on one side of the policies she mentions. Even though we are not controlled by the evil "politicians" or big business, many of us believe in legislation only by the States for child labor, education, special laws for women, etc., and we are thinking mainly of the future when we formulate these opinions.

What about the "mountains of dead" caused by the very war which Harriet Beecher Stowe helped to bring about? Men have to die to make or keep others free as long as there remain any evil-minded people on this earth.

With all the heartache any mother could have, I would surely send all five of my boys to fight if necessary to preserve the high standards of our civilization, imperfect though it may be. Our civilization would long ago have been smothered in barbarism, as other civilizations have been, but for the strong physical defense that it has made.

If mothers really desire to serve posterity, and not merely ward off tragedy from their own lives, they will sometimes find it necessary to sacrifice not only themselves but their children for the greater cause. BEATRICE LEGER CLEMENT.

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SHEETS

and High Grade Roofing Tin Hates

In this

No. 16

Britain Studies America

Liquid Delusions:

Whisky and Peanuts

By LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT

596

598

Soup and Wine

599

By DON C. SEITZ

Three R's.

Something Besides the First of the

By DIXON MERRITT

An East Side American-The Auto

biography of a Son of the City:

VIII-Campaigning for Workingmen 606

By CHARLES STELZLE

HAROLD T. PULSIFER, President and Managing Editor NATHAN T. PULSIFER, Vice-President

ERNEST HAMLIN ABBOTT, Editor-in-Chief and Secretary LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT, Contributing Editor

Volume 142

The Flood of Alcoholic Testimony

Α

T the end of a week of hearings before a sub-committee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the "wets" succeeded in putting into the record tremendous quantities of testimony. It was by no means conclusively shown hat better conditions would be brought about by the legalization of "light wines and beer."

Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Lincoln C. Andrews, in charge of prohi›ition enforcement, was placed on the stand, and gave a frank account of the lifficulties of enforcement. As a witness for the wet side he must have been a lisappointment. He admitted that many 'dry" agents have been corrupt, that hearly nine hundred of them have been 'separated from the service," most of :hem for misconduct. He told of the lifficulties of controlling denatured alcohol and cereal beverages, of abuses of he permit system, of quantities of smuggled liquor still escaping the Coast Guard, of the necessity for border parolmen in tremendously greater numbers than at present. But he was demanding ill the time, not repeal or modification of the existing law, but the enactment of other and more stringent enforcement bills.

Emory R. Buckner, United States District Attorney for the Southern District of New York, went on the stand and told of most of the bad features in the situation in New York City. Violators are numerous beyond counting. The number of apprehensions is such that a vastly

greater number of Federal judges would be necessary to try them. Without a State law, it would require $75,000,000 and a hundred and fifty Federal judges, he said, to enforce the present Federal law in his district. But, he insisted, the Federal Government should not have to bear the burden of local enforcement. The Federal Government should have the State Government as a partner. And he thought that, since the State of New York had chosen not to be a partner on Federal terms, it would be well to secure it as a partner on State terms.

If the Volstead Act should be modified to permit the sale of light wines and beer, the black spots on this map would be the only legal oases in the United States. Advocates of the repeal of the Volstead Act sometimes forget how great an area of the country was dry under State-wide prohibition and local option before the Volstead Act was passed Labor testified that American workingmen want beer and wine. They denied that American workingmen desire the return of the saloon. They did not, however, offer any conclusive proof that even a majority of the membership of the unions which compose the Federation are demanding legalization of wine and beer. Resolutions of the National body constituted the bulk of the evidence offered by them to prove that workingmen wish to see the Volstead Law repealed.

edly a benefit in so far as it is true. Mr. Buckner, however, had testified that a great quantity of American denatured alcohol, redistilled, goes into Canada and is made into synthetic liquors for Canadian consumption, which testimony does not indicate that the appetite for "hard liquor" has entirely disappeared under a régime of light wines and beer.

The "drys"-whose inning is aheadwere granted two hours or so of time to place on the stand representatives of the Women's National Committee for Law Enforcement, then in session in Washington. It was planned to have eighty women testify for one minute each. The program failed, however, partly because Senator Reed, of Missouri, the one "wet" member of the sub-committee, insisted upon interrupting with what seems, to The Outlook at least, arguments rather than questions.

It will not be possible to evaluate the hearings until both sides have had their say.

The Unseating of Brookhart

N seating Daniel F. Steck, Democrat, in place of Smith W. Brookhart as Senator from Iowa, the United States

Senate was in accord with both sound policy and good conscience. The Committee on Privileges and Elections, after a long and thorough investigation, decided, with but one dissenting vote, that a majority of the voters intended to elect Steck. The Senate confirmed the judgment of the Committee by a vote of 45 to 41.

Aft

Brookhart is a radical one of the most extreme of those who call themselves Progressive Republicans. In the 1924 Presidential campaign he bolted Coolidge and supported La Follette. the election he apparently made some efforts to get back on the Republican reservation, but continued a radical. At the beginning of the contest for his seat there was much talk of certain ballots which were not counted because voters, following too literally the instructions of a notice in a newspaper, had indicated their intention to vote for Steck by drawing an arrow pointing to his name. Steck forces contended that these ballots should have been counted, as they clearly indicated the voters' intentions; but the Brookhart forces contended that the arrow ballots were prop erly thrown out as contrary to law. In the end, however, the arrow ballots proved to be not à decisive factor, for the Committee held that with the arrow ballots thrown out Steck was still elected.

Nevertheless every radical in the Senate, without regard to party, voted in favor of Brookhart. The total Brookhart vote consisted of thirty-one Republicans, of whom twelve are either regularly or sporadically radical; nine Democrats, of whom six are regularly or sporadically radical; and the one FarmLabor Senator. The Steck vote consisted of the bulk of the organization Democrats and about half of the Administration Republicans.

Political motives will, of course, be ascribed by various persons to each of the four groups in the Senate, and it is perhaps impossible to expect that political motives can be absent in a decision of this kind that ought to be purely judicial. Nevertheless differences of opinion on this case can be accounted for by the complexity of the question and the narrowness of the margin by which, according to the Committee, Steck was clearly elected. That the vote in the Committee was nearly unanimous, while the Senate vote was comparatively close, can be explained on the ground that the smaller body could examine the facts more thor

food products corporations. To-day, it is stated, sixty-six per cent of the flour sold in the country goes to the baking trust, and of the remainder part is used by local bakeries, but far more is bought by farmers. The result has been that the flour-mills and the wheat growers have been "squeezed" by the baking corporations.

It might seem strange that bread and cakes, which must be sold within ten hours or less of the baking, should be subject to almost National corporation control. The growth of the big companies has been due, it must be fairly admitted, to scientific methods of production and distribution. Undoubtedly bakery bread is better than it was twenty years ago..

On the financial and business side the mergers have been ruthless. It is asserted, for instance, that the "trust" in New York City once suddenly raised the price of the loaf from five to six cents and after a few weeks as suddenly dropped it, all for the purpose of freezing out small bakeries, and that hundreds of bakeshops were thus thrown out.

The combining of combinations proceeded intricately and smoothly until only three big companies existed, and these were intercombined in action and interest.

Then the Federal Government took a hand by proceeding against the mergers under the Sherman and Clayton Acts. It has often been said that it is easier to

prevent a proposed semi-monopoly than to dissolve one already well established. The Attorney-General wisely centered the fight on a new and startling attempt at extending the baking consolidation. This was the incorporation of the Ward Food Products Company (popularly called the Two Billion Dollar Trust). This company proposed to engage in enterprises not directly competitive with the baking industry, such as dairy and ice-cream companies, and to control raw materials like salt, yeast, sugar, and milk.

The result has been a complete backdown by the companies. A "consent decree" has been filed which appears, for the present at least, to involve an abandonment not only of the Food Products project but of features of the other combinations objected to by the Government. Thus it is reported that

The General Baking Company and the six other baking concerns named in the Government's suit have agreed to dissolve any common connection they may have. A director in one concern cannot serve as director in another.

The directors of the seven companies are enjoined from acquiring stock in any other bakery which is engaged in inter-State commerce.

Of the Government's victory United States Attorney Woodcock says that the amicable settlement avoids expensive litigation and guarantees the execution of the Government's demands.

HEN a man who is not a seaman, who had no previous knowledge of the oceans of the world, the tracks of the prevailing winds, the currents or the areas of storms, starts out alone in a little yawl only 34 feet in length, which he built and rigged himself, and sails her around the world with only such navigation as he had picked up unaided from books, and with nothing more than a watch kept in a box stuffed with cotton for a chronometer, it is a feat which not only commands the admiration of the world, but which lives up to the best traditions of the early explorers, navigators, and whalemen who pushed off into the unknown with no more assurance than was displayed by Harry Pidgeon. It proves also that the spirit of adventure is not dead in the present generation.

What prompted Harry Pidgeon, a native of Henry County, Iowa, to undertake this voyage was, he says, reading