me, for I knew not only its brave people, but have enjoyed the hospitality of its ruler. One of my first contributions to The Outlook described my visit to him. To see that rock-hewn throne of freedom desecrated, for the first time in six hundred years, was a tremendous disappointment.

The horrors perpetrated in Belgium, the burning and sacking of its cities which I knew and admired. the laying low of its whole national life, and the massacres of the Armenians were horrors upon horrors.

Reluctantly I yielded myself to the thought of my country's entrance into the war, knowing the price we must pay for our idealism.

I thought, however, that I could find an effective way in which I could aid, besides the giving of money for every appeal, subscribing for Liberty bonds, and offering myself to the Y. M. C. A. for the work it is doing in the war camps.

I tried to act as a mediator between the alien-born and the native citizen. I began to interpret to the Americans the problems of these foreigners who suddenly were called upon to fight for their adopted country, and to fight against their own people. I also tried to interpret to the foreign-born the position of America, the high ideals which moved it, and the inability of the Nation to keen out of the conflict under the conditions.

In my attempt to mediate I did not straddle; but I pleaded constantly for that which was upon my heart.

The prosecution of the war, however, has brought about a state of mind which has made the continuance of this task all but impossible at least in Iowa, for it is here that my patriotism has received its first challenge. I could not remain silent when ill-advised or bewildered men were dragged out of their beds, brought before a self-appointed court, and, after being whipped, compelled to kiss the flag. It was a desecration of the flag itself and a betrayal of the American spirit. I have myself been attacked and my patriotism questioned because I tried to stem the wave of hate which is sweeping across my own State. Yet I am not now pleading for myself, though my suffering is keen-all the keener because, although alien-born, I am with every fiber of my being an American. I am pleading for the foreign-born citizen. Not for the German spy; let him suffer

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the fate of spies. Not for the embittered, disloyal German who will not see the agony his country has brought upon the world, nor for that portion of the German press which has been misleading. Its business was to guide and direct, not to perplex. I am pleading for those among us who are bewildered and sad. We ought not, we must not, meet them with a club and argue with a hangman's rope. I am not pleading for them alone; I am pleading for my America, which will need every ounce of loyalty, not only now but when the war is over.

Is it not possible to adopt a new strategy? Must the fate of these people be left in the hands of county and State chairmen of defense who have neither outlook nor sympathy, and who were chosen for their belligerency as much as for their pa triotism? We shall need to place new Liberty bonds; we shall need new and greater sacrifices. Shall we secure them by coercion of the worst kind?

I know what is going on in the hearts of the men who have been cruelly treated and maligned. If I were not so thoroughly an American, if I did not sense the American spirit at its best, the treatment I have received would make an Anarchist of me. I am pleading for a new strategy, for we are unmaking good Americans and not making them. Let the President appoint a board-one board more or less will not matter. Let it deal with the problem of the foreign-born. The members of this board need not be foreign-born citizens, but Americans who know them and their problems.

Frankly, I am fearing for the future of our country after the war, not while it lasts. I fear that the breach will grow the greater as the war proceeds and as it exacts from us greater sacrifices. I fear that we who were alien-born, and were born again into Americans, will be made into aliens again. Where I am writing we are being controlled by a Prussian cast of mind; we are fast becoming that which we are fighting, and the alienborn are finding themselves in the midst of the very conditions from which they fled. We need a new strategy, else we shall lose more than we shall gain. I know that a new strategy will not be enough. It must be reinforced by a new spirit, or rather the old American spirit of fair play; and for that, too, I plead, and, I trust, not in vain.

says:

'If the Germans here don't like America, let them go back to Germany, where the poor people live like swine. It took me three years to save enough money to get to this country, and I had to borrow a little then to get a ticket for the trip. The people there wear wooden shoes, held on by a strap across the top, and I wor a pair when I came here; but I saved enough out of my first week's wages to buy a pair of leather ones. That was more than I could save in a month in Germany. They live like hogs over there, whole families in two small rooms, where they dress and undress before each other. It seemed like heaven when I got to America and had a room all to myself.

"The American people have treated me fine, and never once made me feel like a lickspittle, as the rich people do in Germany. The German people here must not take the American courtesy and forbearance for fear or cowardice-no, sir, or they will get an awful bump soon. I know the American reserve and strength better than most people of my nationality. I think they have given us every chance in the world to get along and prosper, and it is a mean and dirty thing now to go to bragging and encouraging our country's enemy, Germany, a country that is so conceited that it thinks it can run the world. Germany is the worst place in the world for a person to live, and I would as soon be in hell this minute as to go back where I came from in Germany.' "Wisconsin has its Teutonic troubles, but this German woman is not one of them. L. B. RING."

"Neillsville, Wisconsin, December 4, 1917."

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HE battalions of municipal betterment scored a notable victory at the recent Boston election. Their candidate for Mayor went "over the top" with a plurality of nearly with a plurality of nearly ten thousand. The control of the City Council remains firmly in their hands. For the first time in many years, accordingly, there is a prospect of harmony between the two branches of Boston's city government and a substantial assurance of better municipal administration all along the line.

Let it not be inferred from this, however, that the voters of Boston have been seized by a spasm of reform. The defeat of Mayor Curley was no doubt due in some degree to a general dissatisfaction with many features of his administration, but in larger measure it was the result of a wide-open split in the ranks of those who supported him four years ago. Two months before the election it looked to the impartial observer as if Mr. Curley had managed to make himself impregnable. A man of far more

than ordinary mental capacity, he is one of the most courageous and resourceful politicians in the entire country. His energy is boundless. In the art of putting ginger into a campaign he has nothing to learn from any one. For four years, moreover, he has devoted a large part of his undeniable talents to the work of intrenching himself in office. No wonder he hoped to be his own

successor.

Yet the whole structure, so carefully planned and builded, blew up in short order, and the reason is not far to seek. Mr. Curley's obvious solicitude for his own welfare recoiled upon himself. A Mayor who aims to be also a boss must, of necessity, pursue to some extent the methods of an autocrat, and the everpresent tendency of autocracy is to precipitate revolt. That is just what happened in Boston. Leaders from his own political party rose in their righteous wrath against Mayor Curley's attempt to dominate in his own personal interest, not only the administration of the city, but the Democratic organization of Boston as well.

A few weeks before the election Congressman James A. Gallivan jumped into the arena as an anti-Curley candidate and made it plain that he was in to stay. Friends of the Mayor then made frantic proffers of the olive branch, but it was too late. Mr. Gallivan's personal magnetism, his wide acquaintance, his reputation for rugged integrity, and his pic turesque methods of campaigning soon gained for his candidacy a remarkable momentum, and in the end he managed to poll nearly twenty thousand votes, a large part of which came unquestionably from the Curley ranks. When all is said and done, it is to Congressman Gallivan and to his silver-tongued sponsor, ex-Mayor Fitzgerald, that Boston chiefly owes her deliverance from the morals and methods of Tammany.

Here, at any rate, was an opportunity for the friends of honest and efficient government to unite upon some candidate of outstanding merit, preferably one who had not been in any way associated with the old City Hall crowd. Reformers too often let such an opportunity slip by. The logic of the situation pointed clearly to the wisdom of uniting upon the Hon. Andrew J. Peters, who had already announced himself as an aspirant for the office.

Although a Democrat, Mr. Peters had been four times chosen to represent in Congress one of the Republican districts of Boston; he had also served with conspicuous credit as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury at Washington. His candidacy was therefore indorsed whole-heartedly by the Good Government Association, an organization which reflects with more or less accuracy the non-partisan or "fusion" sentiment of Boston.

With party lines thus obliterated, the campaign started with a rush. As the days went on the most pronounced racial and personal bitterness was created in some quarters, with the partisans of Mayor Curley taking the chief initiative in this direction. Being no neophyte in politics, Mr. Peters kept his balance and declined to be lured into this torrent of vituperation, of appeals to religious prejudice and racial animosity, all of which unhappily have been far too often the accompaniment of a Boston municipal contest, and which marked this particular campaign with unprecedented virulence. So, while the CurleyGallivan forces blazed away at each other, Mr. Peters and his friends clung steadfastly to the plan of making a straightforward appeal to the whole electorate, offering a constructive programme of municipal improvement and promising an administration which would be non-partisan in every sense of the word. This policy was not spectacular, but it proved effective, the more so because the voters of Boston have had their surfeit of personalities in the campaigns of the past dozen years.

The Republicans of the city, moreover, gave sign of coming solidly to the Peters standard. Having no representative of their own party in the field, the promise of a non-partisan administration, made by Mr. Peters with evident sincerity, naturally appealed to them. Republicans form a decided minority among the voters of Boston, but they are an influential element, and when the Democrats are badly divided they hold the balance of power. They are not under the domination of any one political leader, and their votes cannot be delivered in bulk to any one, as has been proved time and again. Mr. Peters obtained nearly the entire Republican strength, but not because

of any trade with the leaders of that party. It was merely because he seemed to be the candidate most likely, and indeed the only candidate likely, to give the Republicans a fair deal. When the trend of things became apparent, the Curley strate gists made efforts to drag some camouflage Republican into the ring in order that a portion at least of this vote might be deflected from Mr. Peters, but the plan was quickly ridiculed into an ignominious collapse. Of the 38,000 votes received by Mr. Peters the Republicans contributed at least from 20,000 to 30,000.

Two other factors contributed to the large plurality obtained by Mr. Peters. One of these was the appearance of a fourth candidate, another Democratic Congressman, the Hon. Peter F. Tague. At the final count Mr. Tague made a poor showing; his candidacy did not directly influence the issue of the election, but his trenchant criticism of Mayor Curley's official acts added considerably to the sum of that gentleman's troubles at a time when he had troubles enough elsewhere. The small vote polled by Congressman Tague is in no sense a reflection upon his personal popularity among the citizens of Boston. It shows merely that he had no chance of winning, and that in a hard-fought struggle men do not like to waste their ballots on a sure loser.

The other factor which clinched the Peters triumph (although the outcome proved that he would have won without this timely assistance) was a declaration in his favor by Martin M. Lomasney, the sturdy and picturesque chieftain who holds in the hollow of his hand one of the most solidly Democratic wards of the city. This habitat of his, Ward Five, is one of the few Boston wards which has a leader strong enough to swing its votes en masse from one side to the other at his own command. Less than thirty-six hours before the election Mr. Lomasney, who is commonly known in the vernacular of Boston politics as "The Mahatma," hurled his high-explosive shell into the Curley camp. Although an assault from this quarter was not unexpected, it was timed, from the Peters standpoint, at just the right psychological moment. The air was surcharged with excitement and uncertainty; this thunderclap helped to clear it. Here, at any rate, was a plain intimation to the seekers after the loaves and fishes that lean years were ahead of those who pinned their faith upon Mayor Curley's prospects of re-election. It was a broad hint that the pay-roll patriots should scurry for cover. Bosses are human, some of them very much so. They like to be on the winning side. Yet the spectacle of Ward Five storming the polls of Boston in alliance with the cohorts of the Good Government Association is not the least amusing sight that New England has seen for many a day.

Out of approximately 88,000 votes cast Mr. Peters received slightly less than 38,000; Mr. Curley somewhat more than 28,000, and Mr. Gallivan nearly 20,000. The remainder went to Mr. Tague and to a Socialist nominee who drew but a few hundred. What would have happened had the two leading candidates been left to fight it out by themselves there is no way of determining, but it is not probable that in such event Mr. Peters could have won. His easy victory, therefore, has no real significance in demonstrating that a majority of Boston's voters have had a searching of hearts and now want the reformer's brand of city government. The chief lesson to be learned from this election is, not how a reform mayor can be elected, but how an unreformed one may assure his own defeat. When a mayor uses his appointing power, his patronage, his official influence, and a large part of his energies for the obvious purpose of promoting his own political and personal interests, and particularly when he accompanies this with sundry manifestations of worldly prosperity, he takes the risk of promoting disappointment, then envy, then vindictiveness, and 'finally-an open revolt among his erstwhile friends.

Mayor Curley overdid the thing. Not only was his administration of a quality far below what a man of his brains and energy could have made it, but it was so thoroughly factional, and so conspicuously disdainful of all other factions than his own, that undercurrents of resentment were assured. Hence in no quarter did his humiliation give greater satisfaction than in circles where four years ago he had his stanchest friends.

With Mayor Peters at the helm Boston may look forward to bigger and better things. The commercial and industrial interests of the community, the comfort and convenience of its citi

zens, will not be subordinated during the next four years to crude partisanship or truculent personal ambitions. Mr. Peters has promised this, and his public record shows him to be a

man of his word. Boston, in short, is not reformed, but merely the child of good fortune for the moment. Cambridge, December 24, 1917. WILLIAM BENNETT MUNRO.

HOW no quarter!" This was the famous order given out by the Kaiser to his troops as they were departing for China to crush the Boxer uprising. This order was typical not only of kaiserism, but of the whole attitude of the Europeans towards the Chinese.

A genuinely national movement which resulted a few years

later in a successful revolution and the establishment of a Chinese Republic was interpreted by most Europeans and many Americans as a dangerous, if not a criminal, attempt at mob rule. Russia has not been much better understood than China. China, in the opinion of all Occidentals, stood for Chinese bells, Chinese tea, or Chinese embroideries and porcelains. What did we care or know about Boxers, politics, economics, history, customs, and other tedious items of Chinese life?

Likewise Russia, previous to March, 1917, stood in American opinion for knouting, Cossacks, Siberia, icy winters, samovars, and tallow candles. Since that date it seems to stand almost exclusively for Anarchists, betrayal of the Allied cause, civil war, and German propaganda. Under such conditions, naturally nothing but irritation can be expected with respect to Russia. Is this attitude a just one? Does America know enough definitely and wholly to condemn? To answer this question intelligently the American reader must understand that it has a twofold character. On the one hand it concerns the political and economic conditions inside of Russia, and on the other it is related to Russia's international situation. Let me deal with the second phase first.

This war has been often defined as a war of exhaustion. Military experts of all the Allied countries, especially in England, have declared repeatedly that victory over the German war machine will be achieved, not by territorial or strategical advantages, but by the wearing out of this machine by slow but persistent grinding.

If so, Russia has already done more than her total share in the common cause of wearing out the forces of Germany. Russia holds at present over two million Austro-German prisoners. If every one of the great Allied belligerents (the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan) will do as much, and each of the minor Allied belligerents only one-tenth as much, the Central Empires will lose in war prisoners alone about twelve million men. Plainly the wheels of their war machine will be ground off and will crash in ruin. The participation of the Russian Bear in the war has not only caused Germany and her allies an enormous loss of man power in prisoners and in soldiers killed and permanently disabled, but has also cost them billions of money, untold quantities of war material, an immense amount of energy and vitality, and great tension upon their means of communication brought about by the wide new areas which the Central Empires now have to hold on the north and the east. On the western or French front the Germans have fought at a huge expense of steel and explosives. On the eastern or Russian front they were forced to fight hand to hand and to lavishly spend their man power, for the Russians fought with bayonets against cannon, and they dearly sold every mile of Russian soil. So much for Russia's balance in the accounts of the transaction of the Allies. This balance still stands to her credit, and in justice ought never to be lost sight of.

But Russia has not lost her significance as a military factor for the present or the future. It is logically impossible to conclude a separate peace between Russia and Germany even under the present chaotic conditions in Russia. The Bolsheviki under the leadership of Lenine and Trotsky face a problem which they thoroughly realize even if they are trying to conceal it from the masses of the people. If their control is overthrown by men with an even more radical" programme, these men will find

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themselves confronted with the same problem, for to conclude an immediate peace means to disband the army at once- -that is, to sap the very life-blood of the revolutionary power. The Revolution was won in March and the Romanoffs overthrown because the great bulk of the army supported the revolutionary movement. Lenine, Trotsky, and Company are promising peace, but they are taking great care not to disband the army or to disarm the soldiery, for they could not last a week unsupported by the moral and physical power of the soldiery. But it is quite evident that so long as any semblance of a Russian army, or even a mere crowd of several millions of armed men, remains in the east, Germany will be unable wholly to withdraw men, munitions, or equipment from the Russian front. The problem so far as it concerns Germany is complicated by two other factors. The present rulers of Germany cannot pos sibly agree to a formal peace treaty with an indefinite group of visionary radicals who preach anarchy and who deny any stable organization of the state. And, on the other hand, if the leaders of the Bolsheviki are found to be conferring with members of the German General Staff at Petrograd, there will, in my judgment, be a strong reaction among the Russian masses against the political adventurers who under a false pretense of serving their country summon the help of the invaders of Russian soil. All these facts must be considered before an intelligent judg ment can be formed of the present international influence of Russia on the war.

Let us now briefly consider the second part of the problemthat is to say, the social and political forces that are within Russia's own boundaries.

What are the Bolsheviki, and what will be their future influence on Russian domestic politics? A mob, even while acting as one man under the impulse of a strong emotion, can never be regarded as expressing the whole definite, collected will of all its participants. Mobs are the product of some terrible, unreasoning emotion. When that emotion has spent itself in the attainment of its specific object, the mob quickly transforms itself again into a gathering of law-abiding, reasonable citizens seeking order and looking for a legally established authority to guide and co-ordinate its conduct. This was true of the French Revolution. It will be true of the Russian Revolution.

In Russia, as everywhere else, there is a class of intellectual people trained and educated in various walks of civilized social life who are the natural and the only possible leaders in a state organism. They must and they will come into their own. Their advent to power is merely a question of time. As long as there are crowds of credulous individuals who easily absorb all kinds of noisy verbosity, taking it at its face value, there will be a chance for soap-box orators to persuade the masses to try out some new, promising political and social experiments. But as soon as these experiments have been transformed into bitter experience and have led directly to the punishment of hunger, misery, and general chaos, the flippant crowd will overturn the soap-boxes and flock in utter despondency to the guidance of those leaders who have proved their capacity to bring back the lost bliss of law and order and the means of satisfying the first necessities of life.

The thoughtful, studious, and loyal elements of Russia must not be deprived of the possibility of offering to the masses the blessings of an orderly state organism. If, in a not unnatural impatience with and distrust of the Bolsheviki, the Allies should cut off Russia from any aid in money and supplies, they will only drive the Russian masses to despair, and will force them to grasp the nearest hand stretched out to them with the offer of appeasing their hunger and covering their shivering bodies. Whereas by encouraging and supporting the ever-growing

TH

HE Forty-third Battery of the Belgian Artillery had gone en repos. For four days we were to be at the village of Steenkerke (stone church), situated about five miles behind Dixmude. Four days of comparative peace; four days of real, warm food, of plenty of water-for bathing, with plenty of soap; and, last but not least, with plenty of sleep.

We were billeted in a place which was a combination of dugout and farm-house. The dugout was necessary, as we were within reach of the German guns before Dixmude.

Now let me say at once that dugouts are not always as bad as they are cracked down to be. Take ours, for instance. We had three beds and enough straw for six of us; we had a real table and real chairs-instead of old munition boxes; we had-ah, guess! The mere thought of what else we had in that dugout can give me even to-day a feeling of happy satisfaction. It was a real, honest-to-goodness piano! None of us could play it except the Colonel, and he only by courtesy-but we all tried. The many musical evenings we had, now and then with a real artist present, some itinerant soldier-musician who in pre-war days had delighted larger-but surely not more appreciative-audi ences in Paris, New York, London, or Monte Carlo. Even the great Ysaye once played for us, accompanied on our old friend. Yes, I guess that piano earned its purchase price if ever a piano did. Alas! like so many other things in Belgium these days, it was "Made in Germany." But, German or not, it gave us many a happy hour, and of one particular occasion, when its notes gave us the thrill of our lives, I am going to tell you about.

One evening during the early part of April, 1917, Monsieur le Curé, shepherd of Steenkerke, was our guest for dinner. In the days before the war the Curé had been a professor at the University of Louvain, but on account of his somewhat too liberal views he was transferred to the peace and quiet of Steenkerke, at the end of nowhere. What a charming, dear old chap he was, our friend le Curé! He seemed to carry warmth and sunshine wherever he went. Needless to say, we always heartily welcomed him at our simple mess.

The dinner had reached the coffee and pipe stage, and, as the Germans were about due to start their evening hate, we all descended into our underground "salon."

Our pipes were lit, our feet stretched out near the impromptu fireplace, and we felt so comfortable and satisfied that we did not even mind Captain Petit's snoring. We were discussing a very popular topic-America's course. Was she going to join actively in the war or was she merely going to leave matters as they stood-broken diplomatic relations? Naturally, as in every community, large or small, we had our pessimists and our optimists. Let me hasten to say that I always belonged to the optimist class as far as America was concerned, and-let me emphasize it always shall belong. I have no patience with this talk about American slackers, American cannot-get-readyness, and many other American shortcomings. Except for her fleet, England was far less prepared in August, 1914, than we were in April, 1917. See what she accomplished in two short years! Her armies in France were in 1916, and are to-day, man for man and regiment for regiment, better than any army Germany ever had in the field or ever will have. In 1916, at the end of July, the "London Scottish," a regiment made up of former London bank clerks, shop assistants, laborers, college men, etc., wiped out seventy per cent of the famous Potsdam guards-professional soldiers, mark you! And none of those English chaps had ever done the "goose-step" in their lives.

What England can do in two years we, with our industrial and natural resources, our energies, our "take-off-your-coatroll-up-your-sleeves-get-busy" slogans, our inventive genius, our fighting spirit, can do in less than half that time.

AND WE ARE GOING TO DO IT

American affiliations asked me almost daily: "What is America going to do? Is she coming to help us? Is she going to stand by little Belgium?" The exact arguments I used matter not to-day, they are old history by now, but I may say that again and again I assured my good friends "over there" that America had always done the right thing in the end, and would do it this time.

All of a sudden, about 11 P. M. I should judge, we heard loud knocking at the street door upstairs. Unconsciously every one of us moved his right hand towards his hip. Presently we heard a deep Flemish voice saying: "Orders van het Hoofdkwartier." (Despatches from Headquarters.) "Sapristi!” exclaimed the Colonel;" what may that be?" You see the ordinary daily despatches from Headquarters usually arrive before 8 P. M., so as to give every C. O. an opportunity to have next day's orders copied and distributed among the various units under his command.

Presently the Colonel's orderly showed in a mud-begrimed despatch rider, who, after saluting, handed the Colonel a sealed envelope. We were all electrified and could hardly wait to hear the news contained in this urgent despatch.

The Colonel, drawing a little closer to him one of the bottles holding a lighted candle, tore open the envelope and proceeded to read.

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Heavens, what a long time did he study that paper! Was he ever going to share the news with us? We tried to read it from his eyes. Was it good or was it bad? Were we to "attack at dawn," or did it mean retreat"? Perhaps it contained news about his son, who was reported "missing" in October, 1914, and whom he would not believe dead. But the Colonel was slow to solve our questions. For what seemed to us an interminably long time he sat there staring at that sheet of white paper. The old alarm clock on the table ticked the seconds, and I wondered whether it was not my heart that was beating so loudly. At last he showed some signs of action. The Colonel had sat down in order to be near the light; now he rose. For a second or so longer he stood there with large, wide-opened eyes staring straight in front of him, and then he announced, in a slow and trembling voice:

"GENTLEMEN, AMERICA IS OUR ALLY."

Now we understood what had kept him so long. America our ally! Could it be true? Yes, it was; it came officially from Headquarters. It thrilled us through heart and soul. It seemed that up and down the land of Flanders, of England, across the whole world, there must have reverberated the message: "America, America is our ally. America has come at last."

No one here at home can possibly realize the effect of those words, the impression they made in Belgium, in France. I don't know how long the silence lasted, but I know that the ten of us stood there like statues, transfixed for a long time. I am not trying to grow poetic, to make fine phrases; let me assure you, it is no abuse of language, no hyperbole, when I tell you that those four little words sounded to us like a message from heaven. For two and a half years we had been looking west, wondering, watching, waiting. For two and a half years the best manhood of Belgium, France, and England had succumbed on the plains and in the lowlands of Flanders; for two and a half years men, women, and children, many of them homeless, without food, dressed in rags, had been asking me, Ah, monsieur, what about that grand contree, America, which you tell us is always fair and always just? When is it coming to help us; to free us?"

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And here was the answer. April the 6th. O God, to have lived on that day and among those people makes life seem worth all sufferings !

Again the Colonel spoke.

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Gentlemen, we must commemorate this greatest of all days." And, addressing the Curé, he said: "And you, Monsieur le Curé, you must celebrate with us. I know your habits, but I am going to beg of you to-day to make an exception, because I