stepped aside to make room for necessity. When a house is on fire, we do not wait until we can make a patent sprinkler; we do what we can with pails of water until the fire-engine comes, and then we do not scorn its aid because it is of old construction. If we could not get the ideal rifles and machine guns to train the men, we should have taken what rifles and machine guns we could get. Some people have suggested that drill in arms with broomsticks is possible. Such people may know drills, but they do not know human nature. The boys in camp are not kindergarten children, to be satisfied with paper caps and wooden guns.

Where there was knowledge there was not power. SurgeonGeneral Gorgas is perhaps the greatest expert on camp sanitary conditions in the world. He has told us that he urgently requested the Department that men should not be called into the camps until hospitals were provided. This request was disregarded, with what tragical results in more than one instance the country now knows. Surgeon-General Gorgas should have. had power to command; or, if that were impracticable, his request should have had the effect of a command. If his superior officer cannot trust the head of the Medical Department with authority in his own medical domain, he should not trust him at all, and should put another in his place whom he can trust.

Mr. Hoover has taken the country into his confidence. He has told us what he wants us to plant in our gardens, what to eat in our homes and hotels, and what to forego and why; and the people have responded with general and generous selfsacrifice. Mr. McAdoo has told us what money he wants and what is to be done with it, and the people have given him more than he asked for.

The War Department has pursued a different policy. It has concealed not only from the people, but apparently from the President, the disastrous conditions of some of our camps, else the President could not have referred to them as mere "partial miscarriages of plans," and condemned the persistent investigation by Congress on the ground that such investigations "drew indispensable officials from their commands and contributed a great deal to such delay and confusion as has inevitably arisen." What the country demands and has a right to demand is such reorganization of the War Department in method and in personnel as may be necessary to secure, and secure at once, co-ordination of all its various bureaus, power in the appropriate heads to act, not merely to advise, and frank and openhanded dealing with the people whose war this is and who are giving their money, their time, and their sons and their daughters to winning it and winning it now.

The confidence of the people in their Government has for some time been disturbed by unverified rumors of inefficiency in the administration of the War Department. It was rudely shaken by the recent coal order of Mr. Garfield. It has been irreparably impaired by the speech of Senator Chamberlain, and by the testimony of Surgeon-General Gorgas, Mr. Medill McCormick, and Secretary Baker himself. It has not been re-established by the President's indorsement of his Secretary as "one of the ablest public officials I have ever known." We do not think it will be e-established by the address of Mr. Baker, admirable as it is in many respects, which was made before the Senate Committee on January 28. It is not necessary to consider whether Mr. Baker is at fault. It is enough to say that to succeed in his work the Secretary of War must have the confidence of the country, and the country no longer has complete confidence in his ability to reorganize the Department. The President might well take a lesson from the life of Abraham Lincoln, whom he so greatly admires, who, when his Secretary of War, Mr. Cameron, lost the confidence of the country, appointed him Minister to Russia, and put in his place Edwin M. Stanton, a personal and political foe.

Meanwhile Congress has a duty to perform and is performing it. In an autocratic government the Kaiser or Czar rules, the heads of departments are his servants, and the Reichstag or the Duma is simply a popularly elected body of advisers, whose advice the Kaiser or Czar may accept or disregard as he pleases. In a democracy a Parliament or Congress, chosen by the people and speaking for them, directs what must be done, and a President or Prime Minister puts their will into effect. In an autoc

racy the executive rules, the people and their representatives obey; in a democracy the people rule and the executive obeys. The most fundamental question involved in this war is whether the Executive shall be the ruler, as in Germany, or the servant of the people, as in England, France, Italy, and the United States. Congress created the War Department, and if the War Department does not function to the satisfaction of Congress, it is the duty of Congress to reorganize it.

It can do this by creating a War Cabinet. A correspondent on another page gives weighty reasons for this course. But what is perhaps the most serious objection to that course he does not consider time. So radical a measure cannot be passed by Congress without a perplexing debate. It is disapproved by the President, and that disapproval can be overcome only by an insistent public opinion. A War Cabinet would be a novelty in American history. To create an insistent public opinion demanding it would require a still more protracted debate. Meanwhile our allies are calling for our action, and every day of delay costs the lives of hundreds of soldiers in the field and imperils the ultimate victory. But Congress can, without serious delay, create a Minister of Munitions. If it gives him power to act, not merely to advise, and if it can secure from the President the appointment to the office of one who enjoys the confidence both of Congress and the President, the most immediate and pressing evil-lack of co-ordination and of personal power in procuring equipment for our soldiers-would be at once remedied. Congress can then take up at greater leisure additional reorganization of the departments of the Government needed to insure protection from future National disasters, such as our tangled transportation, our lack of shipping, and our lack of coal. The President can perhaps provide any immediate and temporary remedy by a change of personnel, but only Congress can provide a real and radical remedy like enacting changes in organization. And in such action speed is of greater importance than a perfect plan.

The President is elected to carry out the will of Congress. Congress is elected to carry out the will of the people. And there can be no doubt what is the will of the people. It is Grant's direction to Sheridan: "Push things." If Congress fails to push things, the remedy is with the people in the election next fall. In that election every voter who wishes to win the war, and to win it now, should vote for the Representative who most eagerly and insistently shares that will, whether he be Republican or Democrat or Socialist or Laborite or Capitalist or Prohibitionist or Woman Suffragist. For to win this war and win it now, and, in winning the right of democracy to exist, win a lasting world peace, is the supreme duty of this Nation-President, Congress, and people.

THE WAR DEPARTMENT

A certain amount of "muddling through" seems to be inevitable in our War Department. Perhaps this is necessary in a democracy, where the spirit, the initiative, and the choice of executives must come from the people. A correspondent, whose name as a student of American history carries authority, deprecates the present criticism in Congress and the newspapers for these reasons:

Our Army is a sort of National fetish. When war comes, its officers fail in all they are expected to do because they have vegetated through past years of numbing routine. Newspapers and public men make the task more difficult by attacking the civilians who are struggling with failures from which the country has suffered at the beginning of every war.

Our Ordnance Department decided in favor of keeping some regiments in flintlocks in the Mexican War, forty years after the percussion lock had been invented; they decided against the breech-loader at the opening of the Civil War; against smokeless powder in the Spanish War; and they have made similar blunders at the opening of this war.

These interesting facts, it seems to us, should not suppress but stimulate the spirit of criticism-not captious fault-finding, but a critical point of inquiry. If we have ordnance officers who, because they have "vegetated through past years of numbing routine," are repeating the flintlock blunders of the Mexican War, we ought to prod our civilian executives to remove

them, not to defend them. It is because the people want and have a right to know whether the War Department is making blunders similar to those of the Mexican, Civil, and Spanish Wars that the turmoil is going on in Washington. And it is in that spirit of constructive inquiry that The Outlook is glad to contribute its share to the questioning.

We commend to the special attention of our readers this week, as bearing upon this work of critical inquiry, Dr. Odell's article on the Lewis Machine Gun; the review of Secretary Baker's testimony before the Senate Committee; and the article advocating a War Cabinet by "An American Journalist." In another column we discuss the principles and authority which should govern congressional or parliamentary criticism and administrative reform in a democracy.

THE HIGH COST OF EDITING

Having endured coalless, meatless, sweetless, and wheatless days on account of the war, New York City has been threatened with another terrible privation, namely, a newspaperless day. We do not use these words altogether jocosely, for the daily newspaper has come to be almost as essential a factor in our economic and social life as transportation. Newspapers, indeed, constitute a transportation system of intelligence or ideas, and American business is now based on ideas and news almost as much as it is upon material commodities.

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What threatened to be a real catastrophe in the field of New York daily journalism happened in this wise. By concerted action all the New York dailies published in the English language agreed week before last to make a uniform price of two cents a copy. The "Times,' "Sun," "Tribune,” “Herald,” World," and "American "have for a long time been selling a one-cent copy in the morning, while in the afternoon the "Evening Sun," Mail," "Globe," "Evening World,” and “Evening Journal" have been selling at the same price. The New York Evening Post" was the only New York newspaper in English to command a higher rate. Its price has been three cents a copy. It has, of course, been known to the journalistic trade for many years that one cent a copy did not pay even for the mechanical expenses of getting out a metropolitan newspaper; that is to say, the white paper and presswork alone cost more than one cent. The advertising income supplied the necessary fund for salaries, wages, articles, and the vast sums spent for telegraphic news. Profits, if any, came from whatever was left. Not very long ago Mr. Ochs, the brilliant proprietor and publisher of the New York" Times," stated in his own columns that the "Times" had to take in and expend over seventy-five thousand dollars a week, or nearly four million dollars a year, for the expenses of conducting the paper before one penny could go to the stockholders in the form of dividends.

The rapidly mounting price of white paper, of printing, of wages to compositors and pressmen, and of the expense of col

lecting news from all parts of the world under war conditions, have made it impossible for the daily newspapers to continue to sell their copies at one cent. The discrepancy between circulation receipts and editorial and publishing expenditures, which had to be made up by the advertising income, had become too great to be borne. This has led to the general agreement by which all the papers, including Mr. Villard's exclusive "Evening Post" and Mr. Hearst's heterogeneous and inclusive Evening Journal," are to be sold hereafter at two cents each. About a year ago, under these same general conditions, The Outlook found it necessary to raise its price thirty-three and a third per cent. How severe the stress of war is on the general periodical and newspaper world is indicated by the fact that the New York dailies have increased their price one hundred per cent.

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The most curious and most unlooked-for result of the increase in price is a strike on the part of the newsdealers who handle the daily papers. Formerly the newsboys and small dealers made forty cents on every hundred copies they sold of a one-cent paper. Under the new arrangement, if they sell the same number of papers they will earn sixty cents a hundred copies. Some of the advantage of the increased price is therefore passed along to them, and it was naturally to be supposed that they would welcome the increase. But they so disapproved of the change in price that they organized at once a strike and refused to sell any newspapers at all. And at this writing The Outlook office, which is supplied with files of every English daily in New York City-and dailies from many other cities of the country as well-has had great difficulty in getting its usual complement of New York morning papers. The reason given by the small newsdealers for their antagonism to the increased price is, first, that it requires a greater capital investment on their part. They formerly bought a hundred copies of a one-cent daily for sixty cents. They now have to pay $1.40 for a hundred copies. This makes, of course, the amount they risk in the transaction much larger. Second, they assert that they will sell fewer copies, and therefore make really less money than they did under the old system.

Undoubtedly the difficulties will be adjusted, and people will become accustomed to paying twice as much for their daily newspaper, just as they have become accustomed to paying twice as much for their daily quart of milk. At least this is probably true as regards the better class of newspapers. It will be an interesting sociological study to see whether Mr. Hearst's "Evening Journal," which publishes nobody knows exactly how many editions during the day, and which appears to be bought lavishly and is littered about the streets, trolley cars, and subways equally lavishly, will continue to appeal to the same thoughtless newspaper buyers as strongly at two cents as it did at one cent. Whatever changes it may produce in newspaper circulation, the increase of price is a sound economic change, and may have a good effect on the quality and character of the newspapers as well as upon their bank accounts.

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These absentees, with strong muscles and willing minds, we depended on to start things in the morning, to marshal schoolboys and lead hands at work, and their leaving takes fully twenty per cent of the productive power from the farms.

FOOD

We must win this war, and want it over as soon as possible. The men on the farms will do all they can, and this copy of The Outlook goes to tens of thousands who own farms, many as investments. There should be producers on them, geared to the highest motion.

Other tens of thousands of readers who live in towns and cities know how to farm, and they should give production all the aid and comfort that is possible. There are college and school boys who should get out in the country and also help push this important matter of production.

Too many are ignorant of the danger, but the farmers know it. Crops will not grow and be gathered unless there are workers, and when ours are taken away we need no alarm bell. We farmers have no fear for ourselves, but can see privation for consumers and danger for the world. The preservation of the country depends on munitions and food.

HE war machine of a nation can be compared very fairly to an automobile.

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In an automobile the only power that counts is the power exerted on the road through the rear wheels. In a war machine the only power that counts is the power exerted on the enemy at the battle-front. Equip an automobile with a hundred horse-power engine, add a defective transmission, a slipping clutch, a badly aligned shaft, and a poorly lubricated differential, and your machine, while the engine is racing its head off, will only crawl along the ground with the speed of a decrepit hack. Give a country all the resources of wealth, population, food, ores, and industry, yet without the organization necessary to bring these resources to bear on the enemy as the power of the automobile engine is brought to bear on the surface of the road, and the result is humiliation and defeat. Perhaps the realization of this fact is the chief reason why we are to-day hearing less and less of a once familiar statement. When we first went to war, we were told that we could easily defeat Germany because of our vast resources in and men. money Now the public is becoming less and less interested in the size of those resources and more and more concerned with the intensive utilization of those resources against the common foe of the civilized nations.

This concern has been growing throughout the progress of the Congressional investigations into the War Department, investigations which have been watched with extraordinary interest from one end of the country to the other. One incident that is significant, perhaps, of the attention with which these investigations have been followed, occurred in one of the largest "movie theaters in New York City on the very day on which Secretary Baker was making his extended defense before the Senate Committee on Military Affairs. When the picture of Senator Chamberlain, chairman of this Committee and the most active critic of the War Department, was thrown on the screen, the theater was swept with a storm of applause. When Senator Chamberlain's picture was immediately followed by that of Senator Stone, who has denounced critics of the Administration as allies of the Kaiser, the house was filled with hisses. The story is told here for what it may be worth to those who believe that the American people do not want to know, or have no right to know, the facts.

SENATOR CHAMBERLAIN BEFORE THE SENATE

The most dramatic event in the campaign to enlighten the country as to the condition of its war machine was the speech by Senator Chamberlain, of Oregon, on January 24, before the Senate. For three hours Senator Chamberlain spoke, and for this period of time he held the closest attention of his hearers. Every seat in the Senate chamber was filled, the back and sides of the chamber were crowded by members of Congress from the lower house, and the galleries were packed to suffocation. Senator Chamberlain began by a telling presentation of the incidents which brought down upon him the wrath of the President, as described in last week's issue of The Outlook. The Senator showed clearly that the President did not give him the opportunity he desired to explain his criticisms of the conduct of the War Department, and that his motives did not spring from any opposition, as the President said, "to the Adminis tration's whole policy." Then, having established in the minds of his hearers a vivid impression of the rock-like foundation of his sincerity and utter loyalty, he proceeded with a summary of the testimony given before the Senate Military Committee concerning the deficiencies of the War Department. He told the history of the Enfield rifle controversy, of the utter failure of our Ordnance Department to provide our army with artillery; he summarized the history of the Lewis gun, a history which Dr. Odell recounts in even fuller detail in this week's issue of The Outlook. He told of the testimony which had been given before his Committee concerning the lack of blouses and over

coats at various cantonments throughout the country, giving statistics which no defender of the War Department could afford to pass over in silence. He concluded his address with a description of the hospital conditions in some of the camps which moved the Senate to the depths. Senator Tillman sat in his seat with the tears rolling down his cheeks; Senator Wadsworth covered his face with his hands. In the gallery many were audibly crying. The climax was reached when Senator Chamberlain read a letter from a father whose son had died in the camp from spinal meningitis. This boy was left in a fireless room in zero weather, without sufficient attendance to keep his body covered. After his death, his father, in attempting to enter the room where his son's body was being prepared for burial, felt the door to the room strike something which prevented its being opened. "I looked," he wrote, " and saw that it was my son's body lying on the floor of the hall, and it was his head that I struck with the door."

THE SURGEON-GENERAL'S TESTIMONY

Senator Chamberlain's speech was immediately answered by Senator Kirby, cf Arkansas, but his reply on behalf of the Administration plainly did not carry the weight of Senator Chamberlain's address. In fact, many Senators left the chamber during his speech. The chief reply from the War Department was to come later. But on the same day on which Senator Chamberlain addressed the Senate the Committee over which he presides heard testimony from the Surgeon-General of the Army, Major-General Gorgas, which corroborated the view given by Senator Chamberlain of the conditions in some of the camps. General Gorgas stated that, while "the sanitary conditions were good," he deplored the crowding of soldiers into insufficient quarters and the failure of the War Department to provide adequate hospital facilities. He stated that heating and sewerage in none of the hospitals of the National Guard encampments are completed. Contrary to General Gorgas's recommendations, the hospitals for our military encampments were generally the last buildings to be constructed. When questioned more closely as to the reason why the War Department decided to leave the construction of the hospitals until the last, General Gorgas said: "I think the idea was that the general cantonments, the barracks, would be needed before the hospitals would be needed, the idea being that we should have troops first, and that the troops would be there a little while before they began to get sick. I think that was the general idea." Senator Weeks then asked: Do you think that was good common sense?" and General Gorgas bluntly replied, "I do not think it was; no, sir."

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General Gorgas described the difficulties of caring for the men in the camps with the untrained orderlies who are generally charged with looking out for the less serious cases of illness. He pointed out that he had recommended the enlargement of two training camps for the officers and enlisted men of the medical corps some two or three months ago. When Senator Chamberlain asked General Gorgas, "Why is it that your recommendation has not been acted upon, especially in view of the fact of these epidemic diseases in the camps?" General Gorgas replied, "I know of no reason for it except getting a decision from the General Staff." Senator Chamberlain again asked, "Can you see any reason why there should be delay in reaching a conclusion about a simple proposition like that?" General Gorgas answered, “No, I do not see any reason.'

SECRETARY BAKER'S DEFENSE Senator Chamberlain's attack on the administration of the War Department, an attack based on just such authoritative testimony as that which we have just quoted from General Gorgas, moved Secretary Baker to request an opportunity to defend his Department by a formal statement before the Senate Military Committee. Secretary Baker's defense was presented to the

Committee in a very different manner from that in which he laid before the public his original summary of the work of his Department. His first defense was largely undocumented and dealt in glittering generalities which somehow failed to carry conviction when weighed against the careful research of the Senate Military Committee. Secretary Baker has apparently begun to take the criticism of his Department more seriously, for no man would enter upon so extended a defense as that which Mr. Baker has now put forward who did not regard the criticisms of his opponents as something more than an annoying interruption in his daily work. A tangible evidence of this change of heart in the Secretary of War has been shown the country by the recent invitation to Mr. Edward R. Stettinius to enter the service of the War Department with the title of Surveyor-General of Supplies for the Army. Mr. Stettinius's duties have not yet been fully defined, but he is a man whose co-operation with the War Department should prove of tremendous value. He has been the purchasing agent for the Allied Governments in America for a number of months. We hope it will prove that he has been asked to enter the service of the Government in something more than an advisory capacity.

Secretary Baker's defense covers nearly twenty-three columns in the New York" Times," which has in the present instance again rendered valuable service by the publication in full of an important document, a fact which will make the files of the "Times" for the current years a very important source for future historians of the war.

Secretary Baker began his defense by a statement of his gratitude to the Military Committee of the Senate for the permission granted him to make a comprehensive review of the activities of the War Department. He told of the earnestness within the War Department, and the seriousness with which it had approached its tremendous task. He said that individuals did not count in the prosecution of this task, and the appearance of any name "in the casualty list any morning is a negligible matter as contrasted with the success of this enterprise." He admitted that the investigations of the Ordnance and Quartermaster's Departments had brought out shortcomings, but he insisted that these shortcomings were not characteristic of the work of the Department as a whole. He deplored the fact that the Committee had felt that on his previous appearance he was trying to fence or to defend his subordinates.

Changing from a general discussion of his attitude and aims, Secretary Baker first took up the statements which Senator Chamberlain had made in regard to the neglect of the sick in the army hospitals. He pointed out instances where officers accused of neglecting their patients had been severely punished, and quoted a letter which he himself had written, in which he had returned for reconsideration the findings of a court martial because he did not think that the sentence of the offender to mere dismissal was severe enough. He quoted a long and interesting letter from Mrs. Mary Roberts Rir.ehart, the writer who has visited many of the camps for the "Saturday Evening Post," and who herself has a son in the service. Mrs. Rinehart said: There are conditions to be remedied. The failure of supplies has been a serious matter. There are not enough women nurses. The quarters of both nurses and doctors must be enlarged in many cases.

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Of cruelty and indifference I have found nothing. On the contrary, I have found the medical staffs of the hospitals both efficient and humane. The best specialists of the country have placed themselves at the disposal of the army medical department, and ninety-nine out of one hundred men are receiving better care than they could afford under the best circumstances to receive at home.

Secretary Baker declares that the Surgeon-General had the unqualified support of every officer in the War Department from the Secretary down.

Following his discussion of the situation in the hospitals, Secretary Baker took up the question of the small arms deficiency. He pointed out that General Pershing himself had been present at the conference which decided on the adoption of the modified Enfield. This decision and the further decision to make the new rifles interchangeable as to most of their parts caused the delay in the equipment of our soldiers. He stated that General Wood urged the advisability of calling out a larger army than the Government was at that time prepared

to equip. He did not state that the men in General Wood's camp were fitted out with warm overcoats, even though General Wood had to purchase these overcoats practically on his own responsibility.

Secretary Baker, in discussing the machine gun question, retold the now familiar story of the War Department's decision to use only a light and a heavy machine the Lewis gun, gun; being a medium-weight gun, was not considered for the standard equipment of our troops. He said that a test made by the navy in April proved that the Lewis gun had been perfected for the use of American ammunition, and that large orders for Lewis guns had now been given. As the Lewis gun was originally designed for American ammunition, and had to be modified for the use of English ammunition, this statement does not carry much weight. The present situation of the Lewis gun controversy is fully and authoritatively described by Dr. Odell elsewhere in this issue. Secretary Baker's statements as to the number of machine guns in our several camps drew forth many questions from the listening Senators.

Secretary Baker quoted French authorities to prove that our dependence on France for our heavy artillery had not handicapped the French military machine. He stated that it was the conclusion of the conference in France which Mr. House attended that Great Britain and France now had a surplus of ordnance material.

On the clothing situation Secretary Baker said: "The reports I have now are, and the reports for some time have been, that the quantity of woolen underwear in the camps is adequate. . . . For some weeks now we have had an adequate supply of overcoats." Secretary Baker seemed to be of the opinion that there is no such shortage of any garments now as would interfere with the health of the men.

A discussion of these questions occupied all of the morning session of the Committee before which Secretary Baker was appearing, and in the afternoon Secretary Baker continued his defense with a discussion of the camp sites, the epidemic diseases, the hospitals, and the general military policy of the country. Secretary Baker's description of the situation with regard to hospitals differed widely from that given by General Gorgas. It is hard to reconcile Secretary Baker's understanding of the situation with General Gorgas's blunt testimony before the same Committee.

Secretary Baker finished his testimony on January 27 with a description of the difficulties confronting this country in its endeavor to send an expeditionary force to France, and stated that early in 1918 we shall have half a million men in France, and that we now have many more than one hundred thousand. Before the end of 1918 it is hoped that we shall have in France 1,500,000 men. Secretary Baker concluded his remarks with the following statement:

There will be no division of counsel. There will be all the criticism there ought to be on shortcomings and failure; there will be, so far as the War Department is concerned, a continuing effort at self-improvement and hospitality towards every suggestion for improvement that can come from the outside.

All of which sounds very hopeful, but somehow one finishes the reading of Mr. Baker's testimony with the feeling that he has avoided the one essential question which the country desires to have answered: Is the War Department organized on a sound basis? In an able article in the "New Republic" Mr. William Hard sums up the demand of the Nation in the following words:

Ever since the beginning of the war we have been trying to get things done by putting people over other people whom they have no power to compel. We did it in the committees of the Advisory Commission. We did it in the General Munitions Board. We did it in the War Industries Board. And we reached

a failure every time. And now Mr. Baker is doing it all over again in the Directorship of Purchases and is calling it reform. It is not reform. It is a repetition of a failure already several times repeated.

The gentlemen of the Senate might well say to Mr. Baker: "If we ask you to resign or reorganize, we mean really reorganize. We do not mean give us a phantom of civilian-headed control in the War Industries Board. We do not mean give us a phantom of single-headed control in the directorship of purchases. Those controls are not controls, and we know that they