on the shoulders of the President. The temper of the editorial is fairly indicated by the following quotation:

Under our form of government, Mr. Wilson is entirely responsible and solely responsible for the choice of his Cabinet and for the selection of administrative officers outside of the Cabinet. In no other country in the world, certainly not in Germany or in England or in France, is there a chief executive with so much power, power almost amounting to real dictatorship. For the lamentable failures of the present Administration, therefore, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Wilson alone is responsible. Therefore we may expect sooner or later that in spite of all the idolatry of the past Mr. Wilson will come in for a large share of the blame. Of course the President is to blame. But that is only a superficial view of the matter. We, the people, are infinitely more culpable. After all, Mr. Wilson is doing what his nature and accomplishments permit him to do. He is trying his best to be a good war President. But we made the unpar

donable mistake of electing Mr. Wilson President. There lies the real blame. . . . We voted for him because he was neutral about the ruin of Belgium and because he was worse than neutral about the sinking of the Lusitania. We are sorry to say that a fairly large section of the public acts just like the New York "World." Having voted for Mr. Wilson in order to be allowed to go on profiting by the war, and having hedged Mr. Wilson round with a sanctity that few monarchs and fewer saints have ever enjoyed, they are now beginning to look for some one to blame, because they possibly have not enough coal to keep them warm and not enough sugar to sweeten their coffee... Our only hope of real and permanent improvement is, first, that the Nation should realize its own culpability and put the blame where it belongs, on its own shoulders. For the Nation elected Mr. Wilson with its eyes open. Second, that every one, even if he is a Democrat, should cease to be an idolater and stop talking as if to criticise the Administration were blasphemy. No one in England thinks he is aiding the enemy simply because he ventures to suggest that Lloyd George might possibly be mistaken. Look at Northcliffe's utterances. It is a positive fact that if any American newspapers said about Mr. Wilson what the "Times" and "Daily Mail" have said about Lloyd George and Asquith, Mr. Burleson would refuse to pass them through the mail.

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With rather grim irony, Mr. Burleson has answered this editorial in the Metropolitan" by refusing to pass it through the mail.. When we say Mr. Burleson, we do not mean that he personally issued the order. But certainly he is responsible for such acts in his Department. The order came from Postmaster Patten, of New York City. No one supposes that the New York Postmaster issued such an order, nor can he legally do so, without authority from the Post-Office Department. Mr. Lamar, the Solicitor for the Post-Office Department, has issued a public statement in which he says that the Department did not issue such an order, but that he (the Solicitor) wrote to the Postmaster of New York about the article by Mr. Hard in the "Metropolitan," and that his "letter may have been so unfortunately worded as to fully warrant such notice to the publishers." The Administration has had a number of vexatious experiences with unfortunate phrases. It is certainly unfortunate that the periodical with which Theodore Roosevelt is associated should be debarred from the mails, even if such debarment was due not to intent but to dubious and confusing phraseology on the part of the Government.

"Vie

No public action has been taken against the anti-Ally, and therefore seditious, statements of the Hearst newspapers, or the unspeakable course of that once outspokenly pro-German periodical formerly known as the "Fatherland" and now camouflaged under the nom de guerre "Viereck's Weekly." reck's Weekly" has been persistent and malignant in its attack on Mr. Roosevelt because of his "win-the-war" activities, but then Mr. Roosevelt is merely an ex-President. Meanwhile, at this writing, March 12, we learn by telephone that the March "Metropolitan" is still debarred from the United States mails.

WOMEN SUCCESSFUL AS VOTERS

On March 5 the women of New York City had their first opportunity to show their mettle as voters on questions of National politics. In four Congressional districts within the city there was a special election for Representatives in Congress. In each of the four districts a Democrat, a Republican, and a Socialist candidate stood for election. One district put forward a

woman candidate on the Prohibition ticket, but her candidacy was evidently not taken seriously by the women voters, for she received only 382 votes out of the over 9,000 ballots cast by the women in that district. The Democrats won by a large plurality in all four districts, and the result is taken by political leaders as a vote of confidence in President Wilson's announced policy of carrying on the war vigorously.

All observers agree that the women voters showed intelligence, facility, and determination in their first appearance at the polls and in their handling of the technique of marking and casting their ballots. Their interest in their new civic function is indicated by the fact that ninety per cent of the registered women voted, while less than forty per cent of the men who were registered appeared at the polling-places. This is partly explained by the fact that the men registered last October for the Mayoralty election, while the women registered only recently for this special Congressional election. Nevertheless, making due allowance for this fact, it is clear that the women showed a more serious and determined purpose in the election than the men. The election did not appear to interfere with the housekeeping or maternal duties of the women voters, and many of them expressed themselves as finding the operation less difficult and confusing than they had anticipated.

That the men are beginning to feel that their jokes at the expense of the women voters are recoiling on their own heads is indicated by the following clever verses, signed "John O'Keefe " and entitled "The Missus's Vote," which we find in the New York "World:"

THE WISCONSIN SITUATION

A fortnight ago the upper house of the Wisconsin Legis lature censured Senator La Follette for his attitude in the war. The lower house has, we are glad to say, confirmed this action. As one of the Assemblymen said, "The State of Wisconsin is on trial before the bar of public opinion." He continued:

The people of the Nation expect us to condemn and rebuke those in high and representative places who have sought to quibble and question and hamper and obstruct our Government in the successful prosecution of the war. Senator La Follette has by his actions brought the fair name of the State

of Wisconsin into ill repute. The people of this Nation demand of us to rise to the occasion. This much we must do; we can do no less.

The Legislature's action is significant of the opinion in Wisconsin concerning one whose expulsion from the United States Senate is now being considered by a committee of that body. He has had great popularity with a certain element in his State. How much he has lost with those recent supporters who are now standing with the Federal Government is not yet known, but we are sure that there has been a great, and that there will be a greater, shrinkage.

The Legislature's action also clears the situation for immediate activity in the Senatorial primary campaign to fill the vacancy caused by Senator Husting's death. For the Republican primary nomination there have been three candidatesJames Thompson, a follower of La Follette; former Governor Francis E. McGovern, a man of high administrative ability and in the forefront among Wisconsin statesmen; and Irvine L. Lenroot, the able Wisconsin Representative in Congress. On March 11 Mr. McGovern announced his withdrawal from the race. Mr. McGovern's action, as stated, was based on the indictment, on the charge of violating the Espionage Act, of Victor Berger, the Socialist candidate. This indictment, as Mr. McGovern says, practically removing Berger from the list of candidates, may cause Berger's followers to go in a body to the support of James Thompson, the La Follette candidate, at the Republican primaries, and insure his nomination on the Republican ticket should both Lenroot and McGovern remain in the field to divide the patriotic vote of the party. The statement issued by Mr. McGovern concludes:

In the public interest, therefore, and so that my party may not be disgraced and discredited for years to come, as now seems inevitable unless the choice of the Republicans is narrowed down to one candidate on each side of the great, vital, and transcendent issue of loyal and patriotic Americanism, I now retire in Mr. Lenroot's favor and place my services at his disposal. Mr. McGovern's action will redound to his credit. Writing to The Outlook, Mr. Lenroot also takes this view of the coming onslaught on the Republican primaries. He says: "The loyalty fight is in the Republican party; the pro-Germans and pacifists seem to think that because of La Follette's attitude they can make their best fight there. It is going to mean a hard campaign, but I think we are going to win."

The principal Democratic candidate at the coming primaries is Joseph E. Davies, a member of the Federal Trade Commission, who is said to enjoy the Federal Administration's support.

RUSSIA'S FATE IN SUSPENSE

To the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which met in Moscow on March 12, President Wilson sent the following

message:

May I not take advantage of the meeting of the Congress of the Soviets to express the sincere sympathy which the people of the United States feel for the Russian people at this moment when the German power has been thrust in to interrupt and turn back the whole struggle for freedom and substitute the wishes of Germany for the purpose of the people of Russia?

Although the Government of the United States is, unhappily, not now in a position to render the direct and effective aid it would wish to render, I beg to assure the people of Russia through the Congress that it will avail itself of every opportunity to secure for Russia once more complete sovereignty and independence in her own affairs and full restoration to her great rôle in the life of Europe and the modern world. The whole heart of the people of the United States is with the people of Russia in the attempt to free themselves forever from autocratic government and become the masters of their own life.

The Moscow Congress has been called for the express purpose of ratifying the peace treaty signed by Germany and delegates representing Lenine. How far it is truly national and representative is doubtful; some reports state that it is made up solely, or nearly so, of delegates from the workmen's, soldiers, and peasants' committees.

Meanwhile Petrograd despatches speak of a split in purpose and feeling between Lenine and Trotsky, and the resignation of the latter as head of the Russian Foreign Office. The division

between the two arises from Trotsky's conviction that the Russians ought to fight against a peace extorted by force-a conviction which comes too late in the day to be of value.

The discussion of the proposed Japanese intervention in Siberia has continued. It has been denied that the United States has made (as had been reported from Japan) a demand for a guarantee of the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Siberia after the Russian crisis is over.

The German advance towards Petrograd was unfairly pushed forward for days after the peace treaty was signed, but seems to have been stopped during the week ending March 12, presumably to await the action of the Moscow Congress. Reports from eastern Russia say that Prince Lvoff has put himself at the head of a movement in Siberia to fight the Bolsheviki, to repudiate the peace treaty, and to aid Japanese troops which may be landed at Vladivostok. Prince Lvoff, it will be remembered, was the head of the Council of Ministers which assumed power in Russia just after the deposition of the Czar. There are other indications of armed resistance to Germany in Russia, especially among the Cossacks under General Semenoff.

RUMANIA SUBMITS

Sympathy rather than condemnation is the universal feeling toward Rumania. From the time she entered the war she has been unfortunate, and she has also been betrayed. If there had been complete unity in the plans of the Allies, Rumania would not have been allowed to enter upon a widely extended offensive campaign without support. She did not receive at the time of her first defeat the support she should have had from Russia. Finally, the military dissolution of Russia left Rumania, or what was left of Rumania, open to hopeless defeat. The treaties between Rumania and the Teuton Powers and between Rumania and Russia deprive Rumania not only of that part of the Dobrudja which Rumania received in 1913 after the second Balkan War, but of the older Dobrudja territory which Rumania took from Turkey under the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. This cuts Rumania off from the Black Sea, or at least from her best Black Sea port, Constanza. Presumably, in any distribution of Balkan territory which should follow a German victory in the war, the Dobrudja would go to Bulgaria, Bessarabia would go to Russia, under German control, and the main part of Rumania would be one of those nominally selfgoverning states which would in all but name be Teuton dependencies. Rumania undertakes to evacuate Bessarabia at once, and a common belief is that Germany has agreed that Russia that is, a German-managed Russia-may re-enter Bessarabia.

THE AMERICAN ARMY IN ACTION

There is a stir of spring activity in the armies on the western front. In this activity the American troops are taking a constantly greater part. For instance, on March 11 came the reports of a raid on that day which is described as the first wholly American raid and reconnaissance. It was in the sector north of Toul, had been carefully rehearsed, and was a notable

success.

The accounts state that our American barrage fire was admirably managed. Under its cover the American force (the censor will not allow the number to be stated and provokingly cuts out other interesting details) advanced boldly, penetrated for three hundred yards the German first and second lines, inflicted many casualties on the enemy, captured munitions and supplies, and returned without the loss of a man.

Casualty lists just published give the names of thirty-one American soldiers killed in action, but before the raid just described. The new system of giving out casualty lists from Washington under which name, rank, and cause of death or character of wound alone are given, and the residence in this country, date, and place of action are withheld, has caused much criticism and anxiety here. It is said, however, that General Pershing thinks that any fuller report might be of value to the enemy.

The safe arrival in France of the American Secretary of War and of transports carrying ten thousand American troops

is another cause for congratulation on this side of the water.

Our British comrades on the western fighting front were in fierce action on March 8 and 9, in the Ypres-Dixmude sector. They sustained savage and repeated attacks by the Germans on those days, and where the British were first driven back locally they later by counter-attacks re-established their lines.

A GREAT IRISH LEADER

In the early eighties Charles Stewart Parnell fell from grace as an Irish leader. John Edward Redmond rose to take his place. Not as spectacular as Parnell had been, Redmond proved to be a far safer leader for Ireland.

His thirty-seven years of service in the House of Commons have now ended. He was sixty-eight years old. His death has come as a shock to all who have watched the Irish leader's seemingly youthful strength. Mr. Redmond's portrait appears on page 450.

The truth is that Redmond was what every great leader must be, no matter what his later attainments-he was a real personality. He gloried in the title of Irishman, and no man ever presented to the world the virtues of the Irish more attractively. In the second place, Redmond's long Parliamentary experience and his incessant devotion to Parliamentary activity made him notable. When one heard him speak in the House of Commons, therefore, he gave the impression not only of a party leader but also of a Parliamentary authority.

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Though for years vigorously opposed to Mr. Redmond on all Irish political questions, Sir Edward Carson, the Ulster leader, recalling that he had known Mr. Redmond for thirty-five years, said: "I cannot recollect that one bitter or personal word ever passed between John Redmond and myself. . ... Indeed, we were not very far apart in our attempts at a settlement of the Irish question.... He was a great Irishman and an honorable opponent, and as such I mourn his loss."

But the thing which Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Welshmen, as well as the great majority of Irishmen, are thinking of to-day is Redmond's loyalty. At a time when he had attained the great project of his life and had succeeded in getting Home Rule for Ireland, knowing that his enemies might take advantage of the war to cast a cloud over that law-as they did he was not deterred from unrestrainedly and unconditionally pledging the aid of the Irish to England. His speech in the House of Commons at the outset of the war will rank with the great historic speeches of our time. He set an example which all of Ireland should have followed. His open espousal of Great Britain's cause at that critical time was worth thousands of men to the armies of liberty.

"BATTLE-SHIPS ARE CHEAPER THAN BATTLES"

An efficient public servant has just died-George von Lengerke Meyer. He was not quite sixty years old. Born to great wealth, he used it well. It did not check his activity. After his graduation he went into the rubber business and also became an officer of many large industrial and financial concerns. He entered the Boston Common Council, and then the Massachusetts Legislature, where he became Speaker of the House. In 1890 President McKinley appointed him Ambassador to Italy, where his success justified his transfer to Russia by President Roosevelt, who two years later recalled him to accept the portfolio of Postmaster-General. From this post he was transferred to that of Secretary of the Navy. As Secretary he showed the resources of a practical statesman who knew how to utilize direct business methods in cutting administrative red tape.

But in this position he also displayed two qualities which should cause his name to be remembered. The first of these qualities was economy. Over and over he pointed out that we had too many dockyards for the size of our Navy. He recommended the abolishment of such yards as that of New Orleans, a hundred miles up the Mississippi River, and the extra yards in such States as Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Florida, which already had one yard. The other quality was his sense of the necessity of preparedness. He urged as the minimum of efficiency the construction of two battle-ships a year. Our naval policy, he said then, should be to possess a fleet powerful enough

If any one would like to see fifteen different nationalities in the process of being welded into citizenship, let him call at the red brick building, evidently adapted from three former dwellings, at 51, 53, and 55 East Third Street, New York City, on the first Sunday afternoon of any month.

East Third Street runs from the Bowery to the East River. It is a typical East Side street. Its passers-by are Jews, of course-Russian, Rumanian, Hungarian, Austrian, German, Syrian Jews. But there are also Christians-Armenian, Italian, French, Belgian, Swedish, and white and black Americanand Chinese besides.

Inside the building on a recent Sunday afternoon the visitor might have found children from five years of age up, standing and sitting about, enjoying their so-called " rally," or rehearsal for the public concert of the school given in Carnegie Hall on March 6.

This is one of the features of an enterprise which has existed for a quarter of a century. Inspired by it, twenty other similar enterprises in various parts of the country have been established. It is the Music School Settlement.

A thousand children in New York City go to this school. They sing free of charge. They take lessons for which they pay from ten to fifty cents-and last year some thirty thousand hours were devoted to those lessons. The settlement has a library of seventy-five hundred compositions. These statistics are eloquent. But they become more eloquent when we realize that the children are not only learning to enjoy one of the fine arts, but have the benefit of the best instruction, brought financially within the reach of virtually every one in the community, where otherwise only three or four per cent would have the opportunity; that the privilege of social service is impressed on the pupils, as they are sent on many an occasion to play without charge for schools, churches, and charitable institutions; that, on the other hand, the financial status of the pupils is improved by the hundreds of paid engagements secured to them throughout the year; that, besides maintaining regular summer courses, roof playground, and baths in the Third Street house, the Settlement sends more than a thousand children every summer to two camps, one at Newfoundland, New Jersey, the other at Sheepshead Bay, Long Island, and that out of all this the children are becoming constructive forces in our civilization. Out of the friendly tumult of the Sunday afternoons at the red brick building in Third Street, out of the violins scraping and tuning, out of the patience of the director, Mr. Arthur Farwell, have come attention and discipline.

At the Music School Settlement there are applicants for lessons who cannot be supplied. There is a long waiting list. There are hosts of children who for lack of accommodations at the school are denied the chance to learn what music will mean to them as they grow older, and to find in it a solace in perplexity and sorrow. The children who want to come to the school should have the chance to come, and the men and women who are maintaining the school should be supported.

BLOCH'S YOUTHFUL SYMPHONY

America has become a refuge for musicians. Never before were there so many people of distinction in the world of music resident in this country as there are to-day. One of the latest arrivals is the famous violinist and violin teacher Auer, who is, for the time being at least, living in New York. Another such refugee, if he may be so called, is the Swiss composer Ernest Bloch. He is now te..ching and lecturing at the David Mannes School in New York City, and is settled in that city with his family.

Last year a number of Mr. Bloch's works were performed,

and aroused considerable interest, partly because of their intrinsic qualities and partly because they were set forth as examples of modern Jewish music. Mr. Bloch has called one of his symphonies" Israel;" he has named a group of his compositions "Three Jewish Poems ;" and he has composed psalms and a Hebrew rhapsody. Last winter he conducted a cycle of his Jewish works in Philadelphia.

On Friday afternoon, March 8, he conducted the Philhar monic Orchestra in a performance of his first symphony. It is not one of his recent works. In fact, he composed it sixteen years ago, when he was twenty-one years of age, and he has frankly acknowledged that it "has probably the qualities and defects of youth." It is an astonishing production for a man just through his preparatory musical studies. It is very hard for the layman to understand how anybody twenty-one years of age could have mastered all the technical intricacies of music necessary for the production of such an orchestral work as this.

The amateur listener at that concert might well have wondered how such a symphony would have struck Haydn or Mozart. We can imagine either of these old worthies clapping his hands to his ears and rushing to the street to find relief in the clatter and the rumble of the Seventh Avenue subway under construction. Nevertheless, the work is obviously sincere, vigorous, and earnest, and in instrumental color original; but it is terrifically noisy.

It is not so much that there is but an occasional piece of noise as it is that the noise is sustained. Dissonance is involved with dissonance at high tension.

That, it seems to us, is one of the signs of the youthfulness of which Mr. Bloch himself has made mention. The greatest The greatest experiences in mature life do not express themselves in noise. Such an impression of vastness bordering on infinity as may be derived from the sight of the quiet sea or the prairie or the sky at night is deepened by silence. Simplicity may almost be said to be an essential trait of greatness. The creative genius is the one who selects, out of the tangle of dissonances and complications and baffling inconsistencies and antagonisms of life, those elements that reveal unity and harmony and wholesomeness. It is only that youth who has not had experience who is stimulated by all the things that clash. So perhaps it is natural that Mr. Bloch's symphony should be a sort of external description of a young man's view of this discordant world.

It would be easier to accept this as a piece of genuine expressionism on the part of a young man if there were intrinsic musical beauty in the material which the composer used, but it is hard to discern any such intrinsic musical beauty at a single hearing. The greatest pictures retain evidence of their greatness as pictures even in reproduction. So it is with the greatest musical compositions. A Beethoven or a Brahms symphony is, of course, but a pale reflection when it is played by two amateurs in a four-hand arrangement on a pianoforte; but those amateurs who play that symphony again and again cannot remain in ignorance of the elements in the symphony that make it really great. We cannot imagine two amateurs playing a four-hand arrangement of Bloch and getting anything out of it. We cannot imagine them playing it, anyway.

The great fault of even so honest and capable and astonishing a piece of work as this is that it is hopelessly "modern." That means that it is hopelessly artificial. The soldiers in camp who sing "Pack up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag" will appreciate the beauties of Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony;" but it is hard to imagine any group of people who have a natural liking for music, but are not sophisticated by any theories of modern musical impressionism, getting any enjoyment except perhaps a thrill of astonishment out of the "C Sharp Minor Symphony" by Ernest Bloch.

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The armies that are fighting on the other side are making a great deal more noise than Napoleon's soldiers ever heard, but we have yet to hear that the great war has developed a Napoleon. A great many modern composers can make orchestras perform more wonderful feats than Bach, with all his elaborate and marvelous counterpoint, ever imagined; but, after all, Bach, after nearly two hundred years, is still a "live one.

If a young composer should ask our advice as to how he might in the modern world attain distinction, we should counsel him to study simplicity.

FOOD IN FRANCE

We are in receipt of some interesting little bread tickets from France. They show what the consumer has to meet there. They are issued by the French Government and are stamped. for instance, "3 Février," "4 Février," or "5 Février, 1918," as the case may be, and each reading "100 grammes de pain." The consumer gets three tickets each day, each ticket entitling him to 100 grammes (about 31⁄2 ounces); he may thus count on a total of 1011⁄2 ounces a day. The difference between this ration and the average daily consumption per head before the war is seen in the fact that then it was about 26 ounces per head.

No cream may be offered at any public eating-place, only milk, and even milk may not be offered after nine o'clock in the morning. Nor may butter be served. Nor may solid food be

served between 9 and 11 A.M. and between 2:30 and 6:30 P.M.

No restaurant keeper may serve at any meal more than four courses to the same customer: the first course to be soup, oysters, or other hors d'œuvre; the second and third to be of meat or other dishes, with or without vegetables; and the fourth to be a dessert, such as fruits, compote, preserves, marmalade, or an ice made without milk, cream, sugar, eggs, or flour. Of course the making of biscuits, pastry, and confectionery is prohibited. Food coming under the public eating-place restrictions and bought elsewhere may not be eaten at such establishments. Moreover, all restrictions of patrons of public eating-places apply also to persons living in an apartment or in a hotel, and to clubs and other places where the consumption of food is not entirely free. France is obviously restricted in her supply of food, and it is clearly possible that she may become even more restricted. The resultant obligation on America is evident.

GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS

At the very beginning of the war it was evident that there were going to be in it not only bad deeds, brutal deeds, but also good deeds, magnanimous deeds. One such is found in Coningsby Dawson's "Carry On :"

During one fierce engagement a British officer saw a German officer impaled on the barbed wire, writhing in anguish. The fire was dreadful, yet he still hung there unscathed. At length the British officer could stand it no longer. He said, quietly: "I can't bear to look at that poor chap any longer." So he went out under the hail of shell, released him, took him on his shoulders, and carried him to the German trench. The firing ceased. Both sides watched the act with wonder. Then the commander in the German trench came forward, took from his own bosom the Iron Cross, and pinned it on the breast of the British officer. Such an episode is true to the holiest ideals of chivalry; and it is all the more welcome because the German record is stained by so many acts of barbarism which the world cannot forgive.

Another magnanimous deed has just taken place on this side of the Atlantic. The other day, on the coast at the Cape May aviation station, Ensign Walker Weed, one of the first aviators to be graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and one of the best fliers in the corps, was driving a service hydro-airplane. When the plane was about fifty feet above level, the wire which controlled the steering apparatus broke. The plane plunged down. When it struck land, there was a back-fire, and the three gasoline tanks exploded, enveloping the machine and its occupants in a whirlwind of flame. Weed unstrapped himself and, with his clothes afire, ran towards the ocean, but before reaching it looked back to see if his companion, William Bennett, was following. Bennett was still bound to the plane. Weed ran back, and finally extricated Bennett. By this time both aviators were burning to death, the flames being so fierce that the crystal of Weed's wrist watch was melted off. They struggled towards the sea. Bennett fell, breaking his nose, and, though Weed stumbled too, he succeeded in dragging the still helpless Bennett into the water, where they were freed from fire, rescued by brother officers, and hurried to the base hospital. At first it was thought Bennett would recover, though his legs had been burned practically to the bone. He died, however, a week later. Weed died immediately, his death being due not so much to his fearful burns as to the result of inhaling flames.

His act of devotion deserves to be ranked alongside those