SAR

CALIF.

GENERAL CROWDER ON THE SELECTIVE DRAFT

The result of the reclassification of the men who are registered under the Selective_Draft Law will not be definitely known for several weeks. It is interesting, however, to record General Crowder's estimate of the number of men who will be put in Class 1, and passed as physically fit. This number General Crowder sets as close to one million, and states his belief that this number will be large enough for any call in present prospect.

General Crowder advocates adding to those now liable under the Draft Law men who are arriving at the age of twenty-one, and estimates that this would result in a yearly increment of at least seven hundred thousand men. With such an increment, he says, "there is certainly no immediate necessity of going beyond Class 1 in future drafts. This is a consummation most to be desired. It removes from consideration the most troublesome problems of the draft, and places us in a most enviable position among belligerent nations."

We believe that General Crowder is right both in his recommendation and in his statement that this is a consummation to be desired, but we believe that the country should not lose sight of the fact that this desire may not be realized. When we think of the depletion of man strength in England and France, we should be slow to prophesy that the war will be over before we are called upon to make a similar sacrifice, even though it may seem unlikely that the United States will have to draw as heavily on its men as France or England has done. This is not a counsel of pessimism, but a counsel of caution.

General Crowder also gives some interesting figures concerning the workings of the Draft Law. Half of the men called under the law claimed exemption, and seventy-eight per cent of these claims were granted, showing that a comparatively small per cent of fraudulent or inadequate claims were filed. Seventyfour per cent of those released were released on the ground of having dependent relatives, twenty per cent because of alien birth, and six per cent on vocational grounds.

power to exact enforced military duty by the citizen under this clause gets but scant respect from the Court. It says:

This but challenges the existence of all power, for governmental power which has no sanction to it and which can only be exercised provided the citizen consents is in no substantial sense such a power. It is argued, however, that, although this is abstractly true, it is not concretely so because, as compelled military service is repugnant to a free government and in conflict with all the great guarantees of the Constitution as to individual liberty, it must be assumed that the authority to raise armies was intended to be limited to the right to call an army into existence, counting alone upon the willingness of the citizen to do his duty in time of public need-that is, in time of war. But the premise of this proposition is so devoid of foundation that it leaves not even a shadow of ground upon which to base the conclusion. It may not be doubted that the very conception of a just government and its duty to the citizen includes the reciprocal obligation of the citizen to render military service in case of need and the right to compel it. To do more than state the proposition is absolutely unnecessary in view of the practical illustration afforded by the almost universal legislation to that effect now in force.

The Court finds in the history of England, the American colonies, and the Confederate States of America illustrations of and support for this fundamental right of the Government, which is indeed essential to its preservation. The illustration from the Confederate States is interesting because they carried the doctrine of political individualism to its extreme. Nevertheless:

The seceding States wrote into the Constitution, which was adopted to regulate the Government which they sought to establish, in identical words the provision of the Constitution of the United States. And when the right to enforce that instrument, a selective draft law which was enacted not differing in principle from the one here in question, was challenged, its validity was upheld, evidently after great consideration, by the courts of Virginia, of Georgia, of Texas, of Alabama, of Mississippi, and of North Carolina, the opinions in some of the cases copiously and critically reviewing the whole grounds which we have stated.

The official report of this decision has not reached us as we go to press, and our quotations are taken from the newspaper reports of the decision. It is difficult for us to conceive how other view could ever have been seriously argued by any one familiar with Constitutional law or the Anglo-Saxon principles of free institutions.

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AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND FOREIGN DECORATIONS

A clause in the Federal Constitution, taken from the Articles of Confederation, reads: "No Person holding any Office

of Profit or Trust under them [the United States] shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State." Whatever right the American colonies, a century and a half ago, had to feel as they did has certainly been changed by existing events. Those (not "persons holding any office of profit or trust under them") who have been in the American Ambulance Service in France report the exceeding benefit not only to those who receive but to those who bestow the medals conferred by the French Government. We quote from a recent letter:

"The General commanding the 120th Division of Infantry cites, at the order of the division: American Volunteer of S. S. U. 29, has given proof, in the course of operations at Hill 304, of great devotion; he particularly distinguished himself on the 1st and 2d of August, 1917, in carrying out his duties as driver of an ambulance evacuating a large number of wounded over a road in view of the enemy and incessantly bombarded."

Yes, this is a citation, and in consequence yesterday, in view of the entire 38th regiment-3,000 men-I with five other Americans and several Frenchmen had the famous Croix de Guerre, with a little silver star on the ribbon, pinned on my chest. Mine was the second one awarded of the six, following the sous chef, and our lieutenant tells me I got the best citation. I suppose this sounds a bit egotistical to say the least, but it means a great deal to me, as it marks the culmination of a hope which began even before I sailed. I hope it can mean as much to you all as it does to me.

I think I shall never forget yesterday-it will always stand out as a red-letter day in my memory. After the decorations

they gave us a most signal honor, as the General ordered a special salvo of the "Marseillaise " by the regimental band for us,. and then allowed us to stand beside him and review the entire regiment in full equipment. I think we were about the first representatives of the Field Service to be so honored, as such procedure is practically never followed except for decorations with the Legion of Honor or the Médaille Militaire.

I wish you could feel the thrill of the great French anthem and see hundreds and hundreds of men marching by. The latter you have seen in the movies, equipped in their regalia and steel helmets, but the real thing is many, many more times inspiring.

Surely France and our other allies would feel more than ever drawn to us if by conferring decorations upon our actual soldiers in the field they might thus give expression to their gratitude for what we are doing for them. And, on our side, we might as well realize that it is sometimes as fine a thing to accept as to bestow. We would inevitably be drawn to our allies more than ever by their quick courtesy in conferring a decoration on our men where due.

For these reasons we are glad that Senator Lodge's bill allowing American soldiers in this war to accept medals and decorations from foreign governments has been reintroduced. It passed the Senate at the recent session. It should pass the House at this session and become law.

WHAT DO THE SOLDIERS READ?

The campaign to raise a million dollars for the use of the Library War Service of the American Library Association is an event recent enough to make the account of what is being done in one particular military encampment in the direction of providing reading matter for the soldiers of particular interest. At Camp Sherman, in Chillicothe, Ohio, there has been established in every Y. M. C. A. and Knights of Columbus building a library of from five hundred to a thousand books, managed just as any library would be, with a catalogue and a charging system, though, of course, of the simplest kind. There is a good supply of periodicals in each of these buildings-there are nine branch libraries in the cantonment-and copies of every newspaper published in Ohio and western Pennsylvania, so that the men have access at all times to news from home.

The library work at Camp Sherman has been in charge of Mr. Burton E. Stevenson, Librarian of the Chillicothe Public Library. His chief assistant has been the daughter of the major-general commanding the camp. Work was started in developing a library system in June, when the first troops arrived. At the present time there are over ten thousand books in the branch libraries, and as many more in the main Amer

ican Library Association building, which has recently been opened and which is the center of the whole camp library system. Of the books desired by the soldiers Mr. Stevenson says:

When I started this work in June, I had some very plausible theories about the kind of books the men would want, but I soon discarded them. We have had requests here for every sort of book from "some books by Gene Stratton-Porter" to Boswell's "Life of Johnson" and Bergson's "Creative Evolution." We have had requests for Ibsen's plays, for books on the valuation of public utilities, on conservation, on sewage disposal; we had so many requests for " A Message to Garcia" that I had a supply mimeographed. In one building there were so many requests for books on religion and ethics that we set up a small reference collection there.

Broadly speaking, of course, most of the men read fiction; and most of them prefer exciting, red-blooded fiction-detective stories, adventure stories, and so on. But there is also a steady demand for Conrad and Wells and Hardy and Meredith. Poetry is also in demand, and good books of travel go well. The only kind of books we don't want are the salacious, risqué kind---they have no place in our camp libraries. And we don't care for unattractive, cheap editions, with yellow, muddy paper and flimsy binding. We want attractive books-nice, clean copies of good editions and the more of these we get the better service we can give the men.

Mr. Stevenson recently conducted a test to determine the names of periodicals with the widest popular appeal for the soldiers. He posted a list of periodicals in each library building with the following note of instruction: Place one tally after those you would like to have in this building. Please play fair and do not tally more than twenty magazines." Thirty-one periodicals under this test received more than twenty-five votes apiece. Those that received more than forty votes, as arranged in alphabetical order, and including as nearly as possible half the list, are:

WHERE AND HOW SHALL

MUNITION WORKERS LIVE?

Bridgeport, Connecticut, has since the outbreak of the great war been confronted by a housing problem of tremendous proportions. Thirty thousand or forty thousand people were added to the population of that city within a few months. Today, according to a report by the National Housing Association, not another laborer can be accommodated in that city, Yet on January 1 a new munitions plant, for which the United States Government has provided two millions and a half for the housing of its machinery, was expected to begin work. Unless additional housing is provided for the men of the new plant, the only way in which it can be operated is by taking men out of existing plants which are already working below capacity.

This is but a typical instance of the need of the adoption of an intelligent housing policy by our Government, a matter which has already received the serious attention of the Council of National Defense, but which has not yet passed beyond the stage of an official report.

The National Housing Association rightly believes that the situation demands immediate action, and definitely recommends that certain specific things be done. It advocates the establishment of a Housing Administration by the Federal Government, and the placing of this Administration in direct charge of the housing of all workers in the war industries of the country. It recommends that Congress empower the President to loan

Government money upon proper security to employers of labor and to other agencies for the housing of workers in industries producing goods, in the opinion of the President, necessary for the successful conduct of the war. It advocates that the President be empowered to build houses for sale or rent, buy and condemn land, and take all necessary steps for the development of communities in which workers in such industries are to live.

The National Housing Association further recommends that immediate steps be taken, without waiting for action by Congress, to do the preliminary work of research and organization necessary for the development of the large programme which it advocates.

It points out what seems to us an essential feature of this programme, namely, the need of guarding against the erection of housing accommodations of such a relatively unsatisfactory character that they cannot assure living conditions good enough to attract and hold a steady, contented, and efficient force of workers.

The development of such a governmental housing programme would largely influence industrial living conditions for many years to come, a fact which can be given proper attention without sacrificing the interests of the country in the present war. Says the National Housing Association in its recommendation to the President:

It is important, if the Government investment in enterprises of this kind is to be protected for the future, that the development should be of such a satisfactory nature as to hold occupants after the war is over. Communities developed along scientific, economic, and attractive lines would have this great advantage not only over temporary housing, but over the type of quickselling commercial developments erected by the ordinary speculative builder.

Moreover, the enormous influence which these housing developments under Government control will exert, by way of example, either for good or for bad, upon the general trend of industrial housing in the United States is a matter of great moment. To permit the stamp of apparent Government approval to be placed upon mediocre or inferior industrial housing enterprises would give the most discouraging setback to the National movement for better housing.

The situation is one which demands immediate action along the general lines laid down by the National Housing Association.

FIRST STEPS IN GOVERNMENT OPERATION

Weather seems to be combining with the war in creating and intensifying difficulties of transportation. No sooner had the East dug itself out of a heavy snowfall and begun to find relief from an almost unprecedented period of intense cold than the Middle West found itself in the grip of a blizzard that partly blockaded its cities and interfered with the movement of trains. The real difficulties encountered by the railways, however, have been produced by conditions much more profound than those of the weather; and it is with these profounder difficulties that the United States Government, under the direction of Mr. McAdoo, the Secretary of the Treasury, is contending. The real task is to make the railway systems of the country one system. What that means Mr. Theodore H. Price picturesquely states elsewhere in this issue.

To this end of unification Mr. McAdoo has created an official Board which will act as the Director-General of Railroads' cabinet. This Board consists of John Skelton Williams, Controller of the Currency, whose special task will be to deal with the financial problems of Government operation; Hale Holden, President of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad (the only member of the retiring Railroads' War Board to be a member in this new official Board), who will have certain special office tasks; Henry Walters, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Coast Line; Edwards Chambers, Vice-President of the Santa Fé Railroad and head of the transportation division of the United States Food Administration; and Walker D. Hines, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Santa Fé and Assistant to the DirectorGeneral of Railroads. This new Board supersedes that which was organized voluntarily by the railways and which did all that was possible to be done for unifying the systems of the

country under private management. In accepting the request of its members to bring the work of this voluntary committee to a close, Mr. McAdoo expressed his "admiration of the fidelity and effectiveness" of their earnest and unselfish application to their problem.

The Director-General has ordered the carrying out of measures for ending congestion on the railways-measures which could be enforced only by the Government of the whole Nation. He has ordered repairs on rolling stock, such as cars and en gines which are now partly crippled and idle. What a private railway company might not be able to afford to do the whole Nation in this case can do without question. The Director-General has also designated this week as "freight clearance week." There are thousands of freight cars standing loaded on sidings because the goods in them have not been taken out by the persons to whom they have been consigned. In some cases the goods have been sold, and resold, and resold again several times while they have been stored in the freight cars. This, of course, reduces the capacity of the railways enormously. The DirectorGeneral of Railroads has designated this freight clearance week in order to release the needed cars.

On January 4 the President addressed Congress, asking for legislation to guarantee the stockholders and creditors of the railways" that their properties will be maintained throughout the period of Federal control in as good repair and as complete equipment as at present;" and he suggested that, as a basis, compensation be provided by the Government equivalent to the average net railway operating income of the three years ending June 30, 1917."

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Simultaneously with the President's address, there was introduced into Congress a bill putting the President's recommendations into legal form and providing for a “revolving fund" of a half a billion dollars, out of which payments for the expenses of Government operation should be made and into which income from operation should be put.

We print elsewhere a statement from Mr. Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, concerning organized labor's attitude toward this new Governmental undertaking.

REVISING THE TAX LAWS

The tax bills passed at the last session of Congress have come in for more criticism than perhaps any other measures passed since the war emergency began. There has been a notable lack of criticism of the size of the burden which they place on the country, but very serious criticism of the manner in which this burden has been distributed. These tax measures have also been justly criticised as bad pieces of legislation on the ground that their provisions are couched in terms difficult of interpretation and application.

Senator Smoot, of Utah, has introduced a bill to recast the income and war profits taxes passed at the last session of Congress in the direction of simplicity and the removal of part of the unfair discrimination which the present Acts undoubtedly contain. Senator Smoot's bill would levy the normal income tax at two per cent, and an additional tax graded from one per cent on net incomes in excess of $5,000 up to sixty-three per cent on the amount by which the income exceeds $2,000,000. It would levy a flat rate of eight per cent on corporation net incomes above two thousand dollars. In addition to this, Senator Smoot's bill would levy a surtax of from ten to eighty per cent upon corporation war profits. The lowest surtax is ten per cent on war profits not in excess of ten per cent of the pre-war profits of any trade or business. The highest is eighty per cent of the amount by which such war profits exceed by one hundred per cent pre-war profits.

The pre-war period designated in Senator Smoot's bill comprises the years between 1909 and 1913 inclusive. Out of these five years, the two years in which the profits of a trade or business were the greatest and the least, respectively, are first excluded. It is on the average annual profits of the three years that then remain that the pre-war profits are calculated. It is the excess of present profits over these pre-war profits on which the excess profits tax is based.

In addition to the general changes which we have described

the proposed amendment repeals the provisions of the War Revenue Act creating a zone postal system and increasing the postal rates on second-class matter. Senator Smoot apparently believes that his methods have a chance of passing both houses of Congress and going into effect before the time comes for collecting income taxes for the present year. We believe that the passage of Senator Smoot's bill in substance, as here outlined, would be an act of justice to the country and an aid to the country in its endeavor to prosecute the war to a successful conclusion.

THE FRENCH SCANDALS

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Rightly or wrongly, Joseph Caillaux has come to be regarded as the head and front of Boloism in France. Bolo is now as expressive of German propaganda there as "Boche" is of the German in arms.

M. Caillaux is an ex-Premier. His Ministry was followed by that of Raymond Poincaré, now President of France. Caillaux is a man of indomitable ambition. He longed to return to power, and did become Minister of Finance in the Doumergue Cabinet. A policy of "standing in " with Germany characterized the latest Caillaux tenure of office. Financially the Minister was connected with banking interests which were diverting French savings to German industrial enterprises. Politically he facilitated the German entrance in the French Congo as an offset to the German withdrawal from Morocco. It was even said that he wanted to see a Franco-German union which should dominate Europe.

Thus, when the war came, Caillaux seemed out of tune with it. He seemed a man without a country. Yet he still longed for power. To gain it and be consistent he would have to be a protagonist of peace, and it was believed that he was working in this direction, towards a shameful peace, and was the secret ally of Turmel and Almereyda, above all of Bolo in the German scheme secretly to get financial control of certain wellknown patriotic papers-the "Figaro," the "Journal," the "Rappel," and others and then little by little to inject a German propaganda alongside a proved patriotism.

The scheme was finally exposed. The Paris Court of Appeals will settle Bolo's fate. Then, in his turn, Caillaux will be tried; but, it is reported, not by a civil but by a military court.

Thus Paris and France will be treated to a second Caillaux cause célebre. The first occurred during the early part of 1914, when Caillaux's wife was tried for having killed Gaston Calmette, editor of "Le Figaro."

JAPAN IN THE WAR

Lukewarm supporters of the Allies or neutrals sometimes, in questioning the statement that the Allies are fighting for democracy, point to the fact, as basis for their faint-heartedness or neutrality, that Japan is an Ally. "Is it indeed a war for democracy when imperial and autocratic Japan is one of the Allies?" some of them ask, just as the same argument was used in connection with the case of Russia before the fall of the Czar.

It is no secret either that the call to "make the world safe for democracy" falls flat with a good many Japanese. Is it not possible that the unresponsiveness of some Japanese and some neutrals to the appeal to support democracy is due to a misunderstanding of the meaning of that over-used word when applied to issues in the present war?

The new American Ambassador to Japan, Mr. Roland S. Morris, has already proved himself to be a diplomat and statesman of no slight stature in showing the Japanese how their national ideals and national welfare are bound up with the cause of democracy in the world. Mr. Morris has made clear, so that all Japan may understand, the difference between "international democracy," which the Allies are fighting for, and the enforced adoption of local democratic or republican institutions throughout the world, for which the Allies are not fighting at all.

Speaking at a dinner of welcome given to him in Tokyo on November 30 by the America-Japan Society, composed of Japanese and Americans resident in Japan, Mr. Morris said:

historic Imperial house, wherein are preserved her national ideals and her most sacred traditions.

"But this they maintained because Japan maintained her freedom of national life-that freedom which America had demanded for herself and had held out to secluded Japan. And that is the great issue which Japan and America, allies in this world war, are fighting for to-day. We are demanding for all the world what we both demanded and obtained for ourselves in the past the right of national existence. This right of international democracy is threatened as it has never been threatened before. The Central Powers are striving to impose on the world a policy of aggression and absorption which in the end, if successful, would destroy utterly all national ideals save those of the Germanic peoples.

"International democracy does not mean the imposition of democratic institutions on all nations. For America to endeavor to impose her institutions, which are the expression of her own National spirit, on other nations would be as culpable as for the Central Powers to endeavor to Germanize the world. We are not fighting for democracy in nations, but for democracy among nations. We are demanding for every nation, great and small, the right of national self-development.'

THE NEW BRITISH AMBASSADOR

It has been announced that Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, the British Ambassador to America, is to go home on leave, and that in his place a Special Ambassador and High Commissioner will be appointed. The departure of Sir Cecil from Washington will be regarded with regret, but his place will be filled by a man of high qualifications for the special duties which a British Ambassador is called upon to perform at this time. It has been officially announced that this man will be the Lord Chief Justice of England, Earl Reading. Lord Reading will have full authority over the members of all British missions sent to the United States in connection with the active prosecution of the war. It is felt at Washington that the combination of functions assigned to Lord Reading will result in a valuable co-ordination of the activities of the diplomatic, the financial, and the military agencies of Great Britain which are now in this country. The appointment of Earl Reading has been due, it is surmised, to the influence of Lord Northcliffe, who is reported by the New York "Times" as commenting as follows on the appointment:

The nation is indebted to Earl Reading for taking up the tremendous task of representing the War Cabinet, the British War Mission to the United States, the Treasury, the Ministry of Munitions, the Air Board, and, in fact, all British interests in the United States, at a time when the interdependence of the United States and the United Kingdom on each other's war efforts has assumed a scale little imagined by the public. The speed of the Anglo-American war effort has been impaired in the past by the need of one controlling head of all British affairs in the United States.

THE MOTOR CAR AN ESSENTIAL OF
MODERN TRANSPORTATION

In the past there has been a very marked tendency to regard the annual automobile exhibitions as presentations of the latest means of gratifying personal desires for luxury. So swiftly has the automobile changed from a thing of luxury to a part of the daily business life of the country that the general view of this means of transportation has lagged very much behind the accomplished fact.

When the war broke out, it was very soon suggested that the manufacture of "pleasure vehicles" should be largely curtailed. This suggestion soon brought out proof of the fact that the purely pleasure automobile represents a very small proportion of the output of our automobile factories. The average automobile is hardly more of a pleasure vehicle than the average trolley car or the average railway coach. All three are used for pleasure, but all three find their greatest usefulness in satisfying the vital needs of our highly organized society.

The modern automobile is a passenger or freight vehicle absolutely essential to the solution of our modern and complicated problems of transportation. How essential this comparatively new mode of transportation has become is indicated