by the researches of the Engineering Experiment Station of the Iowa State College, which recently, according to the "Scientific American," made a survey of the traffic which passed a certain point on the road between Ames and Des Moines. During ten consecutive days 1,995 vehicles carrying 5,561 passengers went by the observation post. Of these vehicles 647 were classified as farm traffic, 1,227 as interurban, and only 121 as tourist. Out of every 17 vehicles which passed 16 were primarily devoted to the transportation of passengers. Of the total number of vehicles recorded, 1,752 fell in the class of motor vehicles and bicycles, while but 243 were drawn by horses. The "Scientific American" estimates that at least ninety-four per cent of all the traffic passing over the road at this point can be closely identified either with local farms or with local traffic of a utilitarian character. Such a showing as this concerning the present usefulness of automobile transportation is proof enough that the annual series of exhibitions of automobiles, the first and largest of which opened in New York City on January 5, is of true war-time value. The New York exhibition represents, this year, an event of unusual interest, for it indicates the manner in which one of our greatest industries is adapting itself to war conditions.

This year's cars show few departures from standardized practice. There was increasing refinement of detail in some instances, a notable effort towards the elimination of surplus weight, and a distinct and creditable effort to accentuate économy in operation. One of the leading automobile companies, whose cars have occupied for many years a commanding place in the automobile world, openly stated in its catalogue that it did not urge any one to buy an automobile who did not need a machine as a matter of business economy. An officer of another concern, which has been building cars for twenty-two years, remarked that he was distinctly glad that his company had planned for only a conservative output during the coming year, for he regarded the present situation as one which called for conservatism and intelligent restriction of output.

Just as the railways have found it necessary to cut out from their schedules certain passenger trains and to consolidate others, the automobile industry will find it necessary to specialize output and to devote its major attention to the manufacture of war supplies and vehicles designed not primarily for luxury or pleasure but for utility..

There is no such fuel shortage threatened in this country as exists in Continental countries, for the United States is not largely dependent on ocean traffic for its fuel supply. For this reason American automobile manufacturers can rightfully look to a demand for their products which does not exist abroad.

THE MORGAN COLLECTION

Besides the individual objects and groups of objects-sometimes quite large given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City, by the late John Pierpont Morgan, and the works of art given to it from his estate by his son, other parts of the Morgan collection have been left in the Museum as a loan. From the collection certain objects have been sold. The remainder, much the larger part, is, we are glad to learn, to stay in the Museum.

It consists of more than three thousand objects-pictures (on another page there is an illustration of one of the most famous canvases), sculptures, enamels, ivories, glass, pottery, antiquities, armor, jewelry, watches, clocks, snuff-boxes, and other objects of art. These are in addition to the collection of ancient glass and pottery, which is mentioned separately, as Dr. Robinson, Director of the Museum, explains, " because the forty-five hundred items it contains are mainly fragments, and might be thought to swell the number unduly.'

The elder John Pierpont Morgan was probably the greatest collector of our time of manuscripts, books, and works of art. He made numerous gifts of them to public institutions in this country and Europe, but retained the bulk of his collection, from time to time sending things as loans to the Metropolitan Museum, and these were occasionally in large numbers, as, for example, his Chinese porcelains. He considered his loans as parts of his "collection," the various subdivisions being regarded by him as parts of that collection, not as separate collections.

He wanted, as he said, to make some suitable disposition of them, or of such portions of them as he might determine, which would render them permanently available for the instruction and pleasure of the American people.

Mr. Morgan died in 1913, before he could carry out his purpose. In his will he expressed the hope that his son, John Pierpont Morgan, Jr., to whom the collection would pass, should in such manner as he might think best make either a permanent disposition or from time to time permanent dispositions of such portion of it as he might determine: The son has now substantially carried out his father's intentions.

Disposing of certain pieces of bronze, tapestry, porcelain, and furniture, Mr. Morgan, Jr., has wisely reserved for the public things which the museums could not obtain. His first gift to the Metropolitan was valued by some judges at fully $3,000,000. A principal feature of this gift was Raphael's Colonna Madonna. About the same time Mr. Morgan made a great gift to the Morgan Memorial at Hartford (the elder Morgan was born at Hartford) of Greek, Roman, and Phœnician enameled glass, of Greek and Roman bronzes, of objects in ivory and silver, of Italian majolica, Sèvres porcelain, and Dresden ware.

Now comes another and greater gift. Its value, according to some, reaches $7,500,000. Any estimate, however, is hard to make certainly the Museum has made none-for the collection is practically unique. Its chief significance to the Metropolitan lies in the enamels and ivories, for in these branches of art that Museum is now ahead of any in the world.

MR. BARNARD'S LINCOLN

The hue and cry concerning Mr. Barnard's statue of Lincoln, replicas of which have been proposed for London and Paris, calls forth some interesting reflections from M. André Michel. Writing in the Paris "Temps," he says:

Without having the right to express a personal opinion concerning a work which I know only through an illustration published in The Outlook of October 17, 1917, I am much inclined to defend Mr. Barnard and his work against their detractors. He has represented Lincoln standing, his hands crossed on his stomach in a familiar attitude and without any "pose." The strongly marked face seems to have been treated with singular power; the accent of individuality has been placed there in the simplest and most striking manner. No one of the statues which I remember to have seen in America-even that very distin guished one which is in Chicago on the shores of Lake Mich igan, where Augustus Saint-Gaudens has shown Lincoln standing in front of the Presidential chair, his head bent over his

breast, one hand on the lapel of his coat, and the other behind his back—has seemed to leave with me a more vivid or stronger impression of his personality.

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Lincoln would gain nothing by a conventional embellishment, by academic attitudes, by symbolic accessories, or by elegances which amount to falsehoods. Austere truth is more in place than any arrangements." Lincoln was of humble origin and was not ashamed of it. He did not dress himself according to the latest fashion and cared little about his toilet. But upon his roughly hewn face, gaunt but illuminated with inner fire, atop a great, somewhat disjointed body, there was reflected an unconquerable energy, an incorruptible conscience. We shall accept at Paris, as at London, with the greatest friendship the "Abraham Lincoln" which will be offered to us.

...

M. Michel points out, as no one else, we believe, has done, the parallel between the storm which has descended upon Mr. Barnard and the storm which descended upon Houdon, the French sculptor who essayed to create a statue of Washington. The parallel is certainly an interesting one. But there is also a contrast; for Houdon was criticised for proposing to make a conventional statue on the classical model, while Mr. Barnard is criticised because his work is not conventional.

Interest aroused by the controversy over Mr. Barnard's statue has extended to other sculptured representations of Lincoln. On another page we print a reproduction of Mr. Andrew O'Connor's figure of Lincoln from a photograph. Mr. O'Connor is a native of Worcester, Massachusetts, and began his study of sculpture as his father's pupil when a child. As in his other work, there is dignity in this Lincoln statue, and, in particular, there is idealism in-Mr. O'Connor's interpretation of Lincoln's face.

C

THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS YRITICS and admirers of the President, American and European, unite in an extraordinary way in approval and admiration of his great address to Congress on January 8. The "arrangements and covenants" (printed in full on page 90), which he has stated concisely and vividly in this address, have received the enthusiastic support of the members of Congress without regard to party, of public opinion throughout the country, and of journals and statesmen abroad. The only serious critical note is that of Senator Smoot, who thinks that Section III implies free trade. We do not agree with him. It means not free trade, but equal trade. The President is too able a politician to say that one of the aims of the war on which the whole American people are agreed is a policy on which history shows that they are nearly equally divided.

The President's address, sound in its principles and humane and democratic in its spirit, is made at an opportune moment. The unanimity of our heterogeneous population is remarkable. Nevertheless there are divisions of sentiment which his clear definitions will do something to heal. There is division of interests among our allies, and nothing is better fitted to put those interests in their proper subordinate place than a definition by a disinterested Power of the fundamental principles on which we are all united. The Russian people are animated by aspirations for liberty which they cannot define for themselves and which their self-appointed leaders are unable to define for them. Mr. Trotsky tells a New York "Times" reporter that the Germans have given up the attempt to move large bodies of men from the east ern to the western front; that at this minute behind the German front in Russia are twenty five thousand German deserters concentrated and armed with machine guns whom the Germans are trying to reduce by starvation.

We need not take this story too seriously, but neither are we compelled to reject it as too preposterous for belief. That there is among the German people a deepening and widening discontent and distrust of their military rulers is apparent. The Germans ventured on a hazardous experiment in promoting the fraternizing of the German and the Russian soldiers. They succeeded in disorganizing the Russian army and in weakening the loyalty of the Russian soldier to the cause of a world-wide democracy. But it is not unreasonable to surmise that they also weakened the loyalty of their own soldiers to their military autocracy. There is too much akin in the simple-minded peasantry of these contiguous people, long oppressed by military burdens, to make such a fraternization safe for the autocrats. Not impossibly information of such effect in the German soldiéry, not yet made public here, may have reached the Presi dent, and been a contributing cause in inspiring this address at this time.

It is reported that there is some discussion in Washington as to whether this is a peace or a war address. It is true that a statement of our aims in the war implies our willingness, and even our desire, for peace when those aims are accomplished. Save for that implication we can see no room for the Washington interrogatory. The closing sentence of the President's Message is the conclusion of the American people and interprets their purpose. To the vindication of human liberty "they are ready to devote their lives, their honor, and everything that they possess. The moral climax of this, the culminating and final war for human liberty, has come, and they are ready to put their own strength, their own highest purpose, their own integrity and devotion, to the test."

This address should inspire in our hearts new courage, in our wills a new strength of purpose, and our hands with new haste. America has done a splendid work with exemplary speed in building careful, well-ordered, and sanitary camps on its own territory and in gathering in these camps men eager for service. But nine months are past and we have not yet struck a blow. This address should intensify the growing impatience of the Nation at needless delays and the entanglements furnished by red tape and the irritating processes of "the circumlocution office," and compel those who are responsible for these delays to provide with vigor and speed the weapons of modern warfare for our men, so that the principles to which our President has given expression by his words in the council chamber may find

prompt and adequate expression by the action of our soldiers on the battlefield.

IS ALL WELL WITH OUR AIRPLANE PROGRAMME?

air fleets. Ships undoubtedly come first. Airplanes and air Only second in importance for winning the war is the need of pilots cannot be used unless they can be sent abroad; but if we are to do our duty and to save our cause we must send in great numbers both airplanes and air pilots. America and America's allies have built their hopes upon Secretary Baker's announcement of last fall that the United States would have needed, and that twenty thousand pilots would be trained by twenty thousand airplanes in France by the time they were spring to fly them.

German authorities have openly sneered at this ambitious American programme; while British and French airmen, remembering that the United States is the land of the Ford automobile, hope against hope that the announcement may prove miraculously true.

To those Americans who have felt that they must accept this promise on faith because it is not wise for the Government to publish evidence concerning its military preparations, it must be a shock to learn that the possibility of carrying out this proIn the " Atlantic Monthly" for January, in the modestly placed gramme is denied by authority that is unquestionably expert. "Contributors' Column," there is printed a letter, or part of a letter, by Professor Joseph S. Ames, head of the Department of Physics and Director of the Physical Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, who, as the editors of the "Atlantic" say, 'was sent abroad last spring by the National Research Council, as chairman of a commission of six, to investigate the application of science to war, as illustrated on the western front." In his letter Professor Ames writes as follows:

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I have just returned from a visit to the aircraft works in Buffalo, Detroit, and Dayton. This was an official visit, and so I have seen everything there is to be seen in regard to our aircraft programme. I can hardly express my feeling of depression. The Liberty motor is coming along splendidly, and it is going to be a great success. But we are not going to have any mechanics competent to repair it. It takes longer to train a mechanic than a pilot. Major Vincent, the man who designed the motor, told me that it would be over a year before we could hope to have mechanics even in small numbers. So far we have made one airplane suitable for use in Europe. The manufacturer assured me that his company could not be on a production programme until after the first of July.

We are having a large number of school planes made, but there are no engines for these. The man who was intrusted with the work has fallen down completely. Even if we were to have the school planes ready, we do not have one-tenth the requisite number of teachers, and cannot hope to get them for six months.

It is very hard to place one's finger on the man or committee responsible for this condition. As far as I could see, the evil is a fundamental one. This country and its officials are possessed with the idea that everything must be labeled "Made in America," and the difficulties into which we are now running are those which any man might have foreseen. As a matter of fact, within three days after my return from Europe in June I made this whole matter the subject of my report to the Aircraft Production Committee. No one believed me, and although I had a good solution it was refused.

What is most disturbing about this letter is not the explicit statement regarding the lack of mechanics and of teachers for pilots, but what is implicit in the statement about the Liberty motor. Professor Ames says that "the Liberty motor is coming along splendidly, and it is going to be a great success. That phrase "going to be" is the curse of this country's military policy. We need a motor that is a success to-day. The reason that we have not machine guns to-day is that our Ordnance Bureau declined to accept a gun in practical and successful use, and adopted instead a gun that has never been used but that is going to be" the best machine gun ever. What our War Department ought to have insisted upon doing, what it ought to insist upon doing now, may be briefly stated: Continue to

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plan, test, and begin manufacturing the perfect machine gun; but in the meantime adopt and manufacture and use the best available machine gun in existence. And this is exactly what our Government ought to do with regard to the airplane.

If the Liberty motor is discovered by the hard test of warfare to be better than the available motors of established reputation, then it should be built exclusively. But the Liberty motor has never been tested by hard usage in warfare; and there are motors that have been so tested. Are we using, or planning to use, such motors in the meantime? The Hispano-Suize is reputed to be the best airplane motor that France has evolved. The Rolls-Royce airplane engine is regarded by many aviators as the best in the world. Both have been tested by the relentless conditions of warfare. Are we going to ignore airplane motors such as these, wait until our Liberty motor is tested in warfare, discover that it needs certain improvements which it will require time to install, and then wait again? It seems inconceivable that our War Department has any such idea as that; and yet this seems to have been the idea as to ordnance. And what is true of airplane motors is true of other phases of our airplane situation. There is, for example, the question of airplane guns. The world is moving quickly these days in this new science of the fourth arm in warfare. New guns and new ways of mounting and firing them are the product of the experiences of airmen along the front. Is America taking her part in this advancement of aviation?

Another phase of aviation is the protection provided for the aviator. Armored airplanes that protect the pilot from machinegun fire at only a hundred feet elevation have been used, we are informed, by German fliers. Parachutes are now installed in some airplanes, and new devices for lessening the danger of fire. Is America waiting to get some American device in each of these respects, or is America profiting by European experience and ordering the manufacture of the newest gun, the newest armor, the newest safety devices, wherever they may be found? In asking these questions we are not seeking to cast any aspersion upon any man or group of men. Some of the men who have been and still are active in the Government's work of aircraft production have been among the most far-seeing of Americans. Great credit is due, undoubtedly, to the Aircraft Production Board. But hard work, the best of intentions, and the most discerning foresight cannot alone win the war. There must be what in business parlance is called "the goods." Is the country getting "the goods"? If so, the fact is being kept very secret.

If we are really doing what we have promised ourselves and our allies and threatened Germany that we should do, the information is of the sort that might well be made public. It is true, information concerning the details of military preparation of which the enemy could take advantage ought to be kept secret. But good news for our side can do our enemy only harm. If it is bad news, the evil will not be likely to be corrected unless the public learns it. The ordnance situation is a case in point.

What is the duty of the American public, whose fighting sons, brothers, and husbands are awaiting the weapons with which to win our victory? The unpardonable sin is indolence and lassitude, or the paralysis of official red tape hidden under the plea of military secrecy; and it is the sin of the public if it permits inaction. In the light of the rifle and machine-gun revelations, it seems necessary that the public should demand the truth concerning our airplane situation.

IN DEFENSE OF AMATEUR UNCLES AMATEUR UNCLES

We are wondering whether aunts have not had a larger place than they have deserved in the annals of vicarious parenthood. There are aunts and aunts, of course, and doubtless the majority of them deserve all the praises and the privileges which they have received; but we see no reason why aunts, as a class, should be allowed completely to monopolize, to the exclusion of their masculine colleagues, the choicest rights in the land of near-parenthood.

Even literature has not been particularly kind to uncles, though it is true that all writers have not assumed the attitude (to borrow a phrase from Shakespeare) of "Uncle me no uncle."

prose and fic

vague

There have, indeed, been numerous uncles both in tion (not to say in black and white), but somehow, as the procession of their forms passes through the mind's eye, it seems as though the title before their names had served rather to detach than to connect them with those to whom they owed the right to use the plumèd designation "Uncle."

It is entirely probable that such a sweeping judgment as this is based more on mood than on fact, but the possibility of its being at least being at least a defensible judgment is increased when we reflect upon the status of uncles in real-not reel-life.

The general application of the title in question to those solitary males who have no blood nieces and nephews of their own, but who move through their solitary orbits, tangent only at widely scattered intervals with those well-ordered households where children dwell, might incline one at first thought to the belief that uncles were classed as the equals in privilege of the whole tribe of aunts. But is this belief justified?

Does there not exist a nice distinction between the use of the titles "aunt" and "uncle" in this honorific sense, which often escapes those married folk who are wont to endow their children with a host of relatives honoris causa? If parents were frank with themselves in the explanation of their use of the words "uncle" and "aunt," would they not define these words somewhat as follows:

Aunt: A predestined mother who, lacking offspring of her own, is entitled to share, on occasion, in the affection which is the peculiar prerogative of those who wear the purple mantle of motherhood.

Uncle: An unattached man whose awkward efforts to appear in sympathy with the aims and aspirations of childhood should be received with becoming tolerance; a visitor from Mars within the four walls of the nursery who is expected and permitted to feel only such detached interest as might be the portion of a scientific observer from a remote world and a foreign civilization.

So marked in some households is the distinction drawn between the respective rights of aunts and uncles that an impartial observer can easily note in the victims of this unfair discrimina tion an immediately responsive concealment of their real and natural emotions-a concealment which at least injures their reputation for intelligence even if it does not go deep enough to raise hob with their spiritual development.

Rising to the demands of the situation in which they find themselves, they frequently manifest a superficial indifference to the wiles (and wails) of childhood, which is nothing more than sheer, downright, brazen bravado of the most shameless brand.

If you doubt this statement, watch the next youth confronted with the heir to some household on the momentous occasion when he (the youth, not the heir) is first greeted as an "Uncle." Does he blush? He does. Is it because he does not like it? It is not. He blushes because he knows that those responsible for bestowing upon him that proud appellation have done so, not out of respect for his personal and intimate ambitions, but because they are inclined to consider him as a variety of overgrown cub trying to make himself at home in a queer world of strange shapes and unfamiliar dreams.

Swimming placidly in the waters of their domestic lake, the fond-to use the word in both its Elizabethan and its Victorian senses and forgetful parents observe his struggles much as a pair of ducks secure in their own familiar knowledge of the water might observe and misinterpret the struggles and protests of a strange duckling proceeding through the high grasses along the shore under the unsympathetic chaperonage of some elderly hen. From the pond the squawking efforts of such a duckling to evade his escort might be ascribed to his innate aversion to water, when in reality they were caused by his frustrated desires to get into the element in which he naturally belonged.

Whether or not there is a moral of any particular value to be drawn from this somewhat rambling dissertation on the rights and emotions of amateur uncles is a matter to be gravely doubted. The premises on which it is based may not be wholly sound. Its conclusion, we admit, is at best vague and uncertain.

Perhaps the moral may be that uncles, as well as aunts, have a right to certain emotions even in the face of the indifference, if not the laughter, of a hard and cruel world.

The next time, O parents, you meet with an uncle of the

amateur and peripatetic variety in his travels, treat him not as an alien within the walls of your home, no matter how stammeringly he consents to the placing of your eldest upon his knee or how unconvincingly he jangles a rattle in your baby's ear. An uncle may not be an aunt, but at least he is a human being.

TO THE WOMEN VOTERS

In certain States of the Union the duty has recently been laid upon you of sharing with your husbands, brothers, and sons in the responsibility for the government of five distinct political communities :

The school district.
The town or city.
The county.
The State.

The United States.

To fulfill this new duty requires an intelligent understanding of the respective political powers of these five communities. Roughly speaking, it may be said that

The education of the youth depends upon the school district authorities.

Local order, peace, and sanitation depend upon the town or city authorities.

The maintenance of good roads and bridges, the proper partition of taxes between the different towns, and much of the enforcement of criminal laws, depend upon the county authorities.

The school district, the town or city, and the county are all subject to the control of the State authorities, upon whom also depend many other questions, local or quasi-local in their character.

All those interests which concern the welfare of the entire Nation, such as foreign and inter-State transportation and commerce, the tariff, the currency, the National defense, the mails, the regulation of the railways and the telegraph, and all international relations, depend upon the National authorities.

To become acquainted with the various questions involved in the government of these several political organizations and the duties which that government imposes upon the citizens will require no inconsiderable amount both of information and of thoughtful and studious reflection. We urge you, therefore, in your respective communities to organize plans for acquiring this information, imparting it to others, and inspiring both in yourself and in others the study of these problems, that you may contribute to their wise solution.

You may ask if such study is not as necessary for the male as for the female voter. Yes. Nevertheless there is a difference. The boys who will vote in the next election have been for some years looking forward to this duty. They have talked politics

with their fathers and with their companions; they have learned-insensibly, it is true, but still really-something respecting these political problems and the duties which citizenship lays upon them. The naturalized citizens have been, in a different way, also considering the duties of political citizenship and making some preparation to fulfill those duties, partly by informal discussions with their comrades, partly through the political or industrial or social groups to which they belong.

These new voters will be added to the polling lists in their respective communities in scores, in hundreds, and in a few of the great cities in thousands. But it is estimated that in the State of New York over a million and three-quarters of women will be added to the polling lists. Some of you regard this as a privilege which you have been eager to obtain; some of you have regarded it as a duty from which you were glad to be exempt. But those of you who have been eager have generally been so busy in trying to get the vote that you have had no time to study carefully what that vote means or how it should be exercised; while those of you who have hoped still to be exempt from political duty have naturally not studied the subject at all. For the reasons which The Outlook has already stated we urge you, certainly in the States where woman's suffrage has been adopted, to accept the decision and prepare yourself to fulfill the duties which that decision lays upon you.

How shall this be done? There is no one way which is best in all communities or for all individuals. In some localities where there has been both a suffrage and an anti-suffrage organization, the two could profitably unite in making woman's suffrage of practical value to the community. In other localities where there is a woman's club, that club might profitably take up politics as a suitable topic for non-partisan study. In other localities the school district might be urged to organize a series of meetings, to be held in the school-house or the assembly hall of the high school, in which lectures should be given on the framework of our Government and on the duties and responsibilities which participation in that Government involves. Whether this systematic instruction is afforded by voluntary clubs or by the school district in its official capacity, there ought to be an opportunity for questioning by the auditors. The meeting should take of the nature of a class and, in whatever way this instruction is afforded, it should be in gatherings to which all voters would be equally welcome. Those who attempt to initiate such a campaign of political instruction should not forget that the maid has just as much political power as the mistress; that the vote of one counts for just as much as the vote of the other; and that one no less than the other needs both political instruction and the inspiration to a practical working patriotism.

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We should be glad to get brief accounts of any attempt to carry out these suggestions as to preparations for the new duties of the new day.

N reply to a request of The Outlook for a statement concerning the attitude of the trade unions toward the transfer of the railway systems of the United States from private to public operation, Mr. Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, has sent us the following message. Last week we printed statements of opinion of this revolutionary change from a representative Socialist organ, from railway operators, from newspapers and individuals who have the point of view of the capitalist, and from representative newspapers of the North, the South, and the West. No statement on behalf of organized labor was included because no such statement from an authorized source had been, so far as we were able to ascertain, issued at that time. In spite of prompt and courteous compliance with our request, Mr. Gompers's statement did not reach us until after The Outlook for last week had gone to press. It is so specific, however, and so authoritative and important, that we do not regret the circumstances which have led to its publication separately, and therefore more conspicuously. Mr. Gompers's statement follows.

"Answering your question as to what the attitude of organized labor would be upon the President's proclamation taking over the control of the railroads and other transportation agencies, I would say that, in my judgment, there will be wholehearted support of his position and his action.

"The separate ownership of the various railroads and their competitive existence has shown that they cannot afford the best adaptability to do the essential work of the Government during the tremendous needs in this war. I know that the representatives of the railroad companies did their level best to afford fullest possible service to meet the needs of the Government, but, due to the causes I have mentioned and because of their separate interests and the laws which hedge them about, they were not capable of giving that united and comprehensive support and service so essential now and which the President's order will accomplish. In addition to its effectiveness for military purposes it will be time-saving, give the opportunity for concentration of effort, and in the long run prove expedi tious and economical. - SAMUEL GOMPERS,"