when it is impossible to provide food and clothes, horses and fodder, cannon and copper and gasoline, then the war halts. When the industrial organization breaks down, when mechanics and clerks cannot find work to do, when a decimated population is idle, then the nation is beaten. The blockade of the German and Austrian harbors, the shutting off of the two great empires from commerce with the outer world, is thus more dangerous than the loss of a million soldiers. It is the beginning of industrial paralysis.
BRITISH writers on the war say that if the Allies win they will neutralize the Kiel Canal, probably by the annexation to Denmark of the territory which includes it. If this happens it will constitute a remarkable reversal of an historical law. Heretofore the custom has been, when concluding a war, to take something away from Denmark. A slice of Denmark or a colonial possession of two has always been awarded either to one of the belligerent powers or to some other worthy nation. At times portions of the empire not caring to wait for another war voluntarily detached themselves. As a result of this process Denmark has become a very small country indeed, particularly at high tide. The proposal to give back something might cheer up the melancholy Dane, were it not for the cold-blooded condition which accompanies it. The unfortunate nation is to have its neutrality guaranteed.
A GREAT general once observed that there were a hundred ways to get an army into England, but how were you to get it out again? That very difficulty confronts us in Mexico. We went to Vera Cruz to eliminate Huerta. We did eliminate Huerta. But that did not end nor begin to end our problem. The situation which we had hoped to create through that elimination was not created; though Huerta is gone, the ghost of Huerta walks. Mexico still trembles on the verge of civil war. Villa sends ultimata and post-ultimata to Carranza, and Carranza accepts without accepting. As between these leaders we do not know whom to trust, and we do not know what responsibility we have assumed for those whom we do not trust. Our ships lie inactive in the harbor of Vera Cruz and yet we cannot leave, for to leave too soon would be dangerous for Mexico and for us. It is uncomfortable to hold the bear by the tail, but it is still worse to let go.
THERE is always a story and an "inside" story. The one is what you read, the other is what your friends whisper to you. But sometimes things get whispered into print, and then you have a commercial success. The latest is "The Secrets of the German War Office" by Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves, Secret Agent. From the book we gather that there are few event sin modern history to which Dr. Graves did not contribute something. He was present, for example, at a secret meeting between Haldane, Churchill, Kiderlin-Wachter, General von Heeringen, Admiral von Tirpitz, and one Moritz Ritter v. Auffenburg. The book contains a facsimile of a note written by the head of the German Secret Service on which these important names appear. What surprises us is that the head of the Secret Service and the author of these startling revelations should both consistently misspell the name of the name of the former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs by making it Kinderlen-Wachter instead of Kinderlin-Wachter. It also occurs to us to wonder why Dr. Grave's secret service card should have a seal dated "1912" when so many events in which it played a part happened before 1912. It also occurs to us to wonder why this Imperial German seal should look so much like a rubbing from a two-mark piece of the coinage of 1912
A BIG rush of immigrants is expected at the close of the war, and it is of the utmost importance that the country should prepare now to receive it intelligently. We have at the moment a breathing spell in which to calculate our policy. We have now to lay plans by which the newly arrived laborers may find it easy, or easier, to distribute themselves over the country, time to organize a system of national federated exchanges, which is a real way to begin any scientific handling of immigration, as well as unemployment. This is also the time to fortify by governmental and voluntary means the American standard of living, a legal national minimum and cooperative experiment. For the war has shown that the community in all the wider ranges of business no longer meet its needs by unorganized and haphazard individual effort.
PEOPLE living in the Fourth Congressional District of New Jersey have been receiving copies of a speech by the Hon. Allan B. Walsh, delivered at Basking Ridge, N.J., last July fourth. The speech was sent out free of postage in Mr. Walsh's congressional frank, as it was made a public document "by unanimous consent of the House of Representatives." This statement, which appears on the title page of the document, is calculated to impress the less informed among Mr. Walsh's constituents with the notion that he is considered at Washington so big a man that the House decided to republish his Fourth of July speech for free distribution. As a matter of fact this is a practice common to all members. Mr. Walsh is not a Congressman of the sort
