the 1,692 Public Health Service, contract and other Government hospitals and soldiers' homes. This number, the report added, was increasing at the rate of 1,000 a month, and the Red Cross had been told by Government officials that the peak would not be reached before 1925.

The work done by the Red Cross was varied, and consisted in obtaining medical treatment, compensation and vocational training for veterans, in furnishing financial aid and care. for their families and in providing recreation and assistance of every sort while the men were receiving treatment and training.

NAVAL AFFAIRS

President Harding on Oct. 29 nominated Captains Sumner E. W. Kittelle, William V. Pratt and Louis M. Nulton to be Rear Admirals. Captain Kittelle was graduated from the Naval Academy in 1889, and had served as Commander of the battleships Georgia and Maryland. Captain Pratt served as Assistant Chief of Naval Operations from 1917 to 1919. He will be one of the naval advisers to the American delegates at the arms conference. Captain Nulton has been in command of a number of naval vessels, including the battleship Pennsylvania.

It was stated in Washington on Nov. 6 that a new type of submarine motive plant, a combination of gas and electric propulsion, would be put in three American submarines of the V type, two of which had just been laid down at the Portsmouth (N. H.) Navy Yard. Naval engineers were said to be watching the construction with great interest, because of their expectation that improved operation. of submersible war craft would result from the new power plant. A cruising radius of 10.000 miles was said to be a possibility.

The newest submarines are to be 2,025-ton boats, 300 feet long and equipped with electric engines of 6,500 horsepower. They are designed for a surface speed of twentyone and a submerged speed of from

nine to ten knots an hour. When completed in 1923, each of the new submarines will be armed with a 5inch gun set in a wet mount forward of the conning tower. The gun is designed to remain in the water when the boat is submerged, and can be trained almost in a complete circle or elevated as an anti-aircraft weapMachine guns will be mounted on the conning tower bridge. Forward will be four torpedo tubes and aft two others, all of the 21-inch size. Storage space is planned for sixteen torpedoes.

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Loss ON MERCHANT SHIPS

The United States Shipping Board, it was stated on Oct. 18, had had an inventory made of all surplus material and supplies left over from its war activities, and had authorized the removal of all restrictions placed on the sale of general materials and supplies.

The cost value of the material covered by the appraisal and inventory was $389,780,000 and its value at present is estimated at approximately

$75,000,000, exclusive of the real estate at 45 Broadway, New York, fuel oil stations all over the world, and ships and drydocks under construction, on which no appraisal value has been set. The supplies and material available for immediate sale were bought for $125,000,000, and their present appraisal value is $35,000,000.

Whole towns were also slated to be sold regardless of cost. Contracts were signed on Nov. 1 by the Shipping Board through the Emergency Fleet Corporation to sell about 2,000 houses erected by the Government during the war for occupancy by the officers and employes of the shipbuilding yards.

TAX REVISION BILL

The Senate on Nov. 8 passed the tax revision bill after a continuous session of more than fifteen hours. The measure then went to conference between the Senate and the House for final agreement on the amendments made by the Senate. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 38 to 24. Senator Broussard of Louisiana was the

only Democrat who supported it, while Senators La Follette, Norris and Moses, Republicans, voted against it. The soldiers' bonus amendment was brought forward twice, but was rejected both times.

Somewhat unexpectedly, the Senate adopted an amendment which taxes gifts that exceed in monetary or property value $20,000, the purpose being, it was stated, to check the practice by which it was possible for a man to reduce his tax bill by transferring parts of his taxable property to members of his family, other persons or institutions. The amendment, which was offered by Senator Walsh of Massachusetts, provided for a graduated tax, beginning with 1 per cent on gifts between $20,000 and $50,000, and ending with 25 per cent. on all gifts that exceed $10,000,000.

Outstanding features of the bill were provisions for repeal of the excess profits tax and of all the transportation taxes on Jan. 1, 1922, and a reduction of the surtax rate all along the line, with the maximum rate reduced from 65 per cent. to 50 per cent.

RAILWAY RATE DECISION

A decision of far-reaching importance to railroads, shippers and the public was handed down by the Interstate Commerce Commission on Oct. 22. The commission not only directed reduction of freight rates on certain commodities, but revived a principle of rate-making believed to be of greater consequence than any enunciated for a decade past. The principle was that the commission, instead of making its freight rates applicable to the operating costs of the railroads, would be guided in future by the reasonableness and justice of freight rates, leaving to the railroads the readjustment of their expenses to conform to the income which the commission's rate-fixing rulings permitted. The special case in question involved interstate rates on grain, grain products and hay in carload lots between points in the Western and the Western and Mountain-Pacific

groups of railroads, and the reduction on the commodities named averaged 16 per cent.

STRIKE ORDER NULLIFIED

The threatened strike of railway employes against the decision of the Railroad Labor Board reducing wages, which was scheduled to go into effect on Oct. 30, was called off on Oct. 27 after a four-hour conference of the "Big Five " Brotherhood heads at Chicago. It had been made clear by the Labor Board that it "would deal with the unions with ungloved hands" in its attempt to prevent a walkout of the union members, and the contest had virtually narrowed down to one between the union leaders and the Government itself. Under these circumstances, the leaders felt that a further fight would be useless.

The resolutions annulling the strike went extensively into the history of the controversy, and pointed out that the "Big Five" groups based the cancellation of the strike order upon (1) the assurance given by the railway executives that no carrier would

seek changes in wages of working schedules except through the legal agency of the Labor Board, and upon (2) the policy of the board as enunciated in the memorandum it had adopted.

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That memorandum stated as policy that the Labor Board would not take up for consideration any request for further wage cuts for any class of employes until it had finished with the matter of rules and working conditions for that class. The board held that it thus eliminated both contingencies which influenced the vote to strike against the July wage cut itself.

FOREIGN LIQUOR BARRED

In a decision handed down Oct. 21, Judge Julius M. Mayer of the United States District Court held that the transshipment of liquor through the United States from one country to another was prohibited by the Eight

eenth Amendment and the Volstead act. The pronouncement of the Court was in a test case brought by the Anchor Steamship Line to restrain George W. Aldridge, Collector of the Port of New York, and other Government officials from interfering with a

shipment of five cases of Scotch York. Had Judge Mayer upheld the whisky through the Port of New contention of the plaintiff company, it would have been lawful for liquor originating in Canada, for instance, to be shipped across the country to Mexico, and for liquor originating in Europe to be shipped across the United States for export from a Pacific Coast port.

Internal Revenue Revenue Commissioner Blair announced in Washington on Nov. 1 that letters were to be sent to brewers, advising them that beer already manufactured and held in stock could be sold for medical purposes under the new Treasury regulations. Sale of this beer, Mr. Blair declared, could begin at once under the proper permits. The whole status of this question was changed a week later, however, by the passage of the antibeer bill by Congress. Details of that measure will appear in next month's CURRENT HISTORY.

|ERDINAND FOCH, Marshal of France, probably touched the supreme moment

of his visit to the United States when, on Nov. 1, 1921, he and other distinguished World War leaders led a parade of 25,000 ex-soldiers of the American Legion through the streets of Kansas City, Mo., and when, in reply to a speech of welcome by General Pershing, he delivered in French the address which is here translated:

Officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the great American Army, my dear comrades of the American Legion:

I cannot tell you how great is my satisfaction at finding myself among you, valiant soldiers of 1918, to live again our glorious memories. Three years ago, on the first of November, 1918, the entire American army in France took up vigorously the pursuit of the defeated enemy and did not halt until the German surrender. Hour of glory for the American Army, a proper culmination for a military effort, prodigious alike in its intensity as in its rapidity. One and all you have had your share in it. You may well be proud!

In responding in mass to the call to arms of your Government, in equipping, training and organizing yourselves as rapidly as possible, you had in view only the purpose to take your place as soon as possible in the line of battle.

In numbers-Eighteen months after the declaration of war by the United States on Germany the American Army had passed from effectives of 9,500 officers and 125,000 men to 180,000 officers and 3,500,000 men.

Effort of organization-If, in the month of March, 1918, you had in France but six divisions, six months later you had forty-one, of which thirty-one engaged in battle.

Effort in instruction-In order to have officers, non-commissioned officers and men rapidly trained, you multiplied in America, as in France, your schools and camps, which became centres of prodigious activity. In order to arm you and encamp you the American manufactories worked without respite and supplied all your needs.

Admirable effort also in transportation-You swept away every obstacle which interfered with bringing your units from the centres of instruction to the ports of embarkation. In France, you improved the ports of debarkation, created new installations, increased the traffic of the railroad system by work of all kinds and multiplied your store houses and hospitals.

Your shipyards were organized for intensive production in such a way that when the war ended you utilized for your ocean transporta

tion almost four millions of marine tonnage, instead of 94,000 available at the beginning of the war. And meanwhile your splendid war fleet, thanks to its vigilance and its fine military qualities, protected, with an efficiency to which I am happy to pay tribute here, the transportation of your troops and material.

A prodigious effort on the part of your entire nation's intelligence, will power and energy! A prodigious effort which has filled your associates with admiration and gratitude and confounded your enemy!

This splendid spirit of an entire nation we find again on the battlefields of France, where it was blazoned in the admirable virtues of bravery and heroism. It was the spirit of the Second and Third American Army Divisions which, one month later, took part in the second battle of the Marne and distinguished themselves immediately in the operations around Château-Thierry and in Belleau Wood. Again it was the spirit of those five divisions which, on July 18, participated in the victorious counteroffensive of the Tenth and Sixth French Armies, between the Aisne and the Marne, and contributed in great measure to that victory.

Finally, it was that spirit which animated all the American Army when, on July 24, General Pershing formed your splendid units under his own direct command. On Sept. 12, 1918, the First American Army delivered its first battle on the soil of France. It dislodged the enemy from the St. Mihiel salient, where he had entrenched himself for nearly four years, and threw him back beyond the foot of the hills of the Meuse. From the very first the American Army entered into glory. How many further laurels was it yet to win?

The St. Mihiel operation was nearly ended when the American Army attacked on a new front. On Sept. 25 it was engaged on the right wing of the vast allied offensive. The point of direction assigned to it was Mezières, on the Meuse. Deployed from the left bank of the Meuse to the eastern confines of Champagne, it had three army corps in line on a front of nearly forty kilometers. Before it stretched the region of the Argonne, formidable emplacement of the German defense, a wooded terrain, rugged, difficult in its very nature, and rendered more so by all the defensive organizations which had been accumulated there during the last four years.

Nothing could discourage or check your army. It threw itself with generous ardor into the immense mêlée. The task was a rude one, but it was carried out to a thorough finish. Fighting without respite night and day for a month, advancing in spite of the pitfalls and the counter-attacks of the enemy, it succeeded, by pure

force of tenacity and heroism, in liberating the wild region of the Argonne. After St. Mihiel, it could now inscribe proudly upon its banners the name of the Argonne!

On the 16th of October this great task was finished; it joined hands with the Fourth French Army in the defile of Grand Pré. In consequence of this, the enemy's resistance was severely shaken; the moment had arrived to give him the final blow.

On Nov. 1, just three years ago today, the First American Army again attacked and, in a splendid advance, reached Buzancy, penetrating the German line for more than ten kilometers. The enemy this time retired definitely; the Stars and Stripes at once took up the pursuit and, six days later, floated victoriously over the Meuse reconquered. After St. Mihiel, after the Argonne, the American banners now bore the name of Meuse! In a few months you had taken 45,000 prisoners and 1,400 cannon from the enemy.

Glory to the First American Army! Glory also to those of your divisions which, distributed among the French and British armies, contributed in great measure to the final success, whether with the Fifth French Army to the northwest of Rheims or with the Fourth French Army, in which they carried, in magnificent assault, the strong positions of Orfeuilles; or,

again, with the British armies for the capture of the famous Hindenburg line, or with the group of armies of Flanders, pursuing the enemy on the road to Brussels.

During this time your Second Army impatiently waited to attack in its turn in the direction of Metz, which already was stretching her arms to us for deliverance; but, harassed and defeated, the enemy laid down his arms! A solemn hour, which compensated for all the sacrifices freely consented to for the cause of right.

It is you who have made these sacrifices. More than 75,000 of your countrymen were buried in the soil of France. May they rest in peace! Your French brothers in arms watch over them. Glory to you who survive them and who enjoy victorious peace! You may well be proud of your past exploits. Your country had asked of you to lay low a redoubtable enemy. You have placed him at your mercy, and, after having assured every guarantee for the liberty of our peoples, you have imposed upon him the peace which our Governments have dictated. Has not your task been com pletely fulfilled?

As for me, the great honor of my life will be to have guided along the road of victory the American Army of 1918, which was a real grand army, beginning with its commander.

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DISPATCH from Paris in September stated that an American syndicate had arranged with the Archduke Friedrich, Commander-in-Chief of the Austro-Hungarian Armies, for the recovery of his family's pre-war property from the succession States which have confiscated it. If the efforts of such a syndicate should be successful, it would mean much to the old Austrian and Hungarian aristocracy, whose properties, for the most part, are situated in Slovakia, where the people are demanding the speeding-up of the Land Reform measures which are intended to furnish full economic liberation from the old régime. The property involved had a direct bearing on the complete failure of exEmperor Charles to regain his throne.

Recent statistics issued by the Czechoslovak Minister of Agriculture show how vast an amount of land was held by the aristocratic exiles. The following tables are illuminating. They show the percentage of the total land area held by the aristocracy and by other classes: