in WAR TIME

By Edward T. Devine

dowment of any university; nearly one-third as much as the combined productive funds of all the five or six hundred higher institutions of learning in the United States. Moreover, this fund is not to be an endowment, but is to be regarded as disposable income for quick expenditure.

The week's campaign was marked by many novel and some questionable features. Among the latter was the disappearance for the time being of clearly recognizable distinctions in the newspapers as to what is news, what is editorial opinion, and what is simply free advertising. Perhaps no great harm is done in this instance, as news and editorials were undisguised free advertising quite as much as the great displays given by the newspapers or by advertisers who paid for the space. The teams for personal canvass and the whirlwind campaigners deserve much credit. The lead and the direction came from Wall street and from cooperating financial groups throughout the country. The chief feature, however, of the campaign was the response, sympathetic in quality, magnificent in volume. There were small contributions, but the real opportunity for the giving of small sums will come later. At the outset big subscriptions were necessary, and they were forthcoming.

The Red Cross, having gathered much experience in its character as a neutral international relief agency, now puts on its shining armor as the relief arm of a belligerent nation. The time for boasting will come when that armor is to be put off. Now is the time for consecration, for vision, for searching of heart, for the making of a program, for wise counsels, for securing public confidence, for establishing cooperation, for courage in policy, for caution in the choice of means.

The Committee on Cooperation appointed by the Red Cross War Council receives at the start rather a rough but perhaps wholesome intimation that cooperation is a reciprocal matter. It seems that there are some sixty war-relief organizations whose officials, valuing their autonomy with the ardor of small nations, see no safety except in the principle of collective bargaining. They have, therefore, formed a federation, or at least an entente alliance, and agree not to make a separate arrangement with the Red Cross, but to confer with the latter through a joint committee of seven. That the relief organizations which have been active in support of the allies while we remained neutral should have some recognized standing in the new plans for giving similar support on a larger scale is obvious, and the very appointment by the Red Cross of a committee on cooperation may justly be interpreted as evidence that such a relation is desired. The problems of reconciling the natural and legitimate desire for the continuance of work already undertaken with the advantages of a unified and cooperative national system should not be beyond the powers of Judge Lovett and his associates in the Red Cross if they are met half way, as they doubtless will be, by the patriotic and energetic leaders of the other agencies. The Red Cross is an international organization. Its emblem, always accompanied by the national flag, gives protection under the Geneva convention to "matériel" and "personnel" charged exclusively with the care of the sick and wounded. This does not mean that the American Red Cross is indiffer

It

ent as between its own armies and those of the enemy. means that in the relief of individual suffering the Red Cross is no respecter of uniforms. On the battle-field its motto is Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur. In every land the Red Cross has this international character; but it has also everywhere an ardent national character which is not in the least inconsistent with its obligations under the Geneva convention. It is engaged in very extensive relief operations. It establishes hospitals and equips hospital ships. It mitigates the conditions of prisoners, and it cares for the widow and orphan. It succors those wounded in battle, but also those who suffer from chronic disease. It may rebuild homes, reestablish workers in industry, protect the public health, and do anything else within its resources to make the world safe for humanity.

In these tasks the American Red Cross is entitled to the services of every section of the nation. As no one may hold back unless there happens to be some other channel through which he can work to better advantage, so no one can properly be rejected except on the ground that for the particular task someone else is better qualified. To refuse the services of competent doctors, nurses or social workers because of German names or ancestry, or to refuse the services of Catholic sisters because of their garb, would be alike indefensible. Mr. Wadsworth promptly denounced the rumor that the latter discrimination was to be permitted in a letter to Cardinal Gibbons. If England or France is unwilling to permit American Red Cross agents of German birth or ancestry to aid English or French soldiers, such feelings must no doubt be respected, but it would be appropriate to put very plainly to our allies the seriousness of any such discrimination against persons whose loyalty and devotion to the nation are beyond question. Not knowing our conditions, they are through ignorance making a colossal blunder about a trivial matter.

Some sentences from a newspaper statement by the chairman of the Red Cross War Council have been interpreted in the journal formerly called the Fatherland to mean that the Red Cross is to be utilized as a war measure in a sense contrary to the Geneva convention. Mr. Davison certainly had no such intention. To supply doctors and nurses to our own and the allied armies is the first obligation. Could the American Red Cross be expected to send doctors, nurses, ambulances, medicines and money into Germany to become a part of the military resources of the armies against which our armies are engaged? If not, what basis is there for peevish criticism because of insistence on the national character of the Red Cross and its alignment on the side of world democracy? The Red Cross should, of course, guard its phrases to prevent misconstruction; but eventually its policy will be disclosed in action. It will be neutral where neutrality is legitimate and reasonable, and it will be national and patriotic where this is reasonable and legitimate. Thus it will command respect abroad and affection from Americans of every party and section. Already the Red Cross is the best known of all humanitarian agencies. It is not to be doubted that it will be as well beloved as it is known.

plumbing, law, politics, psychology, cooking, biology, would be advantageous to one who tries to do social work, and the list of subjects recognized as desirable is growing fast.

International law has not heretofore been suspected of belonging among the necessities of our professional equipment. Social work in America has been indigenous in character, except for two or three exotic institutions, like the almshouse and the jail, which have given us a good deal of trouble. Voices have been raised, to be sure, in recent years in praise of legislative and administrative methods for handling social problems in European countries and in, advocacy of their adoption by us ready-made. But there have been other voices to counsel against the assumption that a method which has been successful somewhere else will necessarily be successful when applied to American conditions and subjected to the American temper; and most of us, like most people in most other countries, have been cheerfully unconscious of what our foreign contemporaries do about their social problems.

The war, however, as has frequently been observed in other connections, has changed all that. We have been learning more about the social institutions of Europe, as we have been learning more about its geography and politics. The exigent social problems created by the war, moreover, are forcing the development of social work of an international character, beyond anything ever foreshadowed in the past, which rests-which must rest, to be useful-on elementary principles of universal human applicability, not on the traditions and tastes of any one nation. These international problems of social welfare (the treatment of prisoners, the treatment of the population of conquered territory and of noncombatants in the theater of military operations) lead us sooner or later to international law-"that law," in the words of Grotius, "which obtains between peoples and their rulers, springing from nature itself or instituted by laws divine or by custom and silent agreement."

There is one document of international law which should be peculiarly interesting to all Americans in these days when our first troops are landing in France.

The basis for the modern rules for warfare on land-the rules which were observed, that is, in modern wars between civilized nations up to 1914-is to be found in a document of our Civil War known as General Orders No. 100, Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field. It was prepared by Francis Lieber, revised by a board of officers, approved by President Lincoln, and then issued by the secretary of war, on April 24, 1863, as a manual to guide the military operations of the United States forces.

It is a document in which we may well take pride, both for the power of intellect it displays and for its loftiness of tone. It is not a mere list of directions as to the proper action under given circumstances. Explanations and reasons for the orders are given, marvelously compact and cogent, making it a veritable philosophy of war, and one "without rancor." Its author was a "German-American," Francis Lieber, who was at the time professor of constitutional history and public law in Columbia College. Born in Berlin in 1800, he fought against Napoleon under Blücher at the ripe age of fifteen, and soon after was arrested for the political sentiments ex

lumbia, which was the seat of his teaching until his death in 1872 and which commemorates his name in the Lieber professorship of history and political philosophy.

The "instructions" consist of 157 short sections, which will repay a careful reading in full. We quote a few paragraphs, from the text as it is given in Wilson and Tucker's International Law, in justification of our assertions:

11. The law of war does not only disclaim all cruelty and bad faith concerning engagements concluded with the enemy during the war, but also the breaking of stipulations solemnly contracted by the belligerents in time of peace, and avowedly intended to remain in force in case of war between the contracting powers.

It disclaims all extortions and other transactions for individual gain; all acts of private revenge, or connivance at such acts. Offenses to the contrary shall be severely punished, and especially so if committed by officers.

15. Military necessity admits of all direct destruction of life or limb of armed enemies, and of other persons whose destruction is incidentally unavoidable in the armed contests of the war; it allows of the capturing of every armed enemy, and every enemy of importance to the hostile government, or of peculiar danger to the captor; it allows of all destruction of property, and obstruction of the ways and channels of traffic, travel, or communication, and of all withholding of sustenance or means of life from the enemy; of the appropriation of whatever an enemy's country affords necessary for the subsistence and safety of the army, and of such deception as does not involve the breaking of good faith, either positively pledged, regarding agreements entered into during the war, or supposed by the modern law of war to exist. Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another and to God. 16. Military necessity does not admit of cruelty-that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions. It does not admit of the use of poison in any way, nor of the wanton devastation of a district. It admits of deception, but disclaims acts of perfidy; and, in general, military necessity does not include any act of hostility which makes the return to peace unnecessarily difficult.

19. Commanders, whenever admissible, inform the enemy of their intention to bombard a place, so that the noncombatants, and espe cially the women and children, may be removed before the bombardment commences. But it is no infraction of the common law of war to omit thus to inform the enemy. Surprise may be a necessity.

29. Modern times are distinguished from earlier ages by the existence, at one and the same time, of many nations and great governments related to one another in close intercourse.

Peace is their normal condition; war is the exception. The ultimate object of all modern war is a renewed state of peace. The more vigorously wars are pursued, the better it is for humanity. Sharp wars are brief.

35. Classical works of art, libraries, scientific collections, or precious instruments, such as astronomical telescopes, as well as hospitals, must be secured against all avoidable injury, even when they are contained in fortified places whilst besieged or bombarded. 44. All wanton violence committed against persons in the invaded country, all destruction of property not commanded by the authorized officer, all robbery, all pillage or sacking, even after taking a place by main force, all rape, wounding, maiming, or killing of such inhabitants, are prohibited under the penalty of death, or such other severe punishment as may seem adequate for the gravity of the offense.

70. The use of poison in any manner, be it to poison wells, or food, or arms, is wholly excluded from modern warfare. He that uses it puts himself out of the pale of the law and usages of war.

75. Prisoners of war are subject to confinement such as may be deemed necessary on account of safety, but they are to be subjected to no other intentional suffering or indignity. The confinement and mode of treating a prisoner may be varied during his captivity according to the demands of safety.

118. The besieging belligerent has sometimes requested the besieged to designate the buildings containing collections of works of art, scientific museums, astronomical observatories, or previous libraries, so that their destruction may be avoided as much as possible.

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION FOR WAR NEEDS CONSCIOUSNESS of social problems, intelligent interest

in the Prussian universities. He continued his education at Jena, Halle and Dresden; took part-inevitably-in the Greek war of independence; came to the United States in 1827; edited the Encyclopedia Americana in Boston for five years; then went to the University of South Carolina as professor of history and political economy, and thence to Co

have never been so conspicuous as they are now. Enthusiasm for social service is epidemic. Everyone wants to "do something." thing." Those who are already "doing something" want to do something more, or something different. Those who have never "done anything" want to begin at once. Estab

lished agencies are developing new functions and evolving new organs. A luxuriant crop of new agencies is springing up. We scurry back and forth to the national capital; we stock offices with typewriters and new letterheads; we telephone feverishly, regardless of expense, and resort to all the devices of efficient "publicity work;" we change places-as in the old game of Going to Jerusalem-C moving into the chair of B, who has been called upon to succeed A, who has "gone to Washington," while C's old place is taken by a promising college graduate-at any rate until he is drafted or until she hears of something even more "worth while.”

In a time like this most of us are not very critical, not very particular about what we do or what others do. The excitement goes to our heads. We accept the seething ferment unquestioningly as evidence of tremendously vital forces, and we burn to add our own energies to these forces. It is all very exhilarating, stimulating, intoxicating. Activity and enthusiasm are the qualities of the moment.

In the midst of this fermentation, this tropical flowering if that is a more pleasing figure of energy and devotion, there may be some cool and controlled spectators who question the value of it. The cynic may be tempted to liken his fellowmen at the present moment-if the cynic would stoop to use so homely a simile-to chickens with their heads off. But if he does he will be ready to apologize as soon as he has seen beneath the surface to the motives responsible for the motions at which he mocks. Our jerky, uncoordinated, apparently unreasonable gestures are not reflex actions due to the severance of connection with the controlling nerve center. They are the direct result of such respectable emotions as sympathy and patriotism and desire to be of use. They are more like the bucking of an engine which is getting under way than the senseless flounderings of a decapitated hen, and when the awkward actions are over we hope to find under our hands not a dead chicken but a smoothly running powerful machine.

There are, of course, no cynics among us, but there may be some who cannot help feeling a little uneasiness, and there are undoubtedly many who find themselves a little bewildered, at the increasing multiplicity of efforts and agencies.

One of our correspondents writes that she came away from Pittsburgh with the feeling "that 'conservation ideas' were lying around in various individual brains, but that there was a woful lack of coordination and no means by which we could coordinate and pull together. . . . The people want to do, but expert guidance leading this army of would-be doers is what is lacking." She refers to "Conservation Manuals," one for men and one for women, published by the German government at the beginning of the war, and ventures the flattering hope that this department may serve as a serial "conservation manual" for the social workers of America.

Another correspondent writes that he and his associates are giving some thought to organizing the social resources of the state-official and private-for war needs. He goes on: You are familiar with the facilities of a state of the size and development of this. We are writing to ask for your suggestions as to what may be done and the most effective way of doing it. What can the state do through its officers, boards and institutions? What can the counties do through their officers, institutions and agencies? What can the cities do officially? What can the voluntary charitable and welfare agencies do? What can individuals do? What are some of the things that such social welfare agencies both public and private are going to have to consider? Can you briefly outline a plan that we can have before us and let us have it by early mail?

The German Conservation Manuals which we are asked to emulate may be as useful as our correspondent assumes they should be, but imagination cannot figure a handbook so comprehensive and sound and far-sighted that it will be

a trusty guide for well-meaning citizens. Nor would a program which undertook to organize in advance all the social resources of a state for war needs command much confidence. We shall have to feel our way point by point, very cautiously-though that does not mean passively. One duty is clear at the very outset. Each existing institution should specialize on its own job, perfecting its administration and personnel to the nth degree. Hospitals should get ready to take care of the sick, wounded and disabled; employment agencies to deal with irregular employment and industrial readjustments; relief agencies with an accentuation of their ordinary problems.

In the second place, the Red Cross should represent in its membership and in its direction the whole population of the country, as nearly as that is possible, and should put itself in condition to cooperate effectively with the military authorities to the extent that voluntary cooperation is needed and to do all the enormous amount of humanitarian work which lies within its scope. This requires a tremendous increase in members, in resources and in efficiency—such as is indeed taking place before our eyes from hour to hour.

In the third place, it is a good thing to have state and county and city councils or committees of national defense, appointed by the governors and supervisors and mayors, to provide a channel for receiving and disseminating national policies emanating from Washington, and to provide also a center for the coordination of other agencies within the state, county or city. As far as possible it would be well that formal social organization for the war should be concentrated in these quasi-official bodies, and that irregular voluntary schemes of a vague and sentimental character should be discouraged. If the national defense committee as appointed by the governor or mayor is not such that it can be developed into a representative, coordinating, unifying body, then it may be desirable to create another organ by the voluntary action of responsible officials and influential persons connected with the private agencies. But there would be great advantage in having this work done by a network of coordinate state and local committees, all responsive to direction and stimulus from the Council of National Defence in Washington.

If every department of government and every voluntary agency stands at attention, so to speak, in this way; and if the country as a whole organizes through a network of quasiofficial councils or committees of defense, working from Washington down to the local community; and if the Red Cross is made the efficient and trusted agent of the whole population for the functions which it has assumed, we shall be ready for whatever comes, and shall not have to multiply or diversify machinery. In other words, the effectiveness of our social organization will depend on the efficiency of federal and local government in its own field, of voluntary agencies in their own field, and of a single set of not-too-elaborate officially recognized agencies occupying the borderline between the government and the voluntary agencies and private citizens.

We may not be able to make our social organization as simple and as effective as this, but we can at least keep it in mind as an ideal and scrutinize severely every proposal that faces toward complexity and multiplication of machinery.

THE HE editor of this department will welcome questions from readers, and suggestions as to topics which they would like to see discussed in these pages. Information from all parts of the country about conditions due to the war, and consequent developments in social work, will also be appreciated.

T

THE FOURTH'S ESTATE

HE day we celebrate is one whose meaning can be shared in, this year, by the Russian millions. Each decade has seen new bodies of people the world over, no less than on the American continent, who could respond to its message, but never such accessions as those of the present decade. Like the finger of an old-fashioned dial, the day has thus marked the slow emergence of greater and greater reaches of human life into the sunlight of liberty.

Through the Root mission to Russia, through the Bakhmeteff mission to the United States, through the new Red Cross commission and-perhaps even more than through any of these or all of them combined-through the return westward across the Pacific and by way of Siberia of exiles who, bred of the revolution and understanding its great motivation, have come also to know American democracy and labor, can we share with these new pursuers of happiness our experience in organizing life and liberty.

Only four short months ago, England was closing its old rights of asylum to such fugitives from despotism and proposing to turn them over to the secret service of the Czar. Today the English premier, while marking the revolution's cost in prolonging the war, is hailing it as the great assurance of the quality and permanence of the settlement when it comes. Such have been the mighty changes which in the midst of our own entry we have scarcely recognized.

As Professor Taylor points out, we have long looked upon independence as a social heritage and not merely as an individual possession. Comes the Russian revolution and holds it aloft, less as a heritage than again as something achievableto be striven for no less than handed down. But again social -the strivings of the many.

Insofar as we have fallen short of the vision of the founders, have tried false leads, have stumbled into pitfalls and followed will-o'-the-wisps, we can serve the new Russia no less than where we can point to practical gains. And for these very reasons, this day will mean more to us than its immediate predecessors, if we turn our faces not to Russia as the East, but like these exiles among us, to Russia as the West-to a young nation where old night is breaking up. It is rather for us to share with them in their fresh realization of the primal meanings of our day of freedom.

means that the two groups have been impelled by the growing sense of the complications involved in all their work to emphasize the community as the all-embracing source from which problems issue and from whence solvents are to be derived. Community workers all are they. And social work is nothing more nor less than work with and for the whole community. G. A. D.

C

IVIL service standards and the merit system have come in since the Civil war, but there is every reason to expect that a grateful people will reward the surviving soldiers of this war with public office. Service in France will be considered the best probation for service in city council, legislature and Congress. We may, moreover, confidently look forward to a large and energetic organization of the veterans of the war for democracy-a G. A. D. to outnumber the G. A. R. and perhaps to outstrip it in united action in behalf of deserving members. Therefore, argues the Philadelphia Bureau of Municipal Research, let us accept the inevitable and take it into camp-let us

see to it that the ex-soldiers get their jobs via the merit route. Take immediate advantage of the concentration of our young men in training camps to teach them about their city, state and nation.

THE

"SOCIAL FORCES IN WAR TIME"

HE editor of the SURVEY counts himself and all SURVEY readers fortunate in mustering in an associate editor as an every-week contributor throughout the summer. Social Forces in Wartime is just what the name implies a resumption of that characteristic department through which Mr. Devine has from year to year given counsel and inspiration to the fellowship of social workers; an application of that department to the practical adjustment in wartime of organized philanthropy and public service. It is in a sense a seminar -an all-summer's conference, building upon those sessions at Pittsburgh which blazed certain of the great trails of patriotic obligation and opportunity. It will be a mosaic of experience, interpretation, criticism, proposal-drawing on suggestions and reports from a wide range of work and workers; and through it all the consistent handling of difficult problems by an executive, teacher and editor who for twenty years has helped guide the forward-moving current of American social work. By vigorous and convincing leadership, by openminded induction, and by practical demonstration, he has put us all in his debt.

While Mr. Devine will draw on staff resources and budgets of information, the department is essentially his own. He will be quite unconstrained in developing his own approach and conclusions with respect to events and experience as they are covered in the regular news service of the SURVEY; under no obligation whatever to conform to predilections of the editor. Thus, in this week's issue, he quite completely breaks with