in WAR TIME

By Edward T. Devine

From drunkenness and immorality, as from other vices and weakness, they must for the most part protect themselves. Their actions will not rise higher than their source in the ideals and character of the officers and soldiers. The standard of public opinion in the army and navy has suddenly become of the very foremost importance to the nation. It should be as high as in industry, on the farm, or in college. Whether this will be so depends largely on the moral influence exerted by churches and schools, by physicians and parents, during the past generation. The influence, and especially the effort consciously made, by such agencies as the Bureau of Social Hygiene, will now be brought to a severe test. In this connection neither optimism nor cynicism would be appropriate; but a sober confidence that the young men of America will in some measure justify the increasing attention and the genuine concern which have been given to this kind of moral education seems not unreasonable.

The subject is one which may be approached also from the opposite direction. Soldiers need to be protected from temptation; but unfortunately innocent girls of more or less unsettled character, and for that matter even those who might not be called innocent, need as well to be protected from the lure of the uniform. The girls' protective leagues which have been so successful in securing wholesome recreation and mutual self-protection for their members might perform a national service here comparable in importance to that which the Y. M. C. A. renders to the soldiers. The time seems opportune for extending the scope of this movement. Working girls organized into leagues of this kind could protect those of their number who are exposed to special danger as a mere incident to a number of other mutual services, thus avoiding every suggestion of sensationalism and morbid interest in this particular social menace. Policewomen might also be utilized to patrol the vicinity of soldiers' camps. Prevention of Tuberculosis

HE prevention of tuberculosis is so obviously a war

TH

quick to adapt their programs to present conditions. When the selective draft comes into operation these agencies will be in position to cooperate in securing the services of an adequate number of skilled diagnosticians, able to detect even the early cases of tuberculosis. The failure to do this in other countries has been little less than a scandal. There has been some excuse for their failure which we cannot plead if it is repeated here. We have been warned by their experience and we have had time to prepare to make a proper examination of all candidates.

To detect incipient tuberculosis, however, is not an easy matter. By no means all doctors in general practice, by no means even all of those who have recently graduated from good schools of medicine, have the necessary technique. To point out the necessity of careful examination, therefore, as the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis was prompt to do, is not enough. It is a question of securing enough competent men, and having them at the appropriate places at the right time, and giving them the necessary authority.

That is the main problem as far as it concerns the army,

but at once the larger problem arises: What is the community to do for these rejected men, many of whom will then discover for the first time that they have tuberculosis? To cure these men, if they are curable, at least to arrest their disease and to lessen the chance of communicating it to others -this also is a patriotic national service. To perform it efficiently may help to win the war, and at any rate it will help to make the nation after the war better and stronger.

These are only three illustrations of a general principle. If the discussion is to proceed in a way that will have practical value, the SURVEY must hear from its readers.

IN

PAUL ELMER MORE AND MISS ADDAMS TN his volume entitled Aristocracy and Justice, and especially in his essay on The New Morality, Paul Elmer More makes a vicious attack on what he calls "humanitarianism." Jane Addams, whom Mr. More singles out as the "most honored teacher" of the code which he denounces, needs no defender, being very well able and possibly even preferring to take care of herself.

As one who does not share the views of Miss Addams on pacifism and who does share Mr. More's views on individual responsibility, the editor of this page cannot withhold his pen from protesting against the gross injustice of this criticism. The quarrel seems to be with those who lose sight of the distinction between good and evil. Miss Addams has, in fact, helped in many a doubtful place to clarify that distinction. Mr. More objects to confusing the innocent with the guilty. Miss Addams has often helped to free the innocent from the unjust odium of guilt; and has helped us to recognize the brand of Cain on brows shielded by "prejudice," that odious aristocratic vice for which Mr. More, following Edmund Burke, is not ashamed to become apologist. Mr. More prefers "justice" to "social sympathy," though he cannot abide the word "justice" on the lips of one whom he dislikes. He distrusts a "social sympathy" which leaves the responsibility of the individual out of account and so is "bound to leave the individual weakened in his powers of resistance against the temptations which can never be eliminated from human life." Jane Addams, more than any other daughter of man in our time, has shown herself capable of a sustained passion for justice, of consistently holding to the "everlasting morality of distinctions," of insisting in the places where it requires insight and courage on the principle of personal duty and responsibility.

Every quotation which Mr. More makes from Miss Addams is misinterpreted. His criticism of her philosophy is based upon misrepresentation of it. He understands Plato and Burke because he has studied their writings sympathetically. If he is to pay Miss Addams and Colonel Roosevelt the compliment of discussing their teachings in the same volume, he should present their views in such a way that they would be recognizable. In the Newer Ideals of Peace Miss Addams tells of a boy-a fine, manly fellow-who was put to work at twelve years of age to help in the support of his grandmother and younger brothers and sisters. After a time he became listless and indifferent, and at sixteen turned (Continued on page 343)

THE 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.

GERMAN MINIMUM PEACE

WH

PLANS

HATEVER may be the truth concerning the motives which have actuated the German government in permitting Philip Scheidemann and his colleagues of the Socialist majority in the Reichstag to lay their peace program before a neutral conference at Stockholm, it can no longer be doubted that independent thinkers among the German Socialists have arrived at conclusions which very largely represent the views held by radicals the world over. appears from the following memorandum handed by the minority Socialist delegation to the Dutch-Scandinavian Committee at Stockholm a few days ago and cabled to American newspapers:

This

In its peace views as in its general policy, the German Independent Social Democratic Party proceeds from the common interests of the international proletariat and development of society. These interests demand immediate peace.

In the peace to be concluded we demand an international arrangement for general disarmament as being the chief means for strengthening the debilitated states. General disarmament is the only way to break any militarist supremacy and to obtain a lasting and peaceful understanding between the nations.

We demand the fullest freedom for international trade and intercourse, as well as the unlimited right of migration. We condemn all economic barriers and all economic struggles between states. All disputes between states must be settled by compulsory international arbitration.

We demand international treaties to make workers secure against impoverishment, especially as to women and children.

Political rights for women we regard as a social necessity. Equal rights should be granted to all the inhabitants of every country without regard to tongue, race or religion. This would also mean securing to national minorities the right to declare their national life.

National and social liberation cannot be achieved by the government at war; it can only be done by democracy. Democratic control of foreign policies will prevent aggressive measures. Secret treaties must be abolished, and all state treaties must be made dependent upon the assent of parliaments.

Though not regarding state boundaries as inviolable, we condemn the war and its prolongation as a means of regulating boundaries. Regulation of frontiers must be condi

tional upon the assent of the populations concerned and not an act of force. With all firmness we object to the violation of any nation in any form.

From the beginning of the war we have consistently demanded peace without annexations or indemnities, based upon material self-government.

It is not our affair to draw up a program, covering all the questions to be dealt with in the peace settlement, but in regard to the questions raised in the discussions now going on we declare the following:

Re-establishment of Serbia as a self-governing and independent state is our absolute demand. The uniting of the Serbs in a single national state, and its combination with the other Balkan states in a republican Balkan federation we regard as the best way of removing the eastern question as a cause of war.

To admit the right of Russian Poland to national independence, but to deny that same right to Prussian and Austrian Poland is contradictory.

We condemn the prolongation of the war as a means of settling the question of AlsaceLorraine. The population of Alsace-Lorraine, which in 1871 was annexed against its will, can obtain peace no sooner than by a direct and free vote to express its wish as to what state it shall belong.

The full independence and economic selfdependence, that is, freedom from economic interference, of Belgium is inevitable. In fulfillment of the German government's promise at the beginning of the war, the Belgian nation has to be compensated for the damage caused by the war, and especially for the economic values that have been taken away. Such repayment has nothing to do with various kinds of indemnities, which simply mean the plundering of the vanquished by the victor, and which we therefore reject.

As opponents of any policy of conquest and foreign dominion, we reject, as we have always done, the policy of colonial conquest. Possession of any colony without its own self

THE SURVEY Published weekly by SURVEY ASSOCIATES, INC. 112 East 19 street, New York. Robert W. de Forest, president; Paul U. Kellogg, editor; Arthur P. Kellogg, secretary; Frank Tucker, treasurer. 10 cents a copy; $3 a year; foreign postage $1.50, Canadian 75 cents. Copyright, 1917, by Survey Associates, Inc.

Entered as second-class matter March 25, 1909, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879.

administration is nothing else than possession of an unfree people, and, like slavery, is incompatible with our principles.

A peace treaty would be made secure only when there was a single international force to watch over it. We do not regard international government officials as such a force, but rather the international Socialist proletariat. Only when an international (force) is erected, independent and powerful, and the proletariat everywhere lends it its full force through keeping control over the governments and maintaining peace, will there come in the future a state of mutual confidence between the nations instead of a contest in armaments.

The proletariat in every country must now do its all to bring the war to an end. To attain this aim the independence of the Socialist parties in relation to their imperial governments must be presupposed. Every government must be challenged to give unconditional adhesion to an international peace program. Credits are to be refused to any government which refuses this program or answers evasively or does not declare itself ready to enter upon peace conversations on the basis of this program. Such a government must be fought in the sharpest manner.

TUMULTUOUS WELCOME FOR THE RUSSIANS

THE

HE reception of the different war commissions-the list is not as yet ended-affords an opportunity for the study of popular American sympathies in the war which is important as indicating the democratic foundations of our foreign relationships.

The enthusiasm which greeted Joffre and Viviani was that which is given only for a great cause. The remarkable warmth of the greeting given by a densely packed multitude to Balfour was largely a personal tribute; but there was in it also an evident expression of family feeling and pride in the achievements of an older brother. The Italian commission was followed about from place to place by so large and jubilant a crowd of their fellow-countrymen and of Americans of Italian descent that the slightly smaller attendance upon them of the public of purely American stock was hardly noticeable. The most tremendous reception, however, in both size and enthusiasm of the crowds, was that accorded to the Russian commission last week in New York city. Its personnel

was practically unknown, the exact nature of its mission obscure, and public curiosity, especially as regards the views of its members on war and peace, in

tense.

The rumpus between Colonel Roosevelt and Samuel Gompers, over the race riots at East St. Louis, at the great mass meeting in Carnegie Hall, took up space in the daily press at the expense of a verbatim report of the address, made in English, by the new Russian ambassador to the United States, Professor Bakhmeteff. He defined "peace without annexation ог indemnities" as "peace which shall not permit the seizure of the homes and fields of the neighbor; peace that excludes forcible conquest of alien lands and enslavement of peoples."

The outstanding feature of the present political situation in Russia, he said, is the formation of a national will, "the crystallization after some time of vacillation of the majority of the nation around a national government on the basis of a national program." He created the impression of an intensely earnest lover of peace, forced as is the provisional government which he represents, to suppress for the time being his natural sympathy with that powerful section of Russian public opinion which desires at once to return to the pursuits of industry and national reconstruction so that eventually a permanent peace may be brought about, "when all democracies will agree to hold to and follow certain precepts and embody them with all sincerity and without reserve."

At another great meeting, attended by over 10,000 Russians and Russian Jews, held in Madison Square Garden, he brought a message of love and gratitude from the motherland to those who, under the old regime, have had to seek refuge in this country from tyranny and persecution. "Russian freedom

rests

now," he said, "upon absolutely secure foundations." The dissensions between the different radical and socialist groups, evident at this meeting as they are in the American-Russian press, he placed in their proper perspective as evidence of a healthy national life rather than of disunion where fundamental principles of freedom and democracy are at stake.

Unpremeditated by the authorities and a complete surprise was the demonstration which greeted the Russian commission when it visited the lower East Side of New York, the heart of Russian America, probably the most populated abode of Russian Jews anywhere. The ambassador and his staff had been invited by Lillian D. Wald to meet some of the Friends of Russian Freedom and a few neighbors at the Henry Street Settlement for many years a frequent refuge for Russian political exiles-and the envoys went there in the expectation of a quiet talk over a cup of tea.

But the fact of their visit had leaked

out, and as soon as they entered the neighborhood they were surrounded by multitudes of men, women and children, cheering in three languages, filling all the streets, windows, fire-escapes and roofs, wildly waving the red flag of the revolution, singing, and, many of them, weeping. The ambassador was obliged to address the people from a window, and many of the people attempted to address him, but only succeeded in fragmentary exclamations of the common enthusiasm for the revolution and the love of the people for the new Russia.

"I greet you," shouted one woman, "in the name of my son who was killed in battle; I greet you in the name of my daughter, who was assaulted in a pogrom; I greet you in the name of my father, now dead, whose eyes were burned out. The freedom of Russia was worth these sacrifices!" "Jewish blood," replied the envoy, "is being shed with Russian blood for the common cause of liberty. The Jews have got the liberty they have earned by valor. They are free.'

Dauses of the food bill before the DISPUTE the prohibition

Senate has, for the time, entirely obliterated other sections highly important from the point of view of food preservation. Practically all new amendments have been agreed upon except one which would make it unlawful for the members of any advisory committee or other organization to sell to the government articles in the production of which they are interested.

The clauses which would give the President power to commandeer food, feed, fuel and other supplies necessary for military purposes or the common defense, have been swelled out to such an extent by the addition of more and more articles, including cotton, hemp and wool, that doubt has arisen whether this generous interference with normal liberty of trading has not perhaps been motivated by the desire of certain senators to overload the bill altogether and thus make it impracticable.

An amendment by Senator McKellar, that the board created to carry out the provisions of the bill should be responsible to Congress, was not accepted; nor did the Senate seriously entertain a proposal by Senator Johnson, of South Dakota, to substitute for all the detailed provisions of the bill under consideration a very simple measure authorizing the government to commandeer both men and property whenever and wherever needed in the conduct of the war.

Stocks of the articles to be placed under government control are to be exempted from it, under an amendment adopted in the Senate, if held by farmers, gardeners, stock raisers and farmers'

cooperative associations. On the other hand, the authority of the President to prevent hoarding has been substantially. increased by an amendment, offered by Senator Kenyon, authorizing the government to buy and sell at minimum prices fixed by itself, not only grains and flour, but all of the necessities named in the bill. This provision would practically prevent speculation in food, fuel and the raw materials of clothing.

Mention of some of these new clauses in the administration food bill-a more detailed resumé of it will be given in these columns when the bill has been actually passed by both houses-suggests that so far as control of prices by government purchase and other administrative measures is concerned, the President in all probability will be given all the power which he requires. But this power is exercised after the factors which determine prices have already been at play; that is, it does not affect real shortage or abundance. Another bill, now in conference between House and Senate, gives to the administration certain powers of affecting production through the instrumentality of the Department of Agriculture, especially in relation to distribution of fertilizer and seeds.

But there is no guarantee whatsoever, so far, that assured prices or new facilities offered to farmers will actually increase the cultivated area or improve the processes of cultivation. The main, and only permanent, promise of higher cultivation lies in the retention on and attraction to the farms of the greatest possible number of experienced agriculturists. This fact was forcibly brought out by a number of speakers at a conference on the cost of living held in New York city on July 3. "The economic condition of many farm tenants," wrote Carl Vrooman, assistant secretary of agriculture, in a statement which was read at the conference, "is below that of the skilled or semi-skilled day laborer of the industrial centers. We cannot expect to get back the thousands of farmers' boys who desert the country for the city unless we hold out to them the hope of becoming farm owners."

In common with most of the other speakers, he insisted on the need for a program of taxation which, without throwing additional burdens on the bona fide farmer, will place idle land within the reach of men of limited means who can and will cultivate it. Without some such method, it was urged, the administrative actions of the government would either remain ineffective, except for purposes of immediate relief, or if they did stimulate increased and better cultivation, add merely to the unearned incomes of absentee landlords without improving the lot and prospects of tenant farmers, thus leaving the problem of rural depopulation untouched.

In the meantime, while Congress is still debating the vital questions of production and control, the board of food

THOSE WHO GAVE THE RED CROSS MILLIONS

already taken a number of steps to check wastefulness in consumption. The food administration card, pledging its holder, who is made a "member" of the food administration, to every possible economy in the home, is hanging in thousands of kitchens. The rules given out to housewives under the caption "win the war by giving your daily service," are simple and concise. Some of them, no doubt, it may be difficult to carry out in households with small resourcesa wheatless meal a day, for instancebut thousands of women's clubs in every part of the country have started educational services which will make it easier for all to translate into practice the advice rendered by the board.

MORE TESTIMONY ON NE

GRO MIGRATION

N advisory investigation of the

A exodus from the South

made for the federal Department of Labor by Prof. James H. Dillard, dean of the faculty of Tulane University, New Orleans, brings fresh evidence of industrial unrest below the MasonDixon line. Professor Dillard reports that probably 250,000 Negroes have emigrated North. Certain sections in each state have been unaffected. For example, while many have left the southern part of Louisiana, practically none have left the northern part. On the whole, however, according to Professor Dillard, there is a serious lack of labor throughout the South.

From letters and interviews, Professor Dillard found that not a very large percentage of the Negroes were taken North by labor agents. They were mostly attracted by the reports of high wages received in letters from relatives.

It was agreed almost unanimously by both white and black informants that the chief cause for migrating is the demand for labor in the North with resultant high wages. Secondary reasons given were a desire on the part of many for a more hopeful future for their children; dissatisfaction with conditions in the South, such as schools, unfair treatment in the courts and lynching.

The government report is not yet issued. In a summary given to the Atlanta Constitution, from which the points above were taken, Professor Dillard thus sums up the situation:

The burden of the testimony of all from whom I have heard and with whom I have had an opportunity of talking here in Atlanta as well as elsewhere, is that if the South has the desire that the Negroes remain in the South the remedy against the migration fever lies in the willingness of the southern white man to remove the causes by raising wages and by standing up for better treatment of the Negro people.

Curious contrasts are discovered in the attitude taken by people toward this subscription. In some of the small towns as high as 95 per cent of the adult population joined in the gift. In Cincinnati, where more than $1,000,000 was given, only about 12 per cent of the population contributed. The wellto-do gave readily but in certain places the wage-workers outdid them. Thus when employes of the duPont powder mills at Wilmington, Del., were asked to contribute one day's pay each, they gave two, and in three plants $60,000 was subscribed on that basis. In some western labor centers the workers looked askance at the movement, as being something allied with the employers' interests, while at Everett, Wash., 80 per cent of the employes in the mills gave a day's pay, and the employers made a similar subscription. In the plant of the American Window Glass Company, at Jeannette, Pa., the thousand employes contributed $32,000. In a plant at Youngstown, O., $55,000 was given.

Reports thus far made by local committees give almost no details as to gifts in kind, made by those who had no money to offer. The one case reported is that of a woman at Middletown, O., who, having nothing else to give, donated a hen and a dozen eggs. These were auctioned by the local committee for $2,002.

The reports disclose clearly enough the readiness of the average American to join in humanitarian work when the opportunity is fairly presented. Manual workers, struggling with a rising cost of food and a stationary wage, opened their flat pocketbooks to the amount of more than a million dollars. A Hungarian laborer in an Ohio town, when asked to give one day's wage, contributed four. He understood and approved the work of the Red Cross, despite the fact that he was an "enemy alien."

The organization formed for the collection of this first great fund will be available for future occasions and will gain much in efficiency through this experience. That it will not only maintain the Red Cross funds but will go far to lighten the financial burdens of the associated charities in many parts of the country is judged from evidence offered in Baltimore and other cities. Due

largely to the impetus of the Red Cross "drive," the charities of Baltimore were

able to raise $750,000—a triumph of finance for that city-before the Red Cross subscriptions were taken. Statements forwarded by organizations in other cities give further testimony that the awakening of interest in the Red Cross fund has made the public more generous to every form of constructive giving.

The Red Cross organization itself has gained tremendously. More than 200 cities and towns formed chapters during Red Cross week alone, and between February 1 and July 1 the total number of local chapters grew from 272 to 1,534. Iowa shows a gain from a mere handful to 112 chapters actively at work. New York now has 110 chapters, Pennsylvani has 96, California has 91, Indiana 89, Illinois 68, Michigan 69, Ohio 66, and New Jersey 57. Chapters have been formed in Haiti, Guam, Porto Rico, Cuba, the Canal Zone, Syria, Persia, Turkey and several countries of South America.

Indiana is the first state to bring every part of the state under the jurisdiction of some one of its chapters. The Woman's Bureau, newly formed within the national Red Cross, will seek to extend local organization in all of the states, systematically to cover their entire area.

KEEPING COMPETITION OUT OF WAR RELIEF

THE

HE Federal Council of Allied War Charities, recently created to confer with the Red Cross on the best methods of cooperation in foreign war relief [the SURVEY for July 7] at a conference held last week decided that it must not only hold out for the absolute independence of the different American organizations, so far as appeals for support are concerned, but that, considering the great experience and efficiency secured by them in the work of distribution of supplies abroad, they should also retain each its separate machinery.

These views were presented at a joint meeting of the Red Cross Committee on Cooperation and committee of the federal council. Judge Lovett presented a memorandum drafted by the Committee on Cooperation and approved by the War Council of the Red Cross which, in substance, is an invitation to all war-relief organizations to become national auxiliaries of the Red Cross, each retaining its identity and continuing to raise funds in its own name as heretofore.

This plan, in essentials, is satisfactory to the war charities so far as the American end of cooperation with the Red Cross is concerned. The greater part of the meeting was taken up, however, by the much more difficult task of evolving a workable plan of coopera

tion abroad. Although both sides are eager to perfect methods which would avoid duplication of effort and friction arising from conflicting policies, the war charities are determined not to give up the machinery of distribution, often of a complicated nature and involving delicate personal relationships, already at work in the different allied countries and on the different specific tasks of war relief. Further conferences are to be held to consider detailed methods of cooperation and to carry into practice the evident desire on both sides for a harmonious alliance in the joint war upon disease and destitution in Europe.

In the meantime, the Red Cross department for foreign relief will have more than enough to do in filling the obvious gaps between the fields covered by the different agencies. The mass meeting held in New York to welcome the Russian ambassador was informed, for instance, that the American ambulance in Russia still is the only American organization working in that country which has preserved its identity during the change of government, supported entirely by private subscription.

INSURANCE PLANNED FOR

As this is the identical plan proposed at the recent Pittsburgh Conference of Social Work [the SURVEY for June 16] and endorsed by the Council of National Defense, the council and the treasury are now working in cooperation on the draft of the necessary legislation. Dr. Rowe, assistant secretary of the treasury, stated on July 6 that the work had been launched and that the payment of lump-sum life insurance was no longer contemplated.

Secretary McAdoo took up the idea of wholesale insurance of the lives of the soldiers at the instance of Assistant Secretary of Commerce Sweet, following upon the enactment of the Simmons law, which enabled the government to compel owners of vessels to insure the lives of their crews. At a conference with insurance men representing all of the chief life companies, held at the Treasury Department on July 2, Secretary McAdoo urged the companies to agree on a plan of assuming this risk. The insurance men refused, saying that the risk would do a serious injustice to their

present policy-holders. They suggested that the government alone was strong enough to carry insurance on a great

army.

Mr. McAdoo appointed, on July 5, a committee of ten insurance men to advise the government officials. When the proposed legislation is drafted, these will be called upon as experts to advise as to details. The men named are George E. Ide, president of the Home Life Company; Edward D. Duffield, vice-president of the Prudential; Louis F. Butler, president of the Travelers'; Arthur Hunter, president of the Actuarial Society of America; John L. Shuff, of the Union Central Life; John T. Stone, president of the Maryland Casualty; George B. Woodward, vicepresident of the Metropolitan Life; Franklin B. Meade, secretary of the Lincoln Life; T. W. Blackburn, secretary of the American Life Convention, and I. L. Boak, president of the National Fraternal Congress of America.

In the plan approved by the Council of National Defense for the work of Judge Mack [the SURVEY for July 7], the rehabilitation of crippled soldiers was not included. In the plan announced by Secretary McAdoo as his own, this work of bringing the injured back to self-dependence in the community is covered. It is considered to be a part of the payment of compensation, and to be, as well, a means of reducing the period and degree of dependency.

No definite plan has yet been worked out in the conferences between Judge Mack and the treasury officials, as to either the rate of compensation for injury, the rate of payments for separation allowance to dependents, or the rate of pension or compensation for the death of the breadwinner of the family while in military service. The idea held by treasury officials is that separation allowances and pensions must at least provide a decent livelihood for the dependents, when added to all other sources of family income, and that they must provide, under this standard, for the education of the children.

Approaching the problem from this viewpoint, the officials who will be responsible for the finished plan as submitted to Congress this summer will ask that the federal treasury be called upon to meet the total public expense. It is assumed that Congress will concur in the provision that a certain part of the pay of each soldier having dependents shall be diverted to the support of his family. All other charges for their maintenance during his absence will be met by the government. The raising of a subscription for separation allowances will not be sanctioned. Private subscripwill not be sanctioned. Private subscriptions will be asked only for the Red Cross.

That the condition of vast numbers of families of the working class will

be distinctly improved, when the system of compensation and of separation allowances is in operation, is anticipated by treasury officials. They believe that to the degree that the men of these families enter the military service the standards. of living of the dependents will be raised, and that after events will not permit their return to the old social level.

Compensation for injury or death of the soldier will not be made in large sums, but will be paid out monthly, and for the period of dependency either of the injured man or of the widow and children. There will be no set rate, but there will be established certain minimum standards of living to which the payments will be adjusted.

Thus far in the preliminary suggestion of the plan the ideal of democracy in economic footing is maintained. What the conference committee, the advisory committee of insurance company officials, the committees of Congress and the membership of the House and Senate will do to obscure or deny this ideal is for the coming months to show. It is realized in both houses that great pressure will be brought to bear to so alter the legislation as to make impossible the setting of a higher standard of living through adjustment of these benefits. On the other hand, the organizations seeking to improve the condition of women and children in industry, and to a lesser extent the trade-union movement will seek to guard this ideal along the road to the President's desk.

ONE ALPHABET FOR ALL THE BLIND

THE

HE Portland convention of the American Association of Workers for the Blind, held the last week in June, will go down into history as the final bringing to an end of the unfortunate discussion with regard to a tactile printing system for the blind. The British Braille alphabet has been adopted as the basis of the future system in this country. For more than forty years the United States has stood alone in its unwillingness to use the alphabet which was invented by Louis Braille, which has been adapted to the needs and requirements of over twenty-two countries. To be sure, America, with its restless inventiveness, believed that improvement could be made upon the European device, and it must not be forgotten that the prolonged struggle with raised types in this country is going to result in certain modifications, which unquestionably will prove of value to those who have to read with their fingers.

The immediate result of the Portland convention is that from this time forth there will now be but one system of raised type for blind readers in the English-speaking world, instead of three. To put this in another way, it means