merce. That wrong our country endured during the Civil War, and for that wrong demanded compensation after the war was over, and it established before an impartial tribunal its right to such compensation. The precedent pursued by the Lincoln Administration in 1861-65 is the one which should have been followed by the Wilson Administration in 1916.

The viciousness of the course pursued by our Congress in dealing with the blacklist is emphasized by the viciousness of the course pursued by our President in dealing with the German submarines. When Americans by the score were murdered on the high seas, in violation not only of the principles of international law but of the principles of humanity, we made a protest; but we did not venture on any reprisal. We continued to treat Germany as a friendly Power in our protests, and to say complimentary things to her, and up to the present time have taken no efficient measures to protect the rights of Americans to travel freely on the high seas. But when England interferes with our trade we do not stop at protest; we propose vigorous measures of reprisal. It is true that the Act of Congress does not require reprisal. It leaves the matter to the discretion of the President; and we hope that the President will have the discretion not to exercise the authority which the act confers upon him. But it is also true that the passage of the act has served to stimulate in at least one of the Southern republics a proposal to similar action, and to stimulate in this country the unfriendly feeling toward Great Britain already aroused by her blacklist. When our citizens are murdered, our Government protests and does nothing; when our trade is interfered with, our Government not only protests, but prepares to hit back. It is not strange that satirists abroad think we care more for prop. erty than for life.

II. The attorney regards the nation as his client, and seeks only to defend her legal rights and possibly to instruct her in her legal duties. The statesman takes a larger view. He considers the future, and shapes the policy of his nation in such a way as will at least tend to secure honor for her now among the nations of the world, and in the future their friendship and their support in any international exigency which may arise. The Congressional policy of reprisal is the policy of an attorney, who thinks only of the present and of his nation's legal rights, who

has no vision for the future and no consideration of what policy will promote the nation's honor and the nation's ultimate welfare. The official policy of the American Nation has been that of an attorney, not that of a statesman, and is full of serious peril to the Nation in the future.

Germany declares that she is fighting for her life. The German people very generally believe this declaration. There is much to warrant that belief. The war which she has herself provoked will not prove fatal to her existence, but will inflict upon her wounds from which she will be long in recovering. And we have officially declared to this people, from whom we have derived the literature of a Goethe, the philosophy of a Hegel and a Kant, and the religious freedom won for the world by a Luther, that whether she lives or dies is a matter which does not concern us. We could hardly have done more to make Germany our enemy if we had joined the Allies in the very beginning of the war. Indeed, we probably should have done less, because we should have abbreviated the war and not allowed time for hate to grow to its present proportions. Individual Americans have contributed to Germany through the German loan, and probably some scores or hundreds who returned to their Fatherland are fighting in her ranks; but America as a Nation has told her formally and officially that what she regards as a struggle for her life does not concern us.

On the other hand, the Allies believe that they are fighting to defend free government from a military despotism, that they are fighting the same battle which Americans fought in 1776 against Great Britain, and which England and her European allies fought a little later in the prolonged wars against French militarism under the lead of Napoleon the Great. And we have officially informed them that this war does not concern us, that we do not care to know what are the causes which have produced this war, that we are not interested in the question whether liberty shall live or die on the European continent. Individual Americans have done much to counteract this official declaration of not merely neutrality but indifference. Thousands of them have gone across the border to enlist in the Canadian army; thousands of them have gone across the sea, some to enlist in the French ranks, some to enlist in the aeroplane service, the ambulance service, and the hospital corps. And the American press,

with a remarkable approach to unanimity, has interpreted the faith of the American people that the Allies are fighting on European soil the battle which our fathers fought in 1776. But individual expressions of ap preciation and friendship and individual services, while they may modify, cannot counteract the official expressions of the Government and the official action of Congress. It is a curious phantasy, incomprehensible to us, which leads any man to imagine that this attitude of supreme indifference to the lifeand-death struggle in Europe will lead the combatants, or any of them, to invoke our good offices in settling the terms of peace when the end of the war comes. We have won by our course neither the respect nor the friendship of the battling nations.

Nor have we done anything to unify neutral sentiment, set an example to neutral nations, or secure co-operation in the protection of neutral rights. We have in official notes incidentally mentioned the rights of neutrals, but we have made no attempt to protect those rights by action, and no attempt to organize the forces of neutrals in even so much as a protest in support of those rights. The only example we have set has been our apathy, if not our acquiescence, in the flagrant disregard of the neutral rights of Belgium; and the only action which we have proposed to take against the violation of neutrality has been this proposed reprisal, purposed to protect, not the rights of neutrals throughout the world, not even the rights of Americans to their lives, but the rights of our own trade threatened by unfriendly action.

We must also remember that our official indifference to the great issues involved in this war is the more perplexing to the Allies, since they cannot easily understand why, if a people have a common sympathy, it should not be reflected in their governmental action. In England, France, and Italy government changes with the changes in public sentiment. No administration can long survive in those countries a radical change in public opinion, because that change is reflected in the legislative assembly, and the action of the legislative assembly determines the life of the administration. England, France, and Italy have in effect, though not in form, the recall, and only the very well educated Englishman, Frenchman, and Italian can fail to believe that in a free government the policy of a national administration reflects public opinion.

Unless the people should decree a radical

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change in administration and public policy, we shall find at the end of the war that we have sown for ourselves in all nations the seeds of disrespect, if not of open hostility, and prepared for ourselves a possible harvest of calamity in the not far-distant future. No nation can stand alone. It is as true of nations as of individuals that none can live for himself only. Unless the American people find a way to emphasize the truth that neutrality is not indifference, that they are not unconcerned in the questions which concern their fellow-men, that they are not absorbed in their own National interests and do not think that National safety is more important than National duty and National honor, should our own land be imperiled, we shall have no right to expect anything but the same indifference to our welfare which we have officially expressed when other nations were imperiled; and we shall be left to fight, not only without aid, but without sympathy, the battle for our own protection, perhaps a battle for our own existence.

THE FRENCH SPIRIT

A few years ago, at the Fourth of July reception given by the American Ambassador in London, a boy of delightful face and engaging manner said, as he took the Ambassador's hand, "I came to salute the flag, sir." In reply to questions by the Ambassador, he gave his name, which was that of a noble French family, and said that his great-grandfather had served with Lafayette during the Revolutionary War and that his family always observed the Fourth of July. The quick response of interest and affection on the faces of the Americans about him was the distinctive answer to the unspoken appeal to American gratitude.

Among the brilliant figures who appeared in the struggle of the American Colonies two young men are especially conspicuous, Lafayette and Hamilton. Gallant in bearing, brilliant in action, it was their special distinction that Washington loved them. A hundred and forty years after the Declaration of Independence, on the birthday of Lafayette, who was born in 1757, flowers were placed on his statue and upon that of Washington, his great leader, in Union Square, New York, at the place where the tides of human life are always at the flood. Americans can take but little satisfaction in some of the dealings of this

country with France; but we have nothing to regret in our treatment of Lafayette.

The history of French settlement on this continent has an epic quality, which Parkman has brought out in a series of histories which have the charm of romance; a charm which is peculiarly and distinctively French. Wherever the fleur-de-lis was planted, from the mouth of the St. Lawrence half across the continent to the mouth of the Mississippi, the French influence is still seen in gentle manners and charm of social life. As a national movement, the endeavor of France to share with the English the control of the continent failed, but as a contribution to the civilization of the New World it has its own enduring quality.

It was inevitable that the celebration of Lafayette Day this year should take on new importance, for never in history has any nation held the position which France holds to-day in the thought of the world. Even her foes, intrenched on her soil and striking at her life, are free to confess their admira-, tion of her superb courage and her indomitable spirit. Armed more completely than she was in the days of Napoleon, there seems to be no suspicion of her motives and no hatred of her successes.

The reason is not far to seek, and it lies, perhaps, unconsciously at the foundation of the admiration of her foes. Lafayette wrote to his wife from the ship that brought him to this country that he regarded his service in the Colonial Army as likely to be "a brevet of immortality." Such it has proved to be; his name is not only written broadly across the page of American history, but it is written everywhere over the face of the continent in the names of towns, streets, squares, colleges, and institutions of all kinds. It was his happy fortune, in a life of many perils and vicissitudes, to receive in person the most generous payment (in gratitude and affection) for his services. He was twice the guest of the Nation, and each visit took the form of a triumphal procession. He was more widely known personally and by sight in America than any other foreigner of his time. Making long journeys by carriage, the people in many sections thronged the roadsides and welcomed him as a friend. He drove under triumphal arches, groups of girls threw flowers in his way, cities greeted him with every kind of hospitality. When he came a second time, in 1824, many men who fought with him were still living to wel

Lafayette's service was significant of the French spirit, and the affectionate enthusiasm which greeted him in this country was evoked by a French national characteristic. He has become a national hero in this country because he rendered an international service. And France has always been in a conspicuous degree the servant of the international spirit; the spirit, that is, which, consciously or unconsciously, in making a path for itself opens a way for humanity. France has rendered notable services to science, and especially in those fields of scientific activity in which the fruits secured are for the healing of the nations; the fact that Pasteur has become a popular hero shows that his work appeals to the national imagination. But France is associated in the thought of the world with art rather than with science, and this is full of deep significance; for art is an expression of the human spirit, and the interest of the French, even in their moments of most passionate absorption in national defense or national advance, has never left the human spirit out of account. In a peculiar sense France has been the protagonist of the human spirit, and has incessantly fought, sometimes in a kind of furious blindness, for its liberation.

The French are pre-eminently a social people; the interest of the individual is subordinate to the interest of society; and no one can understand them who does not recognize the force and influence of the family and the state. To a Frenchman the state has all the definiteness and reality of a person. A peasant woman was once noticed wandering about that "brilliant university" which is the center of the Government buildings in Paris. She carried a great bunch of flowers in her hands. To a gendarme who saw her confusion and asked what she was looking for, she replied: "I have brought these flowers for the Administration." In France patriotism is a passion, and, while General Joffre is husbanding the lives of "his children," there is not a man in the trenches who would not lay down his life for France.

The country which gave us Lafayette, which rendered us invaluable aid in the struggle for independence, which gave us a definition of rights in the Declaration, is "the country of Europe in which the people is most

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alive." In this sentence Matthew Arnold has given the world a definition and an explanation of the French spirit. Served by a quality of intelligence which plays over the whole surface of national activity like a light, and by a common sense which, in spite of many excesses, anchors French aspiration and idealism in reality, France is not only in intensity of feeling a nation, but, in a real sense, the nation among nations. With all the faults of her genius, she fights with a sword in one hand and with a light in the other, always, consciously or unconsciously, bearing the fortunes of the human race with her.

There are many things which are humiliating to Americans in the attitude of our Government toward the great struggle between absolutism and democracy, the age-long fight for the liberation of the spirit, now going on in Europe; but there is nothing to regret in the devotion to France in her hour of need of many young Americans, nor in the finely conceived and finely organized service of American women to the suffering and sorrow of France; and no one can read without gratitude and emotion the words of the French Ambassador spoken in New York on Lafayette Day:

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No, the fighting, the bleeding France of today is the France of all time, that of yesterday and that of to-morrow; that of Joan of Arc, of Bayard, Turenne, Hoche, Lafayette, the same as that of Joffre. Some have wondered that the French, pretty well known for their dash, could show such endurance, but this was to forget that France fought a hundred years' war and won it.

Never in my country will the American volunteers of the great war be forgotten. There is not one form of suffering among the innumerable kinds of calamities caused by a merciless enemy that some American work has not tried to assuage in the hospitals, in the schools for the maimed and blind, on the battlefields, in the trenches, nay, in the air, with your plucky aviators. The American name is blessed in the trenches, where those kits named after the hero of to-day, Lafayette, have brought comfort to so many soldiers.

Serving in the ambulances, serving in the Legion, serving in the air, serving liberty, obeying the same impulses as those which brought Lafayette to these shores, many young Americans, leaving family and home, have offered to France their lives. Those lives many have lost, and never was there shown such abnegation and generosity as that of men who, like Victor Chapman, died to rescue their American and French co-aviators.

WHAT WAS EXPECTED?

What did the members expect to do on December 6, 1915? As to National defense, there were the Garrison and Daniels plans for the increase of the army and navy-the first with its scheme of "Continentals," the latter a 66 little navy" scheme disguised as a "big navy" programme. These original propositions bear but remote resemblances to the mass of defense legislation finally enacted. As to revenue, there were questions in December, 1915, as to how money could be raised-whether by the sale of bonds, by tariff duties, or by direct taxation. As to tariff duties in particular, there was the question as to whether sugar should remain on

expected was in some cases welcome and in others unwelcome.

I-GOOD ACTS

The Child Labor Law, forbidding interState commerce in the products of mills or factories in which children under fourteen years of age have been employed, and in the products of mines or quarries in which children under sixteen have been employed.

The Federal Workmen's Compensation Law, providing thirty-five per cent of her husband's wages during widowhood to the widow of any workman employed by the Government and killed in the discharge of duty, and granting to a workman during total disability a monthly two-thirds of his wages and a less amount in the case of partial disability.

The Postal Savings Bank Amendment to the Law of 1910. An amendment increasing the amount which individuals may deposit in the Postal Savings Banks from $500 to $1,000 with interest, and an additional $1,000 without interest.

The Federal Farm Loan Law. A step in the direction of rural land banks the precedent for which has been set by Germany, France, and Denmark. Doubtless experience will suggest amendments, but it is action in the right direction.

The Railway Regulation Resolution, providing for an investigation of the efficiency of the present system of control, and also of conditions which would attend Government ownership of all public utilities-railways, telegraphs, telephones, express companies.

The Good Roads Law, appropriating $80,000,000 during the next five years to be spent in making good roads, if the State involved puts up a dollar for every dollar given to it from the Federal fund. But the administration of this law must be scientific and efficient to save it from the dangers of the "pork barrel."

The Sugar Repeal Law, repealing the free sugar clause of the Underwood Tariff Bill, thereby continuing the receipt of some $40,000,000 in customs revenue by the Treasury.

The Military and Naval Academies Law, increasing the corps of cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and of midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, an increase of vital importance to the plans that have been since adopted in enlarging the army and navy.

The Fortifications Appropriation Bill, ap

propriating some $25,000,000 for fortifications and other works of defense and for their armament.

The Army Appropriation Bill, with its liberal appropriations for the maintenance of the reorganized army and militia and for sup plies and equipment. The bill also establishes an embryonic Council of National Defense. This is a commendable step in the right direction, even if it does not altogether satisfy the demand for the complete co-ordination of all our resources.

The Ratification of the Nicaraguan Treaty, providing for the right to construct a canal, if ever desirable, across Nicaragua, and for a naval base in the Bay of Fonseca, the consideration being $3,000,000.

The Ratification of the Haitian Treaty, establishing a financial guardianship similar to ours in the Dominican Republic and creating a Haitian constabulary, to be officered by Americans until the natives are fitted to take over the command.

The Ratification of the Danish Treaty, paying $25,000,000 for the three Danish West Indian Islands. Though the price is five times as much as was offered in 1902, it is justifiable in view of the extinction of a possible source of foreign complications which might lead to a war involving us, under the Monroe Doctrine.

The Ratification of the Migratory Bird Treaty between the United States and Canada, providing that no bird important to agriculture because it is an insect destroyer shall be shot at any time, and that the open season for game birds may be restricted to three months and a half.

II-BAD ACTS

The Widows' Pension Bill, passed at the last moment of the session for patent political reasons, and unwarrantably increasing both claims to pensions and the amount of pensions.

The Ship Purchase Law, committing the Government to $50,000,000 of absurd expenditure on the pretext of a Governmental purchase of merchant vessels to aid trade and to act as naval auxiliaries.

The Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Law. According to Senator Kenyon, of Iowa, "half of its $42,000,000 is to be poured into waterless streams and dry rivers." Certainly the greater part is to be spent on proj ects of purely local interest, from which no permanent National benefit can result. Mr. (Continued on page following illustrations)