police, aided by volunteers from private life temporarily made part of the police force, properly put down all overt mob demonstra tions and guarded the property threatened. Four or five citizens were killed, two of whom were non-participants, one a woman. For several days Bayonne was almost in a state of siege, trains rushed through without stopping motor boats patrolled the shore; guards vigilantly watched the immense oil-tanks; searchlights swept the streets; the police wrecked the saloons which disobeyed the order to close; the fear of death and destruction was general. That the police did not distinguish accurately between the industrial dispute (which was not their concern) and the danger of disorder and lawlessness (which most emphatically was their business) is indicated by a remark of Mr. Henry Wilson. Director of Public Safety, "I've got this strike broken, and we mean to keep it broken."

The men on strike insist that their pay is inadequate in relation to the cost of living and the arduousness of their labor. "We told Superintendent Hennessy," said a member of the strike committee, "that all men getting below $3 had to have an advance of thirty per cent, and all above $3 twenty per cent. We told him we wanted places to wash and to hang our clothes, and that we didn't want the foremen to kick us around.' The employers refuse to grant the demands, they say that all men are paid on an eighthour basis, with the additional provision of time and a half pay for overtime, that the demands as to working conditions are unfounded, and that the scale of wages for an eight-hour day range from $2.20 for common labor to over $5 for skilled labor.

Why should a town be terrorized, a class war fought, laws broken, innocent people killed or hurt, before a simple industrial question can be settled? Ignorant and insubordinate workers, on the one hand; employers who will not do justice until they are forced to, on the other has civilization no better method to offer them for settling their differences but to let them fight it out until the community rises in protest?

THE NEW YORK MILK STRIKE

The Outlook has already reported at some length the important strike of the milk farmers of New York State and the efforts of New York farmers to secure an increased price for their product through the State Commissioner

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of the Department of Foods and Markets, Mr John J. Dillon. Since the last issue of The Outlook was published the victory of the farmers has been made practically complete by the capitulation of the large distributing agencies which have controlled more than half of the milk that enters New York City

To The Outlook the significance of this victory for Eastern farmers seems much greater than can be judged purely by the ma terial advantage secured. It is perhaps the most encouraging co-operative effort which Eastern farmers have made within our memory

For instance, during the past forty years four organizations of dairy farmers supplying New York City have attempted to pool their common interests in pursuit of the common aim of reasonable pay for their labor. The first three of these failed, either because of defective organization or because the farmers did not hang together at the crucial time.

If the farmers can work together as they have in this last dairyman's strike, there is an increased reason to believe that they can learn to work together to cut down the cost of their business both in the processes of production and of distribution. The American farmer has been the last of the elements in our Nation to learn the necessity of subordinating individual interest to social organization.

Hence, despite the immense advantages of rich lands and labor-saving machinery, the cost of producing food and other products of the soil has not been reduced as has the cost of manufacture. The solution of the problem of economical production and economical distribution of agricultural products is one of the most pressing domestic problems that confront the country to-day

THE EIGHT-HOUR BOARD

In compliance with the Adamson EightHour Law, which provides not only that eight hours shall form the basis for the payment of men who operate trains on interState railways, but also that there shall be a Commission charged with the duty of observing the operation and effects of the law, the President has appointed the members of the so-called Eight-Hour Board. These consist of General Goethals, who has been the distinguished Governor of the Panama Canal Zone; Mr. E. E. Clark, formerly a railway conductor, who is an honored member of the Inter-State Commerce Commission; and Mr. George Rublee, who has been

an efficient member of the Federal Trade Commission.

These men are virtually charged with the duty of considering the whole question of labor on inter-State railways, including questions of wages, conditions of labor and hours of labor, and consequent questions as to rates to be charged in order to meet the cost of labor, and also methods of arbitration for the settlement of disputes between railway managers and railway men.

The criticism has been made that on this Board there is no man representing the railway managers, no man with expert knowledge of the complicated business of directing. and operating railways. This is, in a measure, true. Nevertheless, we do not believe that the railway managers and owners will find this Board either deaf to the statement of their point of view or incapable of understanding it. General Goethals is, of course, familiar with large executive responsibilities and has even had some experience in the operation of a railway on a comparatively small scale-namely, the Panama Railway; and Mr. Clark, though not active in the management of railways, has become familiar with many of the problems of railway management through his long experience as a member of the Inter-State Commerce Commission.

THE EPISCOPAL

GENERAL CONVENTION

On October 11 the forty-tourth triennial General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church opened its sessions at St. Louis. The Convention sits as two houses-the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies. Each has a veto upon the other.

The primary object of the Convention is to make laws for the Protestant Episcopal Church. Such legislation takes the form of canons, operative at once, and amendments of the Constitution, which require confirmation by later conventions.

To the Convention come all the bishops of the Church to sit in the upper house and some six hundred clerical and lay deputies to sit in the lower house. Each of the sixtyeight dioceses elects four clerical and four lay deputies; the twenty-three missionary districts, one lay and one clerical deputy; and the ten foreign jurisdictions have each at deputy.

The Rev. Dr. Alexander Mann was reelected as President of the House of Depu

ties. Three years ago Dr. Mann won this place by only a very narrow majority over the Rev. Dr. William T. Manning, of Trinity Church, New York City. Dr. Manning is, however, not in the present Convention at all. This may seem strange, for throughout generations it has been the custom for the diocese of New York to send the rector of Trinity Parish, New York City, as one of its clerical deputies. Just before last November's meeting of the New York Diocesan Convention, however, the controversy arose in the official Board of Missions as to whether it should or should not send delegates to the Panama Congress. In this Board, of which he was a member, the rector of Trinity had led the opposition. He was against the Panama Conference. But the Board overruled him and others. The fight was fresh in mind when the New York Diocesan Convention met, and in the voting for deputies to St. Louis the Rev. Dr. Manning was defeated. Very many opposed to him ecclesiastically regret that this year's Convention must be deprived of the genuine stimulus of his presence. But the spirit of Dr. Mann's address emphatically indicated that it was time to forget differences and join in a common work. After referring to the " gray shadow" of the world war "chiefly between Christian nations," he said:

Mistakes in policy can be borne and remedied, but it is my feeling that the one mistake which could not be rectified, the one corporate sin not to be forgiven, would be for a council of the Christian Church to meet at this time in any other temper than the temper of Christian brotherhood and Christian peace.

Dr. Mann's election to the presidency of the House of Deputies was coincident with the election of Bishop Gailor, of Tennessee, to the chairmanship of the House of Bishopsthe first time that a Southern bishop has been chosen for this office.

SOCIAL QUESTIONS AND
THE CHURCH

Questions concerning modern social conditions were prominent in the early discussions of the Convention. One of these was the problem of poverty.

The Rev. Howard Melish, of Brooklyn, for instance, declared, as reported:

One-third, and possibly one-half, of the families of wage-earners earn, in the course of the

year, less than enough to support them in anything like comfort. Only one-fourth of the fathers are able to support their families on the bare sustenance level without income from outside sources. Consequently their families are compelled to take in boarders or crowd in tenements. Multitudes came to this country as to the land flowing with milk and honey. But the milk is smmed and others have run off with the honey.

Others besides Mr. Melish blamed the clergy for seeming indifference to such conditions.

The other great social question before the Convention was the recurrent one of divorce. Shall the Protestant Episcopal Church sanction the remarriage of the divorced? It has been its custom to permit the clergy to solemnize the remarriage of the so-called innocent party to a divorce provided that satisfactory legal evidence is presented. But a committee now reports a radical change and proposes a canon which declares that "no marriage shall be solemnized... between parties if either of whom has husband or wife still living, who has been divorced for any cause arising after marriage. Those who support this canon contend that in the first three centuries of the Christian Church no provision whatever was made for divorce, that the custom of the Roman Catholic Church does not sanction divorce, and that, especially in recent years, instances of collusion in the obtaining of divorces have been so numerous that the innocent should suffer in isolated cases rather than that a gigantic evil should spread over the Nation. On the other hand, the opponents quote Christ's words in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew in which he sanctioned divorce for violation of the sanctity of the

marriage tie; they declare that the proposed,

new attitude towards divorce will not mitigate the evil, but will simply lessen the Church's authority and usefulness. Though no decision has yet been made, a test vote showed that the members of the House of Deputies were divided almost exactly half and half with regard to this matter.

FRANCIS BROWN

After eight years of service as President of Union Theological Seminary, Francis Brown, one of the foremost scholars in the United States, died last week in his sixtyseventh year.

Theology is not identical with religion, and the theologian is not necessarily a man of

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religious influence. Dr. Brown, as all who have studied under him will testify, was a man who was religious first and theological afterward. His religion did not show itself in emotionalism; it showed itself instead in character. Restraint, without austerity, was distinctive of his demeanor in class-room and with associates. There have been other teachers who have been more temperamentally inclined to inspire enthusiasm; but there has been none, we venture to say, who was more fitted to inspire confidence.

Such a man was peculiarly well suited to the position that Dr. Brown held as head of Union Theological Seminary during these years. Eight years ago the Seminary had passed through a period of contention that was disturbing, not only to free scholarship and real learning, but also even to a decent spirit of co-operation and tolerance in the churches, and particularly the Presbyterian Church. Dr. Brown was identified with the cause of free scholarship, unhampered by theological dogma or ecclesiastical autocracy; and yet there has been no man more disinclined to assert against conservative dogmatism the dogmatism of the radical or to meet ecclesiastical autocracy by the arbitrary action of the mere rebel. On the contrary, his whole character and nature led him into ways of peace and understanding, though never away from what appeared to be the path of strict and stern duty. As a consequence, though he himself did not escape charges of heresy and was under fire as President of the Seminary, there was no atmosphere of theological war within the Seminary or among the churches. The earlier contentions, which involved Professor Briggs particularly, had to be fought out with vigor; but, the principle of liberty having been vindicated, it was

fortunate that the conduct of the Seminary's affairs should fall into the hands of one who, though thoroughly devoted to the principle of freedom, had no taste for controversy.

A native of New Hampshire, a graduate of Andover Academy, Dartmouth College, and Union Theological Seminary, and a student for two years at Berlin, Francis Brown brought to his life-work the conscience and character that Americans like to associate with New England and the scholastic standards that have been wrought out in the Old World, and particularly those standards of accuracy and thoroughness that have become associated with the German university. Dr. Brown had the scholar's dislike for pub

licity. He was interested in the work that he did rather than in the reputation that might be secured by his work. As a master of Hebrew and of Assyriology he was not likely to gain popular repute, for adepts in those subjects are not in the way to come into public view; but among those who value learning Dr. Brown was known widely. And he was respected not more for his scholastic acquirements than for his habit of mind in regarding both theology and scholarship as servants of religion.

THE ORPHANS OF FRENCH SOLDIERS

During the past week or so a group of men of National prominence have organized an immense society for the relief of French war orphans. While the endeavor will be directed from this country, there will be a Paris committee working to some extent in co-operation with already existing organizations. The aim of the new society is nothing less than to raise a fund of $130,000,000, and already the organizers have themselves subscribed over $125,000. Furthermore, they have pledged themselves to provide the expenses of operation as long as may be necessary during the fifteen years for which the society has been incorporated. The name of the new organization is to be the American Society for the Relief of French War Orphans, and its offices at present are at 44 Wall Street, New York City.

All the energy that can be directed in any form towards the relief of French war orphans should be so directed. It is believed that already there are at least two hundred thousand children in France in need of help.

Most people have heard of the benefit the French soldiers in the trenches have received who have had American marraines -godmothers, or friends, generally unknown friends, who have sent them letters and little gifts. Some time ago it occurred to Miss Gladys Hollingsworth that such a godmother plan for children would be a good idea. She therefore formed a "Baby Relief Fund" in connection with her society called the American Girls' Aid. Any American, either man or woman, wishing to become a godparent to a French child may do so through the American Girls' Aid by applying for a subscription blank and send ing a monthly payment of six dollars. This amount may be remitted each month, each three months, each six months, or yearly.

One of the outlets of activity is through the French Orphans' Committee at Yvetot, of which the head is Madame Piettre, wife of the sous-préfet there. This Committee cares for nearly three thousand orphans and helpless children located in that region. The Committee has the approval of the American Relief Clearing-House in Paris, and the cooperation of the French and Belgian Governments, the first of which controls its accounting. All contributions are acknowledged primarily by the Clearing-House, and subsequently by the recipient.

While at present the American Girls' Aid is making every effort to secure such help for French orphans, it is interesting to note that the society, organized in the autumn of 1914 by Miss Hollingsworth and her sisters, is engaged in the general work of collecting clothes for the victims of the European war in France, and distributes them through the War Relief Clearing-House for France and Her Allies. Coming from their home in France, where they had lived many years, and where they had recently been engaged as nurses in the hospitals and in the care of refugees sent to Houlgate, their summer home in Normandy. the Misses Hollingsworth decided that the collection of clothing for the refugees was one of the works most needed. Their shipments were the first to be sent to the American Relief Clearing-House in Paris, and all of their collections and funds, without cost of transportation, go to that ClearingHouse, an organization in co-operation with the French Government. The shipments of the American Girls' Aid to France up to October exceeded 5,600 cases, containing nearly 1,130,000 articles. The office and shop of the American Girls' Aid is at 293 Fifth Avenue. New York City.

WOMEN AND ELECTRICITY

Every night last week a brilliant searchlight made giant gestures over New York City. It originated at the Grand Central Palace and marked the Electrical Exhibitiona vivid demonstration of recent progress in electricity.

Anything electrical interests many men. But this particular exhibition seemed to interest women even more. One found, as one might expect, exhibits of the massive machinery which lights cities and moves railway engines. But this machinery, in its immense and complicated detail, was mostly backed up against the sides of the great building.