was carefully kept away from the villages near that particular part of the front, or was occasionally confined so closely to his centre that he could not even go to Brussels for the weekly meetings of all the Commission workers. Our representative at St. Quentin was once kept away from Brussels for seven weeks. On the other hand, the necessary close acquaintanceship of each American and his escort officer, the mutual participation in seeing and hearing the woes of the population, and the fact that no man, not even the most militaristic German-and our officers were not the most militaristic Germans-could have anything to do with the relief work without getting deeply interested in it and being gripped by it, gave our men in North France a certain advantage in having a friend at court in their necessary dealings with the army heads of their respective districts. I remember hearing in Brussels one of the escort officers-these officers often accompanied their American charges to Brusselscomplaining partly quizzically, but more in bitter earnest, that his brother officers and the army commanders in his district had begun to suspect him of being pro-French, because he had always to be backing up his American in his struggle for the amelioration of the sad lot of the civil population. There were rather startling adventures and incidents, too, in the experience of all the men in North France. French and English flyers were always bombing railroad stations behind the lines. One of these casual bombs dropped on one of our regional depots and blew several tons of good food into nothingness. The St. Quentin representative especially saw and heard war at close quarters. THE DEPORTATIONS FROM LILLE But for the most part it was not danger, but irritation and indignation that wore on these men of ours in North France. Especially when the deportations from Lille in April, 1916, of men and women and boys and girls, torn without warning or farewells from their homes, or picked up on the streets by squads of brutal Bavarian soldiery, were under way, was it hard for Commission men to keep silent. As a matter of fact, it was impossible, and headed by the director himself, Mr. Poland, the Commission protested. It was just at the moment of Ambassador Gerard's visit to the Great Headquarters, and a general meeting of Commission representatives and escort officers had been arranged to meet him there. The meeting was also attended by some of the principal officers of the Headquarters, and the matter was dropped like a bombshell into the midst of the conference. The Germans never forgave the Commission for that incident, but the happy result was an interruption in the brutal performance. HOME OF THE GREAT HEADQUARTERS The Great Headquarters was a place of extraordinary interest. It was in the plain little gray town of Charleville on the Meuse, just where the river gives up its swift and winding course through the beautiful Ardennes to run out more sedately into the broad lower valley. The principal buildings and residences of the town had been requisitioned for the offices and residences for the thousand and more staff officers of the various army departments. The Kaiser, when he came, lived in a house in a large garden near the railroad station, but later, because of the danger from the bombs aimed at the station by French flyers, used a villa on the outskirts of the town. It was a place of quietness, much quieter than any ordinary lesser headquarters of any of the separate armies. But it always seemed to me an oppressive and significant quietness, as of some restrained but ever-growing terrible pressure ready to break at any moment into a huge roar and storm. And that was true of it, only the cataclysm, when it came, would occur farther to the west somewhere along those fatal lines of malevolent activity. For several months I lived as the Commission's chief representative for North France among these gray-uniformed officers, who busied themselves assiduously all day in their plain offices with maps and dispatches, with telephones and telegraphs tying them to every part of the various fronts, east as well as west, and playing on little tables the great game of war and destruction and death. At night they would dine and drink their requisitioned French wines, and then they would talk and debate anything from music and poetry to German militarism and American munitions-sending. They rather liked explaining to the listening American the secret of German greatness, which is, simply, autocratic government from the top, based on military organization. And they would point out vigorously the hopeless future of a country, even of great material resources, that perversely and stupidly persists in trying to govern itself from democracy, that is, from the bottom. But whatever the fascinating interest or the wearing strain of life at Headquarters, or the adventures and excitement and anger-breeding days of living in a theatre of living war and a sad land of war's destruction and human misery, there was just one thing that was always the thing in our life; the ravitaillement. As in Belgium, and even more importantly than in Belgium, the importation of the daily bread of the people simply had to be assured. For North France was not only sustaining the weight of an occupying army, but of a great active army as well, and we were unable to make any such satisfactory arrangements for the saving of the native crops for the civil population as were effected in Belgium. However, we did succeed by constant efforts at Headquarters in arranging to have. some part of the local grain and potato crops reserved for the civil population. It should be recalled that the last paragraph in the basic agreement of April, 1915, between the German Commander-in-Chief and the Commission, expressly reserved to the Germans "all rights in respect to the new crop." That is, the Germans reserved the right to take all this crop for the use of the army, or to send it back to Germany to help feed their civilian population. Under pressure, however, from the Commission it was agreed in July that "beginning with September 11, 1915, at the latest, there is to be put at the disposal of the population of the occupied French territory from the crop produced in the country, per capita and per day, according to the wish of the commune, not more than 100 grams of flour" (about three and a half ounces). This was agreed to by the Germans only on the understanding that the Commission would provide 150 grams (a little more than five ounces) of imported flour per capita per day. This flour ration of 250 grams was equivalent to 345 grams (12 ounces) of bread daily for each person and, as the German agreement ran, “in consideration of the lack of foods of other kinds, this amount is not to be considered too great." This was by way of an explanation to the civil population in Germany, then living on 250 grams of bread a day. By a later agreement (September 3d) it was arranged also that the Germans would assign, out of the native crop, 200 grams of potatoes per person per day to the French civil population. All the rest of the native crops, except the produce of small house gardens, orchards, and barnyards, was at the disposal of the German army. In the early summer of 1916, the Commission took up with the Great Headquarters the matter of the disposition of the 1916 crop, and was able to come to a better arrangement. An agreement was signed in Brussels on August 26th by Major von Kessler, representing the General Staff, and myself, representing the Commission, after long debating and negotiation by the Commission both with the Allied Governments and the General Staff, with a final reference to Berlin. It doubled the amounts of flour and potatoes which the German authorities agreed to turn over to the civil population. But the struggle over the matter was so serious that it became a grave question for a time. as to whether the relief work would be permitted to continue at all. It was an extremely trying experience for us, with the very lives of the helpless French citizens as stakes in the game. Unfortunately the potato crop turned out to be so poor that there were not enough potatoes in the local crops to provide 400 grams per person per day; in fact, the people got a pitifully meager supply of potatoes, out of the 1916 crop. The Germans, also, claiming a poorer grain crop than was expected, reduced the daily 200 grams of flour to 150 grams. What arrangements have been effected for this year's (1917) native crop, I do not know. THE RATIONS OF NORTH FRANCE This brings us now to a consideration of just what food altogether, what kinds and what quantities, the imprisoned people of North France have had to eat during the last three years. The definite knowledge of just how much flour and potatoes were available to the civil population out of the native crops, and the equally definite knowledge of how small were the food quantities available from orchards, vegetable gardens, and barnyards in this stripped land, placed the Commission where it could know, with near approach to exactness, just how much and what kinds of food had to be provided by it to keep the people alive. It was possible, in a word, to institute a precise ration for North France, which was something that could only be approached in Belgium. The ration necessarily varied with the varying circumstances of the work of purchase and importation; it varied up and down in amount, it varied as to its component parts, but on the whole it has been sufficiently uniform to allow a statement of its average make-up to indicate fairly what the people of North France have had for daily diet for three years. The average daily ration provided by the Commission has been as follows: bread, 190 grams (a trifle less than 7 ounces), dried peas and beans, 30 grams (a trifle more than 1 ounce), rice, 61 grams (2 ounces), bacon and lard 49 grams (1 ounces), coffee 16 grams (ounce), condensed milk 25 grams (a little less than I ounce), sugar 20 grams (ounce), maize products, 20 grams (ounce), dried fish, 15 grams (a trifle more than ounce), biscuits (for children and infirm), 24 grams (; of an ounce), and very small quantities, irregularly, of cocoa (for children and sick), cheese, torrealine (a roasted grain substitute for coffee), salad oil, chicory, vinegar, and pepper. Salt was mostly obtained from Germany. A single small shipment of fresh meat, 1,000 sheep, was made from Holland in the fall of 1916, and a few larger shipments have been made since. In addition, this ration was increased by whatever part of the promised German ration. of flour (wheat and rye and other things mixed, and often very bad, indeed) and potatoes the people really have had. The flour ration of 100 grams and later 180 grams, they have mostly had; the potato ration has been very irregular and far below the amounts agreed on. It must be said in justice to the Germans that their reason for not living up to the agreement as to potatoes, namely the very poor 1916 crop, is valid to the extent that the crop was really poor. It will be asked how the people have been able to live and keep well on such a meager and monotonous diet; a diet that yielded them a total of energy-units markedly below that reputed by physiologists as being necessary for human beings under usual circumstances, and a protein, or tissue-building, component lower than any estimates of the necessary minimum, except those of a few radical modern physiologists. The answer is that not all the people have been able to do it, although up to the time of the beginning of the unrestricted submarine warfare (February, 1917) most of them had. Since February, the difficulties and interruption of overseas transportation, and the actual loss of several of our cargoes by torpedoes and mines, have made it impossible for us to import sufficient foodstuffs to maintain even the small ration first described, and the resulting marked increase of illness and deaths among the weaker and the older, and to a less extent among the children (the children have always been first looked after both in Belgium and North France), shows that the North France ration was really the minimum for safety. There has been a notable increase of tuberculosis with the rapid development of incipient cases, because of under-nutrition, and a markedly lower resistance to other disease all over occupied France. Even before this last disastrous period, there had been noticed a marked falling off in weight among all classes of the population, but up, or rather, down to a certain point, this loss of weight was not accompanied by any evidence of impaired health. Indeed, for the first two years, or nearly that, the health of the people was, if anything bettered by their enforced simple gastronomic life. But now they are beginning to go to pieces. The birth rate in the crowded Lille district has decreased by nearly 50 per cent. and the death rate has increased also by nearly 50 per cent. Among the older men and women the death rate has doubled. The Commission is straining every effort to increase its importations, but shortage of tonnage, high rates of transportation, and cost of food are serious handicaps on its work. The obvious and only real relief of occupied France is that present great object of the Allies and America, the early driving out from every foot of its soil of the heartless invader. May "the day" come soon! Until then, the magnificent spirit, the moral courage, and physical bravery of this imprisoned people, existing under conditions of mental and physical suffering literally indescribable, must continue to be the admiration and inspiration of the civilized nations. France is to-day the torch before the world. A STATESMAN OF THE NEGRO PROBLEM An Appreciation of the Late Dr. Hollis B. Frissell, of Hampton Institute BY RAY STANNARD BAKER The importance of the work of the late Dr. Hollis B. Frissell lies in the permanency of the principles which he instilled into the minds of two generations of Negro leaders of the Negro race. Mr. Ray Stannard Baker has drawn a graphic picture of the statesmanlike quality of this work, in the article which follows. But an immediate value of it, a practical war-time usefulness of it, is now visible in its effect upon the conscription of Negro soldiers in this war. The racial antagonism of black toward white was a fertile field for the exercise of the arts of the German-American trouble-makers. Some trouble of this kind they did make. They even hoped for a general uprising of Negroes against whites. Of course no such a thing was possible. But they did stir up a host of fears and angers when the Conscription Act was put in force. They lied about the treatment of drafted Negroes in the cantonments, they invented discriminations between the services allotted the soldiers of the different races. Enough of these tales were believed to cause protests from Negro leaders. Then Secretary of War Baker met the situation with the appointment of Capt. Emmet J. Scott to be his aide in clearing up these misunderstandings and in correcting such abuses as might creep in. Captain Scott was for years secretary to Booker T. Washington, the most prominent graduate of Hampton, and both he and Dr. Washington at Tuskegee maintained permanent and close relations with the parent school at Hampton Institute. And Hampton Institute was Dr. Frissell's life-work. Hence bis share in the smooth working of conscription is a large one, and its effect upon a practical emergency of war is only another illustration of the far-reaching and enduring value of his life in treating one of the major problems of this country.-THE EDITORS. T HERE died the other day, at the age of sixty-six, one of the truly great men of the nation. He had no wide popular fame, he worked mostly within movements, he put other men forward, but he added incalculably to the value of millions of American lives, and the work which he laid down the other day, was only just begun. Now, I do not intend here to write the personal history of Dr. Frissell. He was the last man in the world who would have wanted a laudatory biography. But if he had thought that an appreciation or estimation of his work, and a statement of his conclusions would help in bringing about a better understanding of that most difficult of all American problems, to which he devoted his whole life-the Negro problem-he would have been glad to have it written. Not long after the death of Booker T. Washington, who was one of Dr. Frissell's students, a memorial service was held at Hampton Institute, with which Dr. Frissell had been associated for thirty-seven years, the last twenty-four of which as its principal. In the course of his remarks at this service Dr. Frissell said: "There is a word, abandon, which I like. It expresses the idea of giving up all one has and throwing oneself into a difficult task. That was General Armstrong. Abandon! He threw himself and all he had into this work of Hampton. Booker Washington loved General Armstrong and followed him, and he too had abandon. He gave his life for his people." Those who knew Dr. Frissell know that he also had abandon. He never got in his own way, nor let his own shadow darken his understanding. No man who has not something of this abandon, and the humility which goes with it, ever becomes truly wise. He was one of the wisest men in America-perhaps the wisest man-in everything that concerned the Negro. No man did more than he, working quietly from within, in shaping most of the great constructive movements in racial adjustment of the last quarter century. He was indomitable in his efforts to get men together: the best and strongest men, to wrestle with the toughest and knottiest problems. He was an organizer of the Conference for Education in the South, and the Southern Education Board, both of which did remarkable pioneer work in stimulating interest throughout the nation in southern educational problems; he organized and helped develop the work of the Jeanes Fund for the improvement of Negro rural schools: he was a member of the General Education Board, and the inspiring spirit not only of Hampton but of a number of the strongest Negro schools in the south. He was the wise councillor of all that brood of schools, from Tuskegee down, which have grown out of the Hampton idea, and have been nourished upon the Hampton spirit. In all of these boards and committees his fellow members, many of them among the ablest men in the country, learned to trust greatly to his wisdom. Dr. P. P. Claxton, Dr. P. P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education, said of him the other day: "In the committees of these Boards (The Southern Education Board, and the General Education Board) we all learned to depend largely on Dr. Frissell. Reserved and of few words, and never pushing himself forward, he had a unique influence on the action of the committees. His suggestions were usually followed, and his judgments were frequently final. This was due largely to the fact that all were conscious of his keenness of interest, his accuracy of judgment, and his absolute sincerity and unselfishness. All loved him for his modesty and his simplicity." He was, in short, a wise man, whose wisdom was founded upon thorough knowledge and long experience. It would be a great misfortune, even at a time like this, when the world's attention is distracted by other vast problems, if that wisdom could not be made available to the Nation. Partly because of the Great War, and partly for other reasons, we are coming to a really critical stage in our own peculiar race problem. There are many signs and symbols of it: the race-riots at East St. Louis, the clashes in Texas between Negro soldiers and white citizens, the reports of German intrigues among the Negro people, and the difficulties which the War Department has had to face in providing for the military training of Negro soldiers, and especially of Negro officers. A new unrest is sweeping through our Negro population. We have seen within the last year tens of thousands of them migrating from their old homes in the South to the industrial centres of the North, causing serious economic readjustments in the South, and introducing new racial complications in the North. The fact is, the Negro is emerging from his fifty years in the wilderness. The old generation that knew slavery is gone. The results of a half century of freedom and education for the Negro, poor as that education has been, are now appearing plainly in a new selfconsciousness, both racial and individual. The Negro is acting for himself for almost the first time in his history. He is articulate through a group of able leaders, and in the pages of more than 400 newspapers and magazines, which he himself owns and edits. What wonder that his early expression of this selfconsciousness should be full of bitterness, full of revolt against mob violence, economic discrimination, and other forms of injustice! It is a kind of racial adolescence through which he is passing-a critical time: a critical time especially while the Nation is at war. Most fortunate it has been that for so many years a man of the wisdom of Dr. Frissell should have been in a place of such profound influence as Hampton Institute, as a molder of leadership among the Negroes, and as a maker of understanding between the white and colored races. Without Dr. Washington and Dr. Moton and hundreds of men like them, who have been imbued with the Hampton spirit—the spirit of Armstrong and Frissell-the Negro problem would to-day be immeasurably more difficult than it is. RESPONSE TO GERMAN INTRIGUE AMONG NEGROES Less than four months before his death, when the country was full of rumors to the effect that German plotters were attempting to stir up revolt among the Negroes of the South, Dr. Frissell addressed an open letter to the Negro people. It was dated April 11th, last, and expressively headed: "My dear Children." In this he urged upon them a deepened sense of that "loyalty to our country which has always been one of the noblest characteristics of the Negro people." He then sets down his faith. regarding the Negro: As Dr. Washington and Dr. Moton have proved by their lives of quiet, unpretentious service, the |