what was tantamount to a declaration of war, sent fourteen thousand fresh troops into Finland, plentifully supplied with cannon, machine guns, mortars, armored cars, and rifles, on the pretext that, as the new Finnish Government was not a proletarian one after the model of that set up in Petrograd, it must be replaced with one more to the liking of the Bolsheviki! The old example of Russian interference in Finnish affairs was too strong and too recent to be abandoned, no matter what lofty principles might conflict with its resumption!

Accordingly the Socialist revolution was soon in full swing, opening in Viborg, the town closest to the Russian border, on January 25, and marked by a series of unspeakable atrocities committed by the Red Guard throughout Finland, with the active support of the Bolshevist troops.

Under these circumstances the Finnish Government found itself powerless. As long ago as 1902 the Finnish army had been abolished by the Czar, and consequently, lacking means of effective resistance, the legally elected Government could do nothing except take to flight and leave the capital to the armed Red Guard and their Russian accomplices, recruited by numbers of criminals who had been previously released from prison by orders from Broholm in order to take part in the work of terrorization. Most of the Government officials left Helsingfors, the capital, during the night of January 26-27, for the north. The few remaining Ministers, together with several of their Parliamentary supporters, were arrested by the Red Guard when the latter seized the Government buildings the next day, and kept in confinement from a week to ten days. One of the members of the Diet, Mikkola by name, was murdered in his cell. At the same time the banks were rifled of such funds and securities as had not been removed to a place of safety. Of course the loyal Diet could hold no session. The Red Guard proceeded to set up a "People's Commissariat after the Petrograd model. A veritable Reign of Terror was inaugurated. The wild excesses that followed were of such a nature as to shock the more moderate Socialists themselves. In this tragic farce one of the most notorious released criminals, a man who had committed more than one murder, named Savinainen, played a leading part, bringing in a bill of his own! Disillusionment, discontent, and, as the funds gave out, actual want, began to work among the followers of the Red Guard, and a serious split occurred in the Socialist ranks.

Meanwhile the Constitutional Government had established itself in Vasa, the capital of the province of Oesterbotten (East Bothnia), on the west coast, whence it issued, on February 1, a proclamation addressed to the people of Finland.

It declared that Finland's " newly won independence has been exposed, through a comprehensive act of high treason, to the most threatening danger," and appealed to all Finlanders to rally to the support of the Constitutional Government, and in particular of “our national volunteer defense organization," known as the White Guard, "to insure and consolidate our people's liberty, to protect our homes, and to re-establish lawful order and the of the Diet." supremacy

The response of the people was enthusiastic and prompt. From all parts of the country the loyal inhabitants came pouring in-men of all classes, nobleman and peasant, merchant and farmer, clerk and fisherman-with any and all kinds of weapons, and all burning with zeal to blot out the stain with which the Red Guard had besmirched the honor and fair name of Finland. The opportunity to prove their mettle was immediately forthcoming.

At the time of the issuance of the manifesto the 42d Russian Army Corps was stationed in Oesterbotten, and immediately issued orders to the Finns in the most flagrant contempt of the fact that the independence of Finland had been formally recognized by their own Soviet in Petrograd, to say nothing of other foreign governments to the effect that the White Guard should immediately disband and their followers and supporters disarm, under penalty of the destruction of the city of Vasa. The response was as instantaneous as it must have been unexpected. The Finnish forces immediately gave battle, and disarmament soon thereafter took place-but of the Russian troops, who suffered an ignominious defeat. The news spread like wildfire, and all over the country the natives flocked to the White Guard standards, with the result that the Russian gar

risons were beaten and disarmed at Toby, Laihela, Ylistaro, Lappo, Seinäjoki, Ilmola, and Lillkyro.

But ever-increasing armed forces came pouring into Finland from across the Russian border in response to the appeals of the Red Guard, and it became necessary for the White Guard to find weapons of warfare for its thousands of eager but unarmed adherents if they were to avert the final ruin of their cause and their country's liberties. In these sore straits they turned to Sweden, but, although some hundreds of Swedes, officers and men alike, responded with alacrity as private individuals, the Swedish Government, afraid apparently of the Socialists within its own gates, contented itself with platonic phrases of sympathy.

Deprived of the expected help in this quarter and desperate at the threatened loss of everything that lent life itself any value, the Finnish Constitutional Government found itself compelled to seek the necessaries of warfare in the only quarter that remained, viz., Germany. Complying with the request. Germany promptly shipped artillery, arms, and ammunition by sea from Libau to Vasa, and from Riga transported the remaining Finnische Jaeger to their native shores to swell the forces of the White Guards. Undoubtedly Germany saw her profit in the transaction--she does nothing without an ulterior motive and exacted an adequate recompense, which it was not in the power of the hard-pressed Finnish Government to decline; but the fact remains that Germany helped the Constitutional Government of Finland to defend itself against the rebel Red Guard and alien Bolshevist troops and defy the otherwise triumphant forces of anarchy and high treason on its soil.

Now, for the first time, adequately equipped for the internecinc warfare forced upon it, the Finnish White Guard, infinitely superior to its opponent in intelligence and discipline, and capably officered by tried leaders who have won their reputations against the Germans on the eastern front, is making excellent headway, and at present writing controls not only the whole of the north and center, but nearly all the southern and eastern part of the country.

The spirit of the whole native White Guard movement is epitomized in the following ringing proclamation of General Mannerheim, the White Guard's commander-in-chief:

I swear in the name of the Finnish peasants' army, whose leader I have the honor to be, not to sheathe my sword in its scabbard again until lawful order has been restored in the land, all fortresses are in our hands, and the last soldier of Lenine, together with the last hooligan, is finally driven out of Russian Karelia as well as Finland. Relying upon our high cause, our brave men and devoted women, we look forward to creating a great and powerful Finland.

With eighty thousand troops now either in thorough battle trim or actively training, the loyalist White Guard has every prospect of a speedy victory over the combined forces of the Red Guard and their Bolshevist allies, in which event Finland will be able to proceed to the prompt restoration of that order and tranquillity for which she has always hitherto been famous and to the development of her social and political well-being.

Unfortunately, however, another and even more sinister influence, if at present more innocent-seeming, looms upon the horizon of Finland's future, further to bedevil the already complex situation which, if left to itself as between the native factions, would speedily find its own solution. The shadow of the insatiate and crafty Prussian colossus lies athwart the land, and already the discredited Red Guard are making capital out of it, and not least here in America, to befog the fundamental issue and envelop their opponents in a mist of foul aspersions. In view of this, Americans must be doubly on their guard against the supposition that there is any desire on the part of the Finnish Government or their White Guard supporters to come under the sway, whether open or secret, of Germany, or even to entertain any sympathy with the aims or ambitions of the Teutonic Power. The extent of their feeling in that direction consists solely in a certain degree of gratitude, natural and legitimate in the exceptional circumstances, for the help extended in Finland's hour of direst need, which help, however, would much sooner have been owed to the Allies, had this been possible, and which was actually in the first place sought from Sweden.

Had Sweden, casting all other considerations of opportu

nism or, shall we say, downright timidity, to the winds, come promptly to her distressed neighbor's assistance, she would have solved the difficult situation to the ultimate advantage of herself no less than of Finland, and by cutting the ground from under the feet of further Prussian intrigue would have served the whole Allied cause and won for herself a place of high honor. She, however, let the great opportunity slip, and now finds herself rewarded by the more or less openly expressed contempt of the Teutonic military power, culminating in the high-handed seizure of the Åland Islands, commanding the entrance to both the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia, and therefore possessed of an immense strategical value. This act on the part of Germany was all the grosser an infraction of international comity since the future of the islands was even then the subject of discussion between Finland and Sweden, the former of which had actually landed a small force to drive out the marauding Bolshevist invaders. And now latest despatches bring the news of the landing of German troops in Helsingfors for

the declared purpose of capturing the Russian fleet there lying unofficered and futile, and of the participation of German forces in the capture of Viborg by the White Guard, as well as in what appears to have been a decisive battle near Tavastchus, ending in the loss by the Red Guard of most of their army, artillery, and supplies. In the presence of such evidence of new and unwelcome German power in the young Republic, the Finlanders may well look their gift-horse in the mouth with sinking hearts and pray secretly for the triumph on the western front of the sore-pressed Allies, in whom they are perfectly aware, in the sanctuary of their breasts, lies the only real hope for the eventual assurance and preservation of not only their own but any democracy and liberty on the face of the earth henceforth. Finland is thus overshadowed from converging directions by the black pinions of the Bolshevist vulture and of the Prussian eagle. Will the shadow fall, or will it lift? That is what every sincere American must ask himself as he watches the unfoldment of the present tragedy of Finland.

To most of the returned immigrants to whom I have

I

tated lines of twisted barbed the flowers spring forth in great and colorful profusion as the aftermath of blood and suffering.

Somehow I often vision this fact in relation to the results which this war will work upon the spirit of the immigrant world, upon those hundreds of thousands of European peasant laborers who have known America; and I feel that the suffering and sacrifices which our country must henceforth face in ever greater measure will brighten the smoldering fire under our great "melting pot" into a vast consuming blaze, destroying the disloyal (the unassimilable, in the language of other days) among our alien population, but sublimating into an enduring heart allegiance the political allegiance of those countless immigrants among us for whom America will have become truly their Patria.

In these long, exciting years of absence from "my own land" the brightest moments have seemed to me those occasions of my intimate talks with returned Italian immigrants, with the humble men who had come back to fight for Italy, but whose eyes sparkled at the mention of America.

To the question put by me to hundreds of these returned immigrants at the front, whether, after the war, they were going back to America, I have had an invariable and constant answer. But it was not so much the unanimity of assent which struck me as the tone in which that invariable "Sure!" with its East Side forcefulness of finality, was flung back at me. I hear it echo over the white stretches of the Adamello Glacier and along the jagged sides of the hard-won and tragically lost trenches of the Carso; it comes reverberating through the men-made caverns of the Trentino mountain bulwarks where former West Virginia coal workers labored at countermining against the hated Austrians. I hear that monosyllable voiced like a declaration of faith in the midst of suffering, like a challenge to the doubters of our democracy; and in the vision of those scenes of struggle in trench and hospital-the spiritual impulse behind that Sure!" seems both a great flame of human tenderness and a tiny flame of human wistfulness.

It is at the feet, as it were, of just such men that I have grown wise; wise with the knowledge of a latent, unexpressed force or virtu instinct in the life of a mixed people such as constitutes the present American State, of an element or potentiality in our National life which has escaped statutory expression because it is too subtle for juridic definition, but which was well within the hopes and the vision of the fathers of the Republic. Let us call it human allegiance or heart's allegiance, as distinct and different from political allegiance, yet politically potent and active as a cohesive and unifying power in a Nation of diverse races and varied political antecedents.

seemed, and is, vague and unreal; it exists in their minds, if at all, as a legalistic distinction; a thing for lawyers to wrangle over, not something of real moment to human souls. What counts with them is what they feel far more than what they do, even if what they do is to stand ready to die like men. In other words, it is a human rather than a political aspiration which is uppermost in their minds. Fighting on the Italian front or fighting "Over There," wearing the Italian gray-green or the American khaki, made little difference in the heart's alle giance of these men, though occasionally a certain wistfulness shone in the eyes of those who, had they been free to choose, might have preferred the cowboy sombrero to the képi of the fantaccino.

This is the spirit which is abroad in the world—in the immigrant world; this is America's reward for having offered to every humble yet adventurous soul the longed-for opportunity, for having tendered a home and a refuge to the disinherited of every land. For only through such largesse could the spiritual revolution have been accomplished by which the age-old idea of loyalty to a racial group has been converted into an allegiance by racially divided and even opposite elements to a Patria representing essentially human as distinguished from political ideals.

Yes, this is the spirit which is abroad in the immigrant world to-day on both sides of the Atlantic, of which I may cite one or two illustrative examples.

Some days ago an oldish peasant woman knocked at the door of the office of our military attaché here; then, in the presence of Uncle Sam's busy officers, she drew from the innermost pocket of her voluminous skirt a letter from her eldest son in America, and asked, a little timidly, for the kindness of an explanation as to the exact meaning of some of its contents, for it was not clear to her how her boys who were subject to military duty in Italy (and how that thought had worried her!) could be volunteers (and such happy volunteers, it seemed) in the Army of the United States.

Here is the letter which sounded a little strange to that Italian mother. It loses, however, much of its peculiar charm in the translation from the halting Italian original:

Long Island.

"Dear Mother I received your letter with great pleasure. From it I learn that you are well, and also my little brother Guglielmo. But I don't see why you do not seem to understand that I am in the American Aviation Service. I wrote you about it some time ago, and also that Aurelio is in the Army. Rest assured that both of us are glad to give our lives for liberty and to abolish the German slavery and destroy those unnatural

enemies who would like to be the padroni of the world. I fly on a hydroplane and am taking a pilot's course. In seven months of service I have already reached a fine grade. I started as nothing, and now I am a second-class petty officer. I don't know what this would correspond to in Italy, but the photograph which I inclose will show you what I am. Notice that I have two stripes and an eagle on my uniform. The eagle stands for America. I have made a number of flights, and, I tell you, it's great! But my ambition is to become a pilot and fly over Germany and spread death and destruction there. If the war doesn't end soon, I'll surely get my chance at her. I am in the best of health, thank God, and let us hope that during the current year I shall become a pilot. I'm studying very hard for it, even the French language, which is taught to us-would you believe it?-in the house of a millionaire! You can't imagine how everybody tries to do something for us. I do hope that you understand that I was a volunteer when America entered the war."

I shall close with another little example of heart's allegiance out of hundreds I might cite. It was at the American Hospital in Florence about a month after the United States had joined in the conflict and I was making my little daily visit to a ward where every soldier patient had stuck a tiny starry flag above his bed next to the Italian tricolor. "Jimmy," the swarthy immigrant from Basilicata, who had worked on the Santa Fé Railroad, motioned to me to draw near. He was in great excitement, and searched feverishly under his pillow till he found a letter which he held up solemnly for my inspection; but before I could read it he was telling me of its contents, speaking in spurts from the tension of emotion. "It's from me brother-in Oregon. He's an American soldier-volunteer-you understand?" He stopped a moment under the stress of his mounting excitement; then, sitting up in bed despite his shattered leg, he went on, slowly: "I got a bullet in me leg-for Italy's sake; now-I hope-me brother will get hurt too-for America-then -it will all be-squared up. See?"

I

N the chill of an early morning in the latter part of June a long Pullman train rid itself of a small army of boys, averaging about fourteen years of age. The station was a little box of an affair near the western shore of Lake Champlain. The party were on their way to what was called a military camp (though it might not have been recognized as such), and they were likely to arrive there shortly. As the whole affair proved to be something of an adventure, it would be very interesting and instructive if we could follow the experiences of every single boy, but as that would be impossible, we will see what happened to four typical ones, and through these get some kind of an idea as to what happened to all of them.

While the boys swarm down the road to the dock and get themselves ferried across to Valcour Island we will try to get acquainted with this quartet of typical American lads, for already they are keeping together, having been told that they are to live in the same tent all summer.

The Blue Book would surely mention Arthur first, for he was the son of a New Yorker of quite appalling wealth; a pleasantlooking lad, though poorly set up physically—a fact well disguised by his loose-fitting and obviously expensive clothes. He was already a little homesick and still bewildered because there had been no man to arrange his clothes for him that morning.

Then there was John, son of a prominent professor. John had seen few men who were not professors, and he not only talked but actually looked not unlike a professor himself. He was anything but a practical boy, but was philosophical enough to take things as they came. So he was not homesick, but, on the contrary, mildly interested in what was to happen.

The third, Frank, had been so pretty a boy that all his female relatives had petted and spoiled him half to death, and so had almost every one else with whom he had come in contact. The result was that, though normally a bright boy, he had never done more than half his best in all his life. He didn't have to. His folks found it a severe financial problem to pay the fee and send the boy to the camp.

If it had depended upon paying a fee, Bob, the fourth boy, would not have been there at all. He was the son of a factory foreman, a well-set-up youth who was obviously pleased with the world and all that was in it; quite the reverse of Frank,

who at that moment was realizing only a bottomless dismay as the world of his experience dissolved about him. Bob had gained a scholarship, as had many others.

As the boat-load containing our four approached the island, their summer's " stamping-ground," they looked in vain for signs of an encampment. There was not a tent in sight. But if they expected to find orderly rows of well-furnished tents awaiting them, they were in for a real surprise.

After a large though simple breakfast-eaten to the last scrap-our four were taken in tow by a strapping fellow of seventeen (Harris) who informed them that he was to be their "counselor" for the summer, and that they had better hurry and get their camp fixed up. So they trotted hopefully after him and found that as yet they had no camp, that their tent was in a bag, that their floor was a pile of boards, and, what was a good deal worse, that they would have to manufacture beds for themselves of narrow boards and canvas or they would not have any.

Now the fact is that such a proposition appeals very strongly to most red-blooded, normal boys. It was only Frank that actually sulked. He had never had to do anything for himself in his life, and his spoiling had not given him a hopeful attitude. Arthur, too, had had much done for him, but he had still a little initiative left. John was really quite interested, and Bob, the one severely practical member of the group, was pleased as Punch.

It would take a long story to tell about the putting up of that tent and the building of a floor under it, most of which time Harris sat cheerfully on a neighboring stump and seemed interrested, but not over-helpful. Bob knew what to do with a saw, but Arthur and John had never seen anything much more dangerous than a tack-hammer before, so that they wielded their hatchets and drove in nails with more good will than science. What is more, when their tent was up they found building that floor really good fun; all but Frank, who sulked, and wanted it understood that his folks did not intend to make a carpenter of him! Also, when it came to making their simple canvas cots he made his so carelessly that it fell down in the middle of the night. To complete that particular story it should be said that he banged it together again next morning, only to have it fall down again in the middle of the next night. Then he was wroth, and his latent capacity, which was of high grade, coming per

force into active being, he made himself a bed of white birch logs-six inches thick-that would have held up an elephant. And here's a vitally important point which should be recognized by all who are concerned with the great problem of undermilitary-age training. Boys of this age are marvelously quick at acquiring a facility of this kind, far more so than their older brothers of military age, and, as not only does such work develop some very fine elements of character, but construction of various kinds comes into the daily experience of a modern soldier, is it not likely that hand construction of a really practical kind should be a more important factor in under-military-age training than the bare formal drill that so many high schools and communities seem to believe to be the one essential?

They were right in the midst of cot-manufacturing when a passing messenger announced that their trunks had arrived and that they had better go and get them. Not only Frank, but Arthur as well, were dismayed when they found that they were supposed to carry those trunks themselves or bring them in a wheelbarrow. But Bob and John went forth, found a wheelbarrow, and brought up their trunks while the other two discussed their wrongs. And, as boys are keen imitators, the example proved sufficient, and, with many groans and stops for rest, Arthur and Frank brought theirs to their tent too. Promptly all four trunks were opened, clothes were hauled out, and in a few minutes all were arrayed in a very cheap but suitable costume, and now it would have been quite impossible to tell which was the millionaire's son and which the factory foreman's.

They were nearly all day getting their tent in order and their cots made, and in the meantime other tents had been going up all about them-not in rows, as in a typical military camp, but here and there along the shore, or half hidden in the trees. So that each little tent was more or less of a camp itself. Now all this was quite contrary to arrangements usually thought necessary and desirable in military camps for boys; but we never seem to remember that boys are not men at all, and that a system suitable and proper for men is not necessarily so for their younger brothers. Folks who apply the machine-like army idea to the younger generation do not understand the younger generation, and they also miss very great opportunities for developing independence, resourcefulness, and initiative.

So much for the first day. Night found that part of the island dotted with many tents, all equipped with boy-made canvas cots, and inhabited by a boy population that was very, very tired and quite ready for sleep at sunset.

The next day came more surprises. So far there had been few signs of what most of us look upon as "military" about the camp, except for the uniform, and that was not particularly military either. But after the plunge and the breakfast the various tent leaders warned their charges to get their goods in order, and before many of them had an idea as to what it was all about a couple of uniformed men inspected each tent, inside and out, inspected its setting up, inspected the cots, looked under the cots, had each trunk opened and examined down to the very bottom.

John, the precise and philosophical, got through this ordeal with honors. Bob's trunk, though scantily supplied, looked rather haphazard; but Arthur and Frank had dumped their clothes out and then dumped them in again; and they knew a lot more about looking after their clothes when that inspection was over than they had known previously. The whole performance displeased Frank-not with himself, but with the system. Bob was honestly chagrined; and Arthur, who had much real pride, tried to get the hang of it, though he thought looking after clothes a rather undignified performance.

There was still much to be done about the tents to make them homelike. Harris, their counselor, began making himself an easy chair. Bob promptly followed suit. John thought he would like to make a table. The other two hung around and looked on.

They got another surprise in an hour or two. They were summoned to "Headquarters," a green and white bungalow that some fifteen-year-olders had planned and built the previous year, and there they were called on to strip to the last stitch. Then followed the usual medical examination. Then they were measured from head to foot. This measuring performance is worth looking into. Many schools take physical measurements of

some kind, though they almost never do anything practical with them, and for the reason that they do not gain very helpful results through their measuring. This is because their judginents are based on height-age combinations. If you will examine nearly all standard tables of physical measurements, you will see that they take it for granted that an individual of a certain age and height should have a certain weight and certain girths. In other words, we have too long accepted the principle that the only normal type of build is the "average" type of build. But the fact is that it is quite as normal and proper for some to be slender and others to be stocky as for still others to approach the average. Therefore the only fair kind of judgment would be one recognizing the normal physical type of each child, and then judging him according to his type. When our four boys were examined and measured, it was up to the examining physician to find if they were all healthy, and, if so, whatever their weight was it was taken as proper. It was found that Arthur and Frank were slender, that John's build was more like the average, and that Bob was distinctly a heavyweight. Then they were judged accordingly. Tables of standards were at hand, arranged on a height-weight basis. That is, when a boy's height and weight were found, the same combination was found in the tables, and there would be the other measurements the individual should have to be well developed for his type of build. In scoring, each boy started with 100, and points were added to or subtracted from 100, depending on whether a measurement went ahead or below standard. Arthur's score was 68, also his pos ture was extremely bad. John's score was 90, Frank's 85, and Bob's 105.

When each boy's record was made out, it was indicated just where he went below standard, so that a fellow would know if it were his arms, or his chest, or his shoulders, or the like, that kept him below average. Also it was advertised that there would be two competitions that summer, to be judged at the end of it: one for physical perfection and one for physical improvement. Such things appeal to boys mightily, and when a boy is shown just what he needs he is most likely to do it with real enthusiasm. Through such means a school for boys in New York raised its average standard from 90 to 101 in a year and a half. That means something when you consider that sixty-five per cent of our recruits are refused for physical causes, and that if they had had rational physical training, with individual study such as our four boys had at the camp, only ten per cent would have been refused. But our schools, public and private, act as though the needs of children, physically, were exactly similar, and that group exercises or the usual futile class calisthenics will do all that is necessary. Group exercises and group games are valuable, but alone they will not reduce our sixty-five per cent of rejec tions to ten per cent. Does it not seem that individual physical training, then, is a far more important matter for under-military-age training than any amount of formal military drill? And yet we hear of municipal and State programmes for underage military training, and all one can find in them is plans for formal drill and group exercises. Formal military training can wait. It is ridiculous even to think of it if the majority of those who take it will not even be able to pass the physical examination when they are eighteen.

So our boys were measured and given their standards, and told what to do about their low scores. Arthur and Frank were quite scandalized over their grades. Few things hit a boy harder than this. It will even get down under the results of bad training and of mistaken view-point, so that these two secretly vowed not only to get their scores up, but even, if possible, to beat that disgusting Bob, who visibly swelled over his superior 105.

While this measuring was going on a great quantity of rough lumber and shingles arrived by the simple trestle dock. When all the boys were impressed into carrying it piecemeal up across the parade-ground and tennis courts to the top of the slant, our four found a boy of fifteen with the plan of a considerable building in his hands, more or less directing where to put the stuff. They found that this lad had planned a new mess hall, the old one being small, crude, and otherwise inadequate.

There had been a number of competing plans, but this one was considered the best; and it was done in detail, even to the framing. The young architect, however, was an old hand, having had such training at camp since he was twelve. That afternoon