A KEEPER OF THE LIGHT The Happy Eremite read the letter and read it again, stirred by its quiet acceptance of responsibility.

"We are particularly fortunate, we think," the lette. ran, "to have all the members of our family united in being loyal Americans. Alfred expects to go to France shortly as a surgeon, Helen left with a hospital unit last week, and Hans is sending all superfluities to me from Camp McClellan, which indicates the early departure of his regiment. Harry belongs to the Public Service Reserve and has also volunteered for five other positions, so you see we are right in it. I am doing all my own work and practically earning the money for Liberty Bonds, Red Cross, etc. Knitting fills up spare moments."

He folded the letter, feeling huge respect for the woman who had written it.

For she was what is known as a German-American.

There could be no mistake about the classification. Her father and mother had been married in a little Saxon town at a time when all Saxon towns, small and great, were slumbering in the drowsy dusk of political reaction in the middle forties; she herself had been born there, coming to America and to Grand Street-quite gorgeous in those days-to live in a little Germany created by her father's vigorous "Hier wird deutsch gesprochen." She had run as a child and as a girl with German boys and girls; she had married a Saxon more completely German even than herself; she had belonged to German singing clubs and German sewing societies; her children had grown up, as it seemed, in a German world.

And now here she was, moving toward seventy, giving the work of her hands, the flesh of her flesh, and the blood of her blood for the downfall of a German conqueror.

For it happened that her father had been one of those in the little Saxon town whom the flame of democracy had kindled. He had been a Forty-eighter. He had seen a great light, and she had kept it burning.

The Happy Eremite remembered the cheerful friendliness of her home when he had run in and out of it as a boy, the simplicity of it, the democracy of it; with all the German customs and the German speech, the plain Americanism of it; the ignoring of caste, the emphasis on simple human worth.

And then he remembered another house where counts and barons had come to eat and drink and tell extraordinarily interesting tales of travel here and adventure there. The master of this other house had been a stalwart part of the later outpouring from Germany that followed hard times in the early eighties. No tyrant's lifted gun butt had driven him forth. He had come, a half-unwilling seeker of fortune in alien lands, dazzled by the splendor of the New World, yet always conscious of the glorious, the tender, the romantic memories of the Old. To the Forty-eighter America had been the Promised Land where the milk and honey of liberty were not wanting; to the other it had always been half a place of exile, to be left behind again on some not impossible golden day.

The Happy Eremite had loved this other house also. He had liked the counts and barons with their brilliant talk, though he had wondered a little why, when the master of the house grew prosperous, he should spend his summers always at German watering-places to revel in German beauty with German generals and German Geheimräte.

The daughter of the Forty-eighter never thought of spending her summers in Germany. She just went to the seashore or the mountains like an ordinary citizen, rocked on hotel piazzas with her kind, and went driving in four-seated mountain wagons on dusty roads to get the view through the Kaaterskill Clove.

Her father and mother had come for liberty. The master of

the other house had come to seek his fortune. Her thoughts, when they went back, went back to bondage and oppression; his thoughts, when they went back, went back to an imaginary blessedness from which only the lack of a few dollars was excluding him.

And the war, mused the Happy Eremite, had like a bolt from heaven split open and revealed the heart of each. To one it brought only misery and resentment and bitterness, for his eyes had been fixed so steadfastly on the treasures of the old hcmne that he had never thought to seek after the peculiar treasures of the new. But to the other it brought exaltation and the passionate longing to give.

"Of such as you, dear lady," murmured the Happy Eremite, "the foundations of America are made. And the blood in the veins is neither here nor there. The vision is all."

HELP FOR RUSSIA

Should we help Russia? Can we help Russia? In what way may we help Russia? These questions continue to grow in importance. The President, in his recent speech in New York, expressed his belief that we should help Russia and avowed his intention to carry out that purpose. He did not at that time intimate what course was the right one to pursue; but there have been indications that the Administration is weighing the question carefully and intimations that it is inclined to waive its former attitude of opposition to any course of action in Siberia involving Japan so far as that feeling might interfere with the adoption by the United States of practical measures of relief. Sympathy for Russia's dreadful fate and hope and faith in a future Russia which shall be democratic in the true sense are universal in America. Assuredly, in the forward march of civilization Russia is bound in time to become a strong democracy. The Russian people in large numbers, probably in an actual majority, know that the rule of the Bolsheviki is not an extension of democracy, but a class absolutism which is at the same time weak and cruel.

But it is not enough to hope and believe in the future. What material aid can we give Russia now? The first reply is that the way to help Russia is to beat Germany. To-day Russia is under German bonds. Vast and valuable parts of Russia are under actual German control and subject to German demands. These divisions, such as the Ukraine and Finland, are even more vassals of Germany to-day than are Austria and Turkey. What Germany wills in these countries must be done. The rest of western Russia is nominally under Bolshevik rule. Practically, Germany is in a position to enforce any demand she may make. It would be exceedingly difficult for the United States to send soldiers, munitions, provisions, or money to Russia by any avenue of approach through Russia's northern or western or southern borders. These avenues are closed and marked "Verboten."

The only other way of approach is from the east. Japan must inevitably take a large part in any such action. Japan has the men, the ships, and the financial means, and Japan is near by. But Japan does not desire to act alone. She has said officially that she would act only with the consent and aid of her allies. X The one course open to aid Russia and balk Germany is for the Allies to combine whole-heartedly in such a movement. It is quite possible for us to send a small army to the Siberian coast of the Pacific from our western coast. To this might be added British forces (a small British force is already in Vladivostok), possibly also some French and Italian forces. The combined army might be increased by a force not inconsiderable in number by gathering together from the East the Russians hunted out of their own country by the Bolsheviki, while in America itself there are thousands of Poles, Russians, and other Slavs who might be recruited in a separate body. Thus a joint expeditionary army might be formed in which the Japanese soldiers would be in the majority, but which would have for its purpose the protection of Russia, the encouragement of those hundreds of thousands of Russians in the eastern part of the Empire who are bitterly opposed to Bolshevist rule, and, as a secondary motive, the annoyance of Germany in the rear of its present military activities. This army might before long become the

nucleus of a great revivified Russian army. This plan is believed by many students of the situation to be sound in principle and practical in detail. It cannot be carried out without the approval and active co-operation of the United States. If there is any better plan for getting material and military aid to Russia, it remains to be put forward.

The interviews.lately obtained by Mr. Gregory Mason, staff correspondent of The Outlook, with Count Terauchi, the Prime Minister of Japan, and Baron Goto, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Japan (the latter appears in this issue of The Outlook), throw a strong light on Japan's ideas on this great question. Thus Baron Goto says: "Japan cannot tolerate a Bolshevik Government. The disruptive propaganda and disorderly acts of the Bolsheviki menace even our own nation. . . . Japan is eager to lend strong support to a buffer Russian state between herself and Germany." Count Terauchi, in the interview with Mr. Mason, declared that "Japan's relations with the Entente Allies will continue unaltered after the present war." He also declared that in any movement in Siberia Japan would want co-operative action. Since these interviews were had, and, indeed, only a few days ago, despatches to London papers quote Count Terauchi as saying, "Such a contingency as a GermanJapanese alliance is impossible;" and that "Japan's future is just as dependent upon the victory of the Entente as is Great Britain's future." Baron Goto is reported as expressing the opinion that such an expedition as we have just described would eventually detract from Germany's strength in the west. Certainly this would be the case if, as many hold, the expedition should occupy the Trans-Baikal and there aid the liberal Russians to gather a force to fight any opposition that should confront them either from the Bolsheviki or from Germany. Eastern Siberia itself also must be guarded and saved from the baneful German control which will surely threaten it if measures are not taken in advance.

If there remains yet in this country any feeling that Russia as a nation can be helped by aiding the Bolsheviki, it is a mistaken belief based on a total misconception of the political nature of Bolshevik rule. Careless thinkers who believe that the cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy have wrongly regarded Bolshevism as an extension of democracy. It is just the reverse. The Bolsheviki are not the exponents of a new, peculiarly Russian, type of democracy. They would bring about-and have already brought about-class war and despotism by the proletariat. The rule of the unfit the domination of all other classes by the class that is least enlightened is not democracy. It is not even Socialism. It is class tyranny of the worst conceivable sort, and so long as it prevails there is no hope for Russia.

This is true whether we regard the leaders of the Bolsheviki as conscious agents of the German autocracy or not. There is evidence that some of them have received pay from the Imperial German Government. For example, there was published in the "Petit Parisien " last February the following document. Inasmuch as that journal is the organ of M. Pichon, the Foreign Minister of France, the document may be accepted as authentic: Order of March 2, 1917.

The Imperial Bank to all representatives of German banks in Switzerland:

By the present we inform you that demands for money for pacifist propaganda in Russia are about to be made from that country via Finland. Their demands will be made by the following persons: Lenin, Zinovioff, Kamenoff, Trotsky, Sumenson, Koslovsky, Kolontai, Sivers, Mereain, whose accounts have been opened by our Order No. 2754, in the agencies of the private German banking establishments in Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland.

All these demands must be confirmed by one of the two sig. natures: Dirschau or Wolkenburg. At sight of these authorized signatures the demands of the above-mentioned propagandists in Russia will be considered as regular and immediately executed. No. 7433, Imperial Bank.

Aside, however, from any such evidence, the Bolsheviki have, by their course, proved themselves the enemies of popular liberty. When, before the French Revolution, the nobles tried to disperse the States-General, it was not because the members of that assembly who represented the people were improperly chosen ; it was because the nobles feared any representation of the people. When, likewise, the Russian Soviets threw the first and only legal national Constituent Assembly out of doors, it was not because its delegates were not fairly elected; if it had been, the Soviets would have proceeded to institute new elections for delegates. It was because the Bolsheviki and their tools had a minority of the delegates in the Assembly. The Bolsheviki, in short, insisted that, not the majority, but the minority, should rule. Lenine, Trotsky, and the other prophets of the new philosophy hate the bourgeoisie worse than they do the capitalists; they even call a peasant who owns a bit of land a bourgeois. Lenine declared, not merely that the proletariat should rule, but that no one outside the proletariat should have anything to do with the Government or be allowed a seat in the Constituent Assembly. All this is as far as the North Pole from the South Pole from anything resembling democracy; it is purely and simply despotism by a single class.

It is to rid Russia of this despotism and to help put her on the road toward democracy that America's help is sorely needed.

a few months ago I saw him-young Peter, the shipping clerk in our concern, a stalwart lad of twentyfour, eager to get into the great war. He came over my desk to say good-by to me, no longer in the dirty little apron he wore when he worked out in the shipping-room, but clean and well set up in his khaki, a lieutenant now in the Army of the United States of America.

O'shipping clerk in our concern, a stalwart lad of twenty

How good it was to see him, after his training-camp life, the fire of patriotism in his eyes, a flame in his heart, and something undreamed of before in his soul! And to think that our young Peter was going away to fight for us-one of the millions to serve Freedom! How strange life is, since this boy who had known only shipping receipts, tags, figures, and horse-play was now going forth with a musket in his hand instead of a pen! And to France! It seemed incredible. I shall never forget how proud we were of our Peter as he marched out of the office. Some of the girls cried as they watched his broad back and his manly, fearless stride. I confess that I choked, and perhaps I preferred just then to turn and look out of the window.

That was only three months ago. And to-day a letter has come from him-in No Man's Land. Our Peter, our young Peter! He is in that country of barbed wire and bombshells.

He is in the trenches. And he has not had his boots off, he writes, sometimes for a whole week; and when he sleeps the rats race over him. But he is not afraid. He will give the Boche a run for his money! He will help to make this world a better place to live in. He will do his bit for democracy and truth. Oh, so modestly he writes down the words! There is seemingly no comprehension on his part of the big work he is doing. He merely alludes to it because he knows how interested we are in him our Peter. Now and then there is a simple French word. Think of our Peter speaking-and writing-French! Peter, who hardly got through the grammar school, and read only the baseball reports, and loved Briggs and Goldberg, and went to the movies with his best girl or his mother of an evening!

I think of modest Peter so often now. And yesterday, when I went out to my comfortable luncheon, in good company, and the tea dripped into the saucer so that I complained to the head waiter, I suddenly had a vision of him-in No Man's Land, with the rats racing over him while he lay worn out after days and nights in the foul trenches. And I was ashamed of myself, and wondered if I could ever complain again. For what matters anything in these desperate days to me-save our young Peter out in No Man's Land?

possible charge of the slightest responsibility for the misconduct of any man in the service.

CURIOUS CONDITIONS

These provisions form the most comprehensive measure of insurance protection ever offered to fighting men. To our own men there is thus afforded a proportionate consolation and courage not otherwise obtainable.

Yet the operation of these provisions has already brought to light some curious and sometimes poignant conditions.

For example, a number of men have actually remonstrated against making an allotment to their wives. In a great many of these cases, however, it is probable that the wives can get along themselves.

Again, by voluntary allotment a man could provide for his widowed mother under the automatic insurance which has now terminated. But suppose she is no longer a widow and is married again, but has been deserted; she might need her son's support more than ever. She could not get it. There are many cases of dependent mothers not widows and disabled fathers dependent on their sons. A bill in Congress is proposed to remedy this injustice.

THE COST

Many ask: What is all this Government War Risk Insurance scheme going to cost?

The cost has been estimated at some $700,000,000 during the first two years of its operation. While we may remember that any estimate is based on conditions which may change, we must surely remember, as Mr. Arthur Hunter, of the New York Life Insurance Company and President of the Actuarial Society of America, has said, that no cost is unfair or excessive which does justice to the men themselves and to their dependents.

QUALITY REQUIRED IN BUREAU WORKERS

To administer all these provisions of War Risk Insurance a force of Bureau workers is required, not only, as we have seen, remarkable for quantity, but necessarily remarkable for quality. It is not easy to get the right kind of workers for the War Risk Insurance Bureau. That it has found them is certainly a feather in the cap of the Treasury Department. The type of man required is admirably shown in the following letter from the Director of the Bureau :

To my Friends:

Co-Workers in the Bureau of War Risk Insurance:

Every letter, every claim, every inquiry handled in the Bureau of War Risk Insurance represents a vital human problem, and should be treated by you as such. Delay, inefficiency, or indifference on your part in handling any one of these important matters may result in anguish and privation to the wife, mother, or children of a soldier or sailor.

All America's fighting forces and their families depend upon this Bureau of the Treasury Department to carry out the provisions of the most comprehensive, the most humane, and the most liberal measure of protection ever adopted by any nation. If you regard any work before you as merely "another case," or any application, card, or inquiry as merely "a piece of paper," you are undermining the spirit and purpose of this great act, retarding the war efficiency of your Government, and bringing untold hardships upon many people.

F

The work on your desk is far more than ordinary office rou

tine-it is a throbbing, live reality. Put your whole hearts and souls into the duties to which you have been assigned, and think of yourselves as being arrayed in the great war, side by side with the fighting men in the trenches of France.

I am relying on each one of you for co-operative assistance. WILLIAM C. DE LANOY, Director.

SHYSTER LAWYERS

There is one person, however, whom we have not yet considered that human parasite, the shyster lawyer and claim agent. Take the recent Tuscania disaster as a case in point. Relatives of persons on the Tuscania whose lives were saved were put to the torture of being notified that their relatives and next of kin were lost. Indeed, so keen for business have been the claim agents that they have not hesitated to notify the next of kin of the loss of an entire ship-load when half the number have been saved. Why should these leeches longer be permitted to sap the blood of anxious but unsuspecting people?

In the War Risk Insurance scheme there are just two places where claim agents and attorneys are recognized. During the recent discussion of the subject in the House of Representatives Mr. Treadway, of Massachusetts, a leader in insurance reform, clearly pointed them out. One is in the preparation and execution of the necessary papers, for which not over $3 is to be charged for the purely clerical service. The other is in connection with a possible lawsuit, in which the attorney's fees are not to exceed ten per cent of the amount recovered. Any person who shall solicit or receive anything more shall be punished by a fine of not over $500 or by imprisonment at hard labor for not more than two years, or by both. On May 10, 1918, the Senate passed unamended the House bill providing for this.

In the collection of any benefits granted by the War Risk Insurance Act there is no necessity for the employment of any claim agent or attorney. The process of such collection is simple and the Bureau of War Risk Insurance is prepared to give any and all assistance required; in fact, on the back of each certificate issued for the insurance the beneficiaries are advised not to employ claim agents or lawyers, and are requested to come direct to the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, the only expense being for notarial fees.

The American Bar Association, we are glad to add, proposes to co-operate with the Treasury Department in keeping a sharp eye out to detect any claim agent, attorney, or other person who violates the law. The name of any such should be sent to the American Bar Association, 1712 I Street, Washington. In every district there is a Local Advisory Board, whose duties have been to help registrants in filling out their questionnaires. The American Bar Association is communicating with the Chairmen of these Legal Advisory Boards, requesting them to organize the lawyers within their districts to render service free of charge to the dependents of soldiers and sailors who have claims under the War Insurance Act. As Mr. McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury, says: "A great service can be rendered by making these facts clear to the dependents of soldiers and sailors who are being approached by unscrupulous persons." Patriotic service is being rendered not only by our men abroad in the trenches, but also by men at home who are serving gratis claimants under the Insurance Law.

ROM a night of calm security I rose, as did thousands about me, to the day's work.

But before I could leave my room the steam whistles of all the great industries in the great city and of all the steamcraft in its great harbor began to blow; to bellow and scream and roar and wail in unnumbered voices that presently fused into one and rolled down through hundreds of miles of streets into the open country and out to sea.

I wondered but a moment, and then I knew. I knew the same uproar was sounding in every ear from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Niagara to the Gulf, and that it proclaimed the first rounded twelvemonth of our Nation's share in the war for civilization. I knew it was our notice. to. the round world

that all we have done in this thrice-busiest year of our Nation's life is but a beginning of what we shall do. It was Paul Jones's cry from the deck of the blazing Bonhomme Richard, magnified by steam and a million trumpets of brass-" We've just begun to fight!" Wild, discordant, terrible it was-it is, for it will ring in my ears henceforth-our tocsin! the tocsin of a hundred million people speaking one wrath and one purpose. It was, it is, our answer to the great gun in the wood of St. Gobain, shelling the churches of Paris on Good Friday. It stoops to no further mockery of argument or negotiation, yet says as definitely as human voice ever spoke, "In the name of God and humanity, and of a just and permanent peace to a free world,

No treaties made this side the Rhine."

"W

TE brought out the fat lady and introduced her to the audience, and she wasn't as fat as her pictures on the billboards, and the audience was disappointed." That is the aircraft situation as it was summed up by a man who has been connected with it from the beginning. It probably isn't so far wrong. If America had made the most elementary preparations in developing an aircraft industry before the warpreparations it is almost incredible we failed to make the story would have been very different. But given the situation that actually existed and it is hard to escape the conclusion that, in spite of undoubted blunders, the men in charge have done a notable piece of work. Avoidable delays there were delays arising chiefly from the defects of an inexperienced and rapidly expanding organization. The programme was foolishly overadvertised. Promises were made that could not be fulfilled, and the public was stupidly kept in the dark when the delays and disappointments came. But a survey of the available evidence gives reasonable ground for belief that the essential policies were correct.

It may be frankly admitted that men of the highest standing hold views directly contrary to those here expressed. There is no such thing as a "consensus of opinion." Reputable engineers remain who still insist that the Liberty motor is a failure and that the whole policy has been bungled. The greatest confusion exists. Is magneto ignition preferable to the battery type? Is the angle between the twin sets of cylinders adopted for the Liberty motor hopelessly faulty? Is its radiation problem solved? Is the motor really practical or is it still in the experi-, mental stage? To these questions the most diverse answers are given by highly respectable persons.

In view of all these contradictions, it behooves the investigator to walk humbly. The best he can do is to size up his sources of information, check them against each other and against the known facts, and make allowance for the personal equation. It would be well for the reader to bear in mind that every statement to be made in this article will be challenged. These contrary opinions, however, have been given careful consideration in arriving at the views here set forth.

Let us start with the theory of the most reasonable of the critics, disregarding the wild charges of sinister influences and leaving the accusations of graft to the Hughes investigation. That theory runs about as follows: Admitting the honesty and good intentions of Mr. Howard E. Coffin, Colonel E. A. Deeds, and the others responsible for the programme, they committed fatal errors in policy. They put all their eggs in one basket and staked everything on an American-made motor. This motor proved a disappointment, or at least could not be developed in time for this year's programme. Consequently the country was left with no fighting planes. What the Aircraft Board should have done was this: It probably was justified in attempting to develop an American motor, but while working on this motor it should immediately have put into production in this country the best foreign motors. Then we should have had airplanes, even though the American motor had been a disappointment.

This argument, apparently, is unanswerable. Yet it leaves so many essential considerations out of the account that it is misleading. This is what happened: A survey of the field at the beginning of the war disclosed the existence of a trifling aircraft industry in this country, with very few aeronautical engineers. (There was a flock of men who thought they were, but were not.) The airplane motor is radically different from the automobile engine. It is as delicate as a watch. The French mission last year inclined to believe that America did not have the skilled workmen to build aviation motors and would have to

confine itself to rough training planes. The foreign motors were all hand-work jobs and were not available for quantity production. That was one reason why relatively few had been accumulated on the western front. The cry_constantly went up for more of the heavier bombing planes. The French and English were in shape to take care of the light pursuit planes with the smaller motors. They agreed with us that it would be worth while if we could design a powerful American motor for quantity production, suitable for bombing planes. To whom should the Board turn to design such a motor? The automobile industry had absorbed a large share of the engineering and business energy of the country in the last few years. It had been brilliantly successful. Naturally this industry was the one in which the Board put its main reliance. Two engineers were selected to design the motor, the one primarily an automobile engineer, the other an aviation engineer who had designed successful motors for the Dutch Government. They were asked to design a motor on approved lines (resisting the temptation to freak designs) that would develop 335 horse-power with a weight of about two pounds to the horse-power. Later the power was raised to 400. This was a higher efficiency than the British Rolls-Royce or the German Mercedes. It was not quite the efficiency of the Hispano-Suiza, a crack French motor of 150 horse-power, which, however, is difficult to build. After the design had been completed several leading gas-motor engineers were called in to study the design and suggest improvements. There have been heartburnings on the part of neglected engineers, but there seems little reason to suppose that the best engineering ability in the country was not employed on the work. The suggestions of these men were incorporated in the design, and then a committee of manufacturers was called in to make suggestions from the production standpoint. Then an experimental motor was built and finally brought up to about 400 horsepower at 1,700 revolutions a minute. Difficulties developed, as is always the case with a new motor. There was trouble with lubrication. Certain parts had to be redesigned. There were features that could not be worked out on the block, but had to wait to be tried out in flight in high altitudes. Gradually the difficulties were remedied and the motor was ready for quantity production in the late winter. Further refinements and improvements were made and will be made. But the motor in its present shape is an unqualified success. It has been put through the severest tests in the air at high altitudes and on the block. It has been run to destruction. The figures have not been given out, but the results have been so satisfactory that the engineers have no misgivings. The motor is now in use abroad and the original plane to be equipped with it in Dayton last October is still flying. By the middle of May production had passed the thousand mark. Two factories were then producing and others were expected to get into production in June. By July the production should reach one hundred and fifty a day-which is cutting in two the manufacturers' estimates. When it is recalled that the British official statement last year said that it took at least a year to get an air-engine into production, it is evident that the production of the Liberty motor in six months was an achievement.

But the Aircraft Board did not put all its eggs in one basket. It took into account the possible delay or failure of the American motor, and made provision against it. First, it must be understood that it is impossible to bring a foreign motor to this country and copy it. Certain changes must be made in it to adapt it to American methods of production. Also, even if the copy were made exact to the thousandth of an inch, the motor would not work successfully. The trouble is in the structure of