risville, N. J., on July 18. The Washington Times, the Philadelphia Public-Ledger and the Brooklyn Eagle received on July 16, 19 and 20, respectively, letters from "Pearce" declaring that henceforth persons leaving America on British ships would do so at their peril, and harking back to the German Embassy's warning before the Lusitania was torpedoed. On July 26 an SOS call was received at the Fire Island station, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and by the coast guard ship Mohawk, but the distressed ship's appeal for help was broken off before her name or position could be given. "Pearce's" letter to The Brooklyn Eagle reads as follows: "Sir: You people of Brooklyn have already had one experience with the work of our men, and so, perhaps, it will be unnecessary to say more than a few words of warning. The Kirkoswald affair is still fresh in your memory; therefore, we will not waste words discussing this matter. The purpose of this communication is to warn the American citizens living in your vicinity to keep clear of British vessels sailing from Brooklyn, New York, New Orleans, Savannah, Newport News, and Montreal. Our men are now operating from each of these ports, and Americans will do well to heed this warning ere it is too late. "The Imperial German Government derives no satisfaction or profit from the killing of neutral Americans, and we are instructed to go to great lengths in order to give timely warnings to all Americans who contemplate voyages to Europe within the next two months. The explosive operations will supplement the submarine operations, which have proved inadequate to prevent the enemy from importing munitions from America. "We earnestly advise Americans who find it imperative to travel to Europe to sail only on vessels flying the American flag. Such steamers as those of the American Line, for instance, will be perfectly immune from either submarine or explosive operation. The Imperial German Government will, if requested, offer no objection to the American Government pressing into service the interned German vessels if the American vessels are found to be unable to accommodate the traffic to Europe. By publishing this warning American lives may be spared. "The circumstances under which this communication is written make it impossible for us to affix our proper signatures; therefore, we trust that you will accept for a signature our pen name. "PEARCE." Devotion to the Kaiser The annual general conference of the clergy of the North German Lutheran Churches met in Berlin during the week of June 24, 1915, and sent the following "telegram of devotion" to the Kaiser: "Your Imperial and Royal Majesty will most graciously deign to accept this most humble blessing and the assurance of true German devotion from the preachers of the North German Evangelical Conference assembled in conference. We raise our eyes with respect and love to your Majesty, the powerful and purposeful leader of the German nation. We are filled with the consciousness that the sources of German power are unconquerable, not only because of the complete union of the German princes and peoples, but because of the unexampled spirit of sacrifice which animates rich and poor alike, and, before all else, because we are a praying nation. "However great the pressure of our enemies may be on our victorious armies, the army of those who are praying at home will wrestle all the more earnestly in prayer, praying before God's throne for victory." Scientists and the Military Movement in Great Britain and the United States to Consult Civilian Experts E ARLY in June, H. G. Wells, the "novelist of science," wrote to the London Times a letter urging the necessity of mobilizing Great Britain's scientific and inventive forces for the war. On June 22 The London Times printed a second letter from Mr. Wells proposing the establishment of a bureau for inventors -" a small department collateral rather than subordinate to the War Office and Admirality." At the annual meeting in London of the British Science Guild on July 1, eminent scientists and chemists, Sir William Mather, Sir William Ramsay, Sir Boverton Redwood, Sir Philip Magnus, Professor Petry, Sir Ronald Ross, Sir Archibald Geikie and Sir Alexander Pedler, condemned the attitude adopted by the British Government toward science in connection with the war, and demanded that in future greater use should be made of the opportunities afforded by scientific knowledge in the prosecution of the struggle. A letter conveying this opinion was sent by these scientists to Prime Minister Asquith. On July 18 it was announced in London that a number of eminent scientists and inventors had been appointed to assist Admiral Lord Fisher, as Chairman of the Invention Board, to coordinate and encourage scientific work in relation to the requirements of the British navy. Lord Bryce was said to be instrumental in this undertaking. In the United States a similar movement was in progress. THE NEW YORK TIMES published on May 30 an interview with Thomas A. Edison declaring that in its preparations for war the American Government should "maintain a great research laboratory, jointly under military and naval and civilian control." In this could be developed the "continually increasing possibilities of great guns, the minutiae of new explosives, all the technique of military and naval progression, without any vast expense." If any foreign power should seriously consider an attack upon this country "a hundred men of special training quickly would be at work here upon new means of repelling the invaders," Mr. Edison said; "I would be at it, myself." Secretary of the Navy Daniels thereupon wrote to Mr. Edison a congratulatory letter, saying: "I think your ideas and mine coincide if an interview with you recently published in THE NEW YORK TIMES was correct." He added: One of the imperative needs of the navy, in my judgment, is machinery and facilities for utilizing the natural inventive genius of Americans to meet the new conditions of warfare as shown abroad, and it is my intention if a practical way can be worked out, as I think it can be, to establish at the earliest moment a department of invention and development, to which all ideas and suggestions, either from the service or from civilian inventors, can be referred for determination as to whether they contain practical suggestions for us to take up and perfect. What I want to ask is if you would be willing, as a service to your country, to act as an adviser to this board, to take such things as seem to you to be of value, but which we are not, at present, equipped to investigate, and to use your own magnificent facilities in such investigation if you feel it worth while. The consequence was Mr. Edison's appointment to head an advisory board of civilian inventors and engineers for a Bureau of Invention and Development created in the Navy Department. After a conference with Mr. Edison Secretary Daniels on July 19 wrote to eight leading scientific societies asking each of them to select two members to serve on the Naval Advisory Committee, and as a first fruit of the movement it was announced on July 23 that at the request of Mr. Edison, the American Society of Aeronautic Engineers had been formed with Henry A. Wise Wood as President and Orville Wright, Glenn H. Curtiss, W. Starling Burgess, Peter Cooper Hewitt, Elmer A. Sperry and John Hays Hammond, Jr., as Vice-presidents. Hudson Maxim on Explosives THE NEW YORK TIMES on July 11 printed an interview with Hudson Maxim, the inventor of explosives, in which Mr. Maxim said: Modern war is a warfare of explosives. The highly developed methods of defense, designed especially against explosives, are practically proof against everything but them. Attacking forces must disemburrow the defending forces; they must be blasted out of the ground. This warfare amounts, literally, to that. It is as if boys hunted woodchucks with dynamite. Each of the hard-won successes of the war has been a victory for well-placed high explosives. In the last fight around Przemysl the Germans fired in one hour, from field guns, 200,000 shells carrying high explosives. Reports indicate that the result of this was literally unprecedented. It actually changed the topography of the country. Valleys were dug and hills razed. Recently Lloyd George used an expressive phrase. The trenches," he said, "were sprayed with exploding with exploding shells." Such "spraying" only could be possible through the use of an incredible number of explosive projectiles. America's plants for the production. of explosives, cartridges, shrapnel, and rifles have so increased their capacity that we have today ten times the capacity which we had at the time of the war's outbreak, and, for certain things, the increase has been even greater. By the middle of next winter our capacity will be thirtyfold what it was at the beginning of the war. Thus the fighting among other nations has done much toward preparing us for war, and, therefore, much toward insuring international peace for us, but even our tremendous contribution to the supplies of the Allies amounts to only about 2 per cent. of what they are consuming, and the war has not been running a year. This indicates that if we should suddenly be involved in warfare with a great power we should be whipped unless we devised means for the increase of our productivity of war supplies, especially explosives and all ammunition materials, by a hundredfold. The consumption of war material has been unprecedented, and this indicates what may be expected in future wars. In trench fighting, for example, it is estimated that four times as many rifles as men are required. The fighting man must have two because one quickly gets hot and becomes unusable; he must have a third so that he may still have two if one is hit by the return fire or otherwise rendered inefficient; he must have the fourth so that at least one of his weapons may be in the arms hospital undergoing repairs if necessary, and be ready for him in case one of his others is demolished. This development of modern warfare means that a million modern soldiers need four million modern rifles. This indicates the enormous necessities which would devolve upon this country in case we were forced into a war. During the past week I have received a cable from an old friend in England who has been selling war munitions to the Allies. He asked me how quickly I could get a million rifles made in the United States. The best bids I have been able to obtain have guaranteed a first delivery at the end of one year and final deliveries at the end of three years. One of the chief developments in the matter of explosives has been the fact that the United States has found it possible to teach Europe much during this war in regard to smokeless powder. Several years ago the du Pont Powder Company developed a smokeless rifle powder which permits the firing of more than 20,000 rounds from an ordinary army rifle without destroying its accu racy. When the du Ponts developed their new rifle powder the best European powder destroyed the rifling and accuracy of the gun at about 3,000 rounds. This American invention, therefore, has increased the life of military rifles by sevenfold. Say that an equipment of military rifles cost at the rate of, say, $20 each, and we will find that this means a saving of, roughly, $100,000,000 in the equipment of a million men with one rifle each, and, as they need four rifles each, it means a saving of $400,000,000. American smokeless powder for cannon also has its advantages. It erodes the guns much less than any European powder except, possibly, that of the Germans. They have a pure nitro-cellulose powder somewhat similar in quality to that of the United States, but ours has an advantage in being multi-perforated, whereby a higher velocity is insured at a lower pressure with, in consequence, a lessened erosive effect upon the guns. In the early nineties I made the discovery that tri-nitro-cellulose, when combined with pyro-nitro-cellulose, could be much more readily gelatinated and made an excellent smokeless powder, while powder made from pure nitro-cellulose would warp and crack all to pieces in drying. The present German powder is made from such a compound of trinitro-cellulose and soluble nitro-cellu lose. Nevertheless, this compound is a makeshift as compared with the nitrocellulose used by this Government. Ours is a far better explosive, and is less erosive on the guns, because the gases which it generates are not so hot. We have the best smokeless powder in the world, and, after this war is over, our powder will be universally used. By George Bernard Shaw In a cablegram to THE NEW YORK TIMES, dated July 17, 1915, it is reported that an article by George Bernard Shaw in The New Statesman begins with a review of Professor Gilbert Murray's book, "The Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey," and ends with the following characteristic reference to himself: "Like other Socialists, I have been too much preoccupied with the atrocities of peace and the problems they raise to pay due attention to the atrocities of war, but I have not been unconscious of the European question and I have made a few shots at solutions from time to time. None of these have been received with the smallest approval, but at least I may be permitted to point out that they have all come out right. "I steadily ridiculed anti-armament agitation, and urged that our armaments should be doubled, trebled, quadrupled, as they might have been without costing the country one farthing that we were not wasting in the most mischievous manner. "I said that the only policy which would secure the peace of Europe was a policy of using powerful armament to guarantee France against Germany and Germany against Russia, aiming finally at a great peace insurance league of the whole northwest of Europe with the United States of America in defense of Western democratic civilization against the menace of the East and possible crusades from primitive black Christians in Africa. "When the war broke out I said some more things which were frantically contradicted and which have all turned out to be precisely true. I set the example of sharp criticism of the Government and the War Office, which was denounced as treasonable and which now proves to be the only way of saving our army from annihilation, the Government having meanwhile collapsed and vanished, as every ordinarily self-possessed person foresaw that it must. "One fact seems established by this beyond doubt; to wit, that I am the gravest public danger that confronts England, because I have the strange power of turning the nation passionately away from the truth by the simple act of uttering it. The necessity for contradicting me, for charging heroically in the opposite direction to that pointed out by me, is part of the delirium of war fever. "Sir Edward Grey, on the other hand, is spoken well of by all men, but he, too, is the victim of a mysterious fate. He is, as Professor Murray has repeatedly testified, the most truthful of men, yet he never opens his mouth without deceiving us. He is the most loyal of simple, manly souls, yet he is accused of betraying every country and every diplomatist who trusted him. He is the kindest of men, and yet he has implicated us in the tortures of Denshawai and brought upon us the slaughters of Armageddon. "Clearly, there are two men in England who must be sent into permanent retirement. Depend on it, there is something fundamentally wrong with them. It is a pity, for they are stuffed with the rarest of virtues-though I say it, who should not. One of them is Sir Edward Grey and the other is G. B. S." |