expenditure, or upon details as to the League of Nations and the Peace Treaty, is not of an understanding mind. The very landmarks of the Constitution are at stake in the contest as it will shape itself. The present foundations of American society, resting upon freedom of opportunity for individual effort, may be affected for a century by the results of the election of this year. Further more, the political action of men and women in the primaries, and in the nominating conventions of June, must have a great bearing upon the result at the polls in November.

GOVERNOR HENRY J. ALLEN OF KANSAS (Before the settlement of the coal strike in December, Governor Allen had determined that the sovereign State of Kansas should save its own people from freezing. Control of the Kansas coal fields was assumed by the State, and hundreds of volunteer workers, including students from colleges and universities and men from all walks of life, proceeded to the mines and began production in successful quantities. But for Federal intervention, it is probable that local action of various sorts under such leadership as that of Governor Allen would have settled the strike in a manner much more satisfactory than the compromise made by the Federal authorities with the miners' union. Governor Allen attended the Republican gatherings at Washington, and now ranks as one of the foremost leaders of the party)

previous wage adjustment, and, second, a study of the whole controversy by a commission to be appointed by the President which should deal with miners' demands and grievances, and with coal operators' profits. There was also the assurance that any further increase of wages as a result of the commission's work should date back to the time of resuming production. This strike of 400,000 coal miners had been stubborn beyond almost any other important strike in American experience. It subjected the innocent public to inconvenience and loss without need or excuse. Although the Washington administration seems to have assumed credit for ending the strike, the record, upon study, does not inspire much admiration. It was not good luck for the country that the Lever Act was still technically in force and that the Government undertook to head off the strike by injunction. The strike was called for November 1 and the President had issued official warning against it on October 25. An injunction was secured on the last day of October, but the strike began the next day and was apparently the more complete and unyielding because the injunction process had been used.

A Failure in

If the Lever Act had not exGovernment isted, if there had been no Fuel Control Administration, and if the Federal Government had ignored the coal situation, it is probable that the strike would have been settled much sooner and that the public would have been spared great suffering. The Government's method prevented States, local communities and affected industries from acting efficiently on their own behalf. The miners had begun by demanding a wage increase of 60 per cent. and a sixhour day with a five-day week. The Government apparently had done little to secure the production of coal or to end the strike; and particular States and regions had merely been hampered in their local endeavors to go straight to the coal fields and obtain needed supplies. The public had been subjected to a multitude of minute restrictions as to the use of fuel, including reduction of railroad service. The Fuel Administrator, Dr. Garfield, had proposed a 14 per cent. increase of wages which should not be passed on to the consumers of coal. He was opposed to points in the settlement, as finally made, and resigned. The small increase in wages is not now to be passed on in the form of increased coal prices to the

structive policies affecting their production and distribution." Mr. Lane is our best interpreter of "conservation," and he analyzes the coal situation, the water-power problem and various phases of petroleum production and demand, as bearing upon the country's future. He states once more his land policies in terms that to us are convincing. Alaska and its new railroad are favorite themes with Mr. Lane; and the training of young Americans is a topic he chooses for his climax and peroration. Mr. Lane had served notably on the Interstate Commerce Commission for a number of years, having been brought from California by President Roosevelt. He has now been veritable master and people's trustee of the country's physical domains for nearly seven years. His successor, whether Democratic or Republican, will study his reports with admiration and will find his policies for the most part worthy to be adopted and continued.

Mr. Glass Ends

We announced last month the a Year at the death of Senator Martin of Vir

Exchequer ginia and the appointment of Secretary Glass of the Treasury Department to the vacant seat. Secretary Glass did not immediately assume his new post, however, but remained to complete a year as Mr. McAdoo's successor. His report, while dealing with very large figures of taxation, expenditures and indebtedness, is optimistic. He finds the floating debt about to disappear, and current taxation in the near future equal to all expenditures of the Government, including interest and sinking fund charges on the funded debt. Besides clear statements dealing with our national finances, Mr. Glass presents a very important résumé of the financial relations of the United States with European governments. The Secretary declares that Government expenditure is the most vital factor in increasing the cost of living. He therefore urges rigid economy in appropriations and taxation to meet the Government's needs. He continues to oppose the excess profits tax in distinction from a proper war profits tax. The public debt of the United States at the beginning of November was, in round figures, $26,000,000,000. The report includes a summary of various services that fall under the direction of the Secretary, including the great business of Soldiers' and Sailors' Insurance. The Secretary makes a strong argument for a budget system to secure proper

management of the income and outgo of the Government. Mr. Glass deals with this subject out of abundant knowledge and experience from long service in Congress. He advocates the preparation of the budget by the Secretary of the Treasury on behalf of the President, and would have appropriations considered by a single committee in each house of Congress.

Mr. Baker and the Army

The report of Mr. Baker, as Secretary of War, begins with a broad and high-spirited review of the major facts of our participation in the Great War. The sudden termination of the war, with our effort as planned only half developed, precipitated the problems of demobilization which Mr. Baker also reviews. He refers to the report of General Pershing, which was published soon afterward, as a document containing much material of general interest. Probably the most important portion of Secretary Baker's report is that which deals with the question of permanent army organization. This subject is one of such magnitude that we shall defer it for more thorough future treatment. We may, however, quote Mr. Baker's statement that the military policy recommended by him and his Department "involve a new Army, created with a new spirit, having wide civic usefulness, and of such size and organization as to be an adequate reliance in case of need." He makes an extended argument against an independent aviation service, and suggests that in addition to the separate aircraft work of the Army, the Navy, and the Post Office, there should be a Joint Board for purposes of harmony and cooperation.

Daniels Praises the Navy

Secretary Daniels tells of the Navy's work in helping to bring the soldiers home-a very brilliant record in every way. He describes also breaking up of naval bases in France, Great Britain and the Azores, and here again the record is one of efficiency. We had soon reduced the man power of the Navy from 500,000 to 132,000, not including several hundred thousand Naval Reserves released from active duty. Mr. Daniels declares that the Navy has not lost sight of the future, and that its symmetry is unimpaired. Our naval strength is now next to that of Great Britain and far beyond that of any third power. The Secretary holds as firmly to naval aviation as Mr. Baker does to military

aviation. He tells also the brilliant story of sweeping up the 50,000 mines that our Navy had planted in the North Sea. The sentiment of the country, insofar as we understand it, is in favor of a skeletonized. Army reduced to the lowest possible limit of safety and of expenditure. The personnel of almost 4,000,000 men, highly trained in the war period, will be available in any emergency for at least a dozen years to come. We need to maintain military material, and to introduce gradually some system of training. The Navy, for some years to come, should be supported without hesitation upon a very large scale, this being our most necessary means of security and protection in a turbulent world.

Prohibition a Settled Policy

It was significant that the Republicans in their formal and informal gatherings at Washington last month were overwhelmingly in favor of supporting the policy of permanent prohibition. They were for enforcing prohibition laws, and for trying to help the country realize the substantial benefits to be derived from abolition of the liquor traffic. All through the last months and weeks of the year 1919, court actions were pending and efforts were being made to find outlets for the large quantities of liquor in storage. before the country should have entered upon the period of permanent constitutional prohibition due to begin on January 16. Court decisions here and there-as in St. Louis, where liquor that had paid the revenue taxes was thrown upon the market-gave temporary life to the defunct liquor traffic and operated to salvage a part of the loss of distillers and brewers. Taking the country as a whole, however, the prohibition régime had already been accepted as a matter of course, and money that had formerly been expended for alcoholic drinks had been diverted to other and better forms of personal and social satisfaction. The Supreme Court was unanimous in a decision rendered on Dec. 15 fully sustaining the temporary war-time prohibition enactment.

ulants will continue to assert itself in various ways is to be expected, and the dignity and success of the law will require vigilance in enforcement. But, speaking at large, the liquor business has disappeared because it can no longer have a legal standing, and because the vast amounts of capital hitherto invested in the manufacture of alcoholic drinks and in their wholesale and retail distribution will all have passed into other forms of enterprise, while the many thousands of workers in what were lawful occupations will, as law-abiding citizens, have turned to other kinds of effort. There is great demand for housing and business premises of all sorts, and there could not be a better time for drinking saloons to go out of business, or to reorganize as restaurants, groceries, or soda and candy shops. The country as a whole will gain in large aggregate amounts, while the liquor people themselves will lose far less than some of their defenders had estimated.

War Risk and the Soldiers

reau.

Since the publication of the article on War Risk Insurance in the November number of this REVIEW there have been many indications of the interest taken by the whole country in the work of this important Government BuThe National Convention of the American Legion in session at Minneapolis in November adopted resolutions recommending the passage of legislation now pending in the Senate which provides increased compensation for disabled men, extends the classes of persons to whom insurance may be payable, and provides for the payment of converted insurance in a lump sum or instalments, covering three years or more, at the option of the insured. The convention also favored the House bill permitting the establishment by the Bureau of fourteen regional offices, and also authorizing the Bureau to advertise in newspapers and periodicals in order to inform service men of their rights under the law. Director R. G. CholmeleyJones of the War Risk Bureau last month invited the State Commanders of the American Legion of every State in the Union, together with the National Commander and National Adjutant, to meet at Washington. on December 15 for a three-days' session in which all matters concerning the relations of the Bureau to former service men and their beneficiaries and dependents were to be considered. The Bureau is seeking closer coöperation with soldiers' organizations.

Harris & Ewing, Washington, D. C.

THE HON. JOSHUA WILLIS ALEXANDER OF MISSOURI (Who succeeds Mr. Redfield as Secretary of Commerce in President Wilson's Cabinet. Mr. Alexander, of Gallatin, Mo., has been in Congress from his District for the past twelve years. He was previously a Missouri judge)

A Trade Balance

The annual report of the Secreof Four tary of Commerce shows that in Billion Dollars the fiscal year ending June 30, the United States established a new high record for a year's trade balance in the history of the world's commerce. The amount of exports and the amount of imports will reach also new high marks in our history. Exports amounted to more than seven billion dollars, while imports passed the three billion dollar mark. A striking feature of the report is the statement that the world's merchant fleets have so increased in tonnage as to have passed the pre-war figures, in spite of the losses occasioned by war. Furthermore, the ships now under construction are more than double the number under way before the war. The greatest gain in merchant ships has come, of course, in the United States, where the steel steamships now aggregate six million gross tons, four times as much as in 1914, and are increasing at the rate of 350,000 tons monthly. "The annual output of our shipyards exceeded the greatest annual output of the world's shipyards before 1914. Steel shipbuilding plants have been extended or established with new ma

chinery, methods, housing and transit accommodations and in some respects superior to those abroad. American tonnage, clearing and overseas trade in the fiscal year of 1919, was six times greater than in 1914." This is Mr. Redfield's retiring report.

Trade with Germany

Of our seven billion dollars of exports, Europe took $4,600,000,000; North America, $1,290.000,000; Asia, $603,000,000, and South America, $400,000,000. In the trade with Germany for the ten months since the armistice, the United States has exported $52,400,000, while imports from Germany have been only $4,900,000. During this time, Great Britain exported to Germany goods valued at more than $80,000,000 and received imports of something over $1,000,000. America, however, seems to be rapidly overhauling Great Britain in the work of supplying German needs; our October exports alone were more than $20,000.000, or 40 per cent. of the amount for the whole ten months. The English started in with a rush to secure German trade. It is said that agents came along with the British army into the occupied territory and that under encouragement of the British Government some three thousand commercial travelers have come into Germany by way of Cologne, since its occupation.

The Depreciated German Mark

Germany is still importing more goods than she is sending to foreign countries in spite of a remarkable expansion in her export trade during the past half year, due largely to the great depreciation of the mark, and to the further fact that prices in Germany, while very high indeed, have not increased in many cases nearly as much as the mark has depreciated. Thus, Scandinavian and other merchants have been rushing to Germany and buying leather manufactures, optical goods, drugs, medicine and a variety of other things and getting them at bargain prices, as compared with those quoted in other countries, simply because while the mark had fallen to less than one-eighth (later, to onetwelfth) of its normal level, the prices of these goods have not in many cases increased eight-fold. Indeed, it is stated that the general level of prices has not risen half as much as the mark has fallen. That under these circumstances, Germany's import trade should still greatly exceed her export trade, is to be explained simply by the fact that the