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impressed the Greeks and Roumanians that they did not join the Allies when the Bulgars joined Germany.

I`

THE PRINCES AGAINST THE

PEOPLE

N GREECE the popular hero, Venizelos, is against Germany. King Constantine, the hereditary ruler, is for Germany. Bulgaria joined the Central Empires more because Ferdinand wished it than because the Bulgarian people wished it. The Austrian Government states that King Emmanuel entered the war against Italy's former allies because he was forced to by the populace. It is certain that the Italian public is more friendly to France and England than to Germany and Austria. In Sweden, the democratic elements are pro-Ally, the military proGerman. Despite the fact that autocratic Russia is on the Allied side, the voice of the people practically the world over is against Germany, for everywhere men recognize that the Prussian system is the greatest menace to the existence of democratic civilization. Equally clearly the several hereditary rulers realize that if the Hohenzollerns should be subjected to the will of the people they, too, would soon come under the popular yoke. Even the Czar of Russia is leading his armies against the hereditary power of himself and his descendants, for if the Hohenzollerns were defeated and democracy ruled in Germany it would add tremendously to the rising power of the people in the Empire of the Romanoffs.

It becomes plainer every day that the war is a struggle for democracy and a test of the ability of democracies to survive.

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her works. And among her enemies these things breed a spirit of revenge far keener than any enmity developed by a fair fight. They breed a feeling that is against any settlement by compromise, a bitterness that is out of all proportion to the number of people involved.

If Germany feels sure of ultimate victory. it is folly for her to stimulate her enemies to the last possible effort by making them expect neither humanity nor generosity when they surrender. If Germany does not feel sure of complete victory, she can look forward confidently to seeing her asinine atrocities chalked up heavily against her and her allies on the day of settlement.

Not the least of the German asininities are the continuing bomb and incendiary conspiracies which are discovered here.

No one knows exactly what connection the German Government has with the incendiaries and bomb makers in this country who are trying to destroy munitions and munition ships leaving our ports. But these attempts are too frequent not to be carefully planned. They are all in Germany's interest. It hardly seems reasonable to believe that carefully planned campaigns which are in Germany's interests are entirely unknown to the German Government.

These bomb and burning conspiracies have not succeeded in appreciably stopping the flow of munitions, but they do increase the sense of resentment which every American has that Germany holds us so cheaply in estimation that she carries on such outrages among us, particularly with the Lusitania still not disavowed and still unatoned for.

At the same time certain Germans in this country with American citizenship papers are using the votes thus acquired against the President of the United States because he did not acquiesce in Germany's violation of our rights-which even Germany now admits was unjustifiable. These political efforts of the German-Americans are not spontaneous. They have a history, a very enlightening history, to which Americans with their customary good nature have paid little attention in the past. There is a very interesting glimpse of this history fifteen years ago in Mr. William

Roscoe Thayer's "Life and Letters of THE NOTE TO GREAT BRITAIN John Hay."

This German propaganda has gone on unmolested in the past, but there is no reason that it should continue. The President was right in calling upon the Nation to speak and act against those who use their citizenship for alien ends:

The only thing within our own borders that has given us grave concern in recent months has been that voices have been raised in America professing to be the voices of Americans, which were not indeed and in truth American, but which spoke alien sympathies, which came from men who loved other countries better than they loved America, men who were partisans of other causes than that of America and had forgotten that their chief and only allegiance was to the great Government under which they live. These voices have not been many, but they have been very loud and very clamorous. They have proceeded from a few who were bitter and who were grievously misled.

America has not opened its doors in vain to men and women out of other nations. The vast majority of those who have come to take advantage of her hospitality have united their spirits with hers as well as their fortunes. These men who speak alien sympathies are not their spokesmen but are the spokesmen of small groups whom it is high time that the Nation should call to a reckoning. The chief thing necessary in America in order that she should let all the world know that she is prepared to maintain her own great position is that the real voice of the Nation should sound forth unmistakably and in majestic volume, in the deep unison of a common, unhesitating, national feeling. I do not doubt that upon the first occasion, upon the first opportunity, upon the first definite challenge, that voice will speak forth in tones which no man can doubt and with commands which no man dare gainsay or resist.

The American Truth Society, a proGerman organization which has attacked the President and the United States Government in the interests of Germany, recently telegraphed the President that Congressman Bennet of New York, a Republican, was elected by their efforts as a rebuke to the American Government. This should cause Mr. Bennet some embarrassment, and it should be a warning to the rest of us to drop all other political differences until we have cleansed the country of the hyphenates.

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HIS task of championing the integrity of neutral rights

against the lawless conduct of belligerents, arising out of the bitterness of the great conflict which is now wasting Europe, the United States unhesitatingly assumes."

This is the keynote of the long note sent by our State Department to the British Government. The note explains carefully and courteously that we cannot admit that the British blockade is effective or legal; that we cannot acquiesce in a British policy based upon their expediency and not on international law; and that "the United States cannot with complacence suffer further subordination of its rights and interests to the plea that the exceptional geographic position of the enemies of Great Britain requires or justifies oppressive and illegal practices."

The note very accurately states in legal language the prevailing public feeling in the United States.

We believe that our rights are as important when we are at peace as those of any other nation are when it is at war. If we did not believe this, we should have to go to war to get our rights on an equal basis with others. We with all other nations have agreed to accede certain unusual privileges to nations at war, but these privileges are fixed and agreed. They cannot be changed at the fighting nations' conveni

ence. If we did not maintain this position, we should not be honest in our declaration of neutrality and we should lose our selfrespect. If the necessity of maintaining. this position hurts the Allies and helps. Germany, most people in the United States will be sorry, for the majority want the Allies to win; yet this feeling will not deter us from the obvious duty of maintaining our rights against encroachments. from whatsoever quarter they come. And this duty would be incumbent on us as a matter of principle whether or not it meant much to us commercially.

But we feel somewhat differently about interference with American commerce to neutral ports to which British commerce goes. If the American people become.

convinced that the British Government is allowing British merchants to capture a profitable trade while the British Navy interferes with our merchants in their effort to get this same trade, we will begin to feel that the British blockade is hostile to us as well as to Germany.

No one can help contrasting the tone of this note with the notes sent to Germany. It is as different as is the difference between interfering with trade and murder. There is no threat of the use of force, no hint of our intentions if our point of view is not met. The note by inference at least assumes that the matters it discusses will be amicably settled as did our first note to Germany. It is unlikely that this British. correspondence will ever acquire any other tone, for all our diplomatic relations with Great Britain for the last hundred years indicate that we can reach a satisfactory settlement in disputes with that country without the use of force.

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THE BALTIC BLOCKADE

HE main submarine effort has passed from the German hands to the British. The submarine blockade of Great Britain is over. The effort to close the Baltic to Germany is under way. The possibilities of submarine blockades are made somewhat clearer by a glance at the means of defense against the undersea boats. The German U-boat blockade wrought great damage, but it did not seriously interrupt the traffic of the British Isles. It did not interrupt the transport of British troops. It did not reduce the preponderance of the British navy. It failed because the British learned successfully to combat the U-boats. The ceaseless patrol of armored speed launches whose draft is so shallow that a torpedo passes harmlessly under the hull, torpedo boats, destroyers, converted cruisers, the battle cruiser fleet, and occasionally the great battle fleet-these make it dangerous for a submarine to come to the surface anywhere within the Germanmade war zone. And added to these are innocent looking tramp steamers which are, in reality, armed decoys. Aeroplanes and dirigibles act as scouts, for from an aircraft a submarine is visible at a

depth of one hundred feet. Nets-both floating and anchored-are scattered through the war zone; and the British harbors are protected by great booms and nets. A Franco-American improvement on the microphone, an instrument which detects the sound of the propeller of a submarine and the direction in which it is traveling, has added to the hazards of the U-boats. And a wireless call from the microphone station can bring the destroyer fleet to the scene.

Perhaps the most remarkable part of the British defense against submarines is that although the Germans had sunk, up to October 14th, according to the British official statement, 183 merchant ships exclusive of fishing boats, not a single transport or supply ship plying between England and France has been touched. The great nets defending the lane from England

the floating indicator nets which bob down when a submarine runs into one of them the aeroplane and dirigible patrol and other devices have rendered the Uboats impotent in that area. Submarine efficiency depends, perhaps more than in other kinds of fighting, on the skill of the commander, and so many of the German commanders and crews have been lost that the former efforts toward blockading cost more than they are worth.

II

The British Government officially reported that in twelve days twenty German merchant ships were sunk in the Baltic. This is England's effort to cut off the supplies that Germany has been getting from Sweden. Elsewhere in this magazine Mr D. Thomas Curtin, recently returned from Sweden, explains the importance of this trade and the commercial battles which England and Germany have been fighting on the neutral soil of Sweden. The English submarine blockade, if it were even reasonably successful, might deal an effective blow against Germany. It has an advantage over the German attempt in the North Sea in having Russian ports as bases and neutral waters as temporary havens of refuge. However, both shipping and submarines will be handicapped by the ice in the Baltic until spring.

In the meanwhile German submarines have slipped into the Mediterranean, there to menace the troop ships and commerce of the Allies, and the Allies' submarines slip up the Dardanelles with impunity and destroy the Turkish transports on their way to Gallipoli. Up to October 26th British submarines had sunk 213 vessels of all descriptions in the Sea of Marmora. These activities, however, are meant at best to harass the enemy. They are not main operations in themselves as the German blockade of Great Britain and the British Baltic blockade were intended.

A DISAPPOINTING ELECTION

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HE result of the election of November 2d was disappointing. The Democracy of New York City won, which is a misfortune, for the Democracy of New York City is Tammany. The Republicans won in Philadelphia, which is a misfortune, for in Philadelphia the Republican machine is about as bad as Tammany. The draft of the state constitution was defeated in New York by an unprecedented majority and thereby a measure of great governmental progress was lost.

Various people have endeavored to get some consolation out of the election, but it is a rather fruitless effort. The suffragists point with gratification to the great number of votes which they polled. Yet unquestionably they had hoped to carry at least one Eastern state, and their failure to do so cannot help but be a disappointment. Moreover, it is not necessarily true that their next effort will be more successful than this one. In Michigan, for instance, suffrage was beaten by 760 votes in 1912 and by 106,144 in 1913.

The Republican Party can congratulate itself upon the election of a governor of Massachusetts. But even there the Democratic candidate, Governor Walsh, not particularly a strong figure, received more votes than he received in the previous election. There is not much national significance in this result except as it points a way toward a reunion of the Republicans and Progressives. In Massachusetts this reunion can be accomplished without Mr. Roosevelt; nationally, it cannot.

The Democratic governors of Maryland and Kentucky have been accepted as good signs for national Democracy, but the pluralities by which they were elected were not large enough to be of any particular comfort to the Administration.

The election proved nothing definite in national politics, except that Mr. Root is not a possible Republican candidate. The defeat in New York of the state constitution, of which he was chief sponsor, made this clear.

REPUBLICAN FAVORITE SONS

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HERE are half a dozen "favorite sons" of as many states coquetting with the public in the hope of receiving enough encouragement to announce their candidacy for the Republican nomination for the Presidency-Senators Burton, Borah, Cummins, Weeks, and exVice-President Fairbanks. Some of these are able men, Senators Burton and Borah in particular, but none of them has convinced the public that he has the ability of Justice Hughes or Mr. Root. The very evident feeling of the general public that Justice Hughes and Mr. Root are abler (though the defeat of the constitution in New York proves Mr. Root unavailable) somewhat dampens the enthusiasm for these other candidates. There is, moreover, another even more blighting influence over the whole field of choice for a Republican nominee: Mr. Roosevelt's shadow stretches from Oyster Bay across the whole Republican map. Republican map. There is little hope of the rehabilitation of the party without his help. There is no hope against his active opposition. If the Republican Party does not name some one acceptable to Mr. Roosevelt, it can look for his active opposition, and, with it, defeat.

As matters stand now it is doubtful that any candidate, even with Mr. Roosevelt's help, could threaten the President's hold upon the public. It seems as sure as such things ever are a year in advance that he will be reëlected. The other practically certain fact is that if the Republicans want to rebuild the party into fighting trim they will have to do it with the advice and consent of Mr. Roosevelt.

And unless the Republican organization has a change of heart (if not a change of body) it is not likely to get Mr. Roosevelt's endorsement. It still has too large an element of the old stand-patters who have their faces turned steadfastly back to the days and ways of the McKinley régime, who would like to forget the progress they made under Mr. Roosevelt. And this Mr. Roosevelt will not allow. In the whole situation, as far as personalities go, Mr. Roosevelt has the whip hand.

II

The Republican Party suffers from the lack of a platform as well as from a lack of leadership.

There are four subjects now particularly before the public mind on which the Republicans must present a better programme than the Democrats, or convict the Democrats of failure to carry through their plans. These subjects are:

(1) National defense, (2) the abolition of the pork barrel, (3) economic provision to meet the conditions after the war, and (4) Mexico.

The present Administration is now putting forward measures for national defense far more adequate than any previous Administration ever advocated. If these measures are passed, the defense issue will not be worth much to the Republican Party, for during fifty years of almost unbroken power it left the country unprepared. In the same category is the pork barrel issue. Democrats and Republicans alike indulged in the organized waste of public money. But the Republican Party. was the dominant party during the era when this abuse assumed its present gigantic proportions. Only if the Democrats fail to provide a remedy can this issue be used to help a Republican can

vass.

The problem of meeting the economic conditions which shall arise after the war is extremely complex. The business interests which usually look to the Republican Party to give them what they want desire a high tariff-on dyestuffs, for example to protect their prices in the home market, subsidies for American shipping, and a liberal immigration law so that the cheap

labor of Europe may come to do our unskilled tasks.

The Democratic Party, on the other hand, representing the consumer, proposes to check unfair foreign competition by the same laws that operate against unfair domestic competition. But in the shipping question and the immigration question its position is not so clear. Mr. McAdoo wants a Government-financed shipping company. This is an expedient to get ships without a subsidy, but it is not essentially a Democratic expedient. The Democratic House at the last session passed a somewhat stricter immigration law than the one we have now, but the President vetoed it.

But however these items in the programme to meet the changed economic conditions are handled, the Republicans can make capital of them only if the country is not prosperous. If prosperity reigns, whether because or in spite of the Democratic handling of these questions, the Democrats will get the credit for the prosperity.

The President has done the right thing in Mexico but in the wrong way. Unquestionably the majority of Americans want Mexico to attend to itself. That is also the main idea underlying the President's policy toward that country, But the agencies through which the Administration worked fumbled the policy so that it was much misunderstood both in Mexico and at home. And if Carranza cannot improve matters in that unhappy country, the Republicans will be able to make some capital out of the Mexican issue.

Altogether, then, the Republicans can only adopt a policy of watchful waiting for the Democrats to measure up to the tasks before them. If the Democrats fail the failure will spell opportunity for the Republican Party.

III

The most interesting question, therefore, in our political situation from the national and from both partizan standpoints is whether or not the Democratic Party will continue to make good. That, of course, depends upon the President's

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