Keystone

pleting his hundredth year and that his life was notable, not only for its longevity, but for its continued activity. In our interest in this fact perhaps there is a little danger of not laying sufficient emphasis on the value of Stephen Smith's contributions to the cause of hygiene and the public health. In addition to a long and notable career as a physician, he began over sixty years ago to take an earnest and active interest in those matters which were then astonishingly little in the public mind. A writer in the New York "Herald" thus depicts the condition of things in New York City in 1851, when Dr. Smith entered Bellevue Hospital:

New York was a foul city. It was as bad when the Civil War was over. There was no health department, no tenement supervision. The streets, many of them not drained, reeked with garbage. Animals ran loose. The butchers operated where and as they wished. Cholera came and killed thousands. Smallpox was epidemic every five years. Typhus arrived with the immigrants and ravaged the tenements. The so-called "health wardens" were girmill keepers, payroll grafters.

In the reforms that followed Dr. Smith took an active and efficient part. He was a leader in the forming of a Citizens' Association in 1864, over which Peter Cooper presided. The report made by that association has been summarized as follows:

There were 495,592 persons living in tenements or cellars, at an average density of 247,000 to the square mile. Scattered among these tenements were 173 slaughter-houses, under no sanitary supervision whatever. More than five hundred places were designated by the inspectors as "plague spots," one of them being Washington Market and another Castle Garden. In two days the inspectors found 644 and in two weeks more than 1,200

cases of smallpox, with not the slightest attempt at seclusion of the patients.

Out of the agitation which followed this report came the establishment of the first Department of Health of New York City. From that time on Dr. Smith was prominent in all municipal and National health efforts, and when the National Board of Health was organized in 1879 he was made a member by President Hayes. Add to this that he was the first President of the American Public Health Association, that he did a great deal to make the administration of hospitals and nursing efficient and modern, and that these were only a few of his notable contributions to the public health, and it will be admitted that his ninety-nine years of life were as full as any one man's could be of earnest work for the welfare of the people.

that a German had succeeded in remaining in the air without a motor for twelve and a half minutes. That article appeared in The Outlook for August 16. Since then German aviators have apparently proved that a man in a glider under proper atmospheric conditions can keep aloft indefinitely. If there is any limit to the time which a man can remain in the air in a glider, it would seem to be the limit of human endurance. First came the news of a German remaining aloft an hour or more. This feat of Herr Martens aroused extraordinary enthusiasm among the spectators. Then came the news of Herr Hentzen's feat of keeping up for two hours and ten seconds, as we reported last week. Since then Herr Hentzen has added an hour to his record. More than that, other fliers have remained in the air for periods far exceeding the one which was a record less than a month ago. These German fliers not only keep in the air, but remain perfectly still like a kite, or soar in great sweeping curves or with sharp dives.

Not less extraordinary is the fact that some of these gliders have succeeded in landing on points higher than those from which they started.

Still further, in these tests in Germany, a Dutch aviator, Herr Fokker, the designer of the famous Fokker airplane used by the Germans during the war, glided aloft for three minutes with a passenger.

The French trials which have been | taking place have resulted in no such sensational results. Edmund T. Allen, the American who took part in the French trials, has in the meantime gone to try his luck in Germany.

A special despatch to the New York "Evening Post" says that the feats of the Germans are the result of six years of experimentation, involving studies of the flight of birds with moving pictures of birds on the wing. One of the results of this experimentation was the discovery

of the use which a bird made of its head | in flight. Study of these birds' heads convinced the Germans that the birds

1

felt the air with their heads, and were thus enabled to adjust their muscular movements to the air currents. As a consequence, this despatch by Samuel Dashiell says, the Germans went to work to devise a method of sensitizing a man's face, and they succeeded in doing so by the use of a liquid; so that "the pilot becomes endowed with a kind of sixth sense." That, at least, is the story which this correspondent gets from a German aviator. The experiments are said to be continuing at Magdeburg and do not come under the control of the Allies. One may believe this German aviator's story or not; but the records of the flights that the Germans have made seem indisputable.

ONE LAW FOR ALL

S

OME weeks ago a terrible thunderstorm and a gale swept over Long Island Sound in the vicinity of New York, and put in jeopardy the lives of thousands of men, women, and children in one of the municipal parks that skirts the waters of the Sound. Indeed, some lives were lost through the capsizing of boats and the destruction of a great Ferris wheel. Competent observers afterwards said that if reasonable attention had been paid to the manifest signs of an approaching storm no lives would have been lost at all.

This incident illustrates an easy-going attitude of too many Americans towards correcting economic or political disasters. In spite of black signs and the warnings of the weather-wise, they go on about their daily occupations, playing or working, until the storm breaks and catches them. This, we think, is the situation in which the country stands with regard to the coal and railway strikes.

At the present moment there is scarcely a railway in the United States that is running its trains on time; freight and commodities are delayed in transit. The country has about used up its surplus stock of mined coal, and not enough is now being mined to nake up the deficiency. We may find ourselves next winter, not only freezing, but in the midst of an industrial and economic chaos of suspended industries and high prices that will work greater hardships than were endured even during the war. So far as we can see, the only remedy which the employers and the strikers propose is that they should be let alone to fight it out among themselves. This seems to us to be not only unreasonable but intolerable. industrial war has been going on since the first of April in which the passions of less than five per cent of the popula

An

tion of the United States have been permitted to endanger the social and economic welfare of the other ninety-five per cent, and really nothing much has been done except to talk about it.

There are three courses of action which ought to be begun at once.

The first course which ought to be taken is to call into immediate play the executive power of the National Government. The duty of the executive branch of the Government is to enforce the laws on the statute-books, and in an emergency like that of a panic, or a great epidemic, or a great riot, to take over certain functions of administration that in ordinary times are left to private effort. The President of the United States ought immediately to use every power of the Government to establish law and order and to protect men who are willing to run the railways and mine the coal in doing their work. If the executive branch of the Government does not possess all the powers that it ought to have in this emergency, the legislative branch should immediately confer those powers.

The second course of action is legislative, and it is here that the phrase at the head of this article, "One Law For All," should be, as it were, the slogan. Thirty-two years ago, after a long period of public agitation and public education, a Federal law was passed, known as the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, which declares illegal "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations." Criminal penalties are prescribed for persons found guilty of entering into combinations in restraint of trade. This law was aimed at the pernicious power of organized capital. Under the Clayton Act, the Federal Government has specifically exempted organizations of labor or of farmers from the operations of this law against combinations in restraint of trade. This provision of the Clayton Act should be repealed, or modified, so that every organization or conspiracy, whether of farmers, of teachers, of law yers, of bricklayers, of coal miners, of railway workers, or of bankers, for the purpose of restraining trade, should be written down on the statute-books as criminally illegal. This is what we mean by one law for all. Nor would such a course of legislation be, as Mr. Gompers speciously argues, an attempt to enslave men. Such a law would not prevent the individual from quitting work, or groups of individuals from quitting work. It would simply forbid an organized combination to destroy an industry and by violence or intimidation to restrain those who desire to work from doing so. The danger of trade

unions to-day is not that they are demanding exorbitant wages. In most

cases we do not think their demands in the direction of increased wages are exorbitant. What is dangerous is that these demands are backed by an organized attempt to restrain industry from going on until it pays to the wageworker the profits which he thinks he ought to have. Where is the essential difference in equity, or in its effect on society, from the organized attempt of capital to restrain trade so as to increase profits? The organizations of capital are localized; trade unions should be localized. Organizations of capital are forbidden to create artificial monopolies; trade unions should be forbidden to create monopolies. Organizations capital are in the eyes of the law criminal when by corruption, bribery, or secret contracts they attempt to restrain trade. Trade unions should be made criminally liable for similar conspiracies. We do not say that a law or laws extending the principle of anti-trust legislation to trade unions would be simple to draw. There is a difference between control of commodities and control of services. But we do say that the analogy between the controlling of organized capital and the controlling of organized labor is very plain.

of

The third course of action is ethical and educational. As long as capitalists and laborers are taught by their leaders and by experience and practice to consider themselves as living in two hostile camps we shall continue to have industrial crises, although their terrors can be somewhat mitigated by executive and legislative control. More than forty years ago an English political economist, Arnold Toynbee, maintained the theory that organization of labor is inevitable and desirable, but that organization should be not one between all laborers in competition with an organization of all capitalists, but groups of laborers and capitalists organized together and competing with other groups of laborers and capitalists. In fact, however, laborers and capitalists have developed an industrial scheme on the lines which Toynbee condemned. The result is that we have an industrial community divided into two antagonistic and usually hostile sections. A few men in our time are beginning to discard this method of class organization, and are endeavoring to substitute a co-operative for the military scheme of industry. They are endeavoring to promote co-operation between the capitalists and laborers in one organization to compete on the basis of service and efficiency with other similar groups of laborers and capitalists. This, as we understand it, is the essential principle of the Shop Committee Plan. It is this plan which

has such notable sponsors as Mr. Mitten, of the Philadelphia Street Railway Company, and Mr. Atterbury, of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In the scheme which prevails in American industry at present the employers and the workmen inevitably look exclusively after their own interests and are more or less suspicious of each other. On the other hand, if capitalists and workers were so organ ized that the welfare of the combination depended upon the good will and industry of both laborers and capitalists, the tendency of the industry would be continually to bring the men together.

If the executive branch of the Government will courageously suppress violence and protect the right of every individual to work when and where he pleases under the regulations of the general law; if the legislative branch of the Government will see to it that regulatory law applies to individuals and groups with an even hand and without fear or favor; and if American industrial leaders, both capitalistic and laborite, will constantly preach and practice the doctrine of co-operation in industry, we shall secure, not only more comfort, but more justice.

A FLEXIBLE TARIFF

OME questions which divide parties

Sinvolve moral choice. Some in

volve choice between political principles. Some are merely questions of expediency. It is because the tariff question has been one involving virtually no moral or political issues, but only an issue of expediency, that it has never become a fundamental issue in American politics and has never been settled. Such feeling as it has aroused in the minds of the voters has been occasioned by resentment at its burdens or by the desire for its benefits. So far as its benefits or burdens have been inequitably distributed, the tariff question has raised a question of justice which involves a moral choice. In so far as one tariff law has tended in the direction of free trade by extending the free list and lowering the general scale of duties or another law has tended in the direction of a Chinese wall by reducing the free list and by raising the general scale of duties, there has been injected into the question some suggestion of political principle. For the most part however, the tariff has been discussed and decided upon from time to time in accordance with what has seemed to those in authority to be for the time being the best practical adjustment of conflicting interests.

As we pointed out last week, this task of carrying out a policy of expediency is pregnant with political disaster for the

party in power. It almost invariably causes dissatisfaction to every interest that is looking for a benefit from the tariff, for it is bound to bestow on each interest less than is demanded. At the same time, each benefit received by a specific interest is as well a burden to the consumer. One party may choose to try to lessen the burden of the consumer and risk the wrath of those who expect to be beneficiaries, while the other party may choose to meet the expectation of the different interests and risk the remonstrances of the burdened consumer. The difference between the parties on the tariff issue is almost wholly a difference in the nature of their constituencies and not a difference of principle. Each party in turn passes a tariff law to please its own constituency and is duly punished. It is natural that the parties have become tired of this procedure and have sought some way of avoiding the ill consequences of tariff legislation.

There has therefore grown up in recent years an agitation for what is termed a "scientific tariff." If Congress can only escape political responsibility for the tariffs it enacts by persuading the people that the effect of the tariff is due, not to any policy on the part of the politicians, but to "science," it will be relieved of a great load, and the several members of Congress will find their political pathways freed from many pitfalls.

There have been several devices proposed for formulating such a scientific tariff.

One of these devices is to adopt a measuring rod according to which the various schedules can be fitted into the tariff structure. Such a measuring rod has been proposed by both Republicans and Democrats in the phrase "the difference between cost of production here and abroad."

Another device, closely connected with this, is that of a tariff commission. Such a commission, in fact, has been created and has served as a fact-finding body.

At the request of
The Outlook

J. ST. LOE STRACHEY Editor of the London "Spectator " has sent an estimate of NORTHCLIFFE which will be printed

next week

Those party leaders who have believed in establishing a tariff that would meet the difference in cost of production naturally have turned to the tariff commission to get information as to what the cost of production is here and what it is abroad. Some publicists and students of politics would empower the tariff commission to fix tariffs much as the Inter-State Commerce Commission is empowered to fix railway rates.

The latest proposal, which has been adopted by the Senate, has been to put the task upon the President of the United States.

There are special reasons for this latest proposal. In the first place, Congress does not represent the whole country; it represents only the sum of all its parts. In tariff matters this is a vital distinction. Each Congressman or Senator must look at the tariff question from the point of view of his constituency. As a consequence, there is no one in Congress whose duty it is (except as he may make it his conscientious duty as an American citizen and patriotic public servant) to look at the tariff from the point of view of the Nation as a whole. In our Government it is only the President of the United States and those under his authority that can be expected to do this. It is therefore only the President or some man or body of men responsible to him that can so administer the tariff as to destroy it as a local issue, and it is only by the destruction of it as a local issue that the tariff can cease to be the hobgoblin of political parties.

In particular a reason for placing this responsibility upon the President exists in the present international situation. Tariffs calculated upon the cost of products abroad would be very uncertain owing to the instability of exchange. The attempt by the House of Representatives to avoid this by calculating tariffs according to valuation in the American market has encountered strong and reasonable opposition. If the tariff is really to be stable, paradoxical as it may sound, it must, under present circumstances, be made flexible. It must be made adjustable to the changing factors in international trade. To provide such flexibility is beyond the power of Congress; for that legislative body cannot be all the time in session amending schedules. It can secure this #exibility only by intrusting the determination of tariff rates, within certain fixed limits, to some administrative authority; and the natural authority to turn to is the President. Of course the President would not personally determine those rates. He would act upon the information and advice of the tariff commission and of his other counselors; but the au

thority and responsibility would be the President's.

The people of the United States are not, and are not likely to be, in favor of free trade. They are not in favor of a Chinese wall tariff. They want a tariff that will provide revenue and protection. It is idle to denounce particular tariff measures for particular sins, since any substitute tariff is going to be also denounced for its particular sins. Such criticism of the tariff in detail furnishes no guidance for public opinion. Even less illuminating is general denunciation of a measure as a tariff of abomination -as the present tariff bill has been called. Either Congress, employing its own committees for investigation and drafting measures, must provide such regulation and adjustment as expediency for the time being indicates, leaving the tariff as the troubler of politics, or else it must intrust this adjustment and regulation to an administrative body under the authority of the Chief Executive. Is there any other alternative?

T

IS IRELAND
LEADERLESS?

HOSE who fear that the deaths of
Michael Collins and Arthur Grif-

fith may prove fatal to the cause of the Irish Free State do less than justice to the strength of that cause. Yet it is true that the progress already made would never have been achieved but for the courage and insistence of these two men; for they stood so high in the regard of all Irish patriots that their word carried weight. When Collins and Griffith said that the London treaty paved the way to self-government, Irishmen believed them. So the strength of the Dominion plan grew and the dream of absolute independence faded away.

"Ninety per cent of the people of Ireland are for the Free State," says exGovernor Glynn, of New York, "and the threats of fanatics and slaying by gunmen cannot alter this fact." And Archbishop Mannix cabled from Australia that the death of Collins emphasizes the need of an arbitrament of reason. Moreover, the discussion as to fit successors to the dead leaders has brought out the fact that there had been formed under them a group of serious and well-equipped men who are working steadily at practical problems of government and organization. Mr. W. T. Cosgrave, who now temporarily heads the civil side of the Provisional Government, is such a man. There is quiet resolution in his reply to a despatch from Winston Churchill, of the British Ministry, who had declared that his Government had full confidence that the treaty plan would be faithfully

International

and resolutely maintained. Mr. Cosgrave said:

President Griffith and General Collins had selected and attracted to whole-hearted co-operation with them a number of colleagues, some of whom you have met. The Government so formed has stood, as you know, with unswerving consistency to the programme of carrying into full effect, in accordance with the declared will of the Irish people, the treaty which was entered into between our plenipotentiaries and recommended by President Griffith and General Collins as offering the fairest hopes to our much-tried people. We, their colleagues, have the same faith and stand by the same policy, and, though overwhelmed with sorrow, take up the same task with the same determination and confidence.

It has been a weakness of Irishmen that, while they have been able to die for a cause, they have rarely shown ability to govern. Now, under the moderate and reasonable terms of the Free State, they have the finest opportunity conceivable to develop that capacity. If the draft of a Constitution now being drawn up by the Free State leaders and the British Government follows liberally the lines of the London treaty and makes it clear that the Free State in all essentials will be as self-governing as is the Dominion of Canada, it will be indorsed by the bulk of the people of Southern Ireland, and the most promising political era of Ireland will begin.

The hope of the insurgent forces now infesting the Free State is not to defeat its army, but to make the condition of Ireland so bad that Great Britain must intervene and the old order of resistance and general turmoil be resumed. Their "war" has resolved itself into a series of local skirmishes and attacks from am

bush such as that which resulted in Collins's death. In fact, although this killing has been called a cowardly assassination, it was as near to a military engagement as most of the insurgents' so-called battles. Collins with other officers in uniform was inspecting military positions near Cork when the ambush was sprung by a superior force, and a brisk fight ensued in which Collins played his part bravely. The whole affair was typical of the guerrilla fighting now carried on by De Valera's desperate followers.

No other man's death, not even Griffifth's, has affected the common people of Ireland so deeply as that of Collins. His was a romantic and adventurous personality; he was intrepid, resourceful, and devoted to his country. Other men might be suspected of treachery or self-interest; no one has dared to call Collins a traitor, and no one is surprised when the Prime Minister of the Government which had once put a price on his head speaks of him as "a leader of great energy and devotion and a man of remarkable personal charm."

When one remembers that the population of Ireland is somewhat less than that of New York City, it certainly induces the feeling that Ireland has had too much turbulence for its size; the world is decidedly tired of reading of rancorous partisan fighting, sectarian hatred, and the warfare of assassination. The majority of the people want quiet and-as an Irishman might say-are willing to fight to the death for it. The opportunity for peace and prosperity was never better than now if only the workers of the people can prevail against the intolerance of the comparatively few "bitter-enders."