COPYRIGHT BY INTERNATIONAL FILM SERVICE A WOUNDED VILLISTA IN AN AMERICAN MILITARY HOSPITAL It is said that the wounded Mexican soldiers who have been brought to the military hospital in Columbus, New Mexico, for treatment, as shown in the above picture, cannot understand why their execution is being so long delayed! Kindness and help from enemies 'seem incredible to them. Acquaintance such as this with the hated "gringoes" makes them realize that Americans are really their friends COPYRIGHT BY INTERNATIONAL FILM SERVICE A PREPAREDNESS SQUAD ON A NEW YORK SKY-SCRAPER'S ROOF The young men shown in the photograph are employees of a great life insurance company. On the spacious roof of the company's building they are practicing, during the noon hour, the nili ary steps which they may later learn more perfectly in some of the summer camps for military, training The Outlook again publishes this inexpressibly pathetic picture of an American mother and her six children whose lives were lost on the Lusitania, an unarmed merchant ship which was sunk without warning by a German submarine on May 7, 1915. For this irreparable act no atonement has been made. On the occasion of this anniversary, to be observed by commemorative meetings, we reprint this picture as a memorial AS MR. DAVENPORT FORESEES THE CAMPAIGN THE DEMOCRATIC SITUATION The Democratic party will attempt to prove, and to a considerable extent will be able to prove, that it has been constructive upon some notable issues left over from long discussion in the past; that it has refused to be driven into war, or even to the brink of war, until every attempt had been made to obtain National honor through peace. Preparedness without militarism, prosperity without favoritism, peace without dishonor, is to be the Democratic slogan. And the country will then determine whether on the whole the Democratic party has shown itself fit to rule in the new and greater day of National preparation which is upon us; or whether it is likely to deal with American problems in a timid, halting, and ineffective fashion. THE REPUBLICAN SITUATION But with the Republican party the case is not so simple. As in 1912, so in 1916 the struggle is on for the soul of the Republican party. . . . The future usefulness and service of that party depends upon the outcome. . . . There is the same tendency as in 1912 to obscure the issue, to lay emphasis upon the tariff and full dinner-pails, "tried Republicans," and shibboleths generally instead of ideals. . . . But this is the attitude only of a powerful fragment of the Board of Control, . . . who do not for a moment represent the attitude of the rank and file nor the best leadership of the Republicans. . . . The Republican party is fighting within itself for its soul, for a policy and a leadership of National altruism and powerful Americanism. Upon the outcome of the struggle depends the question as to whether, as in the days of its origin, it can further aid the Nation to find its own soul. THE PRE-NOMINATION CAMPAIGN THE SOUL OF THE NATION FINDING ITSELF T STAFF CORRESPONDENCE BY FREDERICK M. DAVENPORT HE most trenchant criticism of the present Administration at Washington is that it has not succeeded very well in stilling jangling voices, in stirring profoundly public intelligence and feeling, in bringing out the best in the soul of the country. Every man is two men. The shrinking, inert, trouble-dreading, habit-bound, narrowvisioned, provincial qualities of human nature exist side by side with the active, fearless, freer, broader instincts of the human spirit. These two sets of qualities are in perpetual conflict. Whether on the average in a country one set of qualities or the other is regnant and controlling depends a great deal upon the leadership of the country. The men at the front in government and in public opinion are heavily responsible for bringing out the best, less than the best, or the worst in the majority of average men among the hundred millions of a vigorous people like the Americans. When we speak of the lack of soul in a man, it is the whole range of the higher and nobler traits in him that we miss. Now the national soul is only a concert of individual souls. And when foreign observers say of us, and we say of ourselves, that there is in the midst of the present world conflict and world problems no clear, definite soul of the American people, we mean that there is no sharp cleavage between the lower and higher nature of the Nation, that the two are helplessly commingled, and that there is as yet no magnet powerful enough to separate the iron filings from the dross. No event tragic enough, no idea influential enough, no leaderership in Government or public opinion powerful enough, has as yet appeared. In the present difficulties, the millstone about the neck of Democratic leadership has been the Bryan element and spirit within the Democratic party. Such an influence is fitted only for a limited agitation about domestic affairs, and not at all for a firm and wise and courageous facing of intricate and perilous foreign relations which involve the higher dictates of humanity and of right. And between the need of placating the Bryan element in Congress and the failure instinctively and decisively to understand the nature of other governments and peoples, the foreign policy of the Administration has seemed to be feeling its way uncertainly along, and the soul of the Nation is not stirred nor strengthened. The National weakness of spirit shows itself in the various humiliating and purely political proposals during the present crisis in the Congress of the United States. Of these the Hay Bill to reorganize the military system of the country is the worst, not only because of its utter lack of vision, but because it is so palpably connected with stratagems and spoils. It is one more revelation that the Congress of the United States is either too ignorant or too reckless or too feeble to care for honor, efficiency, or country, but only for a Constitutional theory, a selfish vote-getting interest, or the exigencies of the support of a political machine. I am talking about the things that Congress is now working at. It is displaying the same narrow vision in its preparation to meet the immigration overflow after the war. There has been a wealth of discussion as to what is going to happen when the war ceases— whether capital and labor will profitably flow into the European areas of destruction for the purpose of rebuilding, or whether there will be a rush of immigration to America to escape intolerable burdens of misery and taxation. The truth seems to be that we are not likely to get many English or French or Germans, but very likely to get an increasing multitude from southern Europe, particularly from the Balkan States, from Poland and Galicia and Servia. An illiteracy test would artificially and mechanically restrict this flow, but we have not the slightest reason to believe that it would separate the superior from the inferior, nor clear up the immigration perplexity. The country needs a continuous and sufficient supply of immigrant labor in the right places. An expert Federal immigration commission, working under a reasonable law, with powers of discrimination as to the volume and as to the sort of labor which shall be admitted at any particular period, and as to where it shall go, would seem to be indicated by the needs of the country and the drift of National practice in other fields. But here again Congress gives no sign of National vision. Of course it is very important to keep the stupid and inefficient out of this country. We have enough of them. But how about keeping them out of Congress? with And so with the craven attitude respect to the Philippines. We thought we had that fought out in 1900. I suppose the danger of Philippine imperialism is a bogey of the past. Now the fear seems to be that we are straining democratic theory and National stamina by continuing to assume responsibility for our wards in the Pacific. And that, anyway, our wards do not need us any more. And even if they do, it is not wise to run the risk of incurring enmities in that part of the world. But still, while we are letting them go, we will hold on to the responsibility for a season—a policy shortsighted, vacillating, compromising, dangerous. How different from the National vigor and aspiration which the country for the moment felt when the Philippines first came to us. without our seeking. The Government and the American people together believed then that they were members of a race which grew great in spirit through service and responsibility imposed upon us under circumstances free from taint of aggression or touch of wrong. But the time would fail me to speak of the hostility of the National representatives to the continuance under public authority of the valuable examination, begun under the Taft Commission on Economy and Efficiency, into the lax and costly administrative methods of the Federal Government. And when it comes to Federal revenue, where is the courage or the insight to tax fearlessly and intelligently the abundant National resources ? Altogether in this country the States gather some twenty-five millions of inheritance taxes every year from a total wealth of nearly two hundred billions. England, with far less total wealth, collects easily two hundred millions from inheritance taxes. A firm grasp of the ordinary principles of taxation, the lowering of the income minimum, the collection by the Federal Government of the entire corporation and inheritance revenues, and the handing back of the larger portion to the States-these plain, practical hints of the men of science seem to be far from the mind or the interest of the Solons of Congress. Taxation and retrenchment at Washington are a game of politics and not of finance. But we cannot put the entire odium of the degradation of National intelligence and spirit |