joint labor of himself and his fellowworkers. If Mr. Vanderbilt and Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Carnegie have made too much money, it is not because they have not known how to spend what they have made, but it is because they have been overpaid for the services which they have rendered to the community. The New York "Times" reports that in thirteen States of the Union railway engineers and conductors get annually from $3,696 to $4,704, and it contrasts

these figures with the average incomes of public officials, clergymen, physicians, lawyers, and college professors. There is no doubt that clergymen and teachers and, in general, public officials in this country are underpaid, and we think there is very little doubt that the multimillionaires have been overpaid-not by their salaries, but by the opportunities they have been afforded for speculation. The first phase of the industrial problem to which thinking men should address themselves is this: What can be done, if anything, by legislation to secure a more just and equal division of the products of the joint labor of the people of the United States?

It is a primary duty of government to do all that can be done to prevent robbery, whether by robber bandits, robber governments, robber organizations of capitalists or robber organizations of workingmen. A government which taxes the many to enrich the few is a robber government; a capitalistic organization which exploits the many to enrich the few is a robber organization; and no less is it true that an organization of workingmen which exploits the many to enrich the few is a robber organization. Society must find some better way of determining how the money paid by the people of the United States for transportation can be justly divided than by leaving the division to be determined by industrial

war.

A second duty which government owes to the community is such an education as will enable all its members to live-not merely to exist, but to live. It is a commonplace of moralists that our happiness depends not on what we have but on what we are. It is useless to provide art galleries, park concerts, and public libraries if the people cannot enjoy art, music, and literature; and it would be undemocratic and unjust to take money from people by taxation for art, music, and books which they could not use. It is the duty of the government, therefore, to provide not only an equable division of wealth but also such public education as will make it possible for the people to enjoy the benefits which an equable division of wealth confers.

Equalization of wealth and equalization of education are the two problems

which democracy must solve if it would which democracy must solve if it would solve the industrial problem. To attempt to determine how much money a citizen or a class of citizens can wisely and profitably spend and then limit their compensation to that amount is no way to solve the industrial problem.

THE LEAGUE OF

NATIONS

THREE interesting foreign objections HREE interesting foreign objections present plan for a League of Nations have come to our attention. They express an Italian, a Russian, and a Spanish point of view.

Professor Bruno Roselli, an American of Italian ancestry, who has been affiliated with more than one American educational institution, who contributed to The Outlook in 1917 a notable article on the invasion of Italy by the Austrians, and who has done effective service in this country during the war as a lieutenant of the Italian army, tells us that public opinion in Italy with regard to the League of Nations has had a reversal.

"League sentiment," he says, "was strong in Italy in 1918. When President Wilson announced that the foundations for the coming peace would rest upon the formation of a league of free nations, the Italian people felt that the moment had come to abandon their customary cynicism and to realize that a turning-point had been reached in the history of the world. Indeed, probably because the Italians are not accustomed to courageous statements on the part of those high in power, but must submit to hearing carefully worded platitudes, while the real work is done under cover, President Wilson's open sponsorship of the League created incredible enthusiasm, and I remember that in those days people in all strata of society used to say in Italy, 'The world need not fear this war too much since it gave us a Wilson, who pledges open covenants, the freedom of the seas, and a League of Nations.' But," adds Professor Roselli, "this attitude has been entirely changed for a very simple reason. The French do not trust the League of Nations to protect them, but insist upon a special alliance with Great Britain and the United States, an alliance which Mr. Wilson approves. The Italians, however, are told that they must depend solely upon the League of Nations for solely upon the League of Nations for protection and must not have Fiume or fortify the Dalmatian Islands against possible future incursions of Austria or other peoples of the Near East."

Mr. Roselli asserts that the fears of the Italian people with regard to Austria and her malevolent influence in the Balkans are as genuine as the fears of the French with regard to Germany. Either all the

Allied nations of Europe should rely upon the League of Nations or each should be allowed to take such steps as it thinks proper for its protection. The special consideration shown to France and the special prohibition imposed upon Italy have made the Italians wonder whether even Mr. Wilson himself thinks that the League as planned will furnish adequate international protection. Such is the Italian view.

Baron S. A. Korff, formerly ViceGovernor of Finland, who has just returned to this country from the Paris Conference, which he attended as a Russian representative, who has been a valued contributor to these pages, and has long been known to us as an enlightened supporter of constitutional government in Russia, tells us that those who sincerely hope for the resuscitation of constitutional and orderly government in Russia are lukewarm towards the League of Nations.

66

"Up to the present time," he says, we Russians do not know how our former allies regard our country. Are we allies, foes, or neutrals? As a matter of fact, in many cases we have been treated on a level with Germany, certainly not as allies. This is bound sooner or later to have bad consequences. And Russia, if she is resuscitated, as I believe she will be, will not submit to a two-thirds vote, or to the vote of a country like Spain or Greece, to decide her fate. She will never consent to enter the League on any other condition than that of the 'ground floor.' For these reasons, although heartily convinced of the absolute necessity for a League of Nations, for the international intercourse of the civilized world and of an International Court as the best means for the organization of such intercourse, the present plan as worded in the Versailles Peace Treaty is, I think, unworkable and unpractical."

The third view is that of a Spanish educator, Señor José Castillejo, who is now visiting this country as delegate of the Spanish Ministry of Public Instruction. He is a Liberal, and believes in and foresees great social and political changes, not only in Spain, but throughout all Europe.

"The present plan," he says, "does not create a genuine League of Nations. It is in effect only a military alliance of five great Powers. We shall have to go through another world war before the public opinion of the world is convinced that military force is folly and that international co-operation and international law. must be adopted in a genuine and permanent form.'

There is much to arrest the attention in these three views. We state them to our readers, for we think that intelligent men and women should be informed of

every aspect of a great international problem upon which they are going to be called upon to express not only an opinion but perhaps ultimately a decision. The difficulties which these three gentlemen have laid before us are undoubtedly very real. It is quite possible that the

world may have to go through a still more searching and terrible experience than it has suffered during the past four than it has suffered during the past four years before it will adopt the rule of reason and co-operation in place of the rule of selfishness and force. Our reply to these objections, however, is a simple

one. The present plan is far from perfect, but shall we run the risk of continued chaos at home and abroad by refusing to try the rudimentary organization that is presented to us, with the hope that another world war or ten years of disputing will give us something better?

HROUGH the courtesy of Walter

from Miss Ethel Barrymore the following statement of reasons why the foremost American actors are on strike against the theater managers, or, if not actually striking themselves, are in sympathy with the strikers. Mr. Hampden, for example, is one of the most painstaking, gifted, and serious-minded actors on the American stage. If we mistake not, he first came into public notice some years ago as the creator of the leading part in Rann Kennedy's remarkable allegorical play "The Servant in the House." His acting in this remarkable production required both art and intelligence of a very high order. Last winter, despairing, we surmise, of obtaining the support of those very managers who now claim that they are the only simon-pure patrons of the drama as an art rather than a trade, he appeared in New York as Hamlet under his own management, with his own company, and at his own expense. Mr. Hampden (he is known only by his stage name) is the son of a distinguished New York lawyer and is the brother of Paul Dougherty, an American painter of international eminence whose pictures of the rock-bound coasts of Maine or of Cornwall, England, are the admiration of artists and amateurs of art alike.

Miss Barrymore (in private life Mrs. Russell Griswold Colt) is a niece of John Drew and a sister of John and Lionel Barrymore. Her standing on the stage both with her colleagues and the public is an enviable one. Theater people have a way of referring to her with a marked combination of respect and admiration, as they do when speaking of Maude Adams or Ellen Terry. In a recent interview in the New York" Times" Miss Barrymore said:

People understand, I think, that all my experience, under one management, has been a happy one. Mr. Frohman never made a contract and always kept his word. The time when I began work and the time before that when the older members of my family were acting was the day of the individual manager. As a business the theater wasn't so well developed. There were plenty of practical disadvantages. But at least there was courtesy and a sense of high tradition.

Actors of that day were "the ladies and gentlemen of the company." They were addressed accordingly. Now it is "Here, you!"

The change began with the great com

binations of managers. From that time on making more money, at any sacrifice of standards, has been the one end. Of course there are exceptions. It is the general tendency that I'm talking about. A good many managers appear to think they are simply merchants and the actors are their stock in trade. They must make

ETHEL BARRYMORE

all the decisions and everybody else must accept them.

When they think more money can be made that way, they put on a lot of plays that the best of the profession are ashamed of. They think nothing of the honor of the theater as an institution. Of all the childish things that have been said against us the funniest is that the actors are forgetting the dignity of their art! What has any of these managers done to keep the stage on a high level? John Drew, Walter Hampden, Ethel Barrymore, and their leading colleagues

wish to preserve the high traditions of the theater. They believe that acting should be regarded and treated as one of the fine arts. But they know that this can be done only when the individual actors and actresses are enabled to preserve their self-respect, and that therefore they must have, to begin with, a certain recognized economic standing. But this footlight introduction is already too long. Let the curtain rise and Miss Barrymore shall speak for herself.-THE EDITORS.

MISS BARRYMORE SPEAKS

Six years ago the Actors' Equity Association was formed in an endeavor to correct some of the more flagrant abuses that had crept into the theatrical profession. The actors, having no organization with which to protect themselves, were being ruthlessly exploited.

For instance, there was no limit to the period of free rehearsals and no guarantee for any definite period of work-this of course is not referring to sporadic individual cases, but to the vast majority. Companies would rehearse eight or nine,

or even more, weeks and close up with less than one week's salary. Even at the present time the chorus of one prominent musical show has already rehearsed for eleven weeks without salary, and the chorus of another prominent musical show rehearsed for twelve weeks without salary, during which time most of them had to pay a bill of $60 for shoes.

Some time ago the custom crept in of paying only one-half salary for the week before Christmas and the week before Easter. Certain managers "improved " upon this idea, until some contracts called for no less than seven half-salaried weeks during the season. Again, in one-night stands in the West, where Saturday is the worst night in the week theatrically on account of all the stores being open, certain managers made it a practice to cut Saturday-night performances, take a sleeper-jump to a town where Sunday performances could be given (the actor of course paying for his sleeper), and then docking the actor for the Saturday night lost and not paying him for the Sunday performance or performances-given.

The Actors' Equity Association was organized in an endeavor to obtain from the managers a definite form of contract that would be equitable alike to the actor and manager. After three years of sedulous endeavor, the managers at last con

sented to meet the representatives of the Actors' Equity Association, and after about a year of negotiations a mutually satisfactory contract was drawn up and ratified, the members of the United Mana gers' Protective Association agreeing to issue only this contract in future and the members of the Actors' Equity Associa tion agreeing to abide by and live up to the same. In case of any dispute arbitration was agreed upon in clause 18 of the contract, in which the Actors' Equity Association was acknowledged to represent the actor.

Last May a new managerial association was formed within the old one, calling itself the Producing Managers' Association. This Association invited the officers and Council of the Actors' Equity Association to a friendly informal meeting, at which the managers announced through their spokesman, Mr. Winthrop Ames, that they were not satisfied with the existing contract and would like certain changes. The Actors' Equity Association also wished for certain changes, and a committee from each Association was appointed to meet and discuss the suggested changes.

None of the changes suggested on either side seemed likely to create a stumblingblock until the Actors' Equity Associa tion asked that eight performances should constitute a maximum week's work and that extra performances be paid for pro rata according to the salary agreed upon. The managers' committee informed the Actors' Equity Association that seven out of eight of their number had already voted in favor of this clause, but that their Council had rejected it by a twothirds majority.

Neither committee having power to act, each reported back to its respective Council. Later the managers sent an emissary to ask if the Council of the Actors' Equity Association stood firm on this clause. The answer was in the affirmative. Meantime the Council of the Actors' Equity Association had given its committee "power to act" and had decided

upon a quid pro quo which it felt the managers would gladly accept. To our amazement and dismay, the managers broke off all negotiations and announced that under no circumstances would they

WALTER HAMPDEN

ever recognize the Actors' Equity Asso

ciation.

Three several times since then the Actors' Equity has approached the managers with the suggestion that the disputed points be put up to arbitration, even going so far as to secure the promise of ex-President Taft and ex-Governor Hughes to act as arbiters if requested. Each request was flatly denied and the managers proclaimed that under no circumstances would they ever deal with the Actors' Equity Association in any manner whatsoever.

The Actors' Equity then entered the American Federation of Labor under a charter which granted it absolute au

tonomy and entire control over its internal policies and affairs. Again the managers were approached in a renewed effort to obtain arbitration. Again the managers flatly refused. Hence the strike.

Just why have the managers refused to recognize the Actors' Equity Association? They first announced that it was because of our unreasonable demands; next, because Francis Wilson was our President; later, because we had entered the American Federation of Labor; and then, because our policies were dictated by Harry Mountford; finally, because we had broken existing contracts by striking.

As to this last statement, the contracts we were accused of having broken are the same contracts which the managers had announced in the most public manner that they did not intend to live up to. The real reason is obviously none of these. The managers, though strongly organized for their own protection, deny the same right to the actors.

Every time in the past when a manager had endeavored to break, evade, or sidestep a contract-and these cases are innumerable, as can, and probably will, be shown by the records in our officethey found the Actors' Equity in their way. That is the reason they refuse to recognize that body. Their latest claim is that the Association is not representative of the actors and actresses of America, despite the fact that we have between five thousand and six thousand members, numbering ninety per cent of all the most prominent professionals.

We are striking for recognition. It is for the actors, and not for the managers, to decide whether or not the Actors' Equity Association represents the actors. The actors have answered that it does, and are standing fast to the demand for recognition. This is what we are striking for; and one sine qua non that will be insisted upon when this strike is settled will be that in the future the chorus girls will be paid one-half salary after having given four weeks' free rehearsals. ETHEL BARRYMORE.

THE

HE Prince of Wales is now in Canada and will soon visit the United States. Here the Prince will be the guest of the American people, and will return the President's much-appreciated visit to Britain. They will find him a simple, good-humored, and clear-eyed young man, with a keen zest for life, a son of whom any father might be proud. In the trenches he was hard to keep out of danger, and he has looped the loop over London. He comes of a stock which (though sometimes criticised here) has since the days of Fontenoy never lacked personal courage. In view of his visit it will be of interest to study the present position of the British crown.

CORRESPONDENT OF THE LONDON DAILY NEWS

When the war broke out, a dominion conference was held in which the position of the Crown was reviewed. No one was stronger in its support than General Botha and other oversea statesmen. What Old Glory is to this country, a symbol of unity, that the King is in the British Empire. He is a link wholly independent of parties and diverse forms of authority. Behind loyal sentiment there lies a background of political utility, and any disturbance of the throne would involve grave embarrassment.

This venerable institution survives more than ever before by the consent and even the insistence of the peoples affected. This is the more remarkable because

in August, 1914, the only republics in Europe were France and Portugal, while to-day the only considerable monarchies are Britain and Italy. Yet a generation ago Gilbert and Sullivan were pouring on the Court chaff which in Germany would have landed them in a fortress for life.

The throne, however, has profoundly changed its character. By heredity it is a part of the German dynastic system. In 1837 Queen Victoria resigned the sovereignty of Hanover, which was obliterated by Prussia. This, with the wars that plundered Denmark and France, outraged even the Queen's strong sympathies, and had it not been for the reverence professed by the ex-Kaiser for

his grandmother the death of the Emperor Frederick would have widened the breach. As the eldest son of the Queen's eldest child and daughter, William Hohenzollern was bitterly jealous of King Edward, whose reign marked an estrangement between the Courts of Berlin and London. Yet when war broke out King George was in a delicate position. The Czar, the Kaiser, and the King of Greece, all of whose thrones were endangered, were his first cousins.

War meant that the royal trade union was shattered, and that the British throne became a strictly national or Imperial institution. To prevent suspicions of pro-Germanism, Prince Louis of Battenberg resigned from the Admiralty. Enemy princes were struck from the roll of the Garter and other orders and deprived of their seats in the House of Lords. Family names which smacked of Central Europe were changed and titles like Highness were turned into peerages. In three generations the King's descendants other than his direct heirs are to become plain "Mr." With no European princesses to marry-for brides must be either Protestant or Greek Church-princes are for the first time since Tudor days free to wed any girl they like. The brother of the Queen of Spain has thus married Lord Londes

borough's daughter-an event unparalleled since Henry VIII, save for the clandestine union of James, Duke of York, afterwards James II, with Anne Hyde. Under the late Queen two princesses married dukes like Argyll and Fife, while there is talk of Princess Mary choosing the Earl of Dalkeith, heir to the Duke of Buccleuch, but Princess Patricia of Connaught on her marriage deliberately laid aside her ancestral title and is now officially Lady Patricia Ramsay. Her husband remains plain Captain Ramsay.

All this marks a revolution fully equal to that of 1688. The Whigs wanted the dynasty to be German and alien, because this kept the Sovereign dependent on his Ministers-that is, on themselvesand foreign marriages guaranteed this isolation. The new community of interests between King and peers may lead to political consequences, and the Sovereign is supremely wise in also maintaining more intimate relations with labor. Recently King George agreed to eliminate his office from all verses of the national anthem save the first, and he has even thrown open the family archives in order to demonstrate that Queen Victoria resented the military aggressions of Prussia.

In one respect the monarchy has been perhaps ill advised by responsible Min

isters. Canadians and many Englishmen dislike the multiplication of houors, and particularly the new Order of the British Empire. It is a mistake for any king in these days to make it a case of, Love me, love my baronets. Also it is a risk to identify the throne with any statesman, however powerful and eminent may have been his services. The King has showered upon the Prime Minister distinctions which are absolutely unprece dented. Even when Queen Victoria was most annoyed with Gladstone she never went to the railway station to meet Beaconsfield nor escorted him home by way of Buckingham Palace. To the expert it is a startling innovation that the Order of Merit should be conferred on anybody, whatever his services, by a letter in the first person singular instead of the third. To produce this portent required five years of war.

Broadly, we may say that Victoria was Teutonic, Edward cosmopolitan, George English, and the Prince actually insular but for his service in the war, which has been a grim yet effective education. All classes have found him to be a really good fellow, without a trace of pretense or artificiality. He is genuinely fond of Americans, and has no wish in visiting this country except to pay a tribute to the mighty Republic of the New World.

I

AM a city-bred country woman, and with much travail I gave birth to an economic conscience on a farm in the Ozarks. There for the first time I saw that the housewife has a necessary place in the business world, and that simply because of her unconsciousness of this she has made great havoc with other economic units. I saw that the artificial circles which man has drawn around business and politics have not shut his women folk out, as he has protectively imagined, but have tripped them up and made them stumbling-blocks in the of his own progress. I saw that woman's part in business is that of ultimate buyer of the world's supply of household stuffs, and that the primitive and casual way in which she has carried this on is largely due to the stupidity of the financial world in not recognizing her presence in it.

way

What stirred me particularly was the reaction of this situation upon farm living as I experienced it personally and as I observed it in our thinly settled green valley. Almost as soon as I became a farm woman I began to feel vaguely that the women in the cities were responsible for some of the almost tragic difficulties under which I found myself and my country neighbors laboring.

I went deeply into my own past city experiences seeking causes. And a story which my family often told on me with great delight now took on a new signifi

BY MARY DOANE SHELBY

cance. There had been one Sunday when I was repeating the Confession in the family pew in the prosperous Episcopal church. Instead of hearing me repeat in a humble tone, "We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us," my family was startled at hearing me declare in a clear, self-satisfied voice," We have done those things which we ought to have done and left undone the things we ought not to have done." It was no doubt my truthful subconscious mind asserting itself. I was a club woman, and all club women were complacent in those days. We had leisure which we felt we might spend as we chose. We justified our freedom from household cares by referring to the evolution of industries. We declared truthfully that these had developed one by one in the household, and one by one had been carried out of it into the business world through specialization. We enumerated these industries with the glibness a child would show in saying the alphabet. We referred to the increasing procession of bakers, canners, caterers, storage men, laundry men, dressmakers, tailors, and trained nurses. The house was no longer a workshop. It did not occur to us that when we ceased to become producers automatically we became buyers.

If we had seen this, we would have followed the processes of organization through which these industries went and learned the cost of production, transportation, and the other legitimate elements entering into the prices of commodities. As it was, we confined ourselves to what we felt to be our own sphere of action. We were not expected to meddle in business matters. As a matter of fact, we were already in the business world, stumbling around near-sightedly, doing ninetenths of the world's buying in an ignorant, unorganized way that has brought just the disastrous results that might have been predicted. And even now in these days of chaos and investigation few people seem to recognize our definite share of responsibility for the harm that has been done.

If we city women failed economically, however, we made good in other fields. As it was an age of organization, we went gayly forth and organized. There were card clubs and literary clubs, church and philanthropic clubs. We had free kindergarten associations, vacation playground movements, day nurseries, and social welfare societies. It was the time when the new social consciousness was most eager and rampant. I am inclined to believe that the substitution of an economic consciousness would have made much of the social work unnecessary. The greatest contribution woman could have made

toward a safe democracy at that time was the specialization and organization of the business of the ultimate buyer.

We could see from the newspapers that things were not going well with men, but to us trusts and middlemen seemed strictly business problems to be solved. by Congress. As for our homes, we believed that a well-organized house practically ran itself. There were uncomfortable times when we were changing maids, but when the new one was installed and well into the routine things once more went smoothly. With grocery and market men familiar with one's favorite brands and cuts the daily marketing could easily be tucked in between more important activities. We lived well within our means and paid our bills regularly. What more could be expected? I was in the midst of the activities I have mentioned when my husband was ordered to the country by his physician. We bought a farm in the Ozarks and lost no time in making the move.

My first step in preparing myself for the new life was to procure Government bulletins bearing upon the industries carried on by a farmer's wife. These I had indexed and bound. The number of volumes was formidable, but I enjoyed digging knowledge from books, and they made a familiar approach to subjects of which I was appallingly ignorant. I took as much delight in the new volumes as a young lawyer in the beginnings of his professional library.

I felt the importance of my new career as producer. As aids I secured two girls from neighboring farms. It is now seven years since we made the venture. Any success I have attained has been because I have faithfully followed the methods advised by the Department of Agriculture.

I had not lived in the country long before I discovered that my neighbors' estimate of me was based upon my economic efficiency. They were not awed by my worldly possessions, although they looked with wistful eyes upon my books, for every woman wants a chance for a higher life for her children. They did not envy me my knowledge of cities and their ways. They had too much self-respect to be patronized. They had a confident and upright bearing. As I became increasingly efficient I gained my standing in the community. It was not until I had a row of cheeses on my shelf and had introduced that industry into the neighborhood that I held my head as high as the rest of them.

When the household economist generalizes about women in the home, her generalizations are confined to city women. I had realized that in my country home I should have to do many things which in the city had been specialized. I had believed that as a farm woman I should be tagging along at the end of a procession with face turned toward specialization. I found, to my great surprise, that, under the direction of the Department of Agriculture, both the farmer and I were traveling in the opposite direction. In

stead of being taught to concentrate on crops and stock production, we were constantly urged to compete with packers, canners, fancy dealers, and expert salesmen. Each farmer was urged, not only to plant more grain, raise more hogs and cattle, and feed more chickens, but to turn these into hams, bacon, lard, sausage, eggs, butter, and cheese. He was asked to have orchards, plant larger gardens, and to can all of the vegetables and fruit that could not be used or sold in season. Canning clubs were arranged for women and children. I am speaking of a period that had nothing to do with war conservation.

We were carefully instructed in salesmanship and advertising by frequent and stimulating articles in all the farm papers. We were told that the city buyer, the housewife, must be catered to. Her eye and pocketbook could be caught by a bright-colored package or label. She would pay more for eggs if they matched in shade and were put up in an attractive carton. For anything original in the way of advertising she could be depended upon to pay an addition in price. She had whims which must be respected; for instance, she was apt to prefer pure white eggs to brown, although the brown egg might be larger and the hen that laid it a thoroughbred. Above all, the city woman must be saved work. The nearer the farm could come actually to placing its products ready to eat on her table, the more certainly could the farmer count on her as a customer.

In addition to the farm work the women of our section were mothers of large families. The forebears of these children had lived in that region for nearly one hundred years. I have never seen children who surpassed them in natural intelligence. Their lack of formal education only served to emphasize their native capacity for observation, reasoning, and turning thought into intelligent action. I had only two children and had passed the child-bearing age. I felt very modest when I mingled with these hardworking mothers, so successful against such odds.

The Department of Agriculture real ized that farm women were overworked, for it was about this period that I received a form letter from its Secretary asking me to tell what I thought might be done to improve conditions for the farmer's wife.

The women of a neighboring city looked upon us with sympathy and established a rest-room with rocking chairs for our use when we were in town shop ping. I had a real pity for their lack of understanding of the irony of their gift! The farm woman is often inarticulate; she has seldom aired her grievances. Once, since the war, I spoke to a neighbor of the canning the city women were doing. She replied, "I hope the war will last long enough to let them know what it really means to work." There was resentment of the fact that the city woman was not fulfilling her economic responsibilities.

In all of my doubts and questionings I was not shaken in my belief that specialization is a law of labor and that all labor is dignified by the division. I believed that country life might become an orderly and beautiful existence if it were allowed to progress naturally.

What was it that interfered with a right development? No doubt there were many causes, but I was seeking one in which I was concerned individually. What had Mary Doane Shelby, the city woman, done to complicate the economic life of Mary Doane Shelby, the farm woman?

It was very evident that the Department of Agriculture was doing all that could be done under existing economic conditions. It was urging the farmer to increased labor ostensibly for his own financial gain, but it seemed to me that the primary object was to increase food production in order to beat down high prices in the city and to take the place of food in storage. In looking up statistics on the subject, I found that prices of food had risen gradually between 1900 and 1914, the total increase being forty-six per cent. In all investigations of high prices the increase was largely attributed to profiteering on the part of trusts and middlemen. The carelessness of housewives was sometimes mentioned.

If trusts and middlemen were taking advantage, it must be of ignorance, weakness, or inefficiency. One doesn't take advantage otherwise. The farmer and his wife were stimulated to increased food production because of somebody's weakness. Was it possible that Mary Doane Shelby, city woman, was the weak link in the economic chain?

She had been an ultimate buyer of food products. She had paid prices that had no relation whatever to the cost of production or the natural law of supply and demand. The trusts and middlemen could always count upon her. In fixing prices they based them upon what she and her kind would do under given circumstances. If she had the money and wanted an article upon which a speculative price was fixed, she bought it with a good conscience. The economic law that an action is right if it is beneficial to the majority of people and wrong if it is injurious to the majority was unknown to her.

She lived in the midst of an apple country, paying as much per peck for apples in seasons when they were scarce as when they were plentiful. She did exactly what the profiteer expected of her, and thus assisted him in maintaining speculative prices. By so doing she kept the fruit out of reach of people less fortunate. If she had been doing her economic part, there would not have been so much philanthropic work on hand. Economically she and her group were slackers. When one group fails, it spells disaster for the whole body politic.

It was in reading my text-books on salesmanship that I learned how the idiosyncrasies, vagaries, and weaknesses of Mary Doane Shelby, ultimate buyer,