this new engine of warfare. The day is foreseen when a few airplanes, settling over New York and London, can destroy the larger number of the inhabitants. The use of gas against civilian populations, indeed, is its most frightful aspect. In the next war, according to these prophets, non-combatants will be unknown; under modern conditions, every woman, man, or child is an actual or a potential contributor to military power, and thus is legitimate game for shot, shell, or gas. The wiping out of these lives, previously regarded as immune to attack, is not only justifiable, but, because of the development of gas as a weapon, entirely possible.

Yet it is not at once apparent, even granting the terrible possibilities of gas attack-a point upon which scientists are not agreed that the principles of warfare are greatly changed. The course of war, a horrid incongruity at its best, has developed along the most paradoxical lines. When its weapons were least dangerous the extremest barbarity prevailed in its conduct. As the instruments of warfare became more horrible and destructive, the rules governing its practitioners have become more humane. In the days of bows and arrows, civilian populations, once in the clutch of the enemy, were massacred or sold into slavery. With the invention of gunpowder, muskets, artillery, and shrapnel, a code of so-called "civilized warfare" won its way into general acceptance. It seems hardly logical that the mere discovery of a new form of killing human beings should cause the modern world to relapse into the wartime morals of the caveman, or even of the Roman generals.

The value of civilian populations as auxiliaries to the fighting forces is nothing new. Doubtless old men, women, and children, ages ago, helped their absent warriors by making their bows and arrows. Certainly the civilian populations, both North and South, were indispensable to munitioning, clothing, and provisioning the armies that fought our own Civil War. Doubtless the "home front" was better organized in the World War than in any of its predecessors, but that was

because the armies were much larger and war itself had become more of a science. This fact introduces no new principle into its practice; there is no better reason why non-combatants should be massacred now than in the time of Grant and Lee. To insist on their sacrifice is merely another way of saying that civilization has retrogressed and that the emotion of pity, which in itself is one of the most effective ways of testing human advancement, has suffered an eclipse.

The possibility of destroying a civilian population by gas attack does not necessitate a revision of the rules of warfare. There has never been a time in history when an enemy army could not destroy the inhabitants of a city, once it had got that city in its power. In the days of Alva in the Netherlands, this was the regular procedure. Once the Spanish armies had reduced a stronghold by starvation, or captured it by assault, men, women, children, and babes in arms were indiscriminately put to the sword.

The right of surrender, however, is now generally recognized; that is one of the rules of civilized warfare" which it has taken ages to evolve. If a fleet of battleships should approach New York it would first be necessary to meet the defending American fleets and the shore batteries. Once these had been vanquished, the city would be at its mercy, and would surrender. Is it conceivable that any enemy now known would refuse to accept this surrender, but continue bombarding the defenseless port until it was laid in ashes and all its inhabitants killed? Yet that is the new martial code which the present alarmists foresee. An attack by airplanes armed with gas would follow precisely the same program. Before the aërial navy could assail New York it would first have to give battle to our own air fleet. If victorious, then New York would accept the inevitable, surrender, the foe would hold its gas in reserve and take possession. The object of a gas attack, like a navy attack, would be to accomplish a definite objectivedestroy enemy resistance and gain possession of the enemy's resources and

territory, and there is little reason to believe that the present condition of humanity has retrograded to the point where unnecessary destruction of innocent non-combatants will again become the accepted rule.

If gas is destined to be as dangerous a weapon as its advocates now foresee, it is the business of the United States to develop its air forces and thus make certain that no hostile air navy can ever get near enough to bombard our coast cities and force their surrender. That, and the preparation of gas defense and gas attack of our own, are the chief profits to be derived from the present discussion.

A New Type of American Ambassador

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in London

HE tradition that the American Ambassador to the Court of St. James's shall represent American letters or the highest phases of American professional life is broken by the selection of Mr. Alanson Bigelow Houghton for that post. Mr. Houghton is not a poet or literary critic or historian or journalist or distinguished lawyer, as most of his predecessors have been; he is that peculiarly native product of this country -a successful business man. Yet he is a business man of the type of the late J. P. Morgan rather than of the type of the unschooled, uncultivated, dominant Americans who have played so influential a rôle in the industrial history of this country. The preparation for Mr. Houghton's career as a glass maker was a four years' course at Harvard, followed by graduate work at Göttingen, Berlin, and Paris.

This equipment naturally proved a great advantage in Germany, where Mr. Houghton has been ambassador for the last three years. His problems there were largely business problems, for the immediate future in Europe is necessarily one of industrial recuperation. He succeeded in establishing congenial relations with the German people by his remark, on his arrival in 1921, that he should keep in his mind, not the eighteen months of warfare between Germany and the United

States, but "the far more than a hundred years of peace and friendship and abundant good will."

Mr. Houghton won additional prestige as an ambassador by his comprehensive knowledge of the present European problem which, in its details, is certainly enough to tax the ablest business brains. developed by this country. Bismarck once said that only two men in Europe had ever understood the SchleswigHolstein question-himself and a distinguished German at that time in a lunatic asylum. How many persons have gone crazy studying the present complexities of Europe is not recorded, yet every day the details are getting more. numerous, and it certainly needs a patient and perceiving mind to grasp them in logical sequence. Mr. Houghton is regarded as one of the greatest authorities on this problem. His grasp of treaties, agreements, reparations, and the economic facts that underlie the European situation is said to be one of the marvels of diplomacy.

This knowledge enabled him to render great service in the devising of the Dawes plan, and is chiefly responsible for his promotion to the London Embassy. It is a time when his experience in business and finance, built upon the basis of a liberal education, should prove most useful to a groping world, and in itself explains why his appointment to the Court of St. James's has met with such general approbation.

immigration question can hardly be regarded as well in hand. For this reason, sentiment is rapidly focussing upon the one effective and comparatively simple manner of checking the evil: by the registration of all aliens.

Americans who travel in foreign countries will understand what this means. Practically all Europe registers its alien residents, merely as a precaution for the public safety. The more easy-going United States neglects to do so, even when it has a more compelling reason than any European country. If every alien were required to appear at regular intervals, explain his reason for being in this country, and prove his right to American residence, the business of smuggling immigrants would soon come to an end. Representative Aswell has introduced a bill providing for such registration. It will probably be opposed by the forces that invariably unite against all attempts to improve the quality of our citizenship, but it should receive the serious attention of Congress.

"Commercialization" of the American University

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WO coincident happenings have brought upon Harvard University the criticism of many of her most devoted sons. Mr. George F. Baker, the great New York banker and capitalist, has given the University $5,000,000 for the endowment of the School of Business Administration. On the other hand, Professor George P. Baker, for many years the successful conductor of a course in the drama and dramatic writing, has resigned from the faculty, to accept a professorship in his chosen subject at Yale, which has obtained a fund of $1,000,000 as an endowment for his work.

Here the lovers of contrast have two George Bakers-one a great capitalist, the other a man who has devoted his life to the arts! The commercialization of American education, the disappearance of the classics as required subjects, and the dominance of utilitarianism are favorite themes with those who still cling

to the "humanities" as the chief essentials to the completely rounded and cultivated American, and inevitably the episode of the two Bakers at Harvard has started the discussion of the question anew.

But the two proceedings are entirely unrelated. Whether a great educational institution wishes to maintain a school of dramatic writing as part of its academic work is a question that it can presumably decide on its merits. Journalists are not unanimous in regarding schools of journalism as unqualifiedly successful in turning out journalists, and a university may abandon such work as instruction in play-writing without necessarily surrendering its heritage of intellect and the arts. Similarly, it is not entirely clear that a separate school, devoted to teaching the principles and practice of modern business, is an abandonment of the purposes for which a university exists. That purpose is to enrich American life and make its contribution to promoting welfare on democratic lines.

A university that includes modern business within its scope might properly be regarded as widening rather than narrowing its activities. It indicates at least that it is marching with its age and placing itself immediately in touch with the largest concerns that make up the fabric known as civilization. In the Middle Ages, the chief concern of the university was the church and religion; as late as the seventeenth century Yale and Harvard were established largely for the purpose of training clergymen in its way almost as "practical" an end as the development of business men. The organization of schools of medicine and law, to say nothing of engineering departments, was also a concession to the useful, as distinguished from the purely intellectual and "cultural." The purpose of these schools is to teach men definite trades, by which they may earn a living— sometimes a very good one-and incidentally serve society. Their existence causes no cry of "commercialization." But "business" also is an important element in American life.

Whether the university can appropri

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ately include this in its efforts depends entirely upon the practical question whether it can be taught. If the university can train business executives as it trains preachers, lawyers, and physicians and surgeons, there is every reason why it should do so.

The fact of the matter is, of course, that Harvard College, as well as Yale College and Princeton College, hold their old place as the foundation of the university structure, that they grow year by year in resources, material and spiritual, that their main purpose is general education, and that four years in the "arts" is a desirable, almost an essential preparation to that specialized training which the technical schools provide-theology, law, medicine, and now business. Why should not "business men" have the foundation of a liberal education, like doctors and lawyers?

The Great Prophet of "Honest Graft"

HE immortality that will attach to the name of George Washington Plunkitt, the latest of the old time Tammany leaders to depart for the eternal wigwam, promises to be far more indelible than the fame of Tweed, Croker, and especially of his dull and colorless chief, Charles Francis Murphy. Mr. Plunkitt did something far greater than his predecessors and associates. He created a living phrase. Previous Tammany bosses merely robbed the city treasury and blackmailed the vicious characters that are a part of metropolitan life; but Plunkitt is the only Tammany satrap who made a contribution to literature and permanently enriched the English language. "Honest graft!" Few modern Shakespeares have ever done anything better than that. Emitted one confidential morning from his office-a bootblack stand in the cellar of the Tweed court house-to an old time reporter of the New York Evening Post, the magic words took wing to all quarters of the earth and thenceforth became a permanent part of the American political vocabulary.

It was an electric flash of literary genius because it enshrined in two fine old AngloSaxon words a phase of American municipal politics for which more scholarly writers had long sought a name and a description. "Graft," a word borrowed from the argot of thieves, for decades used by them as a synonym for loot, had lately been popularized by Josiah Flint's book "The World of Graft," a classic description of the achievements and lives of pickpockets and burglars. This word, after the publication of Flint's book, was taken over by political writers to describe the sordid profits certain thrifty gentlemen derived from political activity. It

was

an appropriate adaptation, but Plunkitt resented it as applied to his own winnings in the great municipal game. He had made a fortune as a Tammany district leader-that he did not denybut not through graft!

When a man exacts tribute from gamblers, saloon-keepers, street walkers, and the like for the privilege of breaking the law, or dips his fingers in the municipal till-that, said this namesake of George Washington, was "graft." Not that sort of thing for him! But suppose that the city is going to build a new public school. Obviously the building must rest on a certain piece of ground. Some one tells Mr. Plunkitt where the site is likely to be, and that diligent gentleman quietly buys it at a low price; when the time has arrived for building operations, naturally the city is forced to acquire Mr. Plunkitt's plot, at a price much higher than it cost him. Such a transaction is "honest graft," and in that way, Mr. Plunkitt explained, he and many other Tammany men had made great fortunes. It is a phrase that will live as long as the thing it describes. It was a bad thing for Tammany Hall at the moment, however, for Mr. Plunkitt was unfortunate enough to take mankind into his confidence in the course of a hot municipal campaign. Tammany lost at the polls; Seth Low became Mayor of New York, and the experts declared that those two words, "Honest Graft," had caused the great revolution.