Digest: Review of Reviews Incorporating The Literary Digest

RUSSIA'S CHAOS LAID TO THE ALLIES

HE LONGER the Bolshevik rule goes on in Russia, the worse the situation seems to grow, until now we read in the dispatches that the Bolsheviki are shooting the Revolutionary Socialists because they are too conservative, and the workers, who were to be made happy under the benign blessings of Bolshevism are unfortunately starving to death and may have to be fed by plain, stodgy, bourgeois America. But the Bolsheviki, who seem to think the art of government is a contest of wits, now argue that the chaotic condition in Russia has been caused by the Allies and the Allies alone. This they make clear in their official organ, the Moscow Pravda, in a manifesto "to the workers of the Entente." If the Entente workers can only establish Bolshevism everywhere, we shall all be as happy as Russia. First of all, the Allied intervention in Russia, whose aim is to let the Russian people have an election free from the terrorism of the Bolshevik minority and choose their own government, is represented as a "capitalist" maneuver. We read:

"Like a cruel dog let loose from its chains, the whole capitalist press of your countries howl for the intervention of your governments in Russian affairs.... But even now at the very moment when intervention has actually begun, they are lying.

"They are already carrying on military action in favor of the Russian capitalists against the workers and peasants of Russia. The English, French, and American bandits are already shooting the Soviet workers on the Murmansk railroad. In the Urals they are destroying the workers' Soviets, and the CzechoSlovak bands, supported by French money and led by French officers, are shooting their representatives.

"The present attack of Allied capital on the workers of Russia is only the culmination of an underground warfare carried on during eight months against the Soviets. From the first day of the October Revolu

trayed you, but it was your own governments, which cast Russia under the heel of German Imperialism."

Then when Russia was in German hands, we ought to have continued to send them railway supplies and war-munitions! Here is their argument:

"When we were forced to conclude the Brest-Litovsk peace we declared that 'if the Allies wish to aid us in our sacred work of defense, let them help us to reorganize our railroads and our economic life.' But the Allies replied never a word to this. "The Allies not only did not purpose to make ourselves

"DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES."

-Esquella de la Torratxa (Barcelona).

tion, from the moment that the workers made it plain that they did not wish to shed their own or others' blood for their own or others' capital, from the moment when they turned out their exploiters and invited you to do the same, from that moment the Allied capitalists took an oath to finish the country whose workers had dared for the first time in human history to throw off the yoke of capitalism and free themselves from the chains of war." After this pathetic appeal to stop our interference with their bloody work, the Pravda goes on to tell us how the wicked capital. ists stirred up their equally wicked capitalistic governments, and how the machinations of the Allied statesmen brought poor Russia to such a pass that she had to accept from the Germans the Brest-Litovsk peace. What we ought to have done, it seems, was to accept their appeal at that time to join in a general peace-meeting that would have caught the whole Entente in the same kind of a peace-trap and left Germany holding all her gains in the war. We are thus indicted:

"We were forced to agree to a division of Russia because, altho your governments well knew that Russia was not in condition to continue fighting, they refused to hold an international conference to discuss terms which would have saved Russia and have given you an honorable peace. It was not Russia which had shed its blood for three and one-half years that be

capable of defense; they tried by all possible means to weaken us still further, encouraging internal ruin and cutting us off from our bread

reserves.

"The Allies warned us that the Germans would seize the Siberian and Murmansk railroads. Actually they were not seized by the Germans, who were never in a position to do so, but they have now been seized by our gracious Allies."

The Bolsheviki refuse to recognize that the Allies have only intervened in the interests of the Russian majority and to stop the saturnalia of massacre, and they make the following attempt to pose as injured innocents:

"The Allies are carrying on war in Murmansk and Siberia, not against the Germans, because there are none of them there, but against the Russian workers, whose Soviets they are everywhere destroying. The Allies have three aims: the annexation of as large a part of Russia with its wealth as possible, the destruction of the workers' revolution, and the creation of a new Eastern Front.

"In agreeing to be used by your governments in this criminal attempt upon Russia, you, workers of France and England, America and Italy, are becoming the hangmen of the workers' revolution. Working Russia is stretching out her hands to you, the proletariat of the Allied countries."

Prof. M. Rostovtzev, a Fellow of the Russian Academy, solemnly warns the Western peoples, in the London New Europe, against the Bolshevik virus and begs for some strong Power-he is not particular which-to step into Russia and clean up. He writes:

"The supporters of the Bolsheviki in Western Europe do not fear the bloody apparition of terror and tyranny. They use the same argument as Lord Northcliffe in his recent speech to American officers; they say that this is a specifically Russian form impossible in Europe. But they forget or conceal the fact that men everywhere are men, and that the wild beast in man is stronger than we thought. What is taking place in Russia can and perhaps must be repeated everywhere. Revolutionthis is the synonym for destruction. The war has accustomed people to blood and cruelty, has taught them the use of arms. Is Lenine right and has he a chance of success? Events, it appears, tell us that he is more right than we thought. Bulgaria may follow the same road; in Austria the national question has only temporarily concealed the social; Germany is beaten and embittered-the soil for revolution there is prepared. Europe must remember that every day of the rule of the Bolsheviki in Russia is a trump-card in the hands of the supporters, not of socialism, but of a bloody social revolution. Russia alone is not strong enough to destroy the Bolsheviki. But for any organized force this would be no great matter. The strength of the Bolsheviki would be nothing in a struggle with a strong state."

AND

SURGICAL MOSS WANTED FOR RED-CROSS WORK

VARIETY OF MOSS that grows freely in bogs and wet places throughout the United States has been found to be much better fitted for surgical dressings than the finest grade of absorbent cotton. The Red Cross is now calling for information regarding supplies of this moss.

Altho it has been used abroad for thirty years, its surgical value has only recently been recognized here, and altho it is certainly so abundant that no less than twenty-five varieties grow in the little State of Connecticut alone, good sources have only been located here and there. In a recent bulletin sent out by Prof. George E. Nichols, of the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, botanical adviser to the Red Cross, interested persons throughout the country are urged to locate supplies of sphagnum, or peat-moss, and report to him. At present it is not the moss itself that is wanted, but reliable information regarding its occurrence. Professor Nichols gives directions in detail regarding how to recognize sphagnum and how to tell its surgical varieties from the non-surgical - for there are both. He writes in The Journal of the New York Botanical Garden:

"Along in the late seventies of the last century a workman at one of the great peat moors in northern Germany accidentally sustained a severe wound of the forearm. In the absence of anything better to use, his fellow workmen wrapt up the wound with fragments of the peat which happened to be lying near, and it was not until ten days later that the man was able to secure surgical attention. Imagine the surprize of the surgeon when, on removing the improvised dressing, it was found that the wound had almost completely healed. "With this incident the use of sphagnum in present-day surgery may be said to have originated. As a matter of fact, however, its use in this connection is not a new thing at all; it is merely a modern and scientific revival of a very ancient practise. In parts of Great Britain, according to Professor Porter, from time immemorial bog-moss has been used by country people in the treatment of boils and discharging wounds. In Scotland and Ireland it was employed many centuries ago for

exactly the same purpose that it is being used to-day; and moss was at least recommended for use by army surgeons, both in the Napoleonic and the Franco-Prussian wars.'

"Following the incident which I have related above, investigations were set on foot as to the nature and the properties both of the sphagnum and of the peat to which it gives rise, and a number of papers were published in German medical journals, in which the sphagnum, as related to surgical practise, was discust from various points of view. And within a very few years this moss came to be accepted in Germany as a standard material for surgical dressings, being widely used not only in private practise but in some of the largest hospitals.

'During the Russian-Japanese War the Japanese used sphagnum quite extensively as a first-aid dressing. 'Many

of the wounds thus drest with sphagnum were not inspected again until the patient reached Japan, which often took ten days, but almost invariably the wound was in good conditionmuch better, it is said, than when cotton was used.' In general, however, the value of sphagnum for use in surgical dressings has not been appreciated until quite recently.

"Shortly after the beginning of the war it began to be feared in England that there might be a shortage of cotton, and experiments were made with various materials-oakum, woodpulp, and even sawdust-in the hope of finding some satisfactory substitute. It was at this time that attention was directed to the neglected possibilities of the sphagnum. In 1914 sphagnum dressings were given a thorough try-out at one of the large war-hospitals in Scotland, and the results proved so satisfactory that sphagnum was at once recommended for general use. In September, 1915, sphagnum dressings were formally accepted by the British War Office. At that time the total British output of sphagnum surgical dressings was barely 250 a month. A year later it had reached 150,000, and at the present time it is nearly a million. The Canadian Red Cross alone is now putting out between two and three hundred thousand sphagnum dressings each month."

Professor Nichols goes on to say that in this country the sphagnum enterprise, so far as the National Red Cross is concerned, is still in its infancy. But we have long since passed the period of experimentation and have reached the stage where

war hospitals. Nevertheless we are reminded that the sphagnum work of the American Red Cross is not yet being conducted on the large scale which it is expected that it will be in the near future, and by way of explanation we read the following:

"For one thing, our American Army surgeons, accustomed to the use of absorbent cotton and still having plenty of this on hand, hesitate about adopting a substitute. It is inevitable, however, that sooner or later the value of sphagnum in warhospital work will be more fully appreciated in this country; for the quality of the cotton is constantly becoming poorer while the price is soaring higher. Moreover, wherever the sphagnum dressings have been tried out in our hospitals they have given complete satisfaction. . . .

"For use in absorbent surgical dressings sphagnum moss is not merely a satisfactory substitute. In many respects, without question, it is superior to absorbent cotton.

ABOLISHING THE PRIVATE KITCHEN

HE KITCHEN and its adjuncts may be omitted from the model house of the future and its space utilized for better living conditions. In England, the so-called national kitchens established to do community cooking during the Great War have proved such a success that many urge that they be continued as a permanent contribution to national health and efficiency in time of peace. Dr. C. W. Saleeby, who takes this view, describes the working of the kitchens in The Graphic (London). They have, he asserts, cut down waste and inefficiency, promoted health and ease of household administration, and are actually helping to increase the birth-rate. Public kitchens have been frequently operated as charities; but this kind of kitchen, Dr. Saleeby points out, is no more a charity

"First of all, sphagnum will absorb liquids much more rapidly than absorbent cotton-about three times as fast.

"In the second place, the sphagnum will take up liquids in much greater amount than absorbent cotton. A pad made of absorbent cotton will absorb only five or six times its weight of water. An average pad made of sphagnum will take up sixteen to eighteen times its weight of water, more than three times as much as cotton, and exceptionally good moss will absorb as much as twenty-two times its weight of water.

"In the third place, the sphagnum will retain liquids much better than cotton. This means, of course, that a sphagnum dressing need not be changed as often as a cotton dressing.

"In the fourth place, 'the better qualities of sphagnum have the valuable property of distributing whatever liquid they absorb throughout their whole mass.' An absorbent pad of sphagnum will continue to suck up fluid discharges until it is pretty uniformly saturated throughout. This is a very important feature. A cotton pad ordinarily ceases to function long before its theoretical capacity has been reached. . . .

"Now, to a certain extent, the cells of any moss-leaf are able to absorb liquids. But the ability of the ordinary green cells in this respect is insignificant when compared with that of the large, colorless cells of the sphagnum leaf. These, because of their capacity for absorption, may well be referred to as the absorbing cells. There are two features in these cells which especially adapt them to the function of absorption. First, the wall of each and every one of the absorbing cells is punctured toward the outside by several minute holes or pores. It is through these pores that liquids are sucked into the cells. Each cell, acting independently, sucks in whatever liquid it comes in contact with until it is full.

"It now becomes perfectly clear why it is that sphagnum is so much superior to cotton as an absorbent. In cotton, liquids, for the most part, are merely held within a tangle of threads. In the sphagnum we find a highly specialized absorbing system, made up primarily of a vast series of absorbing cells, but supplemented by other structural peculiarities of the sphagnum plant."

than a public water-supply or a post-office. In the face of their success, it would be as much of a mistake to discontinue them now as it would to resume the private transportation of mail matter, or to substitute wells for the city water-works. Writes Dr. Saleeby in substance:

"The establishment of national kitchens in this country, on principles which have been assumed and followed nowhere else, has been so successful, except where those unique principles were departed from, that I submit them to thoughtful students of social and domestic problems throughout the world, in the belief that they will be no less valuable, mutatis mutandis, elsewhere, and without reference at all to the war which has here furnished their occasion.

"In no other sphere of present-day civilized life can be found such waste and inefficiency as are connected with the daily supply and preparation of food. Cooking, further, is not only one of the lower arts, but is a department of applied chemistry. Such being the facts, we usually assume that every properly constituted woman is a 'born cook,' or could be made into all that is needed by a brief course of training. In no other sphere of technique do we make this assumption; in no other do we relegate practically the whole of the problem to smallscale production by amateurs or the half-trained. Yet upon the proper use of food every other activity, personal, social, industrial, national, international, depends.

"Everything that public kitchens have everywhere been in the past ours are not and are not to be. Every one of these kitchens is, and must be, on a sound economic basis. Only on the absolute understanding that the public kitchen is no more a charity than the public water-supply, or drainage-supply, or postoffice, can we eliminate the sentiment that only the poor will go to the kitchen, which the self-respecting accordingly boycott. So long as this sentiment exists the kitchen will be found to fail.

"Seeing that there is nothing to apologize for, and that the enthusiastic support of all classes is essential, the kitchen must not be in a side-street, but as well and conveniently and handsomely housed as possible. The mechanical side of the kitchen must be thoroughly equipped. In many instances it will serve the local needs to have a restaurant attached to the kitchen. The greatest success has been attained in large cities by these national restaurants, which also have the advantage of simplifying the financial problems of the kitchens.

"Seeing that the community consists of many kinds of person, with differing dietetic needs, each kitchen should have-and, I am hoping, ere long will have-special departments concerned with the preparation and distribution of the appropriate dietaries for such special classes of the community, as, for instance, expectant and nursing mothers, infants not naturally fed, school children, heavy manual workers. The infant welfare center, the day nursery, the school, public institutions of all kinds whose work includes feeding, will draw from the kitchens as the nutritive centers of the nation."

Kitchens of this kind, Dr. Saleeby points out, are also agents of food conservation, both because the waste of the private kitchen is cut down and also, through the superior digestibility of well-cooked food, by eliminating the less obvious waste in the

alimentary canal. portant.

The question of fuel is scarcely less imHe goes on:

"For the past eight months, including the coldest and hottest of 1918, I have profited every day by the Kensington National Kitchen, and it has not been the least boon that the expenditure of fuel in the hot months has been minimized, so that one's little flat is cooler and more bearable in sultry weather. But the consideration that transcends all others is the economy which permanent national kitchens are beginning to effect in the vital energies of our working women. As a life-long student of the birth-rate, which is now everywhere indicating to all but the glass-eyed that, as civilization is now going, it is doomed, I submit that to eliminate the perpetual demands of purchasing, preparing, and cooking food, and washing the cooking implements, is our only chance of preventing the birth-rate from falling to a level which means, in a few generations, racial extinction.

"For decades we have demanded too much of the workingclass wife and mother. Her achievements under cruel handicaps are a miracle. To-day she finds herself free in two particulars. She need have no more children than she pleases; she can leave her home and earn a good wage at any of half a hundred occupations. What is to become of motherhood and the racial future under such conditions, totally unprecedented in human history? The vital statistics of all civilized countries furnish the answer. At the least, let us ameliorate the home life and increase the prospects of survival and health for children by abolishing the endless and unnecessary demands of the private kitchen."

THE BANKER'S FAILURE AS A RAIL

ROADER

THE TROUBLE WITH AMERICAN RAILROADS is that they have been run by bankers, and no industry can be operated successfully by men "of the banking type of mind." This diagnosis is an editorial one contributed by The Engineering News Record (New York). To a friendly critic who protests that our railroad system has led the world in extent, in development of country, in efficiency, and in low freight-rates, the editor replies that if he had been referring to technical engineering excellence his opinion would have been different. But discussing the railroads as a whole, as part of the industrial scheme, and as such, having an economic and a social bearing, he does not hesitate, he says, to repeat the original statement. He goes on:

"Here was, and is, an agency with daily influence on the life of every member of the community, performing a service essential to the nation's life. Yet it has few friends among the people at large; more now than formerly, however, due to the number of those whose pity has been excited at the railroads' plight. The first of the railroads' plagues was the type of management-manipulation, it would better be called-which regarded the properties not as carriers but as media for stockjobbing operations. Consolidations, with the addition of water, and reconsolidations, with still more water, were the order of the day; while those operating the properties danced riotously over their territories waving insolently the flag of 'The Public Be Damned.' Rebates, car-withholding tyrannies, all manner of schemes were worked to aid the favored few, while the purchasing methods honeycombed the organization with rottenness. came the day for the people to have their say, and one national and forty-eight State commissions began to bedevil the carriers. What the stock-jobbers and the grafters had failed to do the people in their vengeance helped to complete. The public at large, which under intelligent management of the properties would have been the railroads' best friend, had been alienated. As a result we have had the drift into bankruptcy which has been railroad history during the past decade. Instances need not be cited. Each one can supply them from his own neighborhood. Probably the mention of the New Haven will furnish sufficient nausea to carry the right impression.

Then

"And that débâcle we attribute to the banking type of mind, that type of mind that places personal profit ahead of all other considerations. The engineering type of mind, we hold, would have analyzed the purpose of the railroads would have seen that service to the public at large, and not to any private interest, was the prime object, would have erected that as the railroads' ideal and builded a machine for its attainment."

A PLEA TO IMPROVE A FATAL WATER

ROUTE

WING TO ANTIQUATED SALVAGE LAWS and lack of proper guides to navigation, the coastwise waters between Seattle and Skagway, over 1,000 miles in extent, are taking annual toll in wreckage and human lives that should be startling to the public and is discreditable to the two great nations concerned. Such, at least, is the editorial opinion of The Railway and Marine News (Seattle, November 1), which calls upon the governments of the United States and Canada to establish a chain of international salvage stations and to appoint a joint commission to report on coastwise laws, lights and aids to navigation, rules of salvage, dangerous reefs, the continuance of surveys, and the charting of unknown waters.

In only a few years past dozens of vessels, with millions of dollars of property and hundreds of lives, have been lost in these waters, but the immediate cause of the News's appeal is the wreck of the Princess Sophia with 343 lives lost and a million dollars' worth of gold-dust on board. We read:

"The route from Seattle to Skagway is, roundly, 1,150 miles. The vessels travel through waters of the State of Washington, then across the open Strait of Juan de Fuca, then for some 500 miles or more through British Columbia, and then for the balance of some 500 miles or more in the United States waters of Alaska. "For years Congress has been petitioned to build more and more lighthouses in Alaska. British Columbia is much better lighted, but there is room for vast improvement.

"Then the rules governing salvage operations are positively awful. Under existing laws, both of Canada and the United States, an American vessel can not salve a wreck in British Columbia waters, nor can a Canadian vessel do salvage work in American waters. Oftentimes it is extremely difficult to draw the line between what would be considered by either government as work of humanity and what would infringe on salvage laws. The masters of foreign ships now place their

"For use in absorbent surgical dressings sphagnum moss is not merely a satisfactory substitute. In many respects, without question, it is superior to absorbent cotton.

ABOLISHING THE PRIVATE KI

HE KITCHEN and its adjuncts may be the model house of the future and its spa... better living conditions. In England, t national kitchens established to do community the Great War have proved such a success that ma they be continued as a permanent contribution: health and efficiency in time of peace. Dr. C. W. takes this view, describes the working of the kit Graphic (London). They have, he asserts, cut dam”. inefficiency, promoted health and ease of househe tration, and are actually helping to increase the Public kitchens have been frequently operated as chr this kind of kitchen, Dr. Saleeby points out, is no mo

than a public water-supply or a postface of their success, it would be as me take to discontinue them now as it wou the private transportation of mail mazi substitute wells for the city water-wor Dr. Saleeby in substance:

"The establishment of national kit country, on principles which have bee and followed nowhere else, has been s except where those unique principles ve.. from, that I submit them to thought of social and domestic problems throu world, in the belief that they will be able, mutatis mutandis, elsewhere, and reference at all to the war which has nished their occasion.

"In no other sphere of present-day can be found such waste and inefficien connected with the daily supply and p of food. Cooking, further, is not only a lower arts, but is a department of spi istry. Such being the facts, we usua that every properly constituted woman cook,' or could be made into all that s a brief course of training. In no other technique do we make this assumption do we relegate practically the whole of the problem scale production by amateurs or the half-trained the proper use of food every other activity, per industrial, national, international, depends.