with news he lately received from this brother of conditions in Russia: "Discontent with the Bolsheviki increases every day, but those who oppose them are not organized, and therefore have not the power to sweep them away. Among those who form the opposition are people of all classes and parties, beginning with the revolutionaries and finishing with monarchists. I think that many of the Bolsheviki themselves are, at the bottom of their souls, monarchists also. . . "As all the people of Russia are unarmed, the result is that the Allies and the Germans, in the areas where they are in power, do everything they wish. But in such regions which neither the Allies nor Germans can reach the power is in the hands of small bands of Bolsheviki, who rule there as they choose. think that such a state of affairs will continue till the end of the war. "If you ask me on whose side are the sympathies of the Russian people I will say that they are on the side of the Allies, but first of all Russia longs for peace. "My brother writes me that the home of my mother is guarded by the Bolsheviki and that she is in safety. The home of my brother has been completely destroyed by the peasants, who burned everything they could, beginning with his rich and rare library." F COLD WATER FOR FRENCH GOOD WILL RANCE IS NOT STINTING in offering us of her best. College professors, art-critics, musical composers, and men eminent in French literature and science are members of the mission "delegated by their Government to strengthen the ties existing between French and American universities by means of lectures here." The New York World feels confident in offering these emissaries "a warm welcome," and seems assured that the "goal must be easy of attainment under present conditions of relationship between the two countries." These confidences are easily felt and easily exprest when a new project is set before us. It was so when the Théâtre du Vieux Colombier first came to us. This pioneer institution, now in the second year of its work in New York, is meeting with only moderate support now that the novelty of its coming is passed. Even our press treat it in a more or less cavalier spirit, and the suspicion is apparently well founded that many of the men sent to review the productions there are but imperfectly acquainted with the language. One of our best known and most quoted critics had recently to explain that his complaint that "there seemed a long time between the jamais" did not necessarily imply that this was the only French word he knew. Something of course should be allowed for the mot! But it ought not to be overlooked that Mr. Denys Amiel, editor of The New France (New York), speaks with excusable exasperation of this continued flippant tone. Mr. Amiel is himself a dramatist and occupied a place among the younger men of French letters in the prewar Paris. His journal here is devoted to the furtherance of “FrancoAmerican relations." He writes: "I assisted last evening at a very remarkable presentation of 'Le Mariage de Figaro.' I do not believe that it would be possible to give a more perfect production of the play. I was very much astonished at the absolute lack of understanding shown by the American press in speaking of this masterpiece, one of the finest in the French language. Surely to misunderstand or falsely interpret 'Le Mariage de Figaro' is to misunderstand and falsely interpret the French spirit. If the American public turns its back on 'Le Mariage de Figaro,' it is exactly the same as if it said, 'There is no place for the French theater in America.' "Unfortunately lack of time makes it impossible to say more of the play itself. It suffices to say that it is a faithful reflection of the state of mind at the outbreak of the French Revolution. With its 'badinages,' its very apparent humor, its delightful wit, it has in a sense been rightly called the cause of the French Revolution. I would like personally to ask each reader of The New France in New York to go each week and enjoy in its fullest measure the delightful French atmosphere of Le Théâtre du Vieux Colombier. Therein lies an absolute duty for each reader, I a duty not only toward himself, but toward France and toward American culture, which ought to profit greatly by contact with a program of French culture, conceived with an eclecticism which satisfies individual tastes. "Just as we make a very strong and urgent appeal for the success of war-drives and œuvres de guerre, so also do we make the same strong appeal that Le Théâtre du Vieux Colombier be faithfully supported in order that the French art which it so admirably represents may be conserved during these moments of wanton destruction of some of its oldest monuments." The barrier of the language is probably accountable for small houses at the French theater, but this is the very thing that we are assuming to be no impediment when we welcome, as does The World, other members of France's High Commission. The World is overconfident perhaps of the French of our returning Army. But it thus surveys the subject: "Four years of common sympathies in war and a year and a half of comradeship in arms have prepared the soil. And along with Kaiserism has gone a good part of that educational autocracy under which for half a century and more American college learning has been made to swear in the words of a German master. "But the real missionaries of French culture will be the 2,000,000 American soldiers returning with a knowledge of French speech and of French manners. They have learned that not all France is comprised in Montmartre and the Moulin Rouge, and they have now an acquaintance with French character that dispels old illusions about decadence. During the time of demobilization they will receive further instruction in French, and when they come home their opinion should profoundly influence the American attitude toward France and French ideals. "No doubt the Alliance Française will help in the rapprochement. This organization did a commendable work before the war in familiarizing Americans with French culture, and it has new opportunities now. But the war itself has done most to bring the two countries together in a fraternity of spirit, and this may be reckoned one of its beneficial results." AN "ART INDEMNITY' DEMANDED-"Not in revenge, but in justice," is the phrase by which the demands on German art-possessions is recommended to the Allies. A petition has been forwarded President Wilsom by the Subcommittee on Arts and Decorations of the Mayor's Committee on National Defense asking that the Versailles Council appoint an Inter-Allied Commission of Artists to select works of art from German palaces and galleries to be carried to the Allied countries as reparation for the German destruction of Reims Cathedral and other notable structures and works in France and Belgium. This is to form part of the indemnity, and the demand is couched in these words: "The wanton destruction in Belgium, Italy, and France of works of art embodying men's loftiest dreams and aspirations can never be paid in money, since the loss is fundamentally spiritual. We believe that at least part reparation might be made by Germany's and Austria's surrender of such works of art now held in German and Austrian territory as the vandals by their own acts must be judged incapable of appreciating and unworthy of continuing to have and to hold." Such payment may seem to the guilty a full reparation and a reason to expect smiles and welcome, but the New York World sternly repels such possibilities: "The Allies have the power as conquerors and the right as a matter of exact justice to compel this reparation, but if the action is taken no inroad will be made on the Sieges Allée. Berlin at least is safe; it will not be forced to part with its Teutonic masterpieces. But galleries like that at Dresden are sufficiently rich in old masters to make up for many losses. "Even so, can substitution repair the wrong? The Sistine 'Madonna' would compensate for many things, but if Cologne Cathedral itself could be transported bodily to Reims would it wholly atone for the ruthless desecration of Joan of Arc's cathedral? Can the wrecked châteaux and Town Halls of France and Flanders be replaced by something just as good? Filling looted museums from enemy art-collections will afford material reparation, but it can never heal the deep hurt of the original vandalism." T HE RELIGION OF WILLIAM HOHENZOLLERN has been one of the active topics of the whole war. It has only been in his very latest utterances that the former German monarch has not coupled Gott with himself as an equal, an abettor, or perchance a servant. One picture of the Kaiser sent out by the watchful Boswell, Karl Rosner, showed William in the act of communion, and we are distinctly told that in that Belgian church with a waiting audience of German officers the worshiper never bent the knee. There is a strong contrast between him and the figure the Los Angeles Times draws of his conqueror, Gen. Ferdinand Foch -"the Gray Man of Christ." "This has been Christ's war," says The Times. "Christ on one side, and all that stood opposed to Christ on the other side. And the Generalissimo, in supreme command of all the armies that fought on the side of Christ, is Christ's man." "Whoever does not realize this and see it clearly as a fact, he does but blunder stupidly. "There will be a crowding company of critics when the war is ended and they will all be filled with the ego of their own conclusions. They will attempt to explain the genius of Foch with maps and diagrams. But, while they are doing so, if you will look for Foch in some quiet church, it is there that he will The painting from which this is reproduced, together with nearly one hundred other Orpen originals, forms part of the official collection which has been sent over by the British Government to be exhibited in the leading museums and art-galleries throughout the United States. The exhibition will open at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington in January, will be shown in New York in February, and thereafter appear in other places, as arranged by the Worcester Art Museum. "The deeper we question as to who Foch is, the clearer is the answer that in every act of his life and in every thought of his brain he is Christ's man. "If you were to ask him, 'Are you Christ's man?' he would answer 'Yes.' "It seems to be beyond all shadow of doubt that when the hour came in which all Christ stood for was to either stand or fall, Christ raised up a man to lead the hosts that battled for him. "When the hour came in which truth and right, charity, brotherly love, justice, and liberty were either to triumph or to be blotted out of the world, Christ came again upon the road to Damascus. be found humbly giving God the glory, and absolutely declining to attribute it to himself. "Can that kind of a man win a war? Can a man who is a practical soldier be also a practical Christian? And is Foch that kind of a man? Let us see." The secret of where Foch used to go for "strength and magical power to bring home the marvelous victories" was surprized by a California boy. It was not published by any organ of France, to show the world how "religious" its leader was: "A California boy, serving as a soldier in the American Expeditionary Forces in France, has recently written a letter to his parents in San Bernardino in which he gives, as well as any one else could give, the answer to the question we ask. "This American boy -Evans by name tells of meeting General Foch at close range in France. "Evans had gone into an old church to have a.look at it, and as he stood there with bared head satisfying his respectful curiosity, a gray man with the eagles of a general on the collar of his shabby uniform also entered the church. Only one orderly accompanied the quiet, gray man. No glittering staff of officers, no entourage of gold-laced aids, were with him; nobody but just the orderly. "Evans paid small attention at first to the gray man, but was curious to see him kneel in the church, praying. The minutes passed until full three-quarters of an hour had gone by before the gray man arose from his knees. "Then Evans followed him down the street and was surprized to see soldiers salute this man in great excitement, and women and children stopping in their tracks with awe-struck faces as he passed. "It was Foch. And now Evans, of San Bernardino, counts the experience as the greatest in his life. During that three-quarters of an hour that the Generalissimo of all the Allied armies was on his knees in humble supplication in that quiet church, 10,000 guns were roaring at his word on a hundred hills that rocked with death. "Millions of armed men crouched in trenches or rushed across blood-drenched terranes at his command, generals, artillery, cavalry, engineers, tanks, fought and wrought across the map of Europe absolutely as he commanded them to do, and in no other manner, as he went into that little church to pray. "Nor was it an unusual thing for General Foch to do. There is no day that he does not do the same thing if there be a church that he can reach. He never fails to spend an hour on his knees every morning that he awakes from sleep; and every night it is the same. "Moreover, it is not a new thing with him. He has done it his whole life long. "If young Evans could have followed the General on to headquarters, where reports were waiting him and news of victory upon victory was piled high before him, he would doubtless have seen a great gladness on the General's face, but he would have seen no look of surprize there. "Men who do that which Foch does have no doubts. When Premier Clemenceau, the old Tiger of France, stood on the battlefront with anxious heart, one look at the face of Foch stilled all his fears. He returned to Paris with the vision of sure and certain victory. "The great agnostic statesman doubted, but the Gray Man of Christ did not doubt. "The facts, then, in the case are that when the freedom of the world hung in the balance the world turned to Foch as the one great genius who could save it against the Hun; and that Foch, who is perhaps the greatest soldier the world has produced, is, first of all, a Christian. "Young Evans, of San Bernardino, just an every-day American boy from under the shadow of old San Gorgonio, spent nearly an hour with Foch in an old French church, and not even one bayonet was there to keep them apart. "They represented the two great democracies of the world, but there in that old church they represented, jointly, a far greater thing-the democracy of Christ." A A CALL TO REPENTANCE RE WE WORTHY TO WIN THE WAR? A question so startling has perhaps not entered into the consciousness of many. But it comes to Herbert L. Willett, associate editor of Chicago's undenominational paper, The Christian Century. His article is in the temper of Kipling's "Recessional," who interjected his word of caution while the notes of national jubilation were still sounding. To Mr. Willett there is "a more momentous aspect of the world-crisis" than even the successes won in the field or those in store at the council table; and it is one, he says, to which fitting adjustment can be made only after careful searching of heart. He writes: "Great causes demand great champions. A battalion of policemen may quiet a riot or a regiment of rough-riders disperse an army of Mexican irregulars. A battle may be won by superior numbers or heavier artillery. But can a war in which great moral issues are involved be really won by brigades and divisions? And above all, can a war as holy as this be brought to a victorious result save by a people that has set itself the high task of moral preparation? "In the great days to which all the Christian centuries look back there was heard in the deep valley of the Jordan a strange and commanding voice, crying, 'Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.' In some manner whose disclosure is yet inscrutable to our half-opened eyes, and in a sense far beyond the ability of any crude apocalyptical speculations to define, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. He who believes that the tragic events of the time have no revelation of the divine purpose latent in their portentous volume is insensitive indeed to the signs of the times. We have no need to draw diagrams of what is now to take place in the world of religion-after the war.' Much more to the purpose is the recognition of what is transpiring under our eyes. Facts are being recorded, and forces released day by day, that are nothing less than revolutionary. If social customs and economic habits that were supposed to be a part of the established order of the world have crumbled at the advent of the new time, of governmental decisions that would have shocked an earlier generation, are now accepted as commonplaces, if the effort to galvanize political parties into a semblance of their old animosity seems trivial and futile, not less are the religious factors of our common life reshaping themselves with a rapidity and certainty which are the despair of the apologists for denominationalism and the defenders of tradition. Over the forlornly defended, or wholly forsaken redoubts of medievalism, ignorance, and reaction, the forces of progress are sweeping as the lines of the Allies crossed the German trenches. "Objectives that at best could be hoped for only after many years are taken and passed almost in a day. If these facts do not signify the coming of the Kingdom in a new and unprecedented way, it would be difficult to give them adequate interpretation. And if this be so, then, as of old, there is urgent need of the thrilling cry, 'Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."" "HE HATH PUT DOWN THE MIGHTY FROM THEIR SEATS " V ICTORY REJOICINGS were translated into victory thanksgivings in the churches of this land on the Sunday following the cessation of the conflict. "This is the greatest moment of all history," said Dr. Manning, of Trinity Church, "except the one in which Christ was born." The New York Tribune estimates that "nearly 2,000,000 attended religious meetings in greater New York during the day," and among them were sailors and soldiers garbed in the uniforms of every nation that fought on the side of the Allies during the "Think for a moment what German victory would have meant to us and to all the world," Dr. Manning urges, "then offer your thanks to Almighty God for the great deliverance that he has given us." Dr. William Pierson Merrill, preaching in the Brick Presbyterian Church, dwelt on the "unswerving patriotism of all the peoples that contributed to the victory of the Allies, and added a special thanksgiving for our part: war. "Thank God that America has played her part effectively and with honor. God keep us humble, as we should be in the presence of nations that have fought and endured and sacrificed as we have scarcely dreamed of doing. Let us be content with the honor of having given it in a good spirit. For the courage and stedfastness and gayety and cleanness of our men, for the unity of our national soul and effort, for the high ideals kept dominant in the nation's life, for the care given the men in service, and for the good repute won by them in foreign lands-for these and many other mercies we give thanks to God, praying that we may in our joy and satisfaction be wholly free from the peril and shame of self-satisfaction." The chaplain of Columbia College pleads against "softness" in dealing out justice to Germany: "We are not treating with an honorable tho defeated foe. We are dealing with a criminal brought to book and as yet unrepentant. We are dealing with a nation that has shown itself morally defective. How to treat Germany is a problem of penology." The religious tone of secular editorials dealing with Ger many's defeat is almost as strong as the words of the pulpit. Notable among these is one from the Newark Evening News. With the apocalyptic warning that "God is not mocked. And in the day of our triumph let us be humble before him," The Evening News solemnly reviews the plight of the nation that planned the world's wo: "It is not enough that the German armies confess defeat. "It is not enough that revolution takes command of the erstwhile German Empire. "It is only enough that the doctrine and theory of autocracy are disproved and put to shame. "Autocracy, militarism, can only maintain themselves by professing infallibility. Autocracy can not take counsel of democracy without dynamiting its own foundations. If it is not superior, it is naught. "Kaiser Wilhelm may go down in history as the world's greatest villain. He will certainly go down forever as the world's vastest fool. "There is his downfall, the downfall of the laboriously created machine that mechanized and brutalized Germany, heart and soul. He and his clique set at naught two thousand years of man's development. They defied the finer instincts of man, debauched the holy mission of education, worshiped at the temple of a crass materialism. For the Nazarene they sub'stituted a tribal Gott. "Defeat and physical death do not kill. The Nazarene lives. In the suffering of the men who bore the Cross in France he triumphs. Their rest is perfect in his peace. Their glory is imperishable, for they wrought a New World. "Betrayed by materialism, that against which they contended is hurled to the depths of contempt. It is just scorn that kills. "Where, to-day, is the arch-apostle of materialism, militarism, he of the 'flaming sword,' senior partner of Me-undGott? Fled across the border to neutral Holland, shameful in defeat and daring not to face the people he betrayed! "Where are the clerics who swore that they alone knew the real god? "Where are the diplomats who made faithlessness their creed and tore apart the 'scrap of paper'? "Where are the thousand professors who profest that might was right? "Where are the ten thousand savants who declared that their materialism bought them invincibility? "Where are the hundred thousand officers of the kingly caste to whom the citizen was dirt, and who wrote their creed in flame and sword on Belgium? "Theirs is shame, the shame that kills. Of all history they are the world's supreme fools. Their sword struck through the superficiality, the carelessness of a seemingly spiritually inert world. That world flamed back against them, and from east to west, from pole to pole, from Christian to freethinker, Mohammedan to heathen, it declared their creed a hateful vanity. "All things seemed in their hands. The world was drifting under their spell. Their espionage, their materialistic skill, their materialistic philosophy seemed to be overcoming the nations. Hardy in confidence, they struck, struck with the weight of forty years' preparedness. "But not in Belgium, nor in France, nor in Servia, nor on the shamed seas could they defeat the Power that rose to meet them. Neither the stricken fields nor the reddened oceans gave back victory. Ever new forces rose to hurl them back and the solid line of the struggling democracies bent and swayed but would not break. Then came the turn, and four months were enough. "Autocracy and militarism are dead. They are dead because they had no inner life. Revealed, they are utterly put to shame, made the subject of the scorn and ridicule of the world. It is that fact-the shame-that has killed them in the day and hour of their failure. Their arch-priest dares not face the ruin he wrought and runs away. That is their end." The fall of the figure-head of this folly is compared by the New York Tribune to the fall of Lucifer, and the words of Isaiah concerning him are quoted as adequate to Wilhelm's case without added comment: Isaiah xiv; 9-21 9. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it had raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. 10. All they shall speak and say unto thee, art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? 11. Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. 12. How art thou fallen from heaven. O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 13. For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 15. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. 16. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms: 17. That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? 18. All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house. 19. But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit: as a carcass trodden under feet. 20. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land and slain thy people; the seed of evil-doers shall never be renowned. 21. Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise nor possess the land, nor all the face of the world with cities. P "THE GREAT ARMY THAT DIED " REMIER CLEMENCEAU stirred the great heart of France to its depths when he added a few simple words to his communication of the armistice terms in the Chamber of Deputies. "Let us honor the great army that died. France in older times had soldiers of God; to-day it has soldiers of humanity and always soldiers of ideals." They were noble words, says the New York World. "In that moving phrase he spoke the inmost feelings not only of millions of French men and women, but of the peoples of all the Allied nations that shared in the winning of the war." It continues: "It is a time for universal rejoicing that the shedding of blood on the battle-fields of Europe has ceased. It is also a time for reverent tribute to the men who gave their lives that the right should prevail. They have made the supreme sacrifice. To them has been denied the reward of joining in the final triumph and exultation over victory. They have passed beyond reach of the clamor of shouting multitudes, of pealing peace bells, of the voices of loving friends and kindred, and the touch of hands they held dear. "But they, too, wear the victor's crown, tho they failed to see the hour of ultimate victory. They have bequeathed to those left behind the glory and the honors. "In the men who return from the wars we shall show our pride, but with Premier Clemenceau, may we never forget to honor the great army that died."" From another angle the Newark News speaks of that unreturning army and the pity that would "shield the mothers of the sons who brought precious victory with their death" "In the grand silence of the peace so dearly won they sleep the warrior's sleep. They will not again sit about the hearth. Those of us who are to clasp beloved hands once more shrink at the thought of the loneliness of the mothers whose sons return not. "It is a kind and tender impulse, but we are wrong. If in those mother hearts there yearns the sorrow of loss, there triumphs the glory of sacrifice. The sons whose lives were spent for the highest that they knew are the sons of mothers whose ideals they carried forward with the banners of a just and holy cause. They drew from the blood that bore them the strength of will, the firmness of purpose, the fearlessness of death which we celebrate in this tremendous hour. They fought and fell as the protagonists of American motherhood, which their signal devotion now has vindicated and enshrined. Their souls were steeped in patriot cradles and nurtured in homes where virtue and honor and faith were more than all. "Forever living, incapable of death, are the noble boys who lie where freedom for the world was won. And joyful with a sacred joy are the mothers whose offering was beyond earthly measure, the mothers of sons who return not. The God of battles is also the God of compassion. They need not the pity of men and women. He has raised them up to greater heights by sacrifice made perfect." The American Army assumes it as a duty to bring back to their native soil the bodies of those who have fallen. But Colonel Roosevelt and his wife feel differently, and the former has written to General March, of the War Department, this letter, which the press reprodu ́es: "Mrs. Roosevelt and I wish to enter a most respectful but most emphatic protest against the proposed course, so far as our son Quentin is concerned. We have always believed that 'Where the tree falls, there let it lie.' We know that many good persons feel entirely different, but to us it is painful and harrowing, long after death, to move the poor body from which the soul has fled. We greatly prefer that Quentin shall continue to lie on the spot where he fell in battle and where the foemen buried him. "After the war is over, Mrs. Roosevelt and I intend to visit the grave and then to have a small stone put up saying it is put up by us, but not disturbing what has already been erected to his memory by his friends and American comrades in arms. "With apologies for troubling you, "Very faithfully yours, "THEODORE ROOSEVELT." The request, to which assent has been given may, be pondered and approved by many others who have precious dead over there. Prepared for THE LITERARY DIGEST by the UNITED STATES FOOD ADMINISTRATION and especially designed for High School Use I MEETING THE TEST T CAN'T BE DONE-In some such phrase, Germany has more than once mentally summed up her verdict-based on her logic- - upon many of America's purposes and programs in the war. Can the United States provide a large surplus of food, get it across the ocean (with all the other demands on shipping), and do it amply and regularly enough to save the Allied nations from a state verging on famine?—It can't be done. Such was the way Germany answered to herself these questions. AMERICA'S ANSWER-Meanwhile the United States was asking itself the same questions. And the answer it made, impelled by a force mightier than mere logic, was something like Germany's. Like and yet very different. For America's answer was this: It can't be done-we'll do it. This has been called the rallying motto of many of our soldiers in France, confronted by some task seemingly impossible of accomplishment, but which has been forthwith accomplished. And, in spirit at least, it has also been the rallying-cry here among our own home armies of eager patriots. Now WE HAVE TO FEED IT! trades in this country. Without such cooperation-popular and commercial; in homes and in the business world-the task of food-administration would have been like trying to build a house out of plans and specifications instead of bricks and mortar. WHEAT-One of the best examples of how the public cooperated with the Food Administration to produce beneficial results in many directions is shown in the case of wheat. The Allies, at the beginning of 1918, were in dire need of wheat. They sent word of this in plain terms to the United States Food Administration. The Food Administration passed the message along to the people. And the people gave their wheat, not the wheat previously intended for export, but the wheat which in ordinary times would go on to dining-tables all across the country. Our 1917 wheat crop was not large; but, nevertheless, out of it 85,000,000 bushels were shipped to Allied destinations after the regular surplus scheduled for export was gone. Logically we were able to ship only 20,000,000 bushels; actually-we shipped the 85,000,000! And this was achieved without the restrictions of a compulsory rationing system. Another side of the wheat situation is the way wheat prices have gone down since the Food Administration was created. In May, 1917, before there was any food-control, flour sold at wholesale for $17; but in February, 1918-six months after the creation of the Food Administration-the wholesale price had fallen to $10.50. Had there been no food-control in this country (a condition existing at the time of the Civil War), it is no exaggeration to say that flour might before now have risen to $50 a barrel. For food-prices during, and after, the Civil War went up in that proportion. And then there was not even any such excuse as the world food-shortage which exists to-day. Such is one example of how food-control in this country has worked out. And our wheat exports, poured out from a short crop in such profusion as to seem almost unbelievable, testify to the spirit of team play between the public and the Food Administration. CAN YOU BEAT IT? CHANGING OLD HABITS-Practically every food-problem -no matter how difficult-which has been solved has been overcome by the spirit implied in those three small words, "We'll do it." If any one, back in the days of 1917, when we were just entering the war, had hazarded the assertion that in almost no time at all the American people could modify their habits of what to eat or what not to eat or when not to eat it, he would have been greeted with incredulity. That incredulity would have increased if the further assertion had been made that America could almost immediately modify trade methods of food-distribution -from producer to consumer-in which illegitimate practises had become obscured by long habit. And finally, if it had been definitely stated that Americain the midst of all the activities and cross-currents produced by war-could achieve a food-export program overtopping anything of the sort heretofore attempted, there might have arisen a feeling of actual derision. But "We'll do it." That mental and spiritual attitude was the magic wand which helped America to make good. The province and privilege of the United States Food Administration have been to be a sharer and coworker in that great popular decision to help win the war by delivering the right food, at the right time, at the right place. COOPERATION-In surveying the work of the United States Food Administration since its beginning, one fact stands out conspicuously. That is the fact that the Food Administration's work has been possible only because of the people's cooperation, and the cooperation of those engaged in the food THE FUTURE—After all, it is only by such a wide-spread popular response that the United States can help solve the world's food-problems. And such problems and burdens we shall have to continue to shoulder regardless of the turn of future happenings. To-day world events are flashing by in so bewildering a succession that no one can say in advance just what form of foodservice the American people will be called upon to perform. But it is certain that they will have to go on living up to food obligations-obligations to their own self-respect and to humanity. Now that the war is over, it is probable that America will have to ship to the hungry peoples of the world all the food that there is available shipping to carry. Our pledge to the Allies was to ship seventeen and one-half million tons of foodstuffs overseas next year. That amount will doubtless have to be increased now to some twenty million tons. In no way can this be achieved save by the ideals of democracy, the voluntary determination to sacrifice for a common aim. In no way can it be accomplished save by faithful and continuous food-service and cooperation on the part of the American people. Does the task seem almost impossible? Are you tempted to say to yourself: "It can't be done"? If so, pause before saying it-consider the record of the pastand add: "We'll do it." |