discretion and judgment. Solicitor Lamar has many times over shown that he has the requisite.

Of far greater difficulty and importance than any of these has been the responsibility placed on the Solicitor by the provisions of the Espionage Act passed since this country entered the war. That act not only bars from the mails all seditious, anarchistic, and treasonable matter; but also provides a severe penalty for those who cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty in the military forces, or who obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the nation. Insofar as the mails have been used, or their use has been attempted, in a way to come within the meaning of this law, the bailiwick of the Solicitor has been entered. The considerable number of papers permanently put out of business or barred for an issue or more since we entered the war are witness to the activity of this part of our governmental machinery.

Let us look a little more carefully at a few of the weapons and achievements of the Solicitor. In all the vast number of cases involving the use of the mails to defraud, the weapon most used is the fraud order. This is practically a new scalawag exterminator made famous, through its usefulness, by Mr. Lamar. It existed before he came to the office, but for some reason it had been used hardly at all, and had been almost forgotten by the Post Office till the Wilson administration began. Almost at once after entering office, Postmaster General Burlison began to employ, through the office of the Solicitor, this fraud order in a vigorous campaign against those who chat by mail.

The number of fraudulent schemes examined rapidly increased, and instead of being put into the slow courts, were placed before the Solicitor and dismissed or barred. from the mails. Only three fraud orders were issued in 1913; in the next year the first under the new regime-there were forty-five; in the next year, seventy-one, and so on. Though the number has increased, that is mainly due to a new spirit in the department, and in the public; the good effect of the policy is shown in the decreasing flagrancy and profit of the cases examined. A fraud order works in this fashion. When the inspectors have worked up a case the Solicitor advises the Postmaster General whether

or not a fraud order should be issued. If it is issued, the culprit may go on mailing as much of his "come on" invitations as he pleases, but he can get no replies, for all mail addressed to him is stopped by the authorities, and returned to the sender, marked, "Fraudulent. Mail to this addressee returned by order of the Postmaster General." This is remarkably effective publicity. This campaign helped to bring about a sweeping reform in advertising. These birds of prey had been spending millions of dollars in advertising, and their suppression meant serious loss to publications which had been selling them that commodity. Some publications had little or no other support; and at first many newspapers published nothing about the issuing of fraud orders. But those were exceptions, and soon the Solicitor expressed his pleasure that there was a growing class of advertising managers and publishers who were trying to make clean and keep clean the advertising columns of their papers. Before long many organizations of advertising men and newspapers had begun war on fraudulent advertising. Leading ad men kept in close touch with the Solicitor's office, and made it their business to spread information concerning fraud orders issued. This movement for clean advertising has not only almost banished a large class of advertising from all respectable papers, but has also led to a distinct change for the better in the tone of high grade advertising.

But these activities, important as they are, all sank to relative insignificance before the problems brought up by our entry into the war. It soon became apparent that the friendliness for Germany shown by a number of persons and organizations while this country was still neutral had not ceased when we became belligerents, but had become a hidden menace to the country. Information in various forms and of convincing nature, received by the Post Office Department, said Mr. Lamar, showed that there existed an organized propaganda to discredit and obstruct in every way the prosecution of the war.

The Government promptly took steps to thwart these enemies. Through the Espionage act, the Trading with the Enemy act, and the amendment to the Espionage act, it made certain acts likely to interfere with the conduct of the war criminal during

the war, and declared any matter violative of these laws nonmailable, placing upon the Post Office Department the duty of seeing that the mails of the country were not used to bring harm to the nation. In part these acts forbid use of the mails for any matter advocating or urging treason, conveying false reports intended to interfere with the military or naval forces, anything intended to obstruct recruiting or enlistment, anything which violates any of the numerous other criminal provisions of the Espionage act, anything printed in a foreign language respecting the Government or any other nation in the war of which correct translations are not filed with the Postmaster or unless authorized to circulate by special permit.

These laws were all written by Mr. Lamar, and their operation has been enforced largely under his direction. No new principle of government or administration is involved in them, for similar duties with respect to other non-mailable matter have for years been discharged by the Post Office. The second class mailing privilege was withdrawn in many cases, just as it is for violation of the Obscene statute or the Fraud statute. This does not at all involve the right of free speech or liberty of the press. It means that the Government does not cooperate with anyone violating its laws. Mr. Lamar conceived it to be his duty to keep all such matter out of the mails, and he has made every effort to do so. No fewer than thirty persons in his office in Washington and as many more in the office in New York have been occupied on this task, and the cooperation of more than five hundred college teachers of foreign languages throughout the country have been employed in reading foreign literature which might come within the provisions of the act.

Millions of pieces of mail have been examined. And this labor has not been in vain. Much non-mailable material has been discovered; immense quantities of it have been destroyed; many issues of periodicals have been refused access to the mails, and others have had their privileges taken from them permanently, and many schemes against the public interest have been uncovered and beaten. Mr. Lamar says that the laws have worked perfectly, have accomplished what was intended, and have fur

thermore been administered solely with a view to public interest and in no case for the suppression of discussion because it was unfriendly to the government, or to officials, or because it advocated any particular theories. As in the case of the Fraud order, the Disloyalty order not only promptly put out of business anyone against whom it was entered, but so prompt and complete is its effect that it operated to prevent attempts to violate it. The Department has been very cautious in administering the act, and the publishers have been very careful not to violate it.

In all cases the publisher has the right to apply to the court for an order restraining the department. It is a notable triumph for the administering of these laws, as well as for the man who drew them, that in every instance in which they have been attacked in the courts, they have been sustained. And naturally they have been often attacked. The Masses, Tom Watson's Jeffersonian, Bull, Victor Berger's Milwaukee Leader, and others have sought through the courts to have the ruling of the Department in their cases set aside, but without success.

Congress gave this tremendous power to the Post Office only after careful consideration. When it appeared that the Disloyalty orders were to be administered by the Post Office, some members of Congress objected. One senator attacked the administration of the Fraud order law, but when challenged to do so could cite no case in which the law had been administered in an arbitrary or unjust manner. It was indeed due in large part to the manner in which that law has been handled by Mr. Lamar that the enforcing of its new application to war conditions was entrusted to his office. There was fear, of course, that politics and all sorts of improper influences might make the law unjust or oppressive. Objections were fully met and criticism allayed by a letter from Mr. Lamar to Senator King, which set forth the close analogy between this and the Fraud order law, the reason why it was needed, and ended: "The theory underlying fraud, lottery, and other similar statutes is that the matter prevented from being carried is against public policy. If the practice of fraud which only affects a few individuals is against public policy, how much more against public policy

is the circulation of matter which in time of war strikes at the very heart of the Republic? And why should not all use of the mails be prohibited to one engaged in such undertaking?" The law passed without further difficulty.

The fight against the enemy within our gates during the past year and a half has been a more severe and varied one than many have any idea of. The variety and persistence of enemy endeavor among us is almost beyond belief. But more than commensurate with the skill and determination of the enemies of the Republic has been that of its servants who have sought with a success which only now and then has become conspicuous through publication but which has generally been unknown, to guard the well-being of our citizens at home and abroad. And a large part of this tremendous task, so well accomplished, had fallen upon William Harmong Lamar. The genial, gray-haired, vigorous man whose office in the Post Office Building in Washington is a busy but hospitable one, easily accessible to the ordinary person, even the Palm reporter, has played a part in preserving this country from insidious attacks of a magnitude and importance which this sketch merely hints at.

BACCHIC

"Aint he the camafleur, though? He never drinks nothin' stronger'n sarsaparilla er iced tea."-The Chapter Pup. I sing my lass of nut-brown hair,

The Maid without a Frown,

I fain would toast mine own Sweet Anne

Of olde Milwaukee Town.

'Tis many a year since first we met-
To know her was to woo,

And, though she's neither fair nor sweet,

I give this toast to you:

To Anne, Sweet Anne,

The bubbling lass o' brown,

The same is Miss Annhouser Busch,

Of olde Milwaukee Town.