the chauffeur. Bigger and better, that is the keynote of American temperament and the principle on which it is conducting the war. The best is never too good for the American, and the best is only a qualified term; for the best, whatever it is, can always be made still better-which the precisian in language may dispute but the mechanic can always prove. That is why you are not content with somebody else's gun or motor, but must have your own, American made. The foreigner puts this down to conceit, the American belief in his own superiority; and the public, because it is the mutable many, mentally at the quick lunch counter, impatient and always in a hurry, chafes at delay and cannot understand why a “short order" takes so long. What the public does not know is that it often takes as long to prepare the plans and dig the foundation for a towering skyscraper as it does to erect the superstructure, but it has visible evidence of the growth of the superstructure, while the plans are Greek and the foundation is under ground.

It is not conceit that makes the American want the best, nor is it foolishness that makes him lose time at the beginning to gain it at the end. The Browning gun, we were told only a few months ago, was a beautiful gun on paper, but would never function at the front, but to-day American troops are using Brownings, which is also the equipment of American aeroplanes. The Liberty motor was said to be the most ingenious scheme ever devised for the enrichment of grafters and profiteers, and its only place in the war programme was the junk pile. Yet in the last week in May the thousandth Liberty motor was shipped by its manufacturers, and Liberty motors are not being made a few here and there but are being turned out in a constant stream in many factories, and England, France and Italy, who know what a good motor is, are glad to buy all that America can furnish.

It is not conceit or childish vanity that makes the American want the best or compels him to take what he knows is good and try to make it better. It is simply good business. In mechanics as in life itself there is no such word as finality: there is either stagnation or progress. The American goes about his task with a splendid optimism, determined to succeed, confident that in the end he must succeed no matter how often he encounters failure before the end is reached. In that spirit he is making war, quite conscious of his early mistakes but not in the least dismayed by them, turning them

to his own advantage and out of them making a profit. No other country, I venture to say, has done so much in a year as has the United States. No other country, I feel safe in making the prediction, will do so much in the next year as will the United States.

A great change has come over the spirit of the American people in the last few months, a change perhaps more apparent to the foreigner than to Americans themselves. There was a time when the war was not your war but a war to help Britain or to save France. Now it is your war fought in your own defense, your war in which your own fate is involved. The meaning of the war has been brought home to every American; it is because he understands what this war means, that defeat is destruction, that his fighting strength is behind it; that every man (and every woman too) is giving, giving himself if he can give no more, giving of his substance as well if fortune has blessed him. We have seen the generous response to the appeal of the Red Cross, to scores of other appeals to ameliorate suffering and distress. It is the new spirit of America born of the war: the spirit of sacrifice and responsibility and helpfulness. We have heard much of profiteering as if it was a modern development of war, but the profiteer seems the inevitable parasite of war.

Recently I asked a prominent British military officer, who has seen hard service at the front and is familiar with the business of military supply, if he was satisfied with what America is doing. "America," he said, " is one vast factory for the production of men and munitions and ships, and they are being turned out. Men and munitions and shipsGod! how America is working for the everlasting smashing of the Hun!" Men and munitions and ships. That is America as an Englishman sees it.

A. MAURICE Low.

GERMANY'S CENSORSHIP AND

NEWS CONTROL

BY JAMES G. RANDALL

WHEN the Prussian rulers of Germany broke the peace in 1914 an intellectual mobilization accompanied the assembling of the army. To maintain unity of purpose in an attack upon free-minded foes who refused to accept domination, the Government claimed at once the power of veto and the power of initiative in all that pertained to ideas. On the pretext of preventing the leakage of military information, a censorship was established which has been constantly employed for the suppression of opinion and the stifling of political criticism. It has shown itself to be the worst kind of censorship possible, for it is a military censorship in the sense of being administered by military authorities, but it extends far beyond the military sphere and covers every branch of the national life. By her domination of the press Germany has attempted to crystallize the thought of her people and to isolate them from foreign opinion. A sort of intellectual Chinese wall has been built up to keep out the currents of world-thought, while all the internal channels are brought within governmental control.

At the outset of the war the necessary steps for a vigorous policy of news control were taken by the Government. Constitutional limitations offered no embarrassment, for the imperial constitution gives the power to the Kaiser, whenever the public safety requires it, to place the empire under martial law, which automatically subjects all civil matters to the control of the military authorities. Immediately upon the establishment of martial law, the Commander-in-Chief of the Mark Brandenburg declared that five articles of the Prussian constitutional charter were suspended, that full power was thus transmitted to himself, and that the civil magistrates

were to perform their duties under his orders and instructions. By such proclamations, issued in the off-hand manner of military chieftains, a sufficient legal basis was afforded for the summary treatment of newspapers. In a proclamation of the Imperial Chancellor, July 31, 1914, a long list of "verboten "subjects was indicated, and on the following day General von Kessell, Commander-in-Chief of the Mark, received representatives of the press, not to consult with them, but to inform them of the limits under which they would be permitted to operate their papers.

The whole press of Germany was thus placed under military control, and has remained so during the war. Editors receive instructions every few days from the military commanders of their districts as to what their sheets may or may not contain. Some fine day an editor may arrive at his office to find a brief official notice of the suppression of his papermerely a printed form on which is filled in the title of the publication and the period of suspension, the commander's name being affixed with a rubber stamp. At the news-stands one finds a poster stating that the publication of the paper has been suspended by military authority. There has been no warning, no hearing, no explanation even of the reason for the suspension. Under martial law explanations and hearings are not in order. Newspapers that prove too daring are dealt with more severely. The editor may be imprisoned or inducted into the auxiliary service, the establishment may be confiscated and silenced for the remainder of the war, or the paper may be subjected to a preventive censorship which requires that the copy for all political articles must be submitted to the censor before publication.

The various governmental agencies for publicity have been organized with typical German thoroughness. The publicity departments of the General Staff, the Admiralty, and the Foreign Office have issued official bulletins throughout the war, and the elaborate War Press Bureau has been constantly active, supplying journals with material whose publication or reprinting is officially desired. More recently the scale of governmental publicity has been greatly enlarged, and the "Imperial Official Press Service" in charge of the Press Chief of the Imperial Chancellor" has been organized, by which every bureau of the Central Imperial Government has its press institution in close permanent touch with the management. In this way the Government may at any

moment exercise an authoritative influence over the manner in which the motives of imperial policy are explained to the public.

A much closer relationship exists between the German Government and the leading newspapers than is the case in other countries. The Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung acts as a purely official organ of the Government. It makes no appeal to the general public and has a limited circulation chiefly among journalists and politicians. A semi-official character attaches to the Berliner Lokal Anzeiger, which was purchased by a syndicate, including a Krupp director, on the understanding that its columns should always be open to the Government. It is usually the official voice that speaks through the Kölnische Zeitung, particularly with regard to foreign policy. Certain powerful journals are controlled by the big armament firm, as for instance the Berliner Neueste Nachrichten and the Rheinisch-Westfälische Zeitung, which are Krupp organs. The great telegraph agency of Germany, the Wolff Bureau, which answers to our Associated Press, is in the full sense an instrument of the Government, and the news it issues always undergoes a sifting and doctoring process.

In theory the censorship has been supposedly limited to military matters, but its actual operation has been such as to stifle political criticism as well. For instance, all discussion of the future constitution of Alsace-Lorraine is under the ban; no mention must be made of conditions of pay and work in Government munition plants; labor disturbances must not be referred to, and severe conditions of living in Germany or in occupied territory are not to be reported. No information must leak out regarding violence and unrest in Bohemia and East Prussia, conscription into the industrial or "national auxiliary service" must not be discussed, and under no circumstances is the " High Command " (i. e., Hindenburg) to be introduced into the discussion of political questions. Most unfortunately the treatment of peace offers and war aims from a liberal standpoint has been stifled, and those who favor a peace of understanding have been branded as traitors.

Not only written opinion, but spoken opinion as well, if it be of a liberal sort, is suppressed. The military governor of Strassburg did not permit the diet of AlsaceLorraine to meet till he was assured that it would not "talk