UNIV. OF

food stuffs to supply the energy requirement of about 4,500,000 working men for a year. The Reports of the Internal Revenue Department show that Boston brewers make 2.5 per cent of the beer made in the United States. In other words they used food enough for about 112,000 working men, or 186,500 children, since the average child's ration is about three-fifths that of a working man. As the Administration has required the brewers to reduce by 30 per cent the amount of food stuffs used in beer from now on, it is fair to estimate that the Boston brewers are using food stuffs sufficient to supply the energy requirement of 130,000 children. There are now only 114,534 school children in all of Boston's public schools!

It should be remembered that the coal used in carrying the raw material to the breweries, and the product to the dealer, and the coal used to heat the 980 license places in the city is not included in the above figures.

WHICH SHALL "THE ATHENS OF AMERICA" CLOSE, HER SCHOOLS OR HER BREWERIES?

IF THY CHILDREN ASK OF THEE BREAD WILT THOU GIVE THEM BEER?

AND IF THEY ASK FOR A SCHOOL WILT THOU OFFER THEM A SALOON?

A Convincing Argument.

"In states, cities and counties where saloons are allowed to operate it is estimated there is one saloon for every 300 persons living in the sections where the saloons run. I have not heard of any saloon that has been permanently closed since Christmas on account of any lack of coal or fuel. But there are more than three million children who have been unable to attend school since the Christmas holidays on account of the lack of coal to keep the school buildings warm.

"If any argument were needed to convince the people of the United States that each state should hasten to accept the constitutional amendment which would close the breweries, distilleries and saloons of this country forever and keep our children in school, we certainly have it now.

"In the state of Indiana all saloons were closed out on the last day of March.

Ger

"The saloon business, which is owned by the breweries of this country—and the breweries are owned by Germans-would have had the United States fighting on the side of Germany if the pro hibition movement had not started when it did and gotten under control as many states as it had before the war broke out. many is the only country in the world that has been willing to commit wholesale murder to acquire territory, and no doubt she expected to capture the United States through her brewers and distillers and the saloons the brewers owned, by murdering the people through alcoholic poison.

"Out of 7,000 saloons in Chicago one year ago there are now

less than 6,000 open, and 5,380 of the 6,000 belong to the breweries. The man operating a saloon under his own name is nothing more than a hired man in effect. The big brewers employ big lawyers. to control all political conventions, and they contribute heavily to the campaign funds of the candidates on both sides, so that nʊ difference which side wins they always have their hooks in just the same.

"The only positive remedy and cure for this wicked influence is in the hands of the people, who can hurry up their state legislatures to act in the adoption of the amendment to the constitution of the United States, forbidding the manufacture and importation of alcoholic beverages. Get busy! Get rid of the saloons and keep our schools open!"-W. D. Boyce, in The Saturday Blade, Chicago.

CHAPTER XVI.

United States the World Power.

America Supreme in World Finance

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30.-How the United States has become the dominate banking power of the world was shown in the annua! report of the comptroller of the currency, John Skelton Williams presented to Congress today.

Comptroller Williams estimated the whole banking power of the nation at $37,529,000,000, an increase of more than $14,000,000,000 since the beginning of President Wilson's administration. Taking the latest estimate of the banking power of the world, placed in 1890 at $15,558,000,000, he said America's increase was alone nearly equal to the world's combined banking power twentyseven years ago.

National banks of the United States, Comptroller Williams declared to be stronger, safer, more observant of laws and more efficiently managed than ever before. Their resources-$18,553,197,000—are greater by more than two billion dollars than ever before and exceed by about the same amount the combined resources of all state banks, private banks and trust companies. Under three years of the federal reserve system, national bank resources have increased more than $7,000,000,000.

Comptroller Williams, however, coupled his report of this enormous growth with a warning that duties and responsibilities have increased no less than the resources.

"It is of supreme importance," he said, "that allurements of profit from commerce or industry in this country or in neutral countries, not essential to our success in the war, should not induce us to divert or dissipate the capital or financial resources of our people."

The danger from decline of earning capacity of public utility corporations and consequent shrinkage of values in their securities, the comptroller warned, is real.

First relief, he thought, might come from state commissions. and municipal authorities, and he expressed the hope that Congress would provide for the advancing of money to corporations wherever necessary to insure proper service to the government. The proposal is unusual, the comptroller admitted, but he pointed out that the times are unusual.

Government guarantee of bank deposits in sums under $5,000, the comptroller believed, would bring into use much hoarded money, and he renewed his recommendation for such a law.

America's Supremacy.

It is really amusing to read Count Hertling's speech in a Munich paper, October 23, 1917, of which the following extracts. concern UNCLE SAM:

If those who hold power in France forcibly repress every suggestion of peace and try to rouse fresh will for war by a show of

assurance of victory, in spite of the frightful sacrifices the war has cost the country, and must cost still further, it is because they are sustained by the hope of help from America.

In this hope they patiently tolerate the Americans also making themselves at home in France, turning Bordeaux into a great American harbor with immense loading and unloading wharves, and cutting down the forests of the Gironde in order to build a camp in the neighborhood of Bordeaux for the expected American army.

French workmen tolerate the competition of American workmen, with whom they are not in sympathy, in the factories, and the owners allow them to look into the secrets of their business, all so that the new ally may help them to take revenge on the hated Germans.

And what is England's attitude toward this American support so ardently desired in France? Even before the war there were those who spoke of England as the enemy of Europe, and it is certain that England has understood how to profit by every conflict between European Powers in the last century. The time may be drawing near, however, when the punishment England deserves for this will come upon her.

Even President Wilson cannot believe that America is coming into the war only in order that democratic ideas may come to the front in backward Germany. A survey of the future shows a very different picture.

If the Entente were to be victorious through America's help alone, that would mean that from now on America would take England's place. America would rule the seas with her fleet, and dictate the limits and objects of world trade. America would remain as she is now, during the war, the mighty capitalist, and would also take England's place as the world's banker.

Germany Defends Europe.

“America against Europe" that is the character the war threatens to assume more and more, thanks to the Entente. And, therefore, the Central Powers and their allies are no longer fighting only for themselves; they are fighting for Europe's independence of the over-powerful colony, and with them are fighting the neutral States, who will not allow themselves to be forced into the war against the Central Powers defending Europe. Their manly endurance deserves the highest praise and the warmest thanks! If I think first of Switzerland in this connection, it is because of the close neighboring relations, which link us here in the south to her, and, on the other hand, the geographical position which exposes Switzerland in particular to enemy pressure.

But our feelings are the same toward Spain and the neutral States in the north. Therefore, a victory of the Entente over the Central Powers would bring about America's supremacy, and— so long as they follow America-that of her Asiatic allies over

the old Europe, including England. But with God's gracious help there will be no such victory.

In undertaking to interfere in our internal concerns and dictate to us how we should order our State affairs, thus bringing about want of harmony between Government and people, the enemy has achieved the opposite result. Wilson's ill-bred attempt only produced an indignant outcry in Germany.

In fact, the phenomena which have come to light in enemy countries have not conduced to make us admirers of their democratic constitutions and of the parliamentary system. On the contrary, as many of the speakers in your committee have recognized, they must tend to revive belief in the value of the monarchical institution, the constitutional monarchy we possess in Germany, which is a historical growth.

Wilson a Real Despot.

We have no Government armed with the unlimited powers the President of the American Republic possesses. And what of England, the oldest and model country of parliamentarism? Which of the two former great parties is now responsible for the policy of the Government? All the highly-prized traditions of the past have been thrown over.

The German Nightmare.

UNCLE SAM'S eloquence is causing the Kaiser and his subservient subjects a great deal of worry, as we notice from Count Hertling's speech. To this may be added an editorial from the same Munich organ, in which it laments:

"Wilson would have to be estimated as a mean spirit if exclusively pacifist and humanitarian motives and tendencies were to be the driving force for the application of the enormous resources of power of his country. And we should be attributing very slight political insight to the representatives of the American people in Congress and Senate if we were to assume that they had been moved by sentimental or moral excitement to bring out their enormous resources of power, the greatness of which is in such striking contrast with the apparent goal for which they are striving. No, Wilson's policy is aiming at great things-at the erection of an undisputed position of world-power for the free NorthAmerican State, and the overwhelming majority of all the politicians and statesmen of influence are following him gladly in order to attain this exalted aim.

"Little Europe has hitherto dominated the world politically, intellectually, culturally, and economically. This domination is now to pass to the great American Republic . . . . By the longest possible extension of the war the complete military, financial, and economic exhaustion of the European peoples is to be achieved and American world-power is to rise from the ruins.”

Prof. Morits Bonn, touched by this interpretation of UNCLE