over, students may compete more than once for prizes.

TRACK, FIELD, AND LINKS

'N no athletic contests are the prin

Iciples of good sportsmanship more

carefully observed than those which have taken place between universities of America and England. In track and field events there have been five meets between combined teams from Oxford and Cambridge, on the one side, and Harvard and Yale, on the other. The fifth, which took place on July 23 at the Harvard Stadium, resulted in victories in eight out of the ten events for the American universities. How complete the American victory was is indicated by the fact that if any chance had disqualified the Harvard contestants Yale alone would have won against the combined British universities four events out of the ten, and if the Yale men had been disqualified six out of the ten events would have been won by Harvard alone. One of the Englishmen, B. G. D. Rudd, of Oxford, took part in three events and won one of them. E. O. Gourdin, the colored athlete of Harvard, won two events the 100-yard dash in 10 1/5 seconds (not his best record) and the running broad jump, in which he broke the world's record. In all the history of the world no one has been known to jump 25 feet 3 inches until this colored man covered that distance in his leap at Cambridge on that Saturday afternoon. The British participants had some ill luck through illness and injury, which fortunately did not pursue them until the end. They were fairly beaten.

In golf the open championship tournament (that is, the tournament open to professionals and amateurs alike) was won by James Barnes, the professional

of Pelham, New York; for the 72 holes his score of 289 strokes has been surpassed only by Mr. Evans's record of 286 five years ago. To play seventy-two holes in succession, averaging four strokes to the hole, with but one stroke over ("one over four," as the golfers say), is proof, as President Harding said, of confidence, poise, and courage. C. Evans, Jr., former open champion, led the amateurs and was in third place, two professionals, Walter Hagen and Fred McLeod, tying for second place, nine strokes behind "Long Jim" Barnes. George Duncan, the famous English professional, was in a tie for fifth place, three Americans, one of them the amateur R. T. Jones, Jr., of Atlanta, being tied for fourth place. The far-driving British professional Mitchell fell out by the way.

MILLENNIUM OR ARMAGEDDON

NR

O one need be under any illusions as to the grave possibilities in the forthcoming international conferences at Washington. If they fail, it will not be because of any influence exerted by special interests, such as armament makers, but because nations with conflicting interests will have not yet found the way to readjusting those interests so as not to conflict, or compromising those that they cannot adjust. If they succeed, it will not be by some mechanical method of arranging programmes for building battleships, but by reaching a mutual understanding concerning those deep national interests which battle ships are built to defend.

And no one need be under any illusion as to the hope that will be spread

throughout the world by any real prog ress which those conferences may make The cynically minded, pointing to the Hague Conferences, which were followed by the World War, and the Peace Conference at Paris, which was followed by the troubled times in which we now live, may inquire what is the use of another conference? The fact, however, that one such conference does follow another, despite apparent failure, is an indication of the incurable faith of men in the ultimate goal of international peace and justice.

To expect the failure of these conferences to be followed immediately Ly Armageddon, or their success, even though exceeding anticipation, by Millennium, would be folly; but their failure is on the road to Armageddon and their success on the road to something more like Millennium than anything the world has yet known.

On another page Mr. P. W. Wilson, an English observer of American life and a student of international affairs, anaLyzes the issues that are likely to come before those conferences. These are issues on which men will not yield what they believe to be their rights except under compulsion. The nations that will be engaged in those conferences know this well, and no government worthy of the name is going to enter those conferences with any intention of allowing 'these questions ultimately to be settled by compulsion adversely to its own people. The nations, therefore, are not going there with the purpose of scrapping their battleships first and then trusting to some unknown settlement afterwards of the vital issues involved. They want those issues settled first. That is why the Prime Ministers of the British minions are really beginning the

ington Conferences in London among themselves. That is why Japan is attempting to get questions like that of Yap out of the way first. And that is why Secretary Hughes is insisting that no reservation can be made in advance concerning the issues to be discussed, but that all questions which the nations wish discussed must be raised and disposed of.

If America is not only to have her interests well considered, but also to have her influence for peace and justice through mutual understanding commensurate with her power, American public opinion must be informed on these questions, must help to guide the Government in its course, and must be ready to support the Government in defending those interests and in extending that influence. On this account we commend Mr. Wilson's article to our readers.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR UPPER SILESIA?

F

RANCE and England together must keep the peace in Upper Silesia un

til a decision is reached as to its final disposition. France and England must act together also in making that final disposition, although other Powers will be represented in the Supreme Council. There are differences of opinion between the two countries, but in this, as in other cases arising under the Treaty, the common interest is so strong that anything like a serious clash is extremely improbable. Just now France is anxious to have troops enough in Upper Silesia to preserve the peace while the knotty question of the future is dealt with; England is less impressed with that point and is more anxious to hurry on the Supreme Council sittings.

It seems to us that France is right,

because the need of security against outbreak in Upper Silesia is the immediate and first need. The past has shown that this danger is not to be trifled with or ignored. German insurrection or Polish resistance while the Supreme Council debates must not be allowed. Silesian Germans or German Germans, Silesian Poles or Poles in Poland, are not to settle this matter by fighting. And the first thing for the Allies to do is to secure peace and quiet.

Very sensibly France and Great Britain, according to cable reports as we write, are compromising on an agreement whereby a short postponement of the Supreme Council will allow the sending of Allied troops to reinforce those now in Upper Silesia. France has a division ready to move, and England can use its judgment as to whether she also wishes to send reinforcements.

The division of Upper Silesia on lines based partly on the recent referendum

THE NEW SHIPPING

BOARD

Left to right-A. J. Frey, A. D. Lasker, J. B. Smull, A. J. Love

vote and partly on common sense and the safety of Europe, or its being made into a free zone, as has been suggested, is entirely within the scope of authority and responsibility placed on the Supreme Council by the Treaty.

RIGHT WASTE AND WRONG WASTE

I

T is a truism that war means waste. It turns wealth-making capital and energy into channels of destruction. What is more, war's destructive work cannot, from war's nature, be carried on economically. In peace times we try to get the best results for the least money; in war we are trying to win quickly and at the same time we must plan to be ready to pour in men, munitions, and supplies for an unknown future period. So what would ordinarily be extravagance must be disregarded. The profi

teer gets his chance; yet, within certain limits of watchfulness and integrity, the Government is not blamable if it piles up debts and pays big prices. Victory is everything; economy for the time being nothing.

But when in time of peace we are building up our military and naval resources against the threat of war, or when after victory we are demobilizing material, ships, and obligations as well as troops, the taxpayer has a right to ask whether the task is going on with due attention to financial economy.

a

It is now over two and a half years since the armistice was signed. The new head of the United States Shipping Board, Mr. A. B. Lasker, is anxious to clear decks and put things on a reasonable basis. He recognizes that after the war it was inevitable that our plans and contracts made it necessary to write off a tremendous money loss. The country got its return in advance for such a loss in the effect upon Germany caused by the magnitude of our ship-building plans and German authorities hav laid great stress on that effect. Now, however, Mr. Lasker holds, we should straighten things out and get on sound basis. He believes in facing facts; hence he calls the public attention to the deplorable state of things to-day. When he told the President that, for the year ended June 30, 1921, there was a Shipping Board deficit of $380,000,000; that by spending the money received for sales instead of reducing debt the Shipping Board had, in his opinion, disregarded the purpose of Congress in limiting the annual expenditure to $100,000; that the accounts were confused and inadequate-in short, that in coming on the Board he found "the most colossal wreck that any Administration ever inherited," the President, Mr. Lasker tells us, was shocked and dismayed at the criminal waste and extravagance.

There is nothing like the fresh air of publicity to impel action. Mr. Lasker has pointed out the trouble; the remedies are already being applied. The President forthwith ordered a cleaning up of accounts. Mr. Lasker has called to his aid experts as operating heads of the ship management-Mr. Love, Mr. Frey, and Mr. Smull are all practical, experienced men; conferences with shipowners and men are planned. The announced general plan is to get efficiency, cut waste, take losses without trying to hide them by more losses, and to apply assets from sales to the profit-and-loss account instead of paying losses out of capital funds.

Recognition of Mr. Lasker's service in behalf of economy does not necessarily involve approval of every measure taken in the name of economy. In particular,

approval of the policy of the Shipping Board in general is consistent with disapproval of its course in the controversy with the United States Mail Steamship Company. If in its effort for economy the United States Shipping Board should turn over the vessels now in the American merchant marine to a combination involving German interests, a new issue would be raised which might overshadow even that of economical and efficient administration. The American Ship and Commerce Corporation, the chief rival of the United States Mail Steamship Company, has arrangements with the Hamburg-American Line. The average citizen would like to see the country get out of the shipping business as soon as it can, but with due allowance for just obligations and business principles, and without forgetting the lessons of Germany's piracy.

533

for plain speaking about after-the-war shipping conditions, so Admiral Sims deserves praise for his criticism on naval unpreparedness before the war began and dilatoriness thereafter. His letter on "certain naval lessons of the great war" was not an impertinence; it was a fine public service. This has lately been declared by a majority report of the Senate's sub-committee that has had the matter under investigation. The actual service of men, officers, and ships was fine and will never be forgotten by America or the Allies. But the committee finds that the Wilson Administration and Secretary Daniels neglected to have the naval ships put in the best condition, or properly stationed, or quickly sent where they could be of use in war. For months preceding our entrance into the war it was all but certain that it was impending; certainly the threat was not one to be ignored. Those were precious months; and they were largely lost. And for six months after we were at war it seemed as if the Administration wanted it to be a war of words so far as the Navy was concerned. The report says: "The conclusion seems unavoidable that up to April 11, 1917, the fixed policy of the Navy Department under Secretary Daniels and President Wilson was that the naval forces of the country should be kept at home for coast patrol and defense and that the fleet should be strictly conserved for such eventualities as might come out of the European war."

Three admirals testified that the Navy was not ready for war on April 6, 1917.

T

HE U. S. Grain Growers, Inc., was organized in Chicago the second week in April. Incorporated under the laws of Delaware, it is to be a non-stock, non-profit corporation, acting as a National sales agency for grain. Its various departments are to provide terminal sales agencies, warehousing facilities at terminal markets, a finance corporation, an export corporation, and a marketing news service.

This somewhat technical and forbidding statement carries an announcement of immense importance throughout the grain-growing area. It means the beginning of the largest co-operative movement in the history of the country. The U. S. Grain Growers, Inc., is the fruition of years of hard experience, of thousands of experiments, futile as well as successful. The organizations represented on its Board of Directors include a large share of the grain producers of the United States. The men and concerns involved are the most substantial and influential in the grain country. They may fail. But they represent the best brains and organizing ability available for the purpose to-day. The movement is the sudden crystallization of many elements that were long in solution. The jar that effected the crystallizing came from the sudden collapse in the value of farm products that began last summer. The remedy to which the wheat farmer naturally turned, largely as the result of his experience with governmental price fixing during the war, was the artificial control of prices through monopolistic pooling. This would have been futile as well as anti-social. Fortunately, wiser counsels prevailed, and out of a representative farm conference in Chicago July, 1920, came plans for great co-operative organizations for marketing grains and live stock. The grain marketing system has been worked out in detail and the plans approved by the farm organizations. The various branches are now taking shape. It is too vast and intricate an enterprise to be completed in time to handle this year's crops, but the necessary preliminaries are well under way. The live stock corporation is to be developed later.

To understand the farmer's attitude it must be borne in mind that he is pretty generally convinced that he is the victim of market manipulation and that the middleman takes profits that ought to go to the producer. Believing this, rightly or wrongly, he is deeply concerned in attempting to keep the grain in his own hands until it reaches at least the miller, and possibly the baker. In any event, the leaders say,

farmer cannot make the sort of liv

ing he is determined to have simply as a producer of raw material. He must add to his profits as a producer the profits of the grain merchant as well. This is what he is trying to do through the organization of the U. S. Grain Growers, Inc., and its subsidiaries.

Under the proposed plan, the farmer joins the National co-operative organization by paying a ten-dollar initiation fee and making a five-year contract to sell his grain exclusively through the cooperative agencies. Four options are then open to him: He may sell to the local co-operative elevator at the current market price; he may consign his grain direct to the agency at a terminal market; he may pool his crop with the grain of other local growers, to be sold by the directors of the pool at an opportune time; or he may pool one-third of his crop for export. If there is no local co-operative elevator, the members in the locality may build or lease one, which will be under contract to sell only to the terminal market sales agency. Where a local co-operative elevator is not available, the farmer may resort to direct consignment to the terminal market sales agency. In this case he may sell at the current price, or, if he thinks the market is rising, he may store his grain to be sold later.

Under this system the farmer or his agents will be in control of the grain from the time it leaves the farm until it reaches the miller. The place of the various middlemen, operating for private profit, will be taken by the farmer's agents, operating for the farmer's profit. The organizers of the plan believe that the cost of distribution from the farmer to the local or line elevator, from the local elevator to the terminal elevator, from the terminal elevator to the miller or the exporter, is unnecessarily heavy, and that the co-operative agencies can handle the grain more cheaply than it is now handled through private con

cerns.

Every widespread movement is the result of a frame of mind in which the emotions play a part. It is impossible to appreciate the force behind this new co-operative movement without insight into the farmer's sense of grievance. This phase of the question is illumined by some of the remarks made by Mr. C. H. Gustafson, of Lincoln, Nebraska, President of the U. S. Grain Growers, Inc., and former head of the Farmers' Union of Nebraska, which did a onehundred-million-dollar co-operative business last year. Whether one agrees with the views expressed or not, they are an interesting exposition of a mental attitude.

recognizing and protecting the rights of the consuming public, the plan insures the farmer an equitable and just return on his grain crops by effecting savings, avoiding speculation, preventing needless duplication of effort, and eventually stabilizing the market for grain crops. We are told that the farmer now receives thirty-four cents of the dollar that the consumer pays for farm prod. ucts. There is need to change that ratio. With all other farmers, I resent the discovery that the just and equitable share of the profits from my labor and the labor of my neighbors has erected a brown-stone front on Lake Shore Drive or outfitted a palace pleasure-boat instead of being returned to me wherewith to purchase the new dress my wife has been waiting two years for or to enable me to give my girl some of the advantages that her town girl friends enjoy."

Evidently there is something of the crusader's zeal to be reckoned with. But zeal and a sense of grievance will not of themselves bring success. There must be a real field for operation and there must be competent management. Experience in the distribution of fruits, vegetables, and dairy products has proved the existence of wasteful practices that have been eliminated by cooperation of the producers.

The question is whether the same opportunity for increased efficiency exists in the distribution of the grains-which mean predominantly wheat. Commission men and others engaged in the business insist that its distribution is highly organized and freely competitive, and that the speculative market furnishes stability of prices and the best possible form of insurance. The fortunes that have been made, they assert, are due to the same qualities of business acumen that bring success everywhere, and are due to large volume rather than to excessive charges. In their opinion, the middleman does a real service which will cost the farmer as much or more to have done for him by a co-operative agency.

the attention of able men in the grain business and on the outside, and constructive suggestions for betterments have come from such men as Mr. Julius H. Barnes, former President of the United States Grain Corporation, and

Mr. Bernard M. Baruch, former Chairman of the War Industries Board. At the worst the farmer would gain invaluable experience as to the complex factors in modern distributing machinery. If the system that is now being set up

should fail, the grain grower would have less reason to feel that he was the victim of an unfair system. He would have learned by experience the cost and difficulties of distributing his product. This in itself would be wholesome.

BY BILL ADAMS

Hon. Sirs:

A

LLOW me to state that you make an error. I do not throw hardtack at any one. Not I. For why? I'll tell you.

Years ago, a long time ago, oh, ever so long ago, there were two clippers abeam of each other when dawn broke upon the weedy Sargasso Sea. They were rivals. Ancient rivals. And it had been some years since last they had met upon the sea roads. Upon that occasion it had been a blizzard accom. panied with snow that had separated them. But now the sea and sky were clear and a stiff S. W. breeze was blowing upon their starboard quarters.

It happened that a breeze one point upon the quarter of one of them was her best sailing point. She could foot it then. Three skysails, moonsails above them, royal staysails, bullwhanger and bonnets, monkey gaffand all sheets and halyards and braces sweated home-then she could foot it!

She did. She was the three-mast full-rigger Muskoka, and she had her holds chock-a-block with Sydney wool.

Alongside her at the first faint streaking of the Sargasso dawn was a fourmast bark. A long, low-in-the-water, lofty packet, with her upper sides painted black, a white beading around the center of the black, and gray-painted under the black to the edge of the water; below the water-line pink showing as her fore foot lifted to the heave of the swells.

She was the Silberhorn. She was a queen on the sea. She was a fast-footed flyer; but her best point was with the wind one point before the beam and her yards close up. Then she could foot it. Then she did.

So there they lay; slipping through the furrows with everything set, and the bellies of the big courses high lifted by the following wind.

The old skipper of the four-master knew well enough where the best sailing point of each ship was. And you may be sure that with the wind on his quarter he had every rope sweated as tight as sweating could make it go. But that was not enough.

He called the mate-Egg Martin, the mate. Egg was so called because he

B

ILL ADAMS, the nautical correspondent of The Outlook, cast a few gentle aspersions upon the sea knowledge of Meade Minnigerode, whose tales of the clipper ships have been appearing in The Outlook these past few months. We published Bill's letter, and it called forth from its author a special delivery plea to Mr. Minnigerode for forgiveness. We hastened to assure the critic that there was nothing in his letter to cause offense to even the most sensitive of authors, and we wrote him that he had not hit Mr. Minnigerode with a belayingpin, but that he had merely shied a playful piece of hardtack at his head. We have now received from this veteran of the seas a letter protesting against our suggestion that he had thrown hardtack at any one's head. The letter is not only a protest against our statement, but an absolute verification (that would be accepted in a court of law) of Bill's claim that seamen confine themselves strictly to the truth. Since we have recently had some romantic fiction in The Outlook, we are publishing Bill's uncolored narrative as a bit of relief. Any one who reads this tale will never doubt a sailorman's word again.

was a fat man and hadn't a stray hair upon his system save upon the head of him. No one called him Egg except the apprentices, of whom I was one. And you can bet that he never knew we called him so!

He called Egg Martin, and he whispered to his weather ear. Egg left the poop deck with the jumpy swing in his stride that he was peculiar for. He let out a yell. The hands came on the hop, thinking the skipper had taken cold feet with the clipper dipping her rail so deep in the sea, and the big salt sprays all driving clear over her. They figured that it was to be a case of taking in sail, and they made straight for the halyards and downhauls-on the quick run that Egg had long ago had them trained to,

But devil a sail was there going to be taken off that packet with the Muskoka upon the weather beam and the wind coming up from a point on the quarter.

The mate spoke to the hands; and forward away they went upon the same swift run, and the apprentices with them. All hands and the cook ran.

Every last man Jack upon that old four-master ran to his sea chest, and back to the decks they came, running still, with their arms full of shirts, jumpers, jackets, and shore-going pants.

Then, from boom to break of the clipper's poop, there were lines strung fore and aft and thwart ships. Then there were shirts, and jackets, and jumpers, and shore-going pants, strung up to gather in the little caps full of wind that went piping along the decks under the courses-doing the ship no good whatever, but blowing idly away over the seas ahead.

Then it was that that fast four-mast bark held her own with the full-rigged Londoner that was thinking to leave her far astern by the falling of night over the weedy Sargasso Sea.

Ah, then it was that the old skipper of that long, low-in-the-water, lofty, slipalong clipper twinkled his gray eyes and winked across five miles of weedy Sargasso Sea at the bridge where stood the bald-headed, peak-nosed, bow-legged fellow called Bijah-Bijah Thompson, skipper of the high-flying Londoner.

Then it was that the shark's tail, spiked for luck (as was the custom of the sailing clippers), upon the boom end of the Muskoka remained just exactly level with the shark's tail spiked upon the boom end of the Silberhorn.

So they sailed till eight bells went at noon. Aboard the two ships every last man of all the crowd was kept handy on deck, lest anything blow away. The hands chewed at their salt-horse with the salt sprays driving down on them and sipped at their lime juice while they dipped their heads to escape the slap of the salt water flying past them.

As eight bells went upon the big forward bell of the long four-master her old shark-eyed skipper blew down the taffrail telephone to where his wife was sitting in their cabin.

Up came the old lady.

She wa