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HEN the newspapers are presenting so many different political views these days, readers of the last of the "Jean Cristophe" books, must recall what Oliver said, when asked if he did not use his rights as an elector:

Those bloodthirsty old patriots of France, publicly, and with elaborate ceremonies, worshipped Reason and paid a Parisian actress to impersonate the goddess. With all that outward show of ideal patriotism, as exemplified by the democratic protestations of "Liberty,

which I know to be futile? Vote? For whom should I vote? I don't see any reason for choosing between two candidates, both of whom are unknown to me, while I have only too much reason to expect that, directly the election is over, they will both be false to their professions of faith. Keep an eye on them? Remind them of their duty? It would take up the whole of my life, with no result. I have neither time, strength, the rhetorical weapons, nor sufficient lack of scruple, nor is my heart steeled against all the disgust that action brings. Much better to keep clear of it all. I am quite ready to submit to the evil. But at least I won't subscribe to it.

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Oliver lived in France. But there are many Americans who look upon politics and elections much as he did. Perhaps that is why politics is the kind of game it is..

Notwithstanding all her political convulsions, France is not nearer to governmental perfection than the English-speaking countries, that complain of many imperfections. The French orators of the Reign of Terror, denounced royalty and adopted as their motto, "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity," but their actions belied their professions. Force was their real lever of human betterment. One after another their political factions went to the guillotine, around which the peasant women sat knitting, and between stitches counted the heads of the decapitated statesmen, as they fell into the basket.

of the political pack of cards made the king of clubs the trump. Napoleon, the personification of ruthless force, mounted a throne of imperial autocracy and made all France an armed camp.

Now, after all those years of strife and endless change, France is no nearer to Eutopia. The tax collecter is the busiest man in the nominal republic. The horde of taxeaters is not smaller than in the days of King Louis XIV, the "Grand Monarch," with all his mistresses and royal extravagances. In a book addressed to the intelligent and educated, a clever Frenchman expresses the prevailing pessimism of his class: "Vote! For whom should I vote!" Etc., etc.

The same sentiment has spread amongst the educated in America. It is indefensible. Pessimism of that sort may become a national danger. If the educated neglect their civic duties, most assuredly the ignorant and dangerous classes will assume the direction of misgovernment.

If the white race should lose heart, the colored races would quickly relieve us of the white man's self-assumed burden. Civilized man should remember that it has taken him more than a million years to reach his present stage of political imperfection. What he seems to lack, now, is rational education and hope, that, having put ignorance and superstition behind him, he may reach a much higher plane. Let us remember the admonition:

'Tis not in mortals to command success
But we'll do more Sempronius,
We'll deserve it.

Starving Millions

Splendid Philanthropy of the American Jewish Relief Committee

Good Samaritans Are Generous in Aid of the Benevolent Nonsectarian Work.

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By B. G. Barnett

HE GIGANTIC TASK of relieving sufferers from the world war, which has been set for itself by the American Jewish Relief Committee, is one to excite amazement as well as admiration.

This philanthropic undertaking is nonsectarian and of the millions already raised and applied, about 50 per cent has come from non-Jewish sources. It is expected that a relief fund of $35,000,000 will be obtained.

That sum may appear large, but to those who know the extent of the field to be covered, and the dire distress of the starving populations the anticipated relief fund appears pitifully small. The expenditures, however, are being made with such a thorough knowledge of the charitable requirements of every distressed section that the money will go as far as possible in ameliorating the woes of suffering humanity.

The systematic and effective manner in which the Jewish people have organized the gigantic plans of assistance for despairing multitudes in Europe, reveals the genius of their race for financial enterprise on a large scale. Numbers of nonJewish American public men in the Eastern States, and newspapers by the hundred, have united in praise of the benevolent work being done, by the American Jewish Relief Committee. The public of the Atlantic seaboard is better

acquainted with the great operations than the people of the Pacific Coast, but the relief campaign has now reached the extreme West, and our people here will have facts brought to their attention that should be studied by benevolent citizens everywhere, regardless of all considerations save those of humanity.

The national headquarters of the American Jewish Relief Committee are in New York, with Henry H. Rosenfelt, National Director in charge, associated with many other noted financiers and philanthropists including Jacob H. Schiff, Felix M. Warburg, Louis Marshall, Nathan and Oscar Straus and Julius Rosenwald. Out of his own great fortune Julius Rosenwald started the Jewish war sufferers' relief fund with a princely contribution of one million dollars.

In the business world he is identified with the enormous mail-order house of Sears, Roebuck & Co., Chicago, and in the sphere of benevolent enterprise with the building of schools for the negro children of the South, the establishment of Y. M. C. A. houses for colored people in several cities, the endowment of a medical department of the Chicago University, the establishment of dental clinics in Chicago public schools, and the popularization of art knowledge amongst those who have least opportunities to attain it. In his busy and successful life he has accomplished much that entitles him to

race.

public approbation, and in no field of activity more than in the breaking down of the old outworn barriers of creed and Mr. Rosenwald has shown that while he has not forgotten the people of his own blood, he realizes that the narrowness of sect, which has brought the world so much suffering, should no longer limit the boundaries of benevolence. With a man of such breadth of vision, as national head of the American Jewish Relief committee, the work of the organization has necessarily assumed a non-sectarian character. Never before has the United States seen such national unity of purpose, displayed even in a project of benevolence. Let us hope that the example of brotherly co-operation in the accomplishment of human uplift may have many imitators in the coming years.

Commendations of its philanthropic purpose have reached the American Jewish Relief Committee from citizens eminent in every important community in America. In the successful campaign conducted in St. Louis, B. F. Bush, president of the Missouri Pacific Railway rendered valuable service. He took part in the organization of the field force, and in a letter to a prominent business man of St. Louis, who accepted the post of team captain he wrote:

Permit me to express my high appreciation of your willingness to serve as a team captain in the Jewish War Relief Campaign. I am sure you will register real success. There are hundreds of St. Louis business men who, during the period of the war, had occasion to solicit the Jews of St. Louis for patriotic and charitable causes. They will undoubtedly be glad of the chance to show their appreciation of Jewish liberality and public spirit. This is based on my own personal experience. Not only did I find our Jewish neighbors, poor as well as rich, willing to help practically to the last man in the various war drives, but often they expressed regret that they could not do

exemptions from military service, requested by Jews, was smaller than it was for the whole mass of citizens. While it is only natural that starvation. and suffering among the Jewish populations of Central and Eastern Europe should appeal powerfully to the sympathy of American Jews, the actual responsibility is just as much ours as theirs. These Jewish civilian populations are peace loving and industrious. Their frightful losses in the war arose out of the fact that they-like the Belgians-happened to live in the path of armies advancing to get at the lands beyond. Their sufferings are part of the price of our victory, and we ought to help them in the same spirit as we do our own wounded.

The Relief Committee does not ask impossibilities of a community, already somewhat worn out with war drives and war appeals. If those appealed to will only respond in the same way our Jewish neighbors responded when we called on them, we shall be more than satisfied.

The response in St. Louis was most gratifying and so it has been in many of the large cities east of the Pacific Coast. The broad and generous spirit evinced by the president of the Missouri Pacific Railway has been emulated wherever an appeal was made.

It is impossible for residents of America in its affluence and material prosperity to realize how terrible are the miseries that war sufferers in Europe have been compelled to endure. Only a faint idea of the appalling reality can be gained from pictures, like those which are reproduced in these pages. The destruction of homes can be illustrated, but the portrayal of the mental sufferings of the homeless, torn up by the roots, as it were, and flung on the roadside to starve is impossible. Only the relief commissioners who went abroad to study conditions have an accurate conception of them.

The countries in which the plight of the homeless and starving Jews was found to be most lamentable were Poland, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, Roumania, Servia, Galicia, Palestine, Turkey, Greece, and Siberia. In the Polish town of Vilna the Jewish population was found to have