I RECALL an incident connected with military prison life which is worth recording.

I was sent one afternoon to a certain place in Paris which had been consigned to us as a detention house for our miscreants and criminals until they could be started back on their long journey to Fort Leavenworth and other army reformatories.

I gave my talk in the yard, and as usual to a good sized audience, the Y. M. C. A. furnishing the music with one of their very excellent bands.

Suddenly I glanced up and there in the window behind the bars I saw two young commissioned officers. I asked the Colonel the character of their offenses and then heard the following unique story.

They had, it seemed, been arrested for having stolen from the Commissariat Department the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars. Once in possession of this money they had set out to have a good time. They had leased a princely château in Touraine, they had engaged the best chef, they had sent down well trained servants, they had left orders with the most luxurious fruiterers, they had given carte blanche to the most expensive provision merchants.

They had employed a jazz band, had made the acquaintance of some fascinating ladies asking them to arrange a house party. The wine cellars were fully stocked, and it was here at the end of ten days of enjoyment and of revelry that these enterprising youths were discovered and arrested.

They gave no evidence of either remorse or of regret. While cut short in their experience nevertheless they had had it, for they had both determined not to return to America until they had learned something of Château life in France, until they had personally sampled its social advantages, and until they had been surrounded by an expensive luxury about which they had often read, but of which they literally knew nothing. When confronted with the consequences of their iniquity, they kissed the girls a gay goodbye, and remarked that they had had "the time of their lives."

To those of us who had the privilege of witnessing the victory parade of the Allies which took place in Paris in July, it was a never-to-be-forgotten sight.

Miss de Wolfe and I, thanks to Major Amos Peaslee, who was active in the U. S. Courier Service, had seats in the Hotel Crillon directly on the corner of the Rue Royale and of the Place de la Concorde. It was a wonderful place of vantage for not only could we see the troops marching down the Champs Elysées, but we were able to admire them as they swung around the fountains in the Square.

That our contingent, composed of men especially selected for their height, training and appearance and known as "Pershing's Own" was accorded the palm is a fact which has passed into history. As they swept around the curves the effect was magnificent and thrilling. They had been drilled to perfection. They marched as one man. The sun was shining on their helmets. They were carrying not only Old Glory, but the standards of our victories. The applause as they passed was spontaneous and continuous.

For days afterward Paris echoed with the enthusiasm which the Americans had aroused.

It was common gossip that the British had been prevented from including their crack cavalry regiments in the parade. The French could have made no similar showing, therefore, if horses were cut out as a feature, they would have no rivalry to fear in this one particular, and their own famous generals would be the more conspicuous on their splendid mounts.

This omission was certainly a disappointment to the crowd, for even the most ignorant knew that the British stood alone in the magnificence of their equine equipment. The regiment of the Guards would certainly have added lustre to the occasion and glory to the event.

My final station was with our Army of Occupation along the Rhine. I journeyed the whole length of the territory controlled by the remaining allied units, and found that under the temperate though highly efficient administration of that very splendid officer, General Henry T. Allen, that the Americans enjoyed a popularity with the conquered nation which remained unbroken until our flag was lowered from the tower of Ehrenbreitstein. I was told that when General Allen took command that he sent for the Burgomaster of Coblentz, and told him that so far as it was possible be did not wish to disturb his existing form of government, and that unless the civic regulations interfered in some way with the Army rules, that he, General Allen, desired the daily routine of Coblentz to proceed normally in order that the civilian population should not be harassed nor discomforted more than was necessary.

It would probably be difficult to find a more just or humane man than General Allen.

While his loyalty to his own country could never be questioned, while his duty to the allied cause was always ably performed; his vision remained clear and his mind was unclouded.

He studied facts. He did not dwell upon theories. It was therefore little wonder that when he bade farewell to the people he had governed for nearly five years there was hardly a dry eye as they saw his passing, for he had proved himself during this entire period to be a gentleman as well as an officer.

That our troops found life in Germany to their liking was only natural.

It was a pleasant contrast to the experiences on the other side of the Rhine even in places which had not been devastated.

It was certainly a very successful method of propaganda, if propaganda it was, for cleanliness, moderate charges and comfortable lodgings are effective influences to insure popularity.

It was only reasonable that for the most part the men who composed our army of occupation found the habits which were Anglo-Saxon more easy of assimilation than the customs which were Latin in origin. Their pay, due to the rate of exchange, represented in their environment the wealth of millionaires,

They could afford the luxury of light wines and beer without fear of arrest and without the menace of sudden death.

The conditions in which they found themselves were easy and agreeable, and the only depression I encountered was born of the fear of a recall which would put an end to their comfort and enjoyment.

WHILE moving back and forth during the Summer of 1919 I spent the intervals at the Villa Trianon thus always keeping abreast of the history which was then in the making, at Versailles, owing to the Sessions of the Peace Conference.

The constant coming and going of the celebrities who were gathered for this purpose was, of vibrating interest. Of course the central figure in the drama was Woodrow Wilson that man of brilliant potentialities and of dangerous actualities. I had met him years before while Governor of the State of New Jersey. I had been familiar with his mind through a persistent study of his utterances. I had known him photographically while wholly ignorant of him personally.

In the early days of his Administration I was opposed to him as a President. I wrote of him intemperately. I judged him unintelligently, but very soon I learned to recognize the prejudice of my estimate and grew to find that my early impressions had been superficial and unworthy. So that from the moment of my awakening my allegiance to the President of the United States both frequently expressed and constantly published was only equalled by my confidence in the man who held this high office. When he determined at a very critical time to ignore precedence and go abroad in the Autumn of 1918, while my head questioned the wisdom of so drastic a decision, on the other hand my emotions registered the superstitious belief that Wilson's proverbial justification through ultimate success would crown this as the supreme foresight of his career.

I waited as did thousands of others whose faith in him was boundless before passing judgment. Events, however, shaped themselves so rapidly that within an amazingly brief period an adverse verdict was indelibly written across the pages of history. His throwing himself into the Lion's Den proved a fatal blunder in the eyes of the majority.

No natural quality of intellect, no training in the politics of his country, no inherent standard of ideals, no study of international conditions, no convictions as to the result to be achieved were of the slightest value when President Wilson found himself face to face with the diplomacy and the tradition of the Old World. He was like a lightweight champion unable to stand up against the heavyweight thugs. He remained the Big One who was fighting the Big Three.

His ignorance of foreign languages was regrettable, his ignorance of foreign intrigues was disastrous. He was beaten before he began, and as he contested each point and debated each issue he was forced step by step from his place of vantage until the result of his final yielding was that deplorable finality dignified as the Treaty of Versailles which document has ever since cursed the world through its inadequacy to promulgate peace and through its efficiency to promote war.

To those of us who watched with feverish anxiety each day's development and each hour's procrastination the hideousness of the whole situation became more and more apparent. As the star actors who headed the cast began to stumble in their lines, to forget their cues and to evince weariness in their performance, the minor characters stood out in the program until gradually the whole nature of the drama became altered.

The comedy element seemed to shine conspicuously while the certainty of the final tragedy loomed ever before our eyes.

The details of this Peace Conference have been written over and over again. The truth has been spoken ostensibly. Yet I venture to say that the honest unbiased and unprejudiced report of the proceedings which dragged on day after day with a sinister purpose and with a fatal ending has yet to be written. This will be a posthumous contribution to the history of the world, a book of Memoirs dedicated to the dead. No one yet dares tell the truth. No one yet is ready to bear it.

As my crystal ball revolves, I see Generals who either fall asleep because they have been suddenly relieved of active duty or who dance the one step in the drawing rooms of Paris in order that they may keep awake.

I see statesmen who are refreshing their memories with every incident of the past so that they may register opinions based upon the precedents which they were educated to respect.

I see Lloyd George dominating a society which his established policies would wreck. I see Clemenceau the man of the jungle who was ill at ease in a Palace.

I see Orlando with the inherited qualities of his sunbathed race, externally docile while internally adamant, and finally Woodrow Wilson sincere in his purpose, honest in his aim, courageous in his struggle, and confident in the result, standing pathetically alone, mistrusted by his associates abroad and rejected by his colleagues at home.

I see him deserted by his own political party while being hounded by the opposition.

I see the senatorial hyenas spitting forth venom while thirsting for blood.

From the brilliant pinnacle he had occupied he was cast into the darkness of a deathly silence, but his persecutors who now suck the sweet poison of their dastardly victory should realize that where there is the divine spark of genius the powers of hell can never extinguish it.

Months may pass while the light feebly flickers in the shadow, but as Woodrow Wilson once said himself:

"Facts do not threaten, they operate."

IN the Autumn of 1919 I returned once more to America and gradually resumed active business in the organization which had been formed, as already noted when I had found the individual responsibility too burdensome.

Little by little I recovered from the war fever as did so many others until gradually the harness fell once more upon my shoulders.

I found the men with whom I was thereafter to be associated all congenial and to my liking. I have grown to love them as my own sons. I found a business built at last upon the lines of which I had so often dreamed.

My desk is a daily magnet.

The young geniuses who are developing fall under my optimistic eye.

They become my charge and my inspiration.

The possibilities for them are infinite. The demand in America for entertainment through the medium of the drama and of motion pictures exceeds that of any other country. The same applies to fiction, and producers of plays and pictures, as well as publishers of books, are actively competing in the search for new material, paying particular attention to young and hitherto unheard of authors and dramatists.

The history of a popular novel which lends itself to stage requirements may pass through many phases. It can begin as a serial, be published as a book, may be dramatized as a play, can be sold as a film and afterwards prove a desirable acquisition for production by stock companies and for performances by amateurs.

The field is boundless. It is a great mistake for young authors to believe that to be given their opportunity of a hearing is well-nigh impossible, for this is not the case. Publishers and managers these days are practically uninfluenced by names. If the material presented to them gives evidence of real merit there is small doubt but that it will ultimately see daylight. Delays and disappointments may postpone the hour of fulfillment, yet the moment will finally come when the proud author may watch the child of his genius submitted to the public test.

Infinite time and pains are given to the development of young writers by those qualified in matters of this kind, thus they have the benefit of expert criticism and experience. Producers and publishers want them to succeed. My own belief in American literature and in American drama is deep rooted.

The majority of the "long runs" or of the popular "sellers" are as a rule due to native talent and to American genius.

There is nothing, however, in the silly pretense of advisers who assert that when authors are successful that it is they who have made them.

The talent is the author's, not the agent's. The vision was born from his own within and not from the agent's without.

Talent is neither incubated nor hatched although it can be kept warm in its infancy through sympathetic care and nursing.

After the war Elsie de Wolfe also returned to active business. She has developed in knowledge and taste while each year is now divided between America and Europe. She has found inexhaustible opportunity for combining the practical expressions of business with a superficial pursuit of nomadic pleasure. While playing she is working and often while working she gives an external impression of bubbling gayety.

Anne Morgan until very recently has been engrossed upon her enterprises in France and for France, although I am quite prepared any day to hear that she is heading some vast industrial undertaking in her own country, for I know of no one who could be a more dynamic director of forces, or a better organizer and administrator than herself. She has inherited qualities which have been so enriched and multiplied through her own experiences and accomplishments that I cannot but feel that with her the psychological moment of real and final achievement is still ahead, and that it is in America and not in France where her life's work will be found.

How often I have been asked to voice some opinion as to the relations between employers and employees, to state the causes which I thought were either favorable or unfavorable to that mutual harmony which should exist. This is a problem to which I have given much thought. I have at request spoken very often to groups of young people on the subject. I have in a spirit of helpfulness pointed out many things for their consideration.

There are truths which should be brought home and I have said repeatedly that instead of looking for a next job that we should see to it that we are filling the one we have.

There is no barrier to advancement equal to that of the time clock for thereby employees are too often tempted to line up ahead of the hour in order to be on hand when the clock indicates their release. This visible desire to quit work is a poor route by which to reach the upper level.

High paid positions are frequently vacant because the qualities demanded for them are hard to find. Perseverance, industry, a retentive memory, good manners, gentle appearance, a trained intelligence, an absence of egoism, a spontaneous imagination, a prompt initiative, all of these form the surest equipment for the earning of high salaries.

In clerical and secretarial employment mediocrity cannot hope for much advancement.

People are not giving away anything these days, as capital already complains of overpaid labor. If through shortage of the latter employers are forced to tolerate indifferent inefficiency, as conditions become more normal the supply increasing while the demand is decreasing, the indolent and the incapable will soon be dropped by the wayside.

Sometimes I wonder why a little more common sense isn't taught in our business colleges. The mutual relations between those who employ and those who are employed seem to me a proposition radiant with simplicity. It should be a fifty-fifty partnership, but as a rule this is far from being the case.

I have but little patience with that fatal slogan that has come down to us through the ages, namely, that the failures in life are due to a lack of opportunity.

My experience shows me that opportunity is always clamoring for admission. It knocks at our doors, it even bombards them. But the trouble is that our ears are deaf, our eyes blind, our conceit overwhelming and our self-confidence overmastering. Deceived by sophistry, insisting that the world should take us on our terms (which are apt to be exorbitant), refusing to regard our often commonplace wares as mere commodities in an open market, looking within instead of without, it is only natural that when opportunity comes stalking our way, we fail to recognize it. And thus thanks to our own obtuseness we go sniveling through life, wading in a sea of self pity, excusing our shortcomings, defending our limitations, palliating our blunders and always posing as martyrs who have been defrauded from that chance which would have made us rich and famous.

There is very little of the miracle about business success. Read the story of the man or woman who has arrived at the pinnacle of world wide recognition and it is rare to find that luck played any major part in the happy result.

To ride on the band wagon we must first climb into it. The hearse moves more slowly and is consequently easier to overtake.

If we would but realize that the influences which tend towards success or failure are as a rule the silent forces of life, grinding out hourly and inexorably the certain result!

Facts are the powerful fatalities of destiny.

A lack of discipline is paid for sooner or later. If it is missing in the home and in the school, the want of it hits us like a boomerang when we sally forth into the world, often pathetic objects facing the struggle, dismally equipped and imperfectly prepared.

Whether we receive this discipline normally in our youth or tragically through trial. and hardship in our old Age, we shall all be forced to acquire it, somehow or somewhere ere the sands of life cease to run.

So many of the younger generation seem to have lost the habit of thinking. Knowledge is absorbed through bromidic pills. Our minds are to be run after the fashion of the electric washer. All process is to be made easy, lo! a button is pressed and the mechanism is set in motion. No individual effort is to be expected. We rock ourselves to sleep while the work either mental or physical is being done for us. We suffer from the malnutrition of our morale, while sublimely unconscious that our potentialities are being starved.

Popular magazines multiply while the library shelves remain undisturbed. We have no longer any desire to learn. All we crave is that little education which enables us to slip through. Our speech may have improved, but what about the ideas to which it should give utterance?

We are placing pleasure before business, the surest road by which to put ourselves out of business.

After all there can be no such thing as team work accomplished separately. Employers and employees in order to produce effectively and efficiently must labor hand and hand, heart and brain together.

It must be a partnership of give and take.

NOT once but many times during the war and after the armistice I traveled over the territory which has become popularly designated as Devastated France. Much has been said of it, much has been read of it. In many minds the impression exists that practically the whole of France was laid waste, whereas while the destruction was almost complete in eight departments, and while fighting occurred in two more, still the fact remains that in addition there were seventy-seven which were never affected except by the increasing prosperity due to the reckless expenditures of the Allies, and of the various organizations which either passed through or occupied them. The actual area which was invaded was approximately one eleventh of French territory, and about one sixteenth of the entire population was affected. It is perhaps fair to note in this connection that much damage was also caused by the allied guns.

And the fact that the valuable resources of those rich provinces, Alsace and Lorraine have been added to the map of France, must not be underestimated.

In the beginning it was claimed that twenty-five per cent of the economic wealth of the country had been destroyed by the enemy. Later this statement was found to be considerably exaggerated, until it has been admitted by the French themselves that it has not exceeded ten per cent.

The official reports of the French savings banks have frequently attested that never have the deposits in them been as large as during and subsequent to the war.

By encouraging the German co-operation almost at the outset Belgium was rapidly rebuilt, but for one reason and another this work in France has moved much more slowly.

The amount contributed from this country for this restoration has already reached an unprecedented total. Miss Anne Morgan and Mrs. A. M. Dike have worked unceasingly and with unflagging zeal to rebuild more than one hundred villages in the Aisne, to provide the peasants with tractors and farming implements, to reconstruct homes, to teach hygienic and domestic science, in fact, to raise the general standard of living throughout the area in which they have so indefatigably operated.

Unluckily the Germans who remained in the vicinity during the early days of this agricultural aid in the Aisne benefited several times from a generosity which was not intended.

On one occasion when they were only about fifteen miles distant they swooped down in the neighborhood and seized whatever was handy, among other things all of the lovely white leghorn chickens which had been thoughtfully transported from Versailles in order to spread this very excellent breed throughout the Department. As some of the hens had been selected in America for their high grade of points it did seem a pity to have them fed to the Boches.

The loss, however, of the labor which the Committee had put in, and of the farming implements which were in the railroad freight house at Noyon were a far more serious matter, all of which goes to prove how necessary it is to be careful in the selection of one's neighbors.

Without being iconoclastic, it is to be hoped that in rebuilding these villages that a little modern plumbing will be introduced and a little modern cleanliness engendered. A francophile once remarked that "the French had souls above plumbing." While this may be an uplifting virtue, still a little sewerage is not to be wholly despised.

The problem of how to impose taxation in France is not a new one. The people chronically refuse to be taxed to any extent. The French government is nearly bankrupt, but the lower and upper classes are still well off. The real suffering is with those who are living on small incomes or on modest salaries owing to the dwarfed purchasing power of the franc and the increased cost of living, a condition, however, universal in all countries. Some very significant figures appear in the Research Report of the National Industrial Conference Board. There in Table 14, we note that in the fiscal year 1920-1921 the per capita taxation on the pre-war purchasing power basis in the United Kingdom was $46.07, for the United States $40.59, for Germany $19.46 and for France $15.28.

The above requires no comment.

So far as making any gesture even of repaying the vast sums owed to this country is concerned the only nation which seems to feel its obligation and which is liquidating it is Great Britain. The excuse given by France is that when she collects from Germany that she will pay her debts, but it is certainly a doubtful question whether her present occupation of the Ruhr leads us to any very optimistic belief that we shall ever be paid. An army is an expensive luxury. It certainly becomes in this instance a new way of paying old debts."

The part that Great Britain played in the war has been submerged to a very great extent by her traditional reticence, nevertheless when one has traveled from the sea through the Somme and Picardie, when one has visited and understood the battlefields of Flanders, when one has faced that remorseless ridge at Vimy where German guns drenched the plucky Tommies, not once, but over and over again, with bullets and poison gas as they stormed heights which it cost thousands of lives to take, one begins to realize faintly the magnificent courage of those British soldiers and the inspiring leadership of their officers. Sacrifice with them was the order of the day. They fought on and on, English, Scottish, Australians, Canadians, Irish, men from all over the British Empire, who were there for one job and one only, to mop up the enemy and to rid the world of the menace which had descended upon it.

From those early days when England so poorly equipped and so hideously unready threw in her strength without a moment's moral hesitation, she fought on and on, sometimes as has been said with her back to the wall, but never flinching, never weakening, never doubtful in her attitude.

The price she paid is still in the process of compilation. Not only did she suffer through the heavy death toll of her manhood, but her economic losses have been beyond compute.

The pinching poverty, the strained finances, the need of retrenchment has been felt to some degree in every British household, yet so far as boasting of what they contributed to the ultimate allied victory is concerned, they have been persistently silent. They have never whined nor complained. They have asked no favors. They have made no bid for sympathy. They have behaved like true sports.

It is popular in certain quarters to accuse them of greed and of selfishness, to influence inimical imagination by always pointing out that the underlying motive of everything which England does springs from the soul of avarice. This might be impressive were we not in our lucid moments confronted with the inquiry as to the basic impulses of the other nations who were for a while our companions in arms.

If England is actuated only from love of gain, at least it can be said of her that she is so intelligent as to make the gesture seem almost sympathetic. If she has set out to rob the world, she will do so in a gentlemanly fashion and her highwaymen will conduct themselves with a bearing which will be attractive.

The war was over in 198 so far as the British Empire was concerned. She buried her fears and her hates in the grave of her last soldier. She took off her Sam Brown belt and replaced it with a kit of tools. She will trade with her enemies, not despoil them. Her policy is one of common sense and not of hysteria. She does not propose to continue a war which ended with the armistice. Hatred and revenge are luxuries which she finds too expensive. She will rule through industry and not through triumphal arches. Her iron and steel will not be used for destruction, but for construction.

Once I found myself facing an audience which was most antagonistic to Great Britain. It was at the time when our Irish friends were far from any settlement of their home cause. It took no little courage to voice even a temperate expression in favor of the English. Nevertheless in the summing up of the respective accomplishments of our allies, I began:

"As for England---" but before proceeding my voice was drowned by a chorus of cat calls, of hisses and even worse.

I stood firmly and waited until the hubbub had died down, then stepping to the edge of the stage and looking full at the gallery from which most of the disturbance sprang, I exclaimed:

"I am well aware that you do not love England, but I refuse to leave this platform until I have made you respect her!"

The effect was instantaneous, and the tide of sentiment was turned until my closing remarks were greeted with a thundering applause.

I have always claimed that the one alliance which would really prove a steadying hand at the international helm is that between our two great Anglo-Saxon countries.

Even if we do not "love each other," we should "respect each other" and become sensible working partners. To keep us apart, to sow discord between us, to inspire us mutually with envy and malice is of course the policy of the nations which dread the effect of such a unity as I describe. Their one desire is to separate us. Their one fear is that we shall come together.

However, if common sense of these two powerful countries registers sufficiently we shall sooner or later be able to radio our joint judgment and our determination to the uttermost ends of the earth.

The Anglo-Saxons may be cold and calculating, they may be callous, they may be stolid, yet they are as a rule safe bets, and at moments when reason should prevail, are not apt to lose their moral balance nor indulge in emotions which are senseless and unremunerative.

Nations as well as individuals should be protected against themselves.

And how have the Russians fared in the memory of those friends and allies with whom they had cast their lot during those first years of the war?

Do we find even a reflex of appreciation of what they did in those early days when they put up that splendid fight along the Eastern Front, and when they drove the wedge into the enemy's army thus forcing a division of its strength and diverting its forcefulness of attack?

How many now pay tribute to those disintegrated and straggling legions who had fought on and on month after month, unshod, unclothed and unfed, thousands of human beings the echo of whose misery was never even heard beyond their own frontier.

Without weapons of war, without munitions for defense, yet on and on they bravely struggled, betrayed by their friends and slaughtered by their foes.

Was it any wonder that at last when falling by the way from sheer cold and hunger that they yielded to the subtle persuasion of those who at least promised them the security of bread and shelter?

The debt to the Russian people remains nevertheless inscribed upon the pages of history, crying aloud for a moral liquidation while rank injustice prevents even its acknowledgment.

Yet there can be no such thing as oblivion for that nation which has laid down its life for its friends.

It was not until the presidential campaign of 1920 that I was literally flung into the new experiences of a political convention. To attend as a spectator or to attend as a delegate are widely different. I had frequently been present as the former, but it was not until I had been selected to go to the Democratic Convention as one of the delegates at large from the Empire State, my running mate being Governor Alfred E. Smith, that I realized the importance and the interest of actually sitting on the floor of a Convention and of casting a vote.

The beautiful City of San Francisco had been selected as the place where our Convention would be held. The time was the end of June and nothing could have been more delightful than the journey across the continent or our cordial reception by the townspeople upon arrival. Every conceivable thing had been planned for our comfort. Every possible arrangement had been made for our pleasure.

The Convention Hall itself was a model in all respects. The seating capacity ample, the ventilation perfect, and the machinery most excellent. No words of appreciation would be excessive so far as San Francisco was concerned. The crowds were very great, but the skilled handling of them robbed us of their realization.

I had previously been appointed a member of the Executive of the National Committee, therefore I filled two offices. For this reason I had gone a few days ahead of the general delegation as I anticipated some preliminary meetings of the Executive body.

This gave me a little time in which to get my bearings. I felt at a glance that I was to be vastly edified and amused, for from the outset incidents were not lacking to feed a sense of humor.

On entering the lobby of my hotel I was confronted by a large poster of a conspicuous candidate, the Hon. Mitchell Palmer, taken in the familiar pose of old Dr. Munyon, who with raised finger, claimed he was the purveyor of universal panaceas.

When I read the literature which Mr. Palmer's "boosters" were vigorously distributing, I found it quite logical that he had copied Munyon even to a pose.

No one seemed to have any definite idea as to who would prove the best man to rule the United States for everyone was busily engaged in guessing as to which man ran the most likely chance of being elected were he nominated.

I suggested satirically that under these circumstances, as he then seemed the nation's hero, that the name of Babe Ruth, Baseball's home-run King, should not be lightly overlooked.

I found that we were rich in candidates. Never before had I imagined that there were so many citizens who wished to be Presidents. They popped up from every section, and from every state. One thing these gentlemen all seemed to share in common. They were invariably presented by their sponsors as men whose private lives were pure and spotless.

It was a consoling thought that the standard of domestic life was so high, and that we belonged to a country in which marital virtue seemed so invulnerable.

I must confess that now and again I felt that there was a rich field for blackmailers to be spied in the offing, however we were there to be solemn and credulous, not to be cynical and critical.

For days we listened to orations, for days we cast the ballots.

I began to think that the Democratic party had too many men of noble achievement and of Christian character. We were embarrassed by our riches. So it was considerable of a relief when the victim of our final choice was the Hon. James Cox, of Ohio, who bravely buckled on his armor and sallied forth to battle, the forlorn hope in a campaign which was doomed to defeat.

A sinister influence seemed to emanate from a life-size portrait of President Woodrow Wilson which hung above the rostrum, it was badly painted, but admirably lighted. The face had a mocking expression, the lines were hard, the eyes were staring It was a haunting thing, that portrait. One seemed forced to look at it, and to be pursued by it. How far this picture was responsible for some of our waverings I have never been able to determine.

It made me think of a little boy who, having been taken to see some great display of fireworks, gave a certain evidence of nervousness. He was asked whether he was afraid and answered: "Not exactly, but it makes my skin jerk."

I am inclined to think that something made our skins jerk. Was it this Wilson portrait? I wonder.

Everything was debated. We had some great orators and listened with a rare enjoyment to such men as Cummins and Cockran, although our dry friend, the Hon. William Jennings Bryan, did not score as in former conventions.

He had been hoisted by his own petard. His audience could not applaud on soft drinks. Upon previous similar occasions, they had been warmed up. They had come in a genial and admiring attitude, but it was too much to expect that innocuous beverages would produce any great enthusiasm over catch phrases or over illogical arguments.

Cruel as it may seem the man who had always proved a spell binder fell flat and William Jennings Bryan, who for years had dominated every Democratic Convention, was listened to in a spirit of inertia, and was discounted as a force which had been spent.

It was in the lobbies of the hotels where one received the most accurate slant as to what the people were really feeling.

My chief performance seemed to be that of giving copy to the press. I was sorry for the poor news seekers in this and valley.

The drinks taken on the quiet as ordered by the army of family physicians produced a strange effect. They seemed to induce melancholia rather than cheerfulness.

Everyone was more or less enveloped in gloom. Laughs were rare. Impulses of hilarity were restrained.

Bad jokes even were hailed as life-savers. The members of the newspaper fraternity would fall upon me pleadingly for just one story, for just one bit of news which might enliven their columns.

It was generally the unexpected which furnished the material.

One night after an eloquent lady had proclaimed her views as a strict prohibitionist she challenged the audience to bear her out in the statement that to the disgrace of American manhood the breath of nearly every man she met at the Convention reeked with the smell of whiskey, especially as they gathered in the corridors of the hotels.

That evening I was interviewed and asked for my experiences on the subject. I replied that I had no comment to make as I had never smelled the men's breaths.

"Does that mean," pursued my interlocutor, "that you deny the statements made by the lady orator of the afternoon?

"I deny nothing," said I.

"Then you admit to smelling their breaths?"

"I admit nothing of the kind," I answered.

"Why not?" my questioner continued.

"For a very simple reason. I am either too modest or too fat."

This incident went the rounds, which added to similar anecdotes gave me the reputation of being the Court Jester of the Convention.

Under the new ruling I was duly elected as the National Committeewoman of the State of New York, the National Committeeman being my very esteemed and able friend, the Hon. Norman E. Mack, of Buffalo, N. Y. We shall be in office until 1924, when a new election will be in order.

I made up my mind after the ordeal was over that instead of returning directly to New York, that I would take a trip north into Canada and back over the Canadian Pacific. I was well rewarded for the scenery is magnificent comparing more than favorably with the Swiss Alps.

Nowhere in the world is there a more lovely spot than Lake Louise. This in itself is worth the journey. From British Columbia eastward one marvels at the enterprise of the Canadians. They are a great race and their energies and resources seem inexhaustible.

Had it not been that we were consumed by mosquitoes in the higher altitudes all would have been delightful, but these insects seemed to us so large, so virulent and so persistent in attack that I am inclined to believe that they are some new variety exceeding in strength and magnitude any of the species with which we have been familiar.

I am told by my friend the eminent Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson that mosquitoes at certain seasons of the year are the bane of those who travel in the Far North.

My last trip abroad was in 1921. It was chiefly undertaken in the interests of our business.

I spent some weeks in our London office, saw many of my old clients in Paris, among them brilliant Francis de Croisset whom I had known from his early days. He is a Belgian by birth, but very soon was naturalized as a Frenchman. He wrote his emotions at sixteen and lived them afterwards.

He began with passionate verse which was his prelude to side splitting comedy.

He is the author of many successes. Perhaps his best known play in America is "Arsene Lupin," dramatized from Le Blanc's novel, which was one of the first of the detective series with which we have since become so familiar.

Many are the witty sayings attributed to him.

The superb private hotel on the Place des Etats Unis in Paris, where de Croisset, his charming wife and lovely children lived until recently, was leased to President Wilson as his residence during the Peace Conference. Madame de Croisset is a daughter of that most brilliant and fascinating woman, the Comtesse Laure de Chévigné who will never grow old, who will always be alluring and who will eternally be charming.

Recently Robert de Flers and Francis de Croisset have entered into a collaboration, a very common fashion among French authors, but one which has never appealed strongly to the Anglo-Saxon mind.

The upheaval of the war has not produced a beneficial effect upon the French stage. Too much stress is laid upon form. Too much value is attributed to manner. What an author has to give is of less consequence than how he gives it. The eternal triangle has served its day in every country of the globe except in France.

Adultery there still reigns as the favorite theme.

Unhappily when the French dramatists do strike out for something different, they are apt to plunge either into morbidness or to indulge in dialogue which would make even a Rabelais blush.

There is no Ruhr to be seized in art and the dramatists of the enemy countries will roam at will in the theatres of the world.

With a view to studying the literary output in Central Europe I journeyed some three thousand miles in an automobile, saw many authors and talked to many publishers. My wanderings gave me an opportunity of viewing the economic condition in Germany at first hand. At all events I was able to form an individual opinion which has prevented me ever since from being hoodwinked by investigators or by journalists whose opinions were packed in their suitcases before they ostensibly started out to form them.

Probably there is no word so abused in our vocabulary as that of "propaganda." It should be relegated once and for all to the archives.

Whenever anyone states or writes his honest conviction, then the opposite side invariably hurls forth the suggestion of propaganda.

It has become a manacle upon the public mind which would throttle and blind truth.

It is high time that it should be done away with and that the after war conditions should be viewed face to face. We have been victims of political fallacies long enough. We have been told what to think. We have had rings in our noses as we have been led to the study, of contemporary misstatements. We have been exploited by every nation in turn. We have received and listened to representatives from every country. We have had foreign bankers send us their juggled statistics, we have had foreign statesmen present their cases as though we were a nation of imbeciles.

If our land has never been the centre of any physical disturbance, nevertheless since 1914, it has been the dumping ground of the political intrigues of Europe. We have been asked to declare ourselves. We have been asked to keep silent. We have been urged to activity. We have been influenced to inertia. We have been lied to and bamboozled. We have been insulted and we have been cajoled. We have been wooed until we have rejected the suitor, we have been excoriated when once he was shown the door.

It is high time that the American people should remember a few home truths, and that we should refuse to become partners with a militarism which is still stalking unchecked under the pretense of national needs and of international justice.

The day for sophistries and sentiment should be over. What is needed in the world is economic production, and not military occupation. Bankers and not politicians should direct international policy.

France and Germany should be industrial partners. Their only mutual protection lies in mutual trading. "Where the treasure lies there will the heart be also." Storehouses filled with merchandise will prove a better guarantee than arsenals bulging with ammunition.

But even as individuals become bored when a tale of woe is too often poured into their ears, so will the Americans become bored if they are eternally asked to listen to the grievances of their neighbors. And just as private doors are finally closed to private bores, I predict that it will not be long before our national gates will close with a dull thud upon those who are wearing out our patience and our forbearance. There is no surer way of turning a friend into a foe than by lending him money in his distress which he conveniently forgets to repay.

There are moments when one is forced to realize to what an extent a sense of humor is sadly lacking in the French race, for only recently one wonders why at a time when France was eager to enter the Ruhr, when she wished to intensify in the eyes of the world the memory of Germany's misdeeds---did she with beating of drums and waving of flags insist upon glorifying the celebration of Napoleon's conquests and of Napoleon's triumphs. It was certainly not an auspicious moment to recall to memory that greatest of all history's highwaymen, whose battle-cry was cruel devastation and ruthless pillage.

This can best be explained by the fact that France has been, is and probably will always be a military nation, despite her reiterated assertion to the contrary. On July 1st, 1914, the great Benedictine preacher, Dom Besse, is quoted as saying in a speech: "War is an essential to Peace. When we wish to glorify God we refer to Him as the God of Battle. This is why God has decreed that battles and wars are inevitable, and this is why those peoples who fail to recognize this principle are doomed to extermination."

History records that the wars of France have furnished the foundation of her Art, and her great Saint, Jeanne d'Arc, blazed the trail of her canonization through the march of a conquering army.

I have in my possession a recent letter from a French author which is written on paper of a very sanguinary color and on which is stamped the word "guerre," visible only by holding the sheet to the light, which naturally suggests that holding things to the light is sometimes very clarifying.

The war of 1914 has been fought and won.

Peace is being fought and is not yet won. Instead of sending statesmen and generals from one country to another, instead of planning conferences which, as a rule, lead to naught, instead of projecting official visits which are costly and unproductive, the men of business insight and financial foresight should get together and face the international situation as it really is.

Oratory and sentimentalism should be replaced by facts and figures.

If the bankers of the world would combine for the extension of industrial credits, if they would find some practical method by which exchanges could be standardized and stabilized, if the Treaty of Versailles, drawn at a time when men saw red rather than azure, could now thoughtfully be revised and reconstructed, then there might be a happy issue out of the affliction into which all the nations of the world are plunged, but until hatred is discouraged, until the promise of peace seems as vital as the echo of war, until intelligence supplants emotion, international problems will remain unsolved. As for the United States which is technically standing aloof, she is forced to contemplate her export trade falling day by day, her imports blocked by a prohibitive tariff, and the high value of her dollar becoming the Frankenstein which is slaying her. Sooner or later she will have to recognize that, of all the nations which took part in the great conflict, the United States is, perhaps, the one which will pay the highest indemnity.

It is extraordinary to find that in no other country is the war mentality still so apparent as in America.

It seems to pervade every drawing room, to color every debate and to infest every forum.

In many circles it is a fetish "not-to-forget."

In many minds the guns are still booming, and the walls of their souls are plastered with dug outs and trench lines. Until this rampant spirit of continuous conflict is crushed, until hatred is replaced by love, until forgiveness is no empty phrase, then and not until then will the Peace of God descend.

THE last struggle in which I am engaged is a militant plea for Temperance while absolutely opposing Prohibition.

I insist that the former is the virtue of Christians whereas the latter is the vice of the Mohammedans.

To restore liberty to the American people, to further reason and not fanaticism, to advocate truth and to unmask hypocrisy seems to me not an unworthy mission.

To those who may be befogged by the issues and who remain ignorant as to the facts, they owe it to themselves to become enlightened.

Because a thing looks good is no proof that it is good.

Many a reform movement tossed into the air falls with a dead thud to explode in the soil which it strikes.

To project a law is one thing; to execute it is another.

In this country we are law-ridden. Our statute books are becoming ponderous and unwieldy. The cost of law enforcement is increasing day by day. The query arises as to whether the cure is not infinitely more dangerous than the disease.

Admitting for instance that there was a trail of evil upon the heels of intemperance, how trivial it was in comparison with the destructive forces which the 18th Amendment has let loose upon our people. Drugs, disease, drunkenness and disaster have followed in its wake.

Bootlegging is now the most popular and the most prosperous industry in the land.

Legislators have become perjurers, and law makers are now law breakers.

The demoralization of our youth is a ghastly certainty. Alcohol is taking the place of mother's milk. Never in the history of civilization have young boys and girls indulged in strong drink as they are doing to-day.

There are thousands of pious prohibitionists who refuse to recognize this fact, and who point with complacency at their own boys and girls as convincing examples of the untruth of such slander, but let these same people frequent ballrooms, dancehalls, private parties and public restaurants in the majority of our large cities, and they will find the hip flasks in evidence and the consequent conditions a sorry spectacle.

Furthermore, what of our commerce, what of our revenue what of our taxes while we supinely sit by doing nothing to restore the normal conditions which for the time being are so dislocated.

Look at our Merchant Marine which is vitally important to the. wealth of our country. What has become of it? Where shall we find its rapidly dwindling tonnage?

The answer is simple. Its ships are being towed into anchorage where their timbers will rot and where their usefulness will be destroyed.

An amusing incident illustrating the misplaced zeal of some of the Federal officers occurred in our office building as I was passing through the hall.

A youth approached me explaining his official importance and stating that he was making a search of the premises.

I asked what he was expecting to find in the Christian Science Rooms or in the Dental Offices, both of which professions are largely represented in the Aeolian Building.

"As for our Company," I continued, "I only wish that you might find something in our midst. Alas, we are as dry as a chalky kneejoint."

Gazing at me reproachfully, the Prohibition agent exclaimed-:

"What a pity it is that you feel as you do! I am sure that you come from a Christian family and that you were brought up 'dry'."

"Ah," said 1, "this is where you are mistaken. I was brought up by a wet nurse."

Prohibition is no longer an experiment. It has been tried out with the dire result that it has derailed the morale of America.

We have become a nation of liars, of hypocrites and of law breakers,

Let us keep the saloons closed but let us restore liberty to the homes. Let us have the right to brew beer which is not murderous and to manufacture wine which is not suicidal.

Let us walk, not sneak. Let us be honest once more to ourselves and to our citizenship.

And now as I come to my last chapter, my crystal ball refuses to reflect to-day's actualities, therefore I shall refrain from any reference to those with whom I am now in contact.

Their nearness to me whether as creators in literature, and in art, or their proximity as valued friends would color my estimate, and would bias my view.

I would be writing without the perspective of a background and with a foreground which would not be in focus.

Should I attempt any summing up of their personal traits or talents, my crystal ball might reflect merely a misty misconception of them.

By and by I may return to a closer study of these contemporaries. I may even frame them as individual silhouettes.

My present to-day must automatically become my yesterday, and the haze of the morning sun will very soon be dissipated by the afternoon's shadows, so let me ring down the curtain, not because I feel that my life is over but because I have reached the present year when my experiences would only be a daily diary.

I am now sixty-seven, yet am looking forward, making plans ahead which two decades cannot cover and dreaming of a future in which I may still be privileged to, play a part.

I do not want to die in a state of rust. I wish to keep the shield bright so long as my hand is strong enough to hold it.

Years in themselves mean nothing. How we live them means everything.

Smoked glasses before the mind are more to be dreaded than smoked glasses before the eyes.

Do not shut up our outdoor souls within our indoor limitations.

If your spirit keeps alive, if your brain remains, if your sympathies do not shrivel, if you realize that the immortal that is within can carry you on and on even to the very moment of the great passing, then you will never know age in the accepted sense, and when God in his mercy calls you, He will find you ready for that short journey for which your whole life has been but a preparation.

You will be like the old ship brought into its last port.

No more battling with heavy seas, no more fighting with tempestuous waves.

The dawn of peace is upon the waters and looking up you will feel that all of your trivial weakness, all of your petty ambitions, all of your foolish judgments, all of your ignorant intolerances, all of your puerile jealousies have at last fallen from you, conquered by the transcendent mercy and understanding of the God who gave you life.

As a little child you came into the world. As a little child you will go out from it.

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THE END