senses. Solutions of sweet, salt, bitter, and sour are used. A drop of each is placed first upon the end, then upon each of the sides, of the tongue, and the subject is required to name the solution. The percentage of errors for the negroes was 38; for the white criminals, 46. The sensibility to taste is conditioned by the use of alcohol, tobacco, snuff, etc. The coarse foods used and their preparation must tend to deaden this sensibility.

In the test of the physical senses the negroes are not more defective than the same class among the whites. The results tend to show that among the negroes tested the defects are not such as to prevent successful functionings, and they do not equal the degree necessary for degeneracy. Defects in color discrimination, reading, smell, and taste involve a consideration of social factors for their explanation. Where individuals possess senses that are even fairly good, there are opened many avenues of appeal to the higher faculties. FRANCES A. KELLOR.

The University of Chicago.

ON THE STOA OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

AN ARMY OF WEALTH-CREATORS VS. AN ARMY OF DESTRUCTION.*

Our government is engaged in a war of conquest in the hope of securing some commercial advantages for our citizens in the future. For this purpose our standing army has been increased from 25,000 to 100,000 men, thereby incurring an enormous burden in increased taxation necessary for the support of a non-wealth-producing class. Already the lives of thousands of young Americans, who were wealth-creators and the props and stays of families, have been sacrificed; and this destruction of life, this robbing of the homes of sons, husbands, and brothers, must necessarily continue so long as this war for conquest and commercial gain is waged. And when we add to the misery, wretchedness, and pauperism that necessarily flow from the taking from the homes of so many of our manliest citizens, the moral degradation that always accompanies war, the arousing of hate and of the baser passions, the multitudinous temptations, and the general lowering of the ideal of manhood that pervade an army of conquest, we will be able to

* In accordance with our purpose to discuss from month to month great social, economic, and political measures that intimately affect the welfare, prosperity, and happiness of the nation and the advancement of civilization, I sent the above letter on "An Army of Wealth- Creators vs. an Army of Destruction," with the request for their views on the same, to Prof. Frank Parsons, of the faculty of the Boston University School of Law; Prof. Thomas E. Will, A.M., late president of the Kansas State Agricultural College and at present filling the chair of political economy in Ruskin College, Trenton, Mo.; Rev. Hiram Vrooman, president of the Workers' Coöperative Association and pastor of the Warren Street Swedenborgian Church, of Boston; Dr. C. F. Taylor, editor of the Medical World, of Philadelphia; Rev. Robert E. Bisbee, the well-known Methodist divine, essayist, and lecturer; and the Hon. Samuel M. Jones, mayor of Toledo, Ohio. Following the letter will be found the replies, which form an interesting and varied presentation of views by leading representatives among the conscience element in American public life to-day.-B. O. F

understand in a measurable degree something of what our government is paying for the prospective increase in wealth through the hoped-for trade.

Now, dismissing for the moment the ethical phases of the question involved, and looking at the problem from the view-point of business success and political security, are there not ways open at our door by which, for an incomparably less outlay than the cost of prosecuting this war of conquest, the government might increase her wealth products and vastly enrich her people, without the destruction of life or the surrender of the fundamental principles enunciated by our Declaration of Independence, which for more than a century made the United States the great leader of free governments and the chief source of inspiration to struggling manhood throughout civilization? Furthermore, if it can be shown to be clearly practical to establish an army of wealth-creators, which, while virtually banishing uninvited poverty from our land shall promote selfrespecting manhood and enable tens of thousands of our citizens to secure homes and independence, will it not be the imperative duty of every patriotic citizen to agitate and in every way possible further a movement looking toward changing our army of destruction into a wealth-creating army of constructive usefulness?

Within the borders of our own domain there are virgin fields of vast extent, only awaiting the aid of government-directed industry in order to yield riches far exceeding any possible return that we can reasonably hope for from commerce that may come as a result of our war of conquest in the East; and the calling into the market of this wealth will result in giving work to the unemployed, thus maintaining selfrespecting manhood (one of the supreme essentials of free government), fostering love for the nation, and bringing content and happiness into the hearts of hundreds of thousands of our people. And, while all this is being accomplished, manhood will be elevated and the nobler side of

life developed instead of the savage or brutal instincts being fostered, as is inevitably the case in a war for conquest. Furthermore, the immense benefit to general business which always accompanies the extensive, circulation of money among large numbers of the people, and which has been so real a factor in stimulating business during and immediately after periods of war, will be accomplished without the sacrifice of thousands of able-bodied wealth-creators. In a word, the prosperity that will ensue from the increased activity will not be accompanied by the shadow of death resting over the homes of the land, or by the spoliation of the nation through the destruction of thousands of its bravest citizens.

In the great arid plains east of the Rocky Mountains, and in many of the western mountain States, there are millions upon millions of acres of immensely rich land, which under irrigation would almost instantly blossom into gardens, orchards, and fields of wheat and other grain, but which to-day are dry, parched desert expanses. Take, for example, the State of Nevada. Here we have 6,000,000 acres of arid land that by proper irrigation can be made as fruitful as the productive regions of California, Colorado, and Utah. Some time ago Mr. William M. Smythe, in a well-considered paper written for the Forum, threw some interesting light on this great question, based upon the report of the commission of 1893 which investigated this region. From this thoughtful contribution I quote the following as illustrating the facts I desire to emphasize:

"The most painstaking and systematic inquiry, however, ever made with regard to the extent of her water supply resulted in the conclusion that at least 6,000,000 acres of rich soil could be irrigated. The commission of 1893 reported twenty lakes and sixteen rivers of importance, which with minor springs and streams could be made to irrigate upward of 5,000,000 acres; and artesian wells would bring up the total to the figure above named. It should be borne in mind that the splendid agricultural prosperity of Colorado and Utah is based upon a cultivated area of only about 2,000,000 acres. It seems, then, that, so far as her agricultural capa

bilities are concerned, Nevada might sustain at least as many people as do Utah and Colorado put together, at their present stage of development. The products of the irrigated lands of Nevada are the fruits, the vegetables, cereals, and grasses of the temperate zone, and, in the extreme southern portions, the more delicate products of the semi-tropics, such as figs, olives, pomegranates, almonds, Madeira walnuts, and in sheltered places even oranges. When we add that Nevada, like all parts of the arid plateau, is distinguished for pure dry air, an extraordinary amount of sunshine, and consequently a very high degree of healthfulness, it can scarcely be maintained that the State is destitute of attractions."

What is true of Nevada is true of large areas of lands in other western mountain States and Territories, and it must be remembered that irrigated land can be relied upon to yield bountiful harvests with regularity, as the water supply is ever present.

East of the Rockies stretches that vast expanse known as the American Desert-a very considerable portion, if not the entire area, of which region can be transformed into a garden-spot by the making of great reservoirs, with proper connections, by which the surplus snows of the mountains and the waters of the rivers during the period of overflow can be saved. This scheme of utilizing the surplus water would also measurably prevent the vast destruction of property that almost annually marks the high-water season throughout a greater or less extent of the Mississippi Valley.

Again, take the question of a permanent levee for the Mississippi River. "There are," says ex-Governor Lionel Sheldon, "over twenty-three million acres exposed to overflow from the mouth of the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico. The productive power of these lands is not excelled in any part of the world, and by proper cultivation they would annually add many hundreds of millions of dollars to the national wealth and afford profitable employment for several hundreds of thousands of people."