Eminent engineers who have examined the levees under the auspices of the Mississippi River Commission agree that the problem can be successfully solved if a sufficient amount is appropriated for so gigantic an undertaking, which would require substantial uniformity in the width of the channel of the river by building spurs and dikes at points where the Mississippi is too wide, the proper riveting of the banks wherever caving is likely to occur, together with the building of permanent levees of a height and strength sufficient. to confine the waters of the channel. It is stated that since 1865 the cost of repairs has amounted to considerably over forty million dollars; yet, owing to the fact that this work is of a temporary character, the benefits that would be derived from a permanent levee are lost, and every few years the floods necessitate fresh expenditures of vast sums of money. Hence, this patchwork policy is shortsighted and in the long run the most expensive. The carrying out of a comprehensive plan for permanent improvements by the erection of impregnable levees, and the governing of the currents by dikes and spurs, would give us a territory, now absolutely useless, that would annually add hundreds of millions of dollars to our national wealth.

Here is work which might be immediately undertaken, and which would immensely increase the national wealth while accomplishing that which is quite as important--the maintaining of independent manhood and the developing of character among the workers. If it were deemed wisest the government could take the redeemed land and sell it, after it had been irrigated, so as to reimburse itself, while affording an opportunity at low sales for all who had worked at its reclamation to secure homesteads. In our war of conquest no such reimbursing of the government is possible, while the influence on the individual and the State is injurious; whereas under this policy the results would all be beneficial.

Hence, I submit, would it not be far wiser, more economical, and more practical for the government to adopt a

policy that would aim at once at developing the rich resources of the nation, clothing the desert and unfruitful expanses with happy and prosperous homes, elevating the standard of manhood, and giving to all willing hands the opportunity to earn an honorable livelihood while increasing the nation's wealth, than to expend billions upon billions of the people's money, as is now being done, in carrying forward a war of conquest with the hope of increasing trade? And, furthermore, would not such a course be far more in alignment with the ideal of Christianity and that of true progress and true civilization than the prosecution of a war in which a beautiful land, teeming with little homes, is being devastated, while fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands by the tens of thousands are being slain?

There is a question in the minds of many thoughtful Americans as to the constitutional warrant of our government in prosecuting a war of conquest such as is being waged in the Far East; but such measures as I have outlined clearly come within Sec. VIII. of the Constitution, which authorizes "the raising of revenue to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and the general welfare of the United States." Therefore, in your opinion, do not considerations of wisdom and humanity, of expediency and simple justice, alike call for a governmental policy that shall substitute an army of wealth-creators for a large standing army of destruction? The one would abolish uninvited poverty; the other must necessarily be sustained in idleness when not engaged in the destruction of human life. B. O. FLOWER.

Boston, Mass.

THE WICKED FACT AND THE WISE POSSI

BILITY.

I heartily agree with the line of thought suggested by Mr. Flower in his "Army of Wealth-Creators vs. an Army of Destruction."

Imagine yourself an American citizen about to vote on a referendum after Manila had fallen before the allied American and Filipino forces, and Santiago had yielded to the allied armies of the United States and Cuba. Suppose the following alternate propositions were submitted for your choice. How would you vote?—

(1)

Twenty million dollars to Spain for possessions she no longer possessed, twenty millions for the privilege of taking Spain's place in her fight with the Filipinos,— twenty millions for the privilege of waging a war of conquest in the Pacific,-twenty million dollars from the pockets of the American people to buy ten millions of people in the Philippines at $2 a head.

One hundred thousand men and half a billion of money to carry on a war of conquest, reduce the patriot armies of the Filipinos into subjection to American sovereignty, and transform our Republic into an Empire.

(2)

Twenty millions to persuade Spain to yield her claims without further bloodshed. Twenty millions to secure for the Philippines in peace the liberty we bought for Cuba with hundreds of millions and months of war. Twenty millions to do for the Filipinos what France did for us in the days of our struggle for independence and self-government. Twenty millions for peace and liberty and civilization-a federal station at Manila, a treaty of commerce with the Philippines that would give us privileges justly due to our efforts in their behalf, and an international guaranty of peace and order and neutrality in the islands.

One hundred thousand men and half a billion dollars to reclaim the arid lands of our Western States, and make the Mississippi a wellbehaved and law-abiding river; or to establish farms and shops where the unemployed may be taught the arts of self-support and mutual help through coöperative industry under good conditions; or to build or buy a transcontirental system of railways to form the first great link in a national railway system owned by the people and operated in their interest.

For which plan would you vote? To get a still clearer view, we may tabulate in corresponding columns some of the leading consequences of the two policies:

(1)

The Declaration of Independence and the Golden Rule trampled under foot. Our flag stained with perfidy to an ally, and its starry beauty blotted with aggressive war. The flag of the free become the emblem of oppression to one poor people struggling upward to the heights of liberty. Attention drawn away from vital problems at home in urgent need of decision, and our government, caught in the trap of its own imperialistic policy, unable to protest against England's onslaught upon liberty in the Transvaal. Reckless, blundering, aggressive greed triumphant over conscience and common sense, riding rough-shod over justice and liberty, and, backed by party power and plutocratic interests, holding its grasp on the great Republic it has begun to imperialize in the name of the sovereignty of the people.

(2)

A clear conscience, a glorified flag, the gratitude of the Filipinos, the world's admiration and respect, and a free voice to condemn Great Britain's terrible war in South Africa. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution sustained and illumined, the Republic still intact, the minds of the people, undisturbed by foreign war, grasping with full attention and untrammeled power the great home problems of political, industrial, and social well-being that are pressing for solution, and a vigorous step taken toward the actual solution of some of the most important of these problems.

Would you have voted the left-hand column, in spite of justice and humanity, because it promised a market for our goods? That was the only earnest plea for such a votethe plea of profit. And how do the profits stand upon the books? Our largest export record to the Philippines amounts to $3,500,000. Ten per cent., or $350,000, is a fair allowance of profit on those exports. Thoroughly reliable Republican estimates place the annual cost of maintaining our forceful rule in the Philippines at $100,000,000. Our present profit is therefore minus $99,650,000 a year.

General MacArthur in his annual report says that a large permanent force will be needed to garrison the islands for many years. Orders to send home a few regiments of his army of 65,000 men have been met with emphatic protests on his part. The War Department estimates that since

the close of the civil war the average cost of a soldier in time of peace has been $1,000 a year. In time of war and with the enormous cost of transportation to the Philippines, the cost must be considerably more. Including the added expenses of the navy, it is manifest that the estimate of $100,000,000 as the cost of holding the Philippines against their will is a very moderate calculation.

Since the war began our profits on our exports to the Philippines, including the goods that have gone to supply the wants of our soldiers beyond the Government supplies. amount to less than $600,000 all told, while our losses amount to $350,000,000, the cost of attempting to force. our sovereignty on the Filipinos-nearly six hundred times as much loss as profit. At the lowest probable estimate our total losses will foot up to half a billion before we are through with the job, and, if General MacArthur's predictions may be relied upon, the ultimate cost will far exceed even that enormous figure.

Would you have voted the right-hand column, had the two plans been submitted to a referendum? Would you have deemed the left an injury and the right a benefit? If so, why not do what you can to undo the wrong and establish the right? Send your name to THE ARENA as one who, regardless of party or previous condition of political, industrial, or social servitude, is willing to join with others in a citizens' petition asking the Government that the Philippines be given the same liberties we promised Cuba, the same rights of self-government we demand for ourselves, and that the tide of money and labor that is now going to the increase of our military power be turned to the employment of the unemployed in some great work of public improvement.

Such a plan would not accomplish all that needs to be done by any means; but every student of history knows. that progress is a growth, and the oak cannot grow in a day. Thorough education, coöperative industry, public ownership, direct legislation, just taxation, equal oppor