appeal to the thoughtless and uneducated eye, and, as there are more people in New York who acquire information only through the eye than those who are competent to think, the tabloid is a perfectly legitimate feature of journalism, standing in the same relation to those papers that now seem old-fashioned as the moving pictures do to the legitimate stage.

Fortunate enough to obtain employment on one of the few journals that still retain the old-time form, if not the spirit, the young tyro soon discovers that the press-agents who are permitted to fill the columns of our dailies with matter written entirely in the interest of their clients have rendered reporting an almost extinct vocation. Consequently, he will have but few opportunities either to meet distinguished personages or to study metropolitan life "in the raw," as he would put it, but will spend much of his time with his ear to the telephone receiver listening to the press-agents.

A little further experience will shatter his belief that in securing the confidence and good-will of the proprietor of his newspaper his career will be made prosperous and pleasant.

Does any college of journalism prepare its pupils for work on a New York daily newspaper? Does it offer worth-while instruction in modern journalistic methods? Is there in any one of these colleges a professor competent to deal with "office politics," or the modern science termed variously "press-work" and "publicity"?

It is quite likely that those who conduct these journalistic courses cling to the delusion that the press has become hopelessly commercialized, and that the dai

lies are conducted like so many grocerystores. But the newspaper owner's most valuable asset is his space, and he cheerfully gives it away to any press-agent who can worm his way into his office and take it.

The office of the press-agent of the eighties was his hat, but his successor of to-day occupies a suite of handsomely furnished chambers in a modern officebuilding, and numbers among his clients some of the most powerful trusts, corporations, and financial institutions in the land. He employs a staff composed of former newspaper men, who receive from him higher wages than Park Row can offer.

I do not remember having known any bard or story-writer who graduated from a college offering instruction in those forms of literature, but I am quite sure that, although students may be taught how to prepare readable wares, they are not taught how to write salable ones. As a general thing, the maker of prose or verse possesses a native talent superior to anything to be learned in school, but the ability to sell a poem or a short story is one of the gifts of the gods, and is acquired only after years of disappointment and effort. But as the trend of academic training lies in the direction of moneymaking, it seems to me that salesmanship should take a high rank in any literary course, so that the young student may not only learn how to write poetry but also how to sell it. When this has been accomplished, the poet will no longer live in a garret but in a duplex apartment on Park Avenue, and the Thomas Chatterton tradition will pass into permanent eclipse.

I

T is a mistake to suppose that warfare is always outgrowth of a wicked motive in one or both of the belligerents. Among savage tribes the irritant which continually stirs up fighting is population pressure. Intensive hunting cannot permanently enlarge the food-supply as can intensive agriculture; so when a tribe expands in numbers to such a degree that it can no longer live off its own hunting-grounds, it seizes the hunting-grounds of its weakest neighbor. The bloodshed which ensues relieves population pressure for a time.

It is now well understood that the main cause of the endless assaults of Celt and Teuton, Goth and Hun, upon the northern frontiers of the Roman Empire was not simple lust of loot, but the need of more room-due either to their own multiplication or to the pressure upon them of wandering peoples made homeless by the gradual drying up of Central Asia. LATER CAUSES OF WAR MASK POPULATION

PRESSURE

At one time the lust of chiefs and kings for more subjects or more revenue was a cause of war. This survives still in the form of war-breeding dynastic ambitions. and rivalry. At a certain stage religious questions set peoples by the ears. When international trade has become lucrative, the endeavor of the traders of one country to shut out from overseas commerce the traders of another begets warfare. In the era of imperialism wars arise out of the struggle for colonies, for strategic points, and for secure sea routes. Seeing that land-grabbing and forcing of concessions characterize the policy of the rich and prosperous powers rather than of the crowded peoples, the impression spreads that population pressure has little to do with the wars of to-day. However, there

are good reasons for believing that, whatever motives for aggression may lie on the surface, the real harrier of the dove of peace is not the eagle of pride nor the vulture of greed, but the stork!

FOREIGN POLICY ELUDES PEOPLE-RULE

While the suffrage has been greatly extended and while in domestic matters governments are obliged more and more to heed the wishes of the masses, it is childish to pretend that the common people of the great powers have any real control over the matter of war and peace. The reason is that the issue of peace or war depends on the conduct of foreign affairs, and the ignorant, inexperienced, stay-at-home millions can never follow foreign affairs intelligently. Concerning labor, or schools, or drink, or highways they may hold opinions which their government will have to take into account. But since they do not know other peoples and governments, and cannot anticipate the outcome of the foreign policy which their country pursues, their views will depend entirely upon what they have been told.. Consequently, war-breeding national attitudes and policies have their true causes, not in the masses, but in those classes which directly influence the external policies of their government.

MOTIVES OF MODERN WAR-MAKERS

Now these classes do not feel population pressure, and hence it does not mould their politics. It is not land-hunger that makes them favor aggressive policies. What the motive is depends upon the class. Promoters and financiers itch to get their hands on the undeveloped natural resources of backward countries. Investors, disgusted with the slender returns on home investments, and tired of the bonds of defaulting foreign governments, press for the acquisition of regions where they can invest their money in profitable enterprises under the national

flag.

Industrialists want their government to capture for them foreign concessions and markets or create colonies from which they can draw raw materials, peopled by natives to whom they can sell their surplus manufactured products. The nobility see in empire, not only the aggrandizement of their own class, but more posts for their sons in military, diplomatic, or colonial service. Army and navy officers are professionally interested in the seizure of "keys" and the acquirement of "strategic frontiers." Moreover, "forward" policies promise them adventure and excitement, besides exalting their social rôle. Scholars and intellectuals support power policies because it gratifies their pride to be subjects of a mighty nation.

However, under parliamentary institutions these elements taken together provide too slender an electoral support for ambitious designs which may involve the nation in war. Unless peasants and farm laborers, millworkers and petty tradesmen can be brought to imagine benefit for themselves or their children in national aggression, they will jib at being steered into peril. Should their trusted leaders marshal them in political opposition, the game of empire might be brought to a sudden halt.

POPULATION PRESSURE AS A STAGE

PROPERTY FOR IMPERIALISTS

Here is where population pressure enters. By itself, indeed, it may not breed war. Look at the Chinese, the Indians, the Javanese, the Siamese, the Burmese crowded but not aggressive. From the realization "we are cramped" a people does not infallibly draw the conclusion "therefore let us seize other people's land." They may see nothing near worth seizing and may be ignorant of roomier ill-defended parts of the world. They may lack a fighting caste to glorify war. Their governors may see no profit for themselves in sowing dreams of conquest in their people's minds. Popular traditions may be all in favor of toil rather than aggression.

But population pressure is a gilt-edge asset for imperialists seeking to win the masses for risky foreign policies. This comes out very clearly in the propaganda

which went on in Germany before the World War. "More room," "a place in the sun," Drang nach Osten, were dinned into popular ears until they became an obsession. It was German prolificacy that gave point to these slogans. It was well known that less and less could Germany's soil feed her sons and that every year more of her people lived from foreign trade. As early as 1901 a prominent author, Arthur Dix, wrote:

"Because the German people nowadays increase at the rate of 800,000 inhabitants a year, they need both room and nourishment for the surplus. . . . As a worldpower in the world-market we must assert our place and make it secure in order that the younger hands may find room and opportunity for employment."

In the same year the economist, Albrecht Wirth, declared: "In order to live and to lead a healthy and joyous life we need a vast extent of fresh arable land. This is what imperialism must give us.' A decade later Daniel Frymann in a book which went to its twenty-first edition, said: "It is no longer proper to say 'Germany is satisfied.' Our historical development and our economic needs show that we are once more hungry for territory."

In 1912 at a general meeting of the Pan-German League Baron Vietinghoff voiced the opinion:

"That discontent makes itself felt at home must be accounted for by the fact that our frontiers are becoming too narrow. We must develop an appetite for land; we must acquire new territories for settlement if we do not want to become a declining nation, a stunted race. We have to think of our people and of our children in a spirit of genuine love, no matter if we are called war-mongers and brawlers."

The same year General von Wrochem declared before the Defence Association: "Germany with her ever-increasing inexhaustible increase of human beings wants more land for them to settle on"; while Admiral Breusing at a Pan-German celebration said: "The land-hunger of our people must once for all be satisfied."

Might not surplus Germans emigrate and thrive as millions of them did in the nineteenth century? No, the rabid Nationalists would not hear of it.

"We must endeavor to acquire new territories by all means in our power, because we must preserve to Germany the millions of Germans who will be born in the future and we must provide for them food and employment. They ought to be enabled to live under a German sky and lead a German life."

Although the German folk are as honest as any, the jingoes familiarized them with the projects of seizing land from weaker neighbors. Klaus Wagner, in 1906, argued: "The great nation needs new territory. Therefore it must spread out over a foreign soil, and must displace strangers with the power of the sword." In 1911 Frymann voiced the idea: "But if we consider seriously the peculiar position of the German people squeezed into the middle of Europe and running the risk of being suffocated for want of air, it must be agreed that we might be compelled to demand from a vanquished enemy, either in the East or in the West, that he should hand over unpopulated territory."

Only three years before the World War, in his book, "Germany and the Next War," von Bernhardi contended:

"Strong, healthy, and flourishing nations increase in numbers. From a given moment they require a continual expansion of their frontiers. They require new territory for the accommodation of their surplus population. Since almost every part of the globe is inhabited, new territory must, as a rule, be obtained at the cost of its possessors-that is to say, by conquest, which thus becomes a law of necessity."

Germans who gagged at these brigand proposals were called "sickly," "oldwomanish," "sentimentalists." Respect for the rights of weaker neighbors was denounced as "cosmopolitanism." Moderation was rated "a miserable Philistinism." Scruples against removing the neighbor's landmark were sneered at as "middle-class morality."

The trick of capitalizing population pressure for war-breeding policies succeeded brilliantly. In 1912 the Social Democrat Haase admitted in the Reichstag: "A considerable number even of our

ficials of our middle class, in shorthave been infected with this imperialistic mania." In his book, "Der deutsche Chauvinismus," Nippold said in 1913: "The evidence submitted in this book amounts to an irrefutable proof that a systematic stimulation of the war spirit is going on, based on the one hand on the Pan-German League, and on the other on the agitation of the Defense Association." At the boisterous banquets in 1913 in centennial commemoration of the War of Liberation this military note more and more drowned the notes of peace. "An intoxication appeared to have seized the whole of Germany. . . . This drunkenness was artificially produced by the fiery beverages which an unscrupulous and patriotic press had for many an hour and day poured out to the German nation." ITALY'S NEW TONE REFLECTS POPULA

...

TION PRESSURE

Italy of the moment is a striking illustration of how population pressure provides the atmosphere in which jingoism and truculence thrive. The Italian masses breed blindly and there are 20,000 families with more than ten children each. In the five years before the war Italian emigration averaged 679,000 a year. Since then the war outlets have been so blocked that scarcely half as many emigrate. Every year now there are about half a million more trying to wrest a living from an Italy unprovided by nature with coal, iron, and other basic raw materials. Inevitably population pressure rises and therewith spreads a bellicose spirit despite the fact that the miseries of war are still alive in the memory of all.

Mark the new menacing note in the utterances of Signor Mussolini in recent months. At Tripoli he said: "We shall eventually break the circle arrayed against us."

To the crowd in Genoa: "We have given weapons to the nation in these four years. Above all, we have given the nation a military spirit, a warrior mind. . . ."

"The struggle between nations becomes sharper every day despite certain hypocritical and weak pacifists. Every nation erects its barrier of selfish pur

poses, and leaves no longer any scope to the lies of international brotherhood. We must, therefore, O Genoese! O Italians! set our teeth for this fight which is to-day only economic and moral. We must unite all our will, link up all our effort. We must fight day by day."

Before the Italian Senate he said, referring to the accusation of imperialism: "Every living being who wants to preserve his existence has imperialistic tendencies and therefore the nations that want to live must develop a certain 'Willto-Power'; otherwise they vegetate and barely exist, and fall a prey to a stronger people who themselves have given a stronger development to their own will-topower.

...

"It will be necessary that even this young Italy of ours make itself a little room in the world. I think it would be a proof of intelligence to give it to us when it is time and with good grace, because that is truly the way to preserve peace to have a just and lasting peace. That peace, just and lasting, must be accompanied by the satisfaction of our most legitimate and most holy interests. You cannot condemn a people to vegetate, especially when it is a people like the Italian people, which has a venerable history and a most noble civilization, which has rights that it vindicates highly."

Here we recognize the same group of sinister inflammatory ideas which the German jingoes employed-"encirclement," worship of force, "will-to-power," need of room, "holy interests," etc.

JAPAN'S RESTLESSNESS REFLECTS

POPULATION PRESSURE

After Italy, Japan is the country which now most alarms the friends of peace; and in Japan the causal connection between rising population pressure and jingoism is plain. Japan is small in area and less than a sixth of it is fit for cultivation. Last February the population passed the sixty million mark and the yearly excess of births above deaths is near threequarters of a million. Her cramped, landless people are conscious that they need more room. Armies and navies are the best way for her to get it or to make it impossible for others to keep her from

getting it. In the prolificacy of the people and the closing of the doors to Japan's overflow by neighboring countries you have the secret of the popularity of the Japanese jingoists.

POPULATION PRESSURE A CHERISHED

ASSET OF THE WAR-MAKERS

Militarists not only make capital of population pressure, but they cherish it as an asset. At Tripoli Signor Mussolini said: "Italy has always been a prolific nation and she intends to remain such." Before the war the French militarists said to the French: "Multiply or the Germans will get us." The German militarists cried to their people: "Multiply or the Russians will get us.' ." French women and German women were incited to vie in producing as rapidly as possible sons whose final destination was to destroy one another upon the battle-field. There was, in fact, an international competition in populations as well as in armaments.

When, on January 27, 1926, an official statement was given out that the Italian census showed a gain in population of three millions in four years, Mussolini's paper does not draw the conclusion that an attempt should be made to slow down the pace of this increase; it suggests that sooner or later a territorial resettlement is inevitable. The Tevere urges penal measures against the advocates of family limitation. The Tribuna stigmatizes family limitation as "merely hedonistic," and remarks: "The copious blossoming of Italian hearths is the most potent instrument of Italy's inevitable world-wide expansion." The Impero chuckles: "Just think what prodigious and invincible armies these children will form in ten years!"

So population pressure is a trump-card for the war-makers. Hypocritically they deplore the population growth which obliges their nation to show its teeth, but the moment this growth slackens they stimulate cradle competition with the appeal: "We must breed more soldiers in order to be ready for the next war." If this be the last word in human wisdom, humanity is in for an endless succession of wars whose function it will be to blot out the human surpluses that the peoples insist on launching into the world.