"it sure suits me if Isabel wants to. Of course if we'd be a bit of trouble, if Isabel-"

"Papa 's right," said Isabel. "I'll need enough money, with everything so high, without spending it on rent. We might as well stay here at home. It ain't as though we are n't going to chip in and help with the table, Walter and I," she finished grandly, with a nod to Walter.

"Sure thing. That settles that. We ain't no charity patients," said Walter.

"I'd better see about our room," said Isabel. Then, to grandma, "You moved your things in and all, I suppose." Grandma nodded. trust herself to speak.

She could n't

Maybe Isabel saw the pain behind the expression of calm that grandma tried to assume; perhaps only her own selfishness cut her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I wish you could keep your things in my closet. If -if it was n't for Walter's things, there might be room; but with my things, and him here now

"Grandma 's got the hall closet she always had, ain't she?" asked David. "It ain't as if we were turning grandma out into the street. Nobody don't need to take it hard. Grandma can have the room she 's always had, and her own bed, again. Walter and Isabel will have lots of space in Isabel's room. It's a big, fine room, with two windows; better than you'd get at one of these flossy hotels for eight dollars a day. And grandma-grandma ain't got any complaints. She's got a good home. As

long as I got a home, I got room enough for all of my children and for my mother. Why, right now grandma's bed is better than the one that I sleep on and years newer. Yes, it is; it 's lots better than the bed I got."

Grandma got up and followed Isabel from the living-room into Isabel's room. She took little, slow steps. She felt tired. She'd get her things out right away, so that Isabel and Walter could have the room. It was all right, of course, as David said; she 'd have what she 'd always had, had for twelve years -the davenport in the dining-room. It did n't much matter, after all. She'd had lots of happiness, lots of good times: grandpa, the years with him, the children when they were babies; the years with Jessie. She might even have the room again, sometime, when rents got lower or Isabel grew discontented at home. One can't expect too much. She ought to feel satisfied; she felt that, with Ruth married and happy, a nice family, and Jessie with them; and David and Mary happy in their way, and Isabel married. Walter was a good man, would be good to Isabel. After all, she was an old woman; must n't expect too much out of life. After all, she had had good times.

"I'll-I'll get my things out right away; just take me a minute," grandma told Isabel in her usual, cheerful way. "I'll tuck 'em right away where I always kept 'em, so you and Walter can make yourselves comfortable. It's a nice room. I-I hope you and Walter are are right happy here."

HE world of 1914, as we
see it now, reminds us of
Humpty-Dumpty.
Hav-

ing climbed on its wall with difficulty, to keep from being involved in every petty quarrel between nations and coalitions, it had somehow managed to sit there for a hundred years. There was a status quo revised here and there occasionally by violence, but for all that a logical growth, the result of the working out of economic laws, which means that thoughtful men and strong men led virile national groups successfully by knowing how to adapt their foreign policies to and shape them by changing political and economic and social world conditions. None was satisfied with Humpty-Dumpty, but for fear of the consequences all bolstered him up and steadied him whenever he showed signs of toppling. But when he did fall, the first dismay gave way to rejoicing. Now was our chance to make him over again into what we wanted him to be.

We forgot our nursery rhyme. A new world order became our battle-cry. The Central empires stood for the old order: the Entente Allies were determined to make a clean sweep of the international conditions that caused wars. Glibly repeated from mouth to mouth was the phrase that appealed to our imagination, "The war to end war." How? By emancipating subject races, by resurrecting submerged nations, by guaranteeing collectively the independence of weak states and the sanctity of treaties and international law. We forgot our nursery rhyme, I say. Some of us had no intention of actually letting HumptyDumpty fall to pieces, and all of us thought we could put him together again according to our own plan. But when we got into the fray, idealistic principles and formulæ became weapons and not goals. Before November 11,

1918, we used our principles solely to break down the morale of our enemies, and since the armistice, instead of making peace, we have continued to juggle with our ideals as we did in war-time. So we are still at war, and treaties we forced upon our vanquished enemies have not been taken seriously by any nation except China, who, because she did take it seriously, refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles.

In justification for their unwillingness to apply in making peace the principles they had solemnly pledged themselves to make the basis of the treaties, Entente statesmen had no grounds for claiming either (a) that the American President and his nation, late-comers in the war, wrongly interpreted and formulated the Entente war aims; or (b) that the fulfilment of their promises was contingent upon American coöperation. Self-determination, the resurrection of subject nations, rectification of frontiers to satisfy irredentist aspirations, may have been doctrines promulgated in a small measure as a gallery appeal to public opinion at home and abroad; but the main reason was to break down the internal military unity of Germany and Austria-Hungary and Turkey. These doctrines were not inspired by President Wilson or any other American ideologues, nor were they adopted with the idea that the United States would help carry them out.

Without laying stress upon the influence of the Entente promises to free and defend small nations, none can understand the situation that has arisen since the armistices in the territories of the former Hapsburg, Romanoff, and Ottoman empires. The alternatives before the Paris peace-makers were treating all subject nationalities alike, in a spirit of impartial justice, with the idea of establishing a tolerable new world order; or blowing hot or cold upon the

aspirations and claims of subject nationalicies, with the aim of advancing the particular selfish interests of the strongest members of the conference. The inability of President Wilson to resist the pressure brought to bear upon him by his European colleagues made the latter choice inevitable. Why and how may always be moot questions, but the fact remains that the American exponent of the doctrine of self-determination failed to dominate the conference. Small states and subject nations lost faith in his power to help them. As a factor in the settlement, the United States, the only strong state with no ax to grind and which might have filled the rôle of arbiter, was eliminated. Had it been possible for Great Britain, France, and Italy to agree upon a common policy by mutual sacrifices and compromises and a delimitation of spheres of influence, they could have played favorites among the small nations and emancipated races, and played them to win. The political organisms would have endured as Entente statesmen created them, and the frontiers as Entente statesmen drew them. But because those whose combined forces alone could have established peace have followed divergent and conflicting policies and do not play the same favorites, not a single new frontier line in central and eastern Europe and in western Asia is as yet definitely settled.

What about the treaties Europe has signed? What about the League of Nations, which misguided Americans tried to convince their fellow-countrymen was functioning? What about the authority of the Supreme Council of the victorious allies? Treaties are not binding unless force is behind them. The League of Nations is a hollow mockery without force behind it. The Supreme Council can be defied with impunity unless it is in a position to use force to win respect for its decrees. Gabriele D'Annunzio taught us this lesson soon after the treaties of Versailles and St.-Germain were signed. He seized Fiume, and has held it in defiance of Europe for a year and a half. General Gouraud, officially responsible to France, violated both the spirit and letter of Article XXII of the covenant by seizing Damascus. Refusing to recognize the authority of the league and the

binding character of an armistice entered into by his own Government, the Polish General Zellgouski invaded Lithuania, took possession of the capital, Vilna, and marched on Kovno, giving battle merrily to the Lithuanians. Zellgouski has no fear of being called to account.

The Zellgouski escapade bids fair to accelerate the whirl of the international whirlpool more than those of D'Annunzio and Gouraud. For this refractory Polish general is mixing things up in the most dangerous spot in Europe. One cannot exaggerate the importance of events in the border-lands between Germany and Russia and Poland. If Poland supports Zellgouski, or if she fails to suppress him, she is jeopardizing her existence. The Baltic Sea republics are a sine qua non to the permanent independence of Poland. Poland cannot weaken Lithuania without weakening herself; she cannot destroy Lithuania without destroying herself; she cannot incorporate Lithuania without fattening herself for the slaughter. It is either live and let live with the border-states of the old Romanoff and Hohenzollern empires or repartition. The tragic lesson of history in this case is plain. Unless one believes that the German and Russian races have been crushed into impotence, Occidental Europe and America will play a losing game in establishing Poland as the lone sentinel, at the expense of her neighbors, between Germany and Russia.

Finland had a great start in getting on her feet over her less fortunately situated Baltic sister republics. During the war she was not a battle-ground, and when the Petrograd revolution precipitated the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Finns were able to proclaim and maintain their independence. They were off in a corner by themselves, and not on the path to where the Bolshevists wanted to go. No other state lay claim to any portion of their territory other than the Aland Islands. They were able to hark back to the Treaty of Vienna, which had stipulated the preservation of the integrity and autonomy of the Duchy of Finland, and had sanctioned only a personal union with the Russian Empire. czar was to be Duke of Finland. The Finns argued with reason that the disappearance of the czar annulled ipso facto

The

the union with the Russian Empire. This paved the way to a speedy recognition of the independence of Finland by the Entente powers and neutrals. The successive revolutionary governments in Russia made no objection to the secession of Finland from the empire, but the compelling motive of speedy Entente recognition was the fact that Germany recognized Finland and had a powerful propaganda in Finland. Before the revolution the Entente powers had been bitterly hostile to Polish and Finnish aspirations, and this fact had won Finnish sympathy for Germany. Unlike Poland, Finland had no terre irredente to claim from the Central empires, and therefore saw in the victory of the Central empires her chance of breaking away from Russia. After the revolution, the Entente powers conveniently forgot the pro-Germanism of Finland. Being able to recognize Finland without offending Russia, they promptly did so, and began to intrigue to induce the Finns to attack the Bolshevists.

Prussian influence had been strong in the Baltic countries north of the frontier of 1795 ever since the Middle Ages. Memel and Libau and Riga were German-built cities. Almost to Petrograd a nobility of Germanic origin constituted the land-owning class along the coast, and German merchants abounded in the ports. The Baltic barons fell in readily with the extension of Russian sovereignty to the Baltic Sea in Esthonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and became loyal servitors of the Russian Government and cooppressors of the subject races. And as readily, when the Russian armies were beaten in the World War, the Baltic barons welcomed their invading kinsmen and worked for the King of Prussia. The Russian Revolution did not give the other Baltic races the opportunity it gave the Finns. The Lithuanians were under German military domination. The Latvians were in the field of military operations until the Treaty of BrestLitovsk was signed. The Esthonians soon had to cope with the Bolshevist movement, of which Reval, their capital, Lecame a center.

At the end of 1917, Lithuania, like Poland, was offered independence by the Austro-Germans in exchange for a politi

cal alliance, economic advantages, and military coöperation against the Entente. Intrigue and intimidation failed. The Lithuanians not only resisted with success the pressure of their conquerors, who tried to disguise themselves as liberators, but held a national council at Vilna on February 16, 1918, which proclaimed the independence of Lithuania, declared against special favors either to the conqueror or the former master, and set up a provisional government. Kaiser Wilhelm first, and the King of Saxony later, tried to beguile the Lithuanians into forming an alliance with Germany. Is it conceivable that the Lithuanian leaders who defied Germany in her hour of triumph and when their country was held by a German army have been in connivance with defeated Germany? When Dr. Vileisis, a member of the Lithuanian Government, came to the United States recently to try to secure American recognition of Lithuanian independence, I was told by a highly placed Pole that he was "notoriously pro-German, like all the Lithuanian politicians." When I inquired into the record of Dr. Vileisis, I found out that he had been arrested by the Germans, thrown for several months into prison and threatened with execution because he would not aid the Germans, and then exiled to an internment camp in Germany. There has been a systematic and persistent propaganda in the United States, in which certain men connected with the State Department have had their part, to represent the Lithuanians as pro-Germans, Bolshevists, or Poles. You can take your choice.

Real liberation and the hope of statehood came to the Baltic Sea republics only after the defeat of Germany. At Vilna for Lithuania and at Riga for Latvia independence was formally proclaimed and governments set up before the Germans withdrew. The Esthonians at Reval were already under a regularly constituted independent government. There was no more reason to doubt the genuineness and permanency and legitimacy of these national movements than in any other part of Europe. The Baltic Sea republics, ethnographically and historically, had as much right to expect from the victory of the Entente

the revival of their nationhood as Poland and Bohemia.

Before the conference met at Paris, the powers of the victorious alliance had entered into diplomatic relations with the Baltic Sea republics. They received accredited military missions, and their governments had no intimation that they would be treated differently from Poland. In fact, they were assured that formal recognition of their independence and a seat at the peace conference were withheld only because it was necessary not to discourage or discredit the antiBolshevist generals to whom the Entente was giving military aid to crush Lenine. As they felt that their existence depended upon the overthrow of the Moscow soviet, or at least in keeping soviet propaganda away from their own countries, the Baltic Sea republics were content with informal pledges. They realized the delicacy of the situation and kept in the background at Paris. On the other hand, their coöperation alone made possible the military plans of the Entente against the Bolshevists. They allowed their territory to be used as a base of operations against Petrograd and Moscow, they received military supplies from the Entente powers, and were guided by the advice of the military missions in the projected campaigns against Petrograd and Moscow.

The Baltic Sea republics needed food and supplies and money. Ravaged and plundered during five years by Russians and Germans alike, they were beggars who could not choose their friends. Loyalty and decency did not seem to abide in Entente diplomacy any more than in that of the Germans. But the Baltic states could not break with us. As long as there was hope of killing sovietism, the Baltic Sea republics were ready to work with us. The complete disasters that attended the anti-Bolshevist movements opened the eyes of the Baltic Sea republics. Yudenitch, the Archangel Republic, Koltchak, and Denikin had been induced by Entente military missions to attack Lenine. But each in succession had been left in the lurch to shift for himself when the fortunes of war changed. We were merely rooters on the side lines. The withdrawal from Archangel was the strongest possible

argument against a Baltic Sea republic invasion of Russia. The plan of using the Baltic states for pulling Entente chestnuts out of the fire had to be abandoned. The military missions limited their political efforts to preventing the Baltic republics from signing peace.

The Koltchak debacle and the abandonment of the Archangel front by the Entente armies compelled Esthonia to treat with the Bolshevists. A glance at the map will convince any fair-minded man that the Esths had no other choice. It was peace or extinction. The Entente missions strenuously objected to the negotiations, but they failed to advance the only argument that would have counted, a definite pledge of military aid to the amount of two hundred thousand Entente troops to be kept in the country as long as the Esthonian Government had reason to fear a Bolshevist invasion. The Peace of Dorpat, signed on January 21, 1920, was not evidence of Esthonian perfidy or proBolshevist leanings. It was evidence of the complete military importance of the Entente and the United States and of the failure of our blockade to destroy sovietism in Russia. During the recent Presidential campaign, Mr. F. D. Roosevelt told the Poles of Milwaukee that they had Senator Lodge to thank for the presence of the Bolshevist army before Warsaw, because, if the United States had been a member of the league, the Bolshevists would not have dared to cross the Polish frontier. And yet Mr. Roosevelt was careful to add (for the sake of the votes of mothers present) that our aid to Poland would have been only "moral." If the Esths, face to face with the Red armies, had refused to make peace with Lenine, relying on the "moral support" of the League of Nations, what does our common sense tell us would have happened to Esthonia? Esthonia was bitterly reproached for having signed the Peace of Dorpat by the very journals and men who, seven months later, gave Poland in a similar plight urgent counsels to do what they had denounced Esthonia for doing.

There is no word of condemnation for Poland because she signed the Peace of Riga in October, 1920. In fact, she was officially advised to make peace with