“I would be the last man, the very last, to say one word against the Government.  I think they are doing fine.  I think the boys in the trenches are doing fine.  I think the nation is doing fine.  But, if there’s just one thing where they’re wrong, it’s in the matter of the theatres.  I think it would be much better for the Government not to attempt to cut down or regulate theatres in any way.  The theatre is the people’s recreation.  It builds them up.  It’s all part of a great machine to win the war.  I like to stand in the box office and see the money come in and feel that the theatre is doing its bit.  But, mind you, I think the President is doing fine.  So, all I say is, I think the theatres ought to be allowed to do fine, too.”

The just complaint of Mr. Silas Heck, farmer, as interviewed by me, incognito, at the counter of the Gold Dollar Saloon.

“Yes, sir, I say the Government’s in the wrong, and I don’t care who hears me. (Say, is that feller in the slick overcoat listening?  Let’s move along a little further.) They’re right to carry on the war for all the nation is worth.  That’s sound and I’m with ’em.  But they ought not to take the farmer offen his farm.  There I’m agin them.  The farmer is the one man necessary for the country.  They say they want bacon for the Allies.  Well, the way I look at it is, if you want bacon, you need hogs.  And if there are no men left in the country like me, what’ll you do for hogs!

“Thanks, was you paying for that?  I guess we won’t have another, eh?  Two of them things might be bad for a feller.”

So, when I used to listen to the complaints of this sort that rose on every side, I was glad that I was not President of the United States.

At the same time I do think that the Government makes a mistake in taxing the profits of the poor book writers under the absurd name of income.  But let that go.  The Kaiser would probably treat us worse.

I.—­Some Startling Side Effects of the War

“There is no doubt,” said Mr. Taft recently, “that the war is destined to effect the most profound uplift and changes, not only in our political outlook, but upon our culture, our thought and, most of all, upon our literature.”

I am not absolutely certain that Mr. Taft really said this.  He may not have said “uplift.”  But I seem to have heard something about uplift, somewhere.  At any rate, there is no doubt of the fact that our literature has moved—­up or down.  Yes, the war is not only destined to affect our literature, but it has already done so.  The change in outlook, in literary style, in mode of expression, even in the words themselves is already here.

Anybody can see it for himself by turning over the pages of our fashionable novels or by looking at the columns of our great American and English newspapers and periodicals.