Moscow has nothing better to boast about than being able distribute literature among bluejackets and marines in Shanghai (as could be gathered from a telegram hed yesterday) it cannot lay claim to much success. The facts of the case are worth recounting. From Aix-la-Chapelle comes the Bolshevist anslouncement that ten "cells" have been introduced into the American Navy, and allied with this report, and apparently intended to have an ominous meaning, is the statement that literature has been distributed, ax we have mentioned, to men serving in Shanghai, Philadelphia and elsewhere, the implication evidently being that if no tangible results have so far accrued, they are in prospect. Nothing, we believe, could be further from the case, across the wires from America November, 1914. The first an-{sit, or ma} indicates that the Republican) nouncement made to the Com-ithe year, in time for the com-courts would hold that there i, en, salon yesterday, the by the end of good reason to think that th: and as we pointed out in a note candidate for the Presidency, mittee was that the American|mencement of work by the new|™0st decidedly was an implied position has not called for any which is to be voted on in No-|Srwanization had provided 'The most [ust which the Council cannot ction or' even "epeclal vember, is Herbert Clark Hoover initial: sum of £2,700,000. This important of the "Deputy cases," evade. cautions by those in. charge And there are many chances that iwas translated into marks for]as they are conveniently called, Birt's suggestion for the/of the American Flector he will gain the proud distinction ithe benefit of the official German {are the "criminal cases which perpetuation of the memorial 'o the Marine battalions, its of being the first gentle America, This contingency of interest to us because Mr, Hoover may claim to be an old China hand, He was in China Detween 1899 and 1901 when he served on the Tientsin Defence fForee during the Boxer year and, ax recently told in these columns, was instrumental in saving the life of Mr. Tong Shao-yi; and he helped to lay the foundations of that flourishing -enterprise the Kailan Mining Administration, Wei him also, on a like mission, was M. Emile Franequi, who later became chairman of the Comité Nationale, the Belgian Committee for the relief of the starving people during the war, Mr. Brand Whitlock waa the United States Minister to Belgium in 1914 and it was by the special favour of high heaven that such a man occupied this important, post at such a juncture, Mr. Whitlock has written the history of those dark days in a fascinating book of two volumes entitled "Belgium, personal narrative." He tells us that in November, of that eventful year, German exactions and requisitions had been so severe that Belgium was facet with starvation. When a number of influential Belgians were convened in the Embassy, to discuss means for the relief of the hungry. one of them said "But according to international Jaw, it is the duty of the con-quarers to provide sustenance for a subjugated people." The Ger-tans. however, replied to this suggestion, at once, that they had not sufficient food for their own people and they had no intention of jeopardizing their chance of winning the war by diverting any of their scanty fondstuit to Belgium. Someone else had to undertake the task or the people might starve for all they cared. Mr. Whitlock appealed to President Wilson and he nominated Mr. Hoover to represent the Government on the Committee for Relief of Belrium. Again providence was Kind to Belgium for. the work Mr, Hoover did in this capacity, made him, virtually, the saviour of the country, The relations of Mr. Hoover and the chairman of the Relgian Committee had een very strained in China and, when the American Minister formed him of the choice of the President of the States, he exclaimed: "M. Hoover!" and, describing a half are under his own chin, said "une mdchoire, vous saves" A man with a heavy jaw; a stubborn man, But when the two antagonists met in th American Embassy in London, to organize the largest human! tarian enterprise the world has representative ax being the equivalent of 54,000,000 marks. He dropped his lead pencil on the desk, fell back in his chair and exclaimed "Sapristi!" But that was a mere drop in the bucket of what was to come, for, as the spirit of the Allies rose with the sacrifices they were called on to make, so the gen-ersity of America towards her protegeer swelled with their need. Mr. Whitlock himself gasped when told that Mr. Hoover was making his plans on a three years' basis, Lord Kit-Jchener's estimate, and we know how even that fell short of the wearisome total, Mr, Hoover had for his subordinates an efficient band of Rhodes scholars but his personality dominated the workers like the spectre of the Bracken. His untiring energy, unfailing good humour: and persistent optimism carried them through all difficulties until America was forced into the war and the controversy wax brought to its triumphant conclusion. And this is the man who is now being nominated for the highest office in the gift of the American people. Without venturing to intrude into ti Politics of the election we may be allowed to wish him success in his candidature. He is not only a "hundred per cent. American but also a_ hundred per cent. cosmopolitan. He would, not. unworthily, fill the chair that has been sat in by the greatest figures in American history and his election be another pledge that the great in. fluence the office carries would always be thrown on the side of every project that has for its lend the welfare of humanity.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.