Allow me to say, Doctor, that we very much appreciate your being with us to-day, and we trust that you may have many happy returns of your natal day, and that it will be a long time before the sunset-fires begin to glow in the horizon of your life; but when they do begin to burn, may they be all the brighter because of the contemplation of the hour you have spent to-day with your fellow-citizens who have attempted to indicate to you to-day something of the respect and honor in which they hold you. [Applause.]

GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES

Prefacing a first presentation to the public of the motion picture scenario "How Uncle Sam Prepares," Mr. S. K. Ratcliffe, of England, whose talks at the Club for the past three years have been exceptionally well received, gave a talk on the future relations of Great Britain and the United States as influenced by the alignment of the republic with the Allies. He said, following an introduction by Mr. Geo. P. Morris:

S. K. RATCLIFFE

There are, it seems to me, two matters especially upon which the American public is anxious to be informed these days. One is the way in which the British nation has been organized for war; the other is the feeling and opinion of the British people with regard to the American people, now that the United States has entered into the conflict, and it will be strictly to those two matters that I shall confine what I have to say this evening.

"The question of the organization of England for war has, as you know, been a matter of very serious and sustained study. We were subjected to a good deal of criticism with regard to the slowness with which we began the task and the blunders we committed. That slowness and those blunders were undoubtedly largely incidental to the altogether unexampled character of the work we had taken in hand, and I think that the whole world now recognizes that there has been nothing in this stupendous world conflict that has been more remarkable than the way in which England has organized itself for war and for victory. [Applause.]

"The first problem, of course, was that of military organization, and here we were faced with a very serious difficulty. We had to create a new national army upon the basis of that old professional army built upon voluntary recruiting. It is a very remarkable thing that not until we had actually, I believe, some five million of men in the ranks did the government find it necessary to change the basis of our military system. We now have completed, as nearly as possible, the military reorganization of the country, the British army to-day representing practically the whole fighting force of the nation, of youths and men between eighteen and forty-one.

"It is here, I imagine, that the first thoughts of educated and thoughtful Americans are exercised in regard to the military problem.

One cannot open an American paper without seeing how deeply concerned everybody is. I think that if you were to speak to any Englishman who understood the national position and the political character of the English people, you would be told that our steps toward the compulsory system were necessarily very cautious and gradual. It would have been impossible in 1914, in spite of the imminence of the national peril, for the government there and then to have imposed a system of compulsory service upon the nation. It was done gradually, by very careful stages, and when it was actually carried out there was the minimum of opposition to this very remarkable social change, although we had upon our hands a number of very serious problems, including one which you undoubtedly will have if you adopt the principle of compulsion, that is, the problem of conscience. To-day we have, as you know, an army upon the continental scale, the prowess of which has been proved during the last year and a half, and the immediate triumphs of which you are reading day by day in American papers. [Applause.]

"

It may perhaps seem to many people that the military organization of a country like England is a simple thing compared with the industrial reorganization necessary in time of war. It is a matter of extraordinary difficulty for a country like the United States, for a century and a quarter living in peace, to reorganize itself for so stupendous a task as this. Here, indeed, you ought to be in a position to lead the world; and yet, when we compare England with the United States, we can say that your problem is much more complex than ours was. We are a compact and cohesive nationality. You are a vast, miscellaneous, and not yet fully integrated population. The task of a prime minister and government in England is a comparatively simple thing beside the task which faces your own country. The way we did it has been before the world. I suppose that, to begin with, the world looked with the greatest interest upon what we did with the mobilization of our war resources. For the first nine months of the war that business was conducted by the Department of War, which was then under Lord Kitchener. It soon became apparent that it was more than a single director and a single organization could do, to build up a great national army and also to organize the enormous supplies, especially of munitions, which are required for a modern war. Therefore, in the beginning of the summer of 1915, we created the new Munitions Department, which was placed under the control of Mr. Lloyd George. We have to-day, I believe, something like five thousand plants under the direct control of the Ministry of Munitions. In those factories there is employed a great army of both men and women, working like an army in the field, upon a basis which is substantially the same as the compulsory service which has been introduced into the army. The result is that we have to-day a prodigious production of munitions, representing a concentration of energy, of invention, and of patriotic spirit and devotion which cannot be surpassed in the world.

"Certainly there has been nothing like the transformation through which England has passed under this pressure of the war. We have not only reorganized our war industries; we have reorganized all the great industries of the country, and we have extended the power of

public control to a perfectly amazing extent. Any one going to England to-day and attempting to compare the England which has come into existence, this closely ordered and organized system, with the old individualistic England before the war, would hardly be able to recognize the two countries as one and the same. The change, too, has been accompanied by a great extension of the state power, which students of society and democrats in every country are watching with great interest. There are critics who say that what has actually been going on while we have been transforming English life and English industry to meet the challenge of the war situation is that we have, to a large extent, adopted the methods and principles of our adversaries. They say, in order to mobilize all our resources in order to fight the Germans, we have had to adopt the German system of organization and to put the English people into a state prison, from which they will find it difficult to escape in the future. You need not believe this; for there is all the difference between a state system which is created by authority from above and without and one that is created under the democratic institutions of a free people. [Applause.]

"I want now to say something upon a matter that is in the minds of us all. What is it that the English people have been thinking about America, and how have they received the momentous news of the entry of the United States into the war? I need not tell you that there has been a great deal of misgiving, of misunderstanding, between the two peoples during the last two years. England and America have suffered under a heritage of distrust for a hundred years. It probably was natural enough, when the memory of the War of Independence was still fresh in the minds of both peoples, but is it not a deplorable thing that for the past two generations we should have continued to live in this atmosphere of mutual distrust? One thing, we may be sure, is coming out of the new understanding and the new coöperation of the two great branches of the English-speaking race: The century of bickering and misunderstanding is buried forever. [Applause.] It was criminal folly that it should have been allowed to continue, and there is not one of us here who can look forward to the future and believe that that kind of misunderstanding is going to mark the relations of the two peoples in the future. Now, you will find, not only by looking at the English newspapers of the past few weeks, but from every other piece of evidence that has been supplied, that the entry of the United States in the world conflict has been universally welcomed in England. I received only yesterday a letter from a friend, the editor of one of the most powerful democratic newspapers in England, who spoke of your decision as the great supplement to the glorious news which had recently come from Russia. 'Now,' he said, we can present an unbroken line of the democrat peoples against the march of the despots'; and I don't know that it can be put in a better way than that. [Applause.]

"There has been an announcement during the last few hours that one of the most distinguished of Englishmen is coming over to represent Great Britain at Washington for the purpose of arranging coöperation between the two great allies. I rejoice in the fact that Mr. Arthur Balfour is the Englishman chosen for that important task. But there

are certain comments upon the coming of the United States into the war which have caused me, at any rate, some misgiving. I do not like, and I am sure you do not like, prominent Englishmen to be saying so continuously, that in this great fight for humanity it is mainly the money of America that we want. We want that, of course, because money is a great essential in modern warfare. What we in England want first of all is ships, and as many ships as this great country can supply, to repair the ravages of the submarines. But we welcome you in this conflict chiefly, I am sure, for two reasons. First, because we want you in the making of the new Europe; secondly, for the establishment of the enduring peace that is to be. [Applause.]

"The United States, if I interpret the situation aright, is in this conflict because it recognizes that if there is the smallest chance of the victory of the system with which we are fighting to-day, then it will be impossible for us to get the world which England and America want for the citizens of the future; and therefore we need the power of all the free peoples in the establishment of that new Europe for which we hope. We do not believe that it will be possible to establish the enduring peace for which all the peoples are longing unless we can pool the whole wisdom, and knowledge, and character, and ideals of all the free peoples of Europe and the western hemisphere. Mr. Lloyd George, speaking to-day at a gathering of Americans in London, said it has been the glory of the United States that it has never fought a war except for human freedom [applause] and that it would have been a tragedy for the world if the United States had not been in at the settlement with all her great power for the freedom of the peoples. That is the great fact in this new development which is before us all, and there can be no more momentous or impressive incident in the whole world than the spectacle of these two great peoples marching together in coöperation for the establishment of the kind of world towards which we are looking. We ought to have been united for the good of the peoples in the past. We believe that henceforward the two countries will be forever coupled and inseparable. [Applause.]"

HOUSE COMMITTEE

No wines or liquors shall be served at any dinner, banquet or entertainment within the Clubhouse to any person other than a member or a guest regularly registered and introduced for the usual period. Wines or liquors may, however, be served to a visitor, introduced and registered by a member, in accordance with the provisions of Section 7, Article VIII, of the Club By-Laws, provided such visitor, having a one-day's visitor's card (duly endorsed by the introducing member), shall sign an order for these wines or liquors.

This rule must be rigidly lived up to, and must not be broken under any circumstances.

Individual Articles for Members' Accommodation

Members will find, in the barber shop, collars of all styles and sizes, whenever desired.

Some time ago the committee, in deference to the many requests, purchased a supply of umbrellas to be rented to members who might be caught unprepared in a rainstorm. Pajamas, tooth-brushes and paste are also to be had for members who may be called upon to stay at the Club overnight on short notice.

All these articles may be obtained of the Room Clerk, on the street floor.

Billiard Instruction

The House Committee has set apart Room W, on the tenth floor, to be used for instruction. Arrangements may be made with George F. Slosson, in charge of the billiard room, who will give personal lessons to members.

Locker Room

A Locker Room and Bath, situated on the sixth floor, is at the disposal of members who wish to use it to make a change of clothing, etc.

Two Table d'Hote Dinners

In the Main Dining Room on the eleventh floor, members may have the choice of two table d'hôte dinners, one served at $1.25 and one at $1.00, from 5.30 to 7.30 P.M.

Coffee in the Lounge

Coffee and Tea are served in the Main Lounge to members from I to 3 P.M. and 5 to 8 P.M. There is a charge for same.

MEMBERS MAY BE REQUESTED TO SHOW MEMBERSHIP

CARDS

There have been so many strangers at some of the recent entertainments that it has happened two or three times that members were unable to obtain seats in, or even entrance to, the auditorium. While there is no intention to deprive members of the privilege of bringing guests, it is strongly urged that more moderation be shown in this particular respect. Moreover, it has come to the attention of the House Committee that men who are neither members, nor are guests of members, are frequenting the Club, particularly on evenings when there is some special entertainment; this fact forces the House Committee to request every member to provide himself with a membership card and not to be in the least offended if he is requested by the door-man, or by any servant of the Club, to show it. With over seven thousand members, it is impossible that any one individual should be able to recognize all, or even a proportion, of the members and, in view of the abuse above spoken of, it is highly probable that in the near future some one of the special entertainments will be reserved for members only. On this occasion members may be asked to show their cards of membership.

Members introducing strangers to the Clubhouse are requested to register same in the Club Register at the Somerset Street entrance.