April 8. Keel laid. 4th day. Double bottom completed. 6th ” Frames and bulkheads erected and portion of shell plating finished. 7th ” Stern-frame in place. 14th ” Boilers put on board. 21st ” Stern-post bored and stern-tube put in place. 22d ” Masts stepped and engine installation begun. 24th ” Funnel put in place. 26th ” Machinery all in and engines completely installed. Finishing touches. May 5 (27th day). Launched. _The building of the “Tuckahoe,” April-May, 1918, at Camden._ [Illustration] _Toward the Valley of Decision_ They shall go down to the Valley of Decision, multitudes of young Americans from East and West, from North and South, some slow to have gone into the war but none ever to go out until a Decision shall have been reached. Into the Valley of Decision,--for a Decision final and irrepealable we are battling. Not a Decision as to the victor in the war, but a Decision that shall give us victory over war, its defenders and glorifiers! For the German Empire which wars made this war shall unmake. We go down to the Valley of Death for a Decision whether the world shall be ruled by Germany or by civilization, be subject to Prussianism or master of its own fate and freedom. And America knows the cost, which it refuses to count,--knows its sons must be slain if liberty and justice are to live. To the God of Justice, America lifts its heart in prayer, beseeching not security for its beloved sons but vowing that the sun shall perish out of the heavens ere we and our Allies surrender our liberty, the freedom of the least of men, to the barbarism of force and the forces of barbarism. Out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death shall emerge the Decision,--Never again. The war against war has brought freedom to nations, and secured peace to them that seek public right as the law of mankind. STEPHEN S. WISE, PH.D., LL.D., _Rabbi of the Free Synagogue, New York._ [Illustration] _Wake Up, America!_ This was done to Canadians by the Huns America wakes! The White Christ has called her; She has seen the devils abroad in His world; Evil vaunting himself has appalled her; To the War-wind of Heaven her flag is unfurled! America wakes--with his murder and lust Let the Hun take the path he has carved into hell. No longer blaspheming the Cross with his trust. America wakes, the sick world shall be well. America wakes--God’s last peace-lover, God’s fighter to death, when her peace is assailed. Shout, sing, fling out the flags, War is over; When America battles, right has prevailed! MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN. [Illustration] _There are Plenty of Lamp-posts!_ There are creatures that to be hated need but to be seen. The sight of the serpent awakens all the dead, old body-memories of ancient ages, when that reptile was man’s ever-present, mortal enemy.