Several years ago a Federal investigation disclosed a highly unsanitary condition in the large packing plants of the country. The lack of sufficient pressure in the form of public opinion left Congress very slow to take definite action concerning it. Then Upton Sinclair’s story, _The Jungle_, came from the press. As soon as the public had read the book a great popular clamor went up, demanding that something be done. The result was a system of pure food rulings which has been very satisfactory and far-reaching in its results. A great industry was cleaned up, and the health and lives of thousands of people have been saved by the work of a wielder of the pen. The sword can only destroy, but the pen can do a better thing. It can save. Germany has long recognized the power of the writer in the moulding of history. She has made a large use of it in her attempts to build the history of the future to suit herself. This is evidenced not only by the fact that she has flooded the world with mischievous and deceptive propaganda during the present war, but also by the fact that such was her policy long before the beginning of the war. Nearly a decade ago a German professor published a book which emphasized the horrors of war. It was profusely illustrated with pictures of the bloody scenes of the battlefield and of the inevitable hardships of the military life. It was an evidence of an undercurrent which runs even in German thought, but which only the bolder few ever allow to go to the extent of public expression. The result of the publication of the book was the prompt suppression of it by the German government. Shortly afterward another book dealing with the subject of war was published in Germany. It was written by the Crown Prince who is now fighting so anxiously for his own future. It likewise was highly illustrated, but its pictures emphasized the glories of war. They were of dress parades and the more pleasant aspects of the life of a soldier. The publication of this book received every encouragement the government could give it. It was, of course, an official expression of the militaristic policy of the government itself. There is a sense in which literature mirrors life, but there is also another sense in which life mirrors literature. Social conditions and new historical epochs are always the outgrowth of the popular thought and spirit. One of the firmest hands upon the floodgates which control these things is that of the writer. He can produce an age of unrest or an age of calm contentment. He can make a period of faith or one of unbelief. He can mould an era of mortality or one of unrestraint.