Thought is the mother of ideas, and ideas move the world. The reading man will naturally be an observing man, a thinking man, always looking for the cause of results which are transpiring around him, either in politics or science. The election in several States last fall indicated very clearly that more men were using their think-shops than in previous campaigns. The good work has commenced and may it continue until our Republic be free from any organization that dare attempt to be—“Master of our industries and commerce.” _The Little Path to Peace_ BY MARY SMALL WAGNER Save for the pewee’s plaintive cry, Along this way all sound doth cease. We christened it, the breeze and I, “The little path to peace.” The dusty highway far behind, The vine-clad cottage as our goal, There lies what many strive to find— Peace for the heart and soul. A mother’s voice drifts down the stair, Crooning a simple lullaby. See Mistress Puss and Fido there, In perfect amity; And over all the scent of flowers, And over all the spell of home, Though simple, for the asking ours, Enthralling all who come. O comrade with the restless eyes, And greater cares than I can name, With weariness you ill disguise, Plodding the road to fame— Pause—where the trees lap overhead, Close the wee gate, nor seek release. And hand in hand we’ll lightly tread The little path to peace! [Illustration: THE CAPTAIN, DAVY, AND GENERAL KUROPATKIN A STORY OF KOREA BY ROBERT DUNN.] West from Ping-Yang, the old Korean capital, flows Tai-Dong River into the Yellow Sea. Where in its mouth the flood tide weakens, and junks with lumber slung over sides drop their brown mat sails; there, where the clean sharp hills most beautifully are tricked with mirage and blue mist, squats the town of Chinnampo. Kuroki’s army landed there on the March night early in the war when the ice, as if by magic, ground out toward China. Oiled torches spiked to rafts bobbed on the chill stream, and the winches of blacker transports creaked and whistled to the snowy shore. From the holds swung aloft rice and fodder and knock-kneed, shaggy ponies. Impish guards of the Mikado in red and green, privates in long coats and spectacles, sprang forth rigidly on land. No noise, no fuss; the brown invasion of Asia was furtively begun. The long barracks were ready, and they that had watched Jap coolie sappers a-building them—beer and sweet-cake sellers from the islands, pioneers in the new westward hegira—sat proud and bland that night in their paper-slat doors. Meanwhile, from his desert of filth and thatched mud huts all about, crouched cousin Korean in the darkness, unsurprised and cynical, smoking a yard-long bamboo pipe as he dropped soft syllables of philosophy on the vanity of effort, and with disdain drew his wadded white robes closer.