BELLICOSE BUGABOOS

Congress ought to declare a closed season on all Army and Navy officers. Ridiculing their pronunciamentos has become so common a sport of late that the zest has quite gone out of it. Yesterday's news, however, contained tow examples, far better even than usual, of the strange theories that result when the soldier takes to statesmanship.

First of all, Rear Admiral Phelps, speaking before the Women's Conference on National Defense, declared that "serious differences are brewing with England over shipping policies." This was a bugaboo so preposterous that Secretary Hughes saw fit to deny it promptly. Among his other ideas Admiral Phelps included a strange one, indeed: "These differences can be prevented from developing into a conflict only by a strong navy." Bismarck himself seems to be speaking. Yet the psychologists say that man learns from experience! Perhaps Admiral Phelps has forgotten those days before the war when nations piled up armament--all in the name of peace.

Then a certain Lieutenant Darte quite outdid even the Admiral, for he called the much maligned Carrie Chapman Catt, herself a member of the Council of National Defense, an ally of Moscow. Why? Because of her pacifist activities, of course; and yet two days ago Trotzky's successor, General Frunze, made a bold speech at Moscow calling all Reds to arms!