Evening Star Newspaper, May 21, 1922, Page 67

People Want Business Burdens Removed, ~ Beveridge Interpretation of Today’s Signs “Get Into the - Trenches and Find - Out for Yourself,” He Says—Attacks Class Legislation * and States Need of‘ Reducing Expenses " of Government and Railroads—"Peo- ple Yearn for Truth.” By CHARLES W. DUKE. HAT is the greatest need of the United States of Amer- ica and her people at this time? Tf you care to take it from Albert J. Beveridge, former progressive | party chieftain and now the candi- | date of the republican voters of the Hoosier state for the United States| Senate, it ia simply, succinotly and | all-impertantly thi | “Restoration of prosperity to all the | people permanently.” If you fincline to regard it a moth-eaten political slogan: if you view it as the resurrection of an old- fashioned republican party platform plank; if you are skeptical enough to dismise it as so much ancient bait ¢ cast forth to lure the November elec- torate—Albert J. Beveridge careth not one jot or tittle how you cata- log it. “American busine: and industry mTust be re-established on sound and | s | ny solid foundations, and until that acconiplished other matters of and all kinds must be postponed.” * ¥ % % 7THUS 2aid the famous Indiana states- man with all his old-time- fervor. Thus he interprets the paramount is- Sues of the day. Issues are not made, he holde, but develop out of condi- tions, and the prime conditions of to- day, with which every republican, democrat, prohibitionist. socialist, man, woman and child. big and little. far and wide, {8 concerned are those | affecting the family pocketbook, the | ‘weekly pay envelope, the market bas- | ket and the seving® bank. | It was with this line of logic that he sold himself to the people of In- diana during the recent primary cam- Paign there that resulted in the over. throw of United States Senator Harr: S. New, bosom Intimate of President | * Harding—as broad-minded Hoosiers put it “not that we love Harry New less, but that we love Al Beveridge more." It was this point the erstwhile bull moose leader stresssd in the course of an hour's interview accorded th writer recently in the Beveridge | home. on Washington boulevard, in Indianapolis. In fact. it was about the only thing Mr. Beveridge would talk about. Any one who knows Al- bert J. Beveridge knows that when he is wrapped up heart. body and soul in anything he forgets all else. And from now until the November election, at least, he will talk the restoration of prosperity to the rank and file of the people ‘in terms of the mass mind.” as he puts it. “Listen,” he thundered. as he sat forward in his library chair, point- ing an incisive forefinger at the ‘writer, “you want to know what I consider the vital factor in human life at this moment? “It is this—simply this—the most obvious thing right before our eyes,” he ran on, his eves glowing with crusader fire. “Now and for the next few years the most important snd complicated economic and business problems this country ever has known have to be met squarely face to face and satistactorily solved “Within the ensuing six years the Congress of the United States must xrapple with and enact the weight! and most far-reaching economic and business legislation in the history of the worla. “Our people are smarting under burdens—economic burdens. Business wenerally is held in restraint—the business of the merchant, the farmer, the laboring man, the every-day man .of the average American family. It must be released, and this relief must come from the United States Con- &ress. All other matters are, for the , inconsequential. point that I ap- pealed to the people of Indiana, and Judging from the results of the pri- mary election, they believe in me and what T have said. Having their trust and confidence. I swear, by all the mods, to battle for the economlic rights of the great mass of working, producing. achleving people of this country, if I am honored with a re- turn to the United States Senate.” * % x % RGOTTEN is all else In the life of the Indianian. Forgotten at this moment are his literary schieve- ments of the last few years—'The Life of John Marshall” a blography of & former great American that has brought signal honors to this living American -blographer. 4 ‘Shelved, for the time-being at least, are his not d preparations for “THe Life of- Abraham Linceln.” a work upon which he was just em- ‘barking when the call came to polit- ical service. For Mr. Beveridge is past sizty years of age, and many things may happen to postpone im- definitely another start on that life of “Honest Abe.” Mr. Beveridge would h: preferred to remain at home in his library writ- ing about Abraham Lincoln. Contrary epinion notwithstanding, I have in- disputable evidence that the Indiana statesman was dragged into the polit- fes! grena at this juncture of his life and eame net self-seeking. £ Loeked up in the safe of his pub- Yishing cempany in Publishers square, disnspolis, is a letter written by Bevaridge some months ago. In 1t he refused peintblank to become & candidste for the semsterial n instion. Had it gone to its destina- tien in the camp of the epposition, FOR THE REPUBLICAN NOY Beveridge out of the race finally and unequivocally. But that letter fell into the hands of Willlam C. Bobbs. intimate chum of the Hoosier leader, and lately “chief of staff” of the board of strat- egy that directed the Beveridge cam- paign. So sure was Bobbs of the un- derlying sentiment in favor of Bev- eridgé that he spirited that letter into captivity and filed it away where neither moth nor rust corrupt, in the archives of a steel safe. The pri- mary election of Mr. Beveridge was not alone a signal victory for the candidate himself, but a vindication of the judgment and political per- spicacity of the head of the Bobbs- | Merrill Company. * x x x LBERT J. BEVERIDGE believed he was through with active Amer- ican public life or political endeavor. For twelve vears he had occupied the stage in the role and toga of a senator, retiring finally from a stage that had | known no more courageous and consci- entious public servant, no more pic- turesque American personality. He had written “finis” on his own political ca- reer. For almost another twelve years he bad reveled in the easier enjovments of a litterateur, gaining fame and favor with each succeeding vear in a state of literary lights, where the public ac- claimed him the equal of any and all famous Hoosier wielders of the pen. In 1914, after his defeat as progressive candidate for the United States Senate, he retired, telling himself and - his friends it was for all time. In 1916 they wanted him to come out agaln and make the fight within the G. O. P., but he was buried in “The Life of John Marshall” and refused to be weaned away from his literary labors. Again, In 1920, they begged him to heed the call, but the cal} was neither distinct nor concerted in his estimation. Fur- thermore, he was winding up John Marshall and preparing to tackle Abra- ham Lincoin. Now, two years later, he Is back in barneas—and there is a reason. For, as he told his friends, and as he related to me, he is firmly convinced the ma- Jority of the people of Indiana are back of him. o o It is a clarion call to service, in’ the estimation of Mr. Beveridge, and, tak- ing his cue from the unusually high primary vote rolled up in his favor, he responds to the will of hiy constituents with the old-time fire &nd dash that marked him in the strenuous days of Theodore Roosevelt. With him, for No- vember, it will be a clean, stand-up fight with his democratic opponent, for- mer Gov. Samuel M. Ralston, and with Do querter until the final bell. * % % % HAVIN’G been drafted for ‘“the army of the Lord,” as he and his friends put it, Mr. Beveridge made short work of the issue at hand. His is the brosd-minded view of current events—the' nationalist rather than the sectional perspective., And, as he told me in the course of our talk, the things that pertain -to the welfare and prog- ress of ‘the nation and its people are paramount to any pettifogging local trivialities. “I believe, as I have zaid for the last three months,” he said, “that the re- establishment of American business on & substantial and normal basis is the great need of the hour. This is what the people are thinking about, what thiey are’talking about, what they want. It you don't believe me, get out into the trenches and find out for yourself. The professional politiclan thinks oth- erwise, for he gets his ‘dope’ from other politicians. It Is an issue that tran- scends all partisan political considera- tions. % 5 “What the people want they are en- titled to have, and we shall get nowhere with any other Issues until we have brought the economic affairs the natfon back to normal in fact rather than fancy.” > E * ¥ x ¥ rrmlllnour&hty reason why this country should not return to good times, thinks Mr. Beveridge. > “There are four fundamental things at the bottom of our economic situa- tion,” he teld me, “and the first of these is class legislation. When laws are passed for the intended, but never realised, benefit of a part of the peo- ple, but always at the expeénse and to the injury of all the people, there can be no such thing as steady and common prosperity. Every law, to be good and wise, must benefit all the people, and not merely a . class or of people. { ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE, WHO RECENTLY DEFEATED SENATOR NEW NATION TO THE SENATE IN INDIANA. blocs, or whatever you wish to term them. Ours is an agricultural state, and I have told the farmers 1 am op- posed to blocs, etc.” * x x % AT this juncture I interpolated a <% question about how Mr. Beveridge in the event of his election, would line up at Washington, as it had been hinted that the moment he got back into the Senate he would line up with “irresoncilables,” “radicals,” etc., and lend spectacular ald to another insur- gency movement within the G. O. P. “Get this, and get it right,” he shot back. “If I go to Washington I shall not take orders from any class’or group. All along I have made It plain that I am not fighting the adminis- tration. What 1 have just said and what 1 now reiterate {s that just as I stood with William McKinley, Theo- dore Ropsevelt and Willlam H. Taft in all measures except the Payne-Al- drich tariff bill. so will 1 stand and fight with Warren G. Harding as long as he is President, which I hope shall be for the next seven years. “If T am elected there will be no rocking of the boat in so far as I am concerned, if it continue to move. If it shows a tendency to stand still or g0 on the wrong current, I may push it a little. But for rocking the boat—not me. Is that plain enough?’ It ‘was. Nor Is it revealing amy secrets in turn to say that Mr. Bev- eridge 1s expecting in return the whole-hearted support of the Harding administration in his November fight. He holds that feuds and factions are unknown in Indiana, the party being more firmly cemented than at any time since 1912. “United we stand and divided we fall—but we will not fall,” was the invitation with which he assisted all hands aboard the band wagon after the primary election. * k% ¥ ETTING back to the economic ar- gument, with which he is obsessed and with which he figures the people are more vitally concerneq, than for- eign relations or other matters, Mr. Beveridge pointed out that next to class legislation the three other fac- tors in his economic Greed are ex- pen: of government, taxation and transportation. Any one who conceives of Albert J. Beveridge as being im- bued with any wild-eyed radical schemes Is likely soon to be disillu- sloned listening to his enunciation of a comservative. common-sense code of principles. “Everybody seems to have liqul- dated or deflated his business except Uncle S8am himself,” he says. “Busi- ness men everywhere have lMquidated. All labor, except certain sections of rallway labor, has liquidated 20 per cent; the farmers have liquidated 30 per cent. The government must pare to the bone—that's all there is to it In order to curtail high taxes, the ex- penses of government must be d creased. When the government takes out of the pockets of the people hun- dreds of millions of the people’s in- come it pays a large proportion of this capital for the upkeep of costly governmental departments, riddled with bureaus and red tape and honey- combed with extra¥agance. Our American bureaucracy toddy is more expensive and almost as autocratic as Russiin bureaucracy under the czar.” That, argues Mr. Beveridge, is why the present tax laws are barriers against the Teturn of prosperity. If those barriers wers removed tomor- row, the land automatically would be fiooded, in his judgment, with such golden prosperity as the nation never experienced. “In place of the intricate, Involved and destructive war expedients which weaken and destroy business” he pleads, “give us & plain, simply, easily understood revenue system, based on ‘business principles which will at once work less hardship on all the people and permit business to get into ac- tion. With millions unemployed, the country cannot longer stand the pres- ent policy of taxation.” * % % ¥ F-any one is seeking the paycholog- jcal reammon for the sensational come-back of the former ve champlon, it ikely to be found in the iine of talk that he addressed to the people of his native state. In every county of Hoosierland, in efery hamilet and farm village, he preached economic: reforms. He still likes to make = ’speech, and he can still spill the fiery eloquence for which he long ago became noted. In the smoker of a Pullman car bound into Indianapolis the writer polled & jury of four Hooslers on their guess as to the “return from Elba” of |in overalls stepped up to him in-the Senator Beveridge's specific remedy for the taxation problem is a 'sales tax—a non-cumulative, graduated tax on sales which all’ alike would bear in proportion to purchases. How it would work out would be to tax the pur- chaser of a fancy imported automo- | bile thirty or forty times as much the flivver customer; to tax the $100 suit of clothes and the cheap, ready- to;wear In ratio; to make the well- to-do flapper pay er tax on costly furs and lin man's housewife pays for simple gowns and homespun. A sales tax is open and above bYoard, in plain sight of the people, whereas the present jumble of adding taxes to costs Is concealed, he contend: “Nor can anybody prosper rallway rates come down,” be added. “When a carload of grain shipped to Chicago from Iowa brings the shipper little more than enough to pay the freight; when a shipment of cabbage from Indiana to Baltimore costs more than the price received for the cab- bage; when an Indiana manufactur- ing concern cannot fill a Los Angeles order because the freight rates are 50 per cent greater than the selling price of the article—I ask you, isn’t it time to do something? “If raillway rates are to be brought down, heavy salaries must be cut, ex- until “TOV] « - BY KARL K. KITCHEN. Illustrated by Herb Roth. OU can determine how long any one has llved in Holly- wood by the calluses on his or her—ahem!—waist line. Don misunderstand me—I refer to the calluses caused by carrying trays in the logcal cafeterias. But why any one should want to determine such facts is beyond me. It is enough that a person live in Hollywood. The length of intern- ment does not mitigate the circum- stance, . Right at the outset of this diatribe let me state that my old friend, Dr. Straton, would not only approve of Hollywood but give it his blessing. For just as an oll well may be described as a hole in the ground owned by a liar, Hollywood may be described as a collection of bun- galows and motion picture studios written about by lars. $ It {s an actual fact that more lies have been written about this dreary, denolate suburb of Los Angeles than any other part of California. Only the climate of this alleged ‘“sun- kissed'" state has been more misrepre- ented, to put it mildly. in the public prints. And while I am on the sub- Ject of “sun-kissed” California I want to explain why it is so called. To put it crudely and correctly, it is because the sun long ago kisged it “good-bye. Y'EH. dear simple-minded readers, to any one who really knows Holly- wood and its inmates, the stories that have been printed about its gay life are a joke. The tragedy of it is that they are taken seriously. There no more necessity for you to put on asbestos mittens or sprinkle this page with chloride of lime because this story is about Hollywood th there is for eastern visitors in this wretched suburb to wear signs read- ing: “Not In the Movies—Don't Shoot.” * k ok % travagance and waste in management eliminated and inflated wages,brought nomic law. And yet within quite re- cent years we have had the spectacle of statutes passed and government trarily 1ift one industrial clhss out of and above the economic force opera ing upon all other industrial cli UT the rallroads have their case, too, says Mr. Beveridge, what with an Interstate Commerce Commission charge and a labor board, quite apart from the I. C. C., telling the rallways how they must apend. The, sufficiently united to insure harmony of plan and action. of it, says Mr. Beveridge. During his campaign a railway man “I understand you are against lgt “I am against the mean. I believe we will have to cut back to normal. “I guess that Adamson act is all tom- he backed away, hat in hand. side-stepping, pussyfooting or wh to the writer. 'he fundamental facts fined, more Iimportant mere political expediences. We've got nomic problems if we are to get any- where.” * x % % A! ple, he added: are puszled to the point of mystery by the trend of modern circumstances. things, but these things have not been realized. You cannot attribute it to unrest or discontent. but to a yearn- action in line with the truth and cal- culated to relieve the situation.” As to the solution, he anticipates “Neither capital nor labor ever giv up a special and selfish advantage without a hard struggle. even though the surrender of urjust, artificial and uneconomic privilege: he = There will have to be a yielding a back to rormal levels fixed by eco- regulations established which arb * % ¥ % telling- the rallroads what they may tagonistic forces, he believes, must be 1f this be treason. make the most union station at Indianapolis and said: To which, Mr. Be%- Adamson act. If that is what you both railway rates and wages to get The rallway man seemed satisfled. myrot, anyway,” was his rejoinder as “There is no use mincing matters, ever you call sald Mr. Beveridge are all there and the Issues clearly than any to deal with them and solve these eco- to the state of mind of the peo- “I think the people They have been expecting many ing for the truth, and then definite thers will be resistance as of yore. prosperity and common good require around, he believes, and the sooner the truth is realized and acts con-[that makes the slightest pretense to summated in conformity therewith, |cuiture, civic or otherwise. then, and then only, will econamic| Its only restaurants are cafeteriss rellef be afforded. The Beveridge nomination has been regarded in many quarters as the triumph of a personality over a po- litical machine. Senator New r. mained in Washington until almo: the closing days of the canva as- suming the rank and file of the vote: would and by the organization. But it's an old axiom that “while the cat's away the mice will plar.” Mr. Beveridge tells you, and the facts as you confront them in Indiaua are, that he simply mingled with the peo- ple and talked with them about their everyday. problems. They believed him, he says, and took him up not for himself alone, but the things for which he stands. ‘That talk about personality,is all bunk,” says Mr. Beveridge. “The peo- ple do their own thinking, and don't you forget that. The pol lans do forget it. The people tod re mo: concerned with thelr own needs and are concerned only with personalities who will interpret their needs and get them what they require for hones normal, common-depse life. * K ok X IN physical appearance Mr. Bever- idge is today a more somber figure, his hair a little more whitened than the Beveridge who stalked the ios- trum in the tens and early teens of the twentieth century. But time has dealt leniently with him. His shou! ders are as square, his jaw as firm, his figure as erect as he was a décade ago. Two.and three times a day he addressed the people while touring every niche and cranny of his native state. He is physically fit, and now that he has rested from his strenuous primary campaign he is ready for the fall campaign. “I care not what they may do with Albert Beveridge,” he says, “bacause he is but one of the people in the play. What is worth while 13 not the destiny of one actor in the play, but that the play itself successfully is consummated. ' *“Whether as senator at Washiagton or private citizen, living here 'n In- diana until, at Iast, I rest in her be- with' my people one common and in- spiring purpose—the enduring happi- ness of the American péople and t righteous glory of the American pul If he is not wanted in the Senate of the United States he will be zon- tent, and comé back to sit down, pen n hand, In spiritual and intellectual communion with Abraham Lingoln. o‘n‘ (Copyright, 1922.) In the first place, no one but an inmate can take this bungalow Greenwich Village seriously. How- ever, that is no reason why it should be maligned fn the public prints. Hollywood Is simply that part of Los Angeles in which the majority of its motion picture studios are located. Consequently a third of its popula- tion—between fifteen and twenty thousand souls—is in some way con- nected with the motion picture In- dustry. At present most of them are only connected with the studios by telephone—but we'll come to that later. Hollywood is in no sense a city. It has no local government, mo art galleries, no museums, no institutions ot learning aside from primary schools and kindergartens—nothing —self-serve tooth and jaw gymna- slums, where it {s as fashionsble to use & toothpick in public as it is to leave the spoon in ome's cup. It doesn’t boast of a single theater ex- cept the cheapest movie playhouses. And its leading hotel is an old-fash- “NO INMATE LEAVES HIS HOME AFTER SUNDOWN, EXCEPT TO BUY AN EYENING PAPER.” foned American plan hostelry where one would only want ta stop with the food. thrown out. There are no evidences of any life —wicked or: of the ‘night variety— anywhere within its precincts. If in the daytime more {jan two people walk abreast on Hollywood or Sunset boulevards—broad ayenues that lead nowhere—the inhabitants mistake them for a parade. And at night it is too dark to see anything. In fact, no inmate of this quliet suburb le: his home ‘after sundown except, perhaps, to buy an evening pape! % Congequently its gay life—its naughty, wicked gay life—is confined to its bungalows. But despite the fact that the attics and basements of these bungalows are on the same floor, this naughty, wicked night life in Hollywood is not on the level. R 3 HOW did Hollywood get a bad name? you ask. Principally be- cause one movie actor—an overpaid, overfed comedian who didn't live in Hollywood—was connected with the accidental death of a film .actress in San Francisco, and an unsolved mur- der mystery within its borders fo- cused the attention of the entire country on its gelatin set. & Similar untoward happenings have taken place in' other environments, but rarely has an entire community been held up as a horrible example becausé of them. Hollywood and its movie set are no more to be con- emned because Fatty Arbuckle was tried ‘for ‘manslaughter and Willlam T Tt Desmond ‘Taylor was mysteriously For many years Ohio led ail stateh | murdered than the inhabitants of any other city In which sensational crimes have beefi committsd. b in ameunt of ita railroad mileage, the Buckeye state is sur- HOLLYWOOD AND ITS BUNGALOWS LACK. SIGNS OF LIFE, WICKED OR OTHERWISE ISTS, VISITING THE ALLEGED CENTER OF THE SUBURB, EXPECJ TO SEE GUN PLAY, BEAUTIFUL ACTRESSES, ETC.” il 5 I I i i SR, O R i Tragedy of Movie Settlement Is That | Stories Have Been Taken Seriously—Sight- | scer Wants His Money Back Because No || ,‘1 More Than Two People Abreast Takén for I Parade—No Money to Spend. i (i} 11 During Period of Visit. ||| ‘Willam Desmond Taylor was not a particularly important member of the local film colony, and there has never been anything to show that his mur- derer was connected with the movies. My own theory is that he committed suicide rather than remain.in Holly- wood another fortnight. I hold no brief for Hollywood or its film colony. But having lived in its gelatin set for a month this year—as well as having made an even longer sojourn three years ago—I feel it is my solemn duty to set forth the facty about this home of hokum. Because many of its inmates have married from time to time it is in- correct to regard them as Mormons. Morons is the proper word. And oe- wear little black mustaches and goilf pants, there is no occasion to refer to them as “The Horrors of Holly- woo I have seen movle actors dressed as bishops and cardinals eating ham andwiches on Fridays. ed movie queens who spent weeks trying to locate their maternal par- ents in order to be photographed wich them to “show the world” that their home life was above suspicion. I even attended a church wedding at which “Come Back to Erin" was played by the organist instead of the march from “Lohengrin " * ¥ % ¥ B'."l‘ these happenings, individually or collectively, should not cause the public prints to refer to the in- mates of Hollywood as murderers, hop flends or libertines. The truth is that Hollywood is as dull as the pro- verbial ditch water. Most of the stu- dios are closed or running on part time. Salaries have been cut in frac- tions. \Extras—even men with beards who could play millionaires and pro- 1 rs—who used to receive $10 ani $12 a day are now glad to get $3.50 and $4—less, in fact, than a day :a- borer's wage. Actors are engagad only for each separate picture and at salaries they would have spurned a vear ago, with the result tha: the majority of the members of the film colony are “between picture: at liberty” as it is called out hcre. The film colony out here haan't any money to spend in riotous living, even if there were any place to apend it. As Charlie Chaplin told me, if there was any vice in Hollywood he'd have a plece of it. He has to #° to bed at 10 or 11 o'clock every night, like everybody else out here, becguse there is no place else to go. “I played a game of dominoes last night and I feel terrible guilty Charlies confessed to me one mor: ing. “Do you suppose Dr. Straton will roast me to his congregation next Sunday?” - It must be admitted that one can motor to Santa Mdnica, some fifteen miles away, and dance at Sunset Inn—the alleged center of. the alleged say life in that wind-swept com- munity. And the white front restau- rants in Los Angéles are open until midnight. But in Hollywood there nothing but darkness and gloom. t is why the stories about the “gay doings” in this forlorn suburb are too.absurd for words. % %% BU‘!‘ come with me to Armstrong & § Carlton's—center of Hollywood's mad life at' nooritime. Not to visit n & Carlton’s is to miss the best that Hollywood has to offer. For part of its cafeteria is equipped with tables to which waitresses will ac- tually bring your luncheon! Here the elite of the gelatin set lunch daily, if not exactly gayly. The amoeba of the gelatin drama must in the hash . served here, for scenario writers are as much addict- ¢d to it as screen screams or in- genues with phony mothers. The only drawback to it is the faet that 80 many tourists are visiting it that even the highest-priced film stars are find_seats. cause many of its male gelatin set| 1 have visit- | talized the alleged scandals of Holly- wood to the limit. They run huge motor busses to the graveyard where Taylor is burfed and “luncheon at Armstrong & Carlton's” is one of the features of the trip. The vaps who make the excursion naturally expect to see gunplay. One of the slghtseers told me he wanted his money back because there wasn't a single murder commgtted during the entire trip. 1 lunched at Armstrong & Carl- ton's twice without seeing anything more devilish than an assistant di- rector order a second cup of coffec. The third time I went there it was 80 crowded with tourists and sight- seers that I had to join my movie | friends at “Frank’'s"—a cheap restau- | rant across the street. “I'm going back on the stage next season. They wanted to cut my sal- | ary $500 a week and I wouldn't stand for 1t" If 1 heard this once I heard it a hundred times during my enforced sojourn among the movie rnukersl It is the “set” speech of mnearly every actor and actress “between pictures"—even If their last picture was “The Birth of a Nation.” But when you read that Miss May- belle Meringue or Handsome Harry Huckleberry has decided to give up | the deaf-and-dumb drama and return to their first love—the stage—you may be pretty sure that their contracts have expired and that neither Abfe Wogglebaum nor Leo Prattheimer wants to renew them. All the thea- ters on Broadway, If they functioned twenty-four hours & day, 365 days a year, could not provide standing room, let alone employment, for the actors and actresses of Hollywood who are returning to the stage mext season. The reason is very simple—Holly- wood as a motion picture community has seen its best days. This doesn't mean that its studios will be aban- doned and the industry transferred to the east, but it does mean that the days of big salaries, wholesale productions and reckless expepdi- tures are over. 5 * %k ok * ITTLE by little the industry In Hollywood s being put or a safe if not exactly a sane basis. Au- thors are no longer paid fabulous prices for the screen rights to their books and piays. Actors are no longer put under long-time contracts and pald whether they work or loaf. In fact, economy is the watchword all along the gelatin line. There is still much to be com- plished. Too many “relatives” are on the pay rolls, and directors are still more expert in thinking up new ways to waste time than in devising new business. There are still too many people in the picture business in Hol- lywood who ought to be in the gar- ment trades. But there Is a notice- able fmprovement over: conditions as the writer found them thres year: ago. ¥ The fact that less than one-third of the studios are functioning at the present time is not the least improve- ment. Not only have teo many pic- tures been made of late, but most of them have been decldedly mediocre— to speak mildly. The few intelligent actors and directors out here realize this. It is the real reason for the slump in attendance at movie play- houses all over the country. The worth-while pictures have invariably played to good business apd that is why the “best minds” in Hollywood are endeavoring to make wer and better pictures.” So the shutdown has been a good thing for the industry, despite the hardship it has worked on many un- talented stars and loud mouthed di- rectors. The picture business must be deflated—it still needs many drastic economies—a good house-cleaning at jthe top as well as at the bottom. ‘There are too many illiterate aliens in control of the big companies. When they are weeded out by bad business and replaced by intelligent, well trained men, there will be still fewer and much better pictures, 4 * % ¥ *x oy ford, Douglas Fairbanks and Charlic Chaplin live and work there, it will Up to the present time there are no indications that they will desert Cal ifornia. But the facts that interior lighting is being more and more used in making pictures, that the tions” around Los Angeles have beer used so man; times that they are stale, and that the changed climate i= making outdoor work in the winter time impossible, must be- taken into consideration, Hollywood is not yet threatened with the sack. but it wouldn't sur- prise me to wake up some fine morn- ing in the not too dim and distant future and read that nearly all the big companies would make their pic- tures in and about New York. Three years ago, when the motion pictyre industry was at the height of its prosperity, Hollywood was dull enough. , There was nothing to spend money on even when the film colony had money. Today, with the studios turning out one-third as many pic- tures and with salaries one-third of what they were, it is the dreariest, most desolate place imaginable. In short, the Hollvwood of fiction does not exist. Its gavety and wickedness are zbout as spontancous ae the winter sunshine in southern California—thls winter or any other winter. : So, suffice it to say that Hollywond is simply a state of mind. I know its faults and its virtues and 1 sym- pathize with both. —_— Plant Intelligence. M\[AETERLINK has shown Low the ' Italian catchfly, a simple little white flower, goes with seemingly in- telligent thought about the business of its own preservation. Apparently very timorous, very susceptible, to avold the visits of the importunate and indelicate insects, the catchfly furnishes its stalks with glandular hairs, whence oozes a viscid fluid in which the parasites are caught with such success that the peasants of the south use the plant as a fiycatcher in their houses. Certatn kimds of catchfiies, more- over, have ingeniously simplified the system. Dreading the ants fn par- ticular, they discovered that it was enough, fn order to prevent them from passing, to place a wide wiscid ring under the node of each stalk This s exactly what our gardeners do when they draw a circle of tar or other sticky substance around the trunks of apple trees to =top the as- cent of caterpillars. The Frenchman Coupin has examin- ed some of the defensive means em- ployed by plants. Some of these weapons are quaint and startling. - Lothelier, a student at the Sorbonne, has made a number of interesting ex- periments with thorns, resulting in the conclusion that shade and damp tend to suppress the prickly parts of the plants. On the other hand, whenever the place in which it grows is dry snd burned by the sun, the plant bristles and multiplies its epikes, as if it felt that, being almost the sole sur- vivor among the rocks or in the hpt sand, it is called upon to make & mighty effort to redouble its defenses against an enemy that no longer has a choice of victims to prey upon. It is a remarkable fact, moreover, that when cultivated by man. most of the thorny plants gradually lay aside their weapons, leaving the care of their safety to the supernatural pro- tector who has adopted them in his fenced grounds. Among the plants that have ceased to defend themselves. the most strik- ing’case is that of the lettuce. In its wild state, if we break & leaf or stalk, we see & white juice exude from it, the latex, a substance formed of dif- ferent matters which vigorously de- fend the plant against the assaults of the slugs. On the other hand, in the cuitivated species derived from the former the latex is almost miss- ing, for which reason the plant, to the despair of gardeners, is no longer able to resist, and aliows the siugs to eat it. It is nevertheless right to add that latex is rarely lacking except in the young plant, whereas it becormes quite abundant when the lettuce begins to “cabbage’ and when it runs to seed. Now it is especially at the coromence- ment of its life, at the budding of its first tender leaves, that the plant needs to defepd itself. One is in- clined to think that the cultivated lettuce loses its head a little, so o' speak, and that it no longer knows exactly where it stands. Certain plants, among others the Boraginaceae, supply the place of thorns with very hard bristies. Others, such as the nettle, add poison. Others, the geranium, the mint, the rue, steep themselves in powerful odors to keep off the animals. WING to the illuess of J. Harry Shannon, whe for many years has written the Rambler articles a ing in the magazine of The Sunday Star, that feature is necessarily suspended until such time as Mr. Shannon sufficiently re. Albert 1. .Boveridge. . In every &nse the verdict wag that he had _respect by Pennsyl- 3 Hollywood remain oa the often unable to % map? As long as Mary Pick- The aightsesing sutomobile com- ‘Thé Taylor murder remains an wa- 2 i S