Evening Star Newspaper, February 17, 1923, Page 6

THE EVENING BT A, WASHINGTON, D. O, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY Y7, 1923, m———————-——————-—l._d_————l——————__——.“________ o P WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS BY FREDERIC WILLIAM WILE. ordina %o long ago when plain folk cou'd eat terrapin and canvasback. We have been a stupendously and stupldly shortsighted people in the matter of our food resources and sup- plies. All persons in Wasbington with a little age and experience have noted j the decline in the number of shad and i the increase i their cost. Once a com- mon and plentiful food fish, it has be- come scarce and costly. There also ] was the sturgeon. Folk in the Poto- canie, Erening Star. with the Sunday morainf | mac country a couple of generations At 80 cents per month; daily only. 43 cents per | ago could eat sturgeon to their hearts’ B ey e by et o ki | content. but times have changed. 535‘“51 Colleetlon 1s"made’ by carrlers at the And so the oyster is going! Any old- timer in Washington can tell of the Rate by Mail—Payable in Advance. |decline in the number of oyster houses, Maryland and Virginia. even though our city is many times fi}g :xrx‘t‘iysund =lves g::‘gf ; gy ggrc" more populous than it was. They can Hundey on 137, §2.40; 1 mo., 20c | tell of the growing difficulty in ob- taining high-grade oysters and of their rising price. Unless sharp and | smart eftorts are put forth for the | conservation of the oyster and the I restoration and protection of the oyster grounds of the Chesapeake the ter will becume as rare as a terra- ! pin or canvashack ducl Maryland, Virginia and the national government should spare no effort to save the oyster. It has long been a source of profit to thousands of peo- ple in this region. and with proper Allaround congratulations arc in | S{€EUAFdS Drofits can be realized from oRdhr as 4iresilt ot e chie lhe-" f.nr ail times, and Washington will iy i o "¢ nave a steady supply of oysters. - Senate yesterday ratifying the agree. ment for funding of the British wa. | i SEb meloRial e D Commis.| News Thirty Centuries Old. sion and the commissioners sent here! While the French and Germans are | by the British government handled the | deadiccked in the Ruhr and the two matter in a businesslike way. are in angry mood that; when it came up to Congress to ratify | me more war, and while the | or reject the terms agreed upon par- | Turks and the allied Christian powers | tisan politles and small prejudices j are at the point of a break in the near | were largely put aside and a broad ] east, with infinite possibilities for con- | end statesmanlike view of the prob-! flict and destruction, the world looks | Jem resulted in speedy ratification by [aside to the opening just cut into a overwhelming majorities in both | tomb in Egypt, keen to know what is | houses. i to be brought forth from that sepul- | In the passing around of congratu-: cher closed perhaps 3,000.years ago! Jations no one will begrudge an ex- | and more. It is possibly through weari- ceptionally generous share to Con-!ness of strife that this interest arises gress. In creating the debt-funding|in the relics of a far anfiquity. Cer-| commission Congress had outlined | tainly on the part of @ great many terms which, solely from an American | people today the question of what lhc‘l point of view, were fair and reason-! burial place of Pharaoh Tutankhamen | able. But when it came down to the ' will vield is of more importance than | realities of a settlement it was found | whether the French and German icse terms were impossible from | crowd one another more dangerously itish point of view. The American | or the Turks and the al commissioners, therefore, made blows. «essions which, while not going as far| IFor many weeks the preliminarics as the British wanted them to go, went | of this excavation have been bulletined farther than Congress had authorized. | from Egypt, Controversies between th So a recession from the original posi-| excavators and the Egyptian authori-, tion of Congress became necessary if lies have been noted with concern there was » a settlement. Upon | lest they disarrange the plans for a ! 1 England Chancellor | full exhumation of the treasures. Now one of the British debt com-: the way seems to have been cleared, , in his now celebrated in-/and the contents of the tomb, the in iew, expressed the fear that ner burial place itself, the most re- ress would not be willing to mote and securely sealed of all the, own legislation, accompanied hambers of this strange mausoleum, some rather unflattering comments | being brought forth. | upon the rural-mindedness of Ameri-| Interest in the “find can congressmen. But Congress has!aspects. Will the mortuary room yield | shown that it grades higher in states- | anything of historical value? What of | * manship than the eminent British|the art disclosed? Will light be shed | financier does in diplomacy. Finding, upon religious mysteries? Who was that the terms it originally laid down | the royal personage whose last rest- were not to the best interest of this!ing place is thus to be penetrated, country or of the world, Congress con- | whose very mummy is to be brought sents to changing the terms, and in| forth? Was he the “Pharaoh” of the the “cating” process makes no wry { Exodus? Was his the army that was faces or gives other evidence that the i engulfed in the Red sea as it pursued meal is unpalatable. Even the im-|the flecing Israelites? politeness of a departed guest is passed | Egyptologists are not alone in their | over as of too minor consequence toconcern in this great exploration into interfere with generosity to a debtor | the past. To them the articles that who also is a friend. ‘are being found are. of course, of the Without crowding Congress out of | greatest interest. Every detail will be | the limelight of public approval, the ! studied. every significance traced; and | work of the American debt-funding!doubtiess for a generation these ma- | commission should not be overlooked ! terials will furnish the basis for specu- | at this time of felicitation. Tt was a | lation and perhaps for sharp discus- | difficult and intricate problem with|sion. But there is a large lay public | which the commission had to deal.|interest in the results of the enter- Primarily, the commission had to see ! prise as well. Students of Biblical that American interests were safe-| history are aroused to the importance guarded, but it equally had to takeiof the revelations. Students of soclal | o account the interests of Great|life in the remote past are keen in! 3ritain and of the world. There were | their reading of everything pertain- | no precedents to guide it, for no such | ing to the unfolding of the veils of | stupendous sum ever before was owed | centuries. Ety onc nation to another. That the| Washington has perhaps a larger terms of settlement met the general | percentage of direct interest in this | approval of the American people, and | matter than any other American com- | now have been approved by Congress ! munity. for here are many representa- wlmost without serious criticism, is| tives of all the sciences that find mat-| mbundant testimony as to the ability | ter for reflection and study in these | ‘which members of the commission ! products of the excavations at Luxor. | brought 10 their task. It is not often | It is an old story that is being told, | that so big a job is handled so ac-]day by day. a story that goes back be-' ceptably. i yond written records, and the capital | |is reading it as it comes, eagerly ab- ' | sorbing every detail of this remarkable | narration, so vividly illustrated by ac- in this part of the country, and per- _zunl scenes from a past of more than haps it was current in England when | 3:000 vears. the Jamestown and St. Mary's pil-| R i grims set sail across the sea. It is| The polite modern method of re-| surely applicable to a { ferring to a Jkicker is to call him a condition re- : vealed at a warehouse fire the other | demagogue: which means the same| sounding more for-| night. Fire department officials have | thing, although said that a lack of water in the mains | midable. { in that neighborhood caused the flames | ———————— | (o get beyond ‘control. These officials,| Russia is carrying on trade nego- 30 runs the news, ““are considéring the | tiations which proclaim the old idea of | advisability of haying the water de-|c¢xcluding all foreigners to be a thing | THE EVENING STA With- Sunday Morning Edition. WASHINGTON, D. C. SATURDAY.. .February 17, 1923 THEODORE W. NOYES.......Editor The Evening Star Newspaper Compa; Business Offce, 11th St. »nd Pennsylvania Ave. New York Office: 150 Nuesau St. Chicago Office: Tower Building European Office: 16 Regent 5t.. Loudon, Engiand. | All Other States. Daily and Sunday..1 yr.. $10.0 Dally only ‘1yr, $3.000 1 mo. Sunday only 1y, $2.00; 1 mo. Member of the Associated Press. The Assoclated Preas ix exclusively entitied e the ‘use for republicat patches credited to it or u {7,ihie paper and ‘atio the local uews pub; ished “herain. Al rtights of publication of special dispatches hereln are also reserved. e ——— Congratulations All Around. | i ions s come to i con- i ) on- is of different Water Crew at Fires. “Live and learn” is an old phrase | partment send an emergency wagon to | of the past. ! answer all first alarms of fire.” Iti ————— would appear that it has been the! The ultimate consumer is wondering practice to have a crew from the water | how much he will have to pay for | department turn out to fires at the| Ruhr coal in taxes as well as in di-| third alarm to open valves and in- rect charge i rease the flow of water in those aains serving the firemen. No doubt most persons have believed that fire- men on arriving at a fire had at their command all the water that could flow from the reservoirs to the fire plugs in use. This appears not to be the case. It would seem wise that the water de- partment should send a crew to all fires at the first alarm, that it may he at hand the moment its services are needed. { | Tutankhamen left his native land a | rich legacy in the form of an adver-| | tisement to attract tourists. i No Grade Crossing Can Be Safe. Here is a combination of circum- stances illustrating the deadly danger | of the grade crossing and the tragic risk of dependence upon mechanical and human aids to make those death - | traps safe. At Hackensack, N. J., an SR T e ambulance, hurrying in response {0 a | The Ruhr situation has brought up el 3 tel. ick transportation problems more serious | 31! 1O take a desperately sick woman | : s to a hospital, was hit by e train. The ;h:“h‘:‘:‘" involving only the rate of | \},uffeur was killed at once, and an interne was so crushed that he died ————————e soon after. A rellef ambulance was Save the Oyster. later sent, to answer the first call, byt The end of the oyster is predicted | the patient was dead upon its ar- by & leading qyster deaier, and it has | rival on account of the long delay. een predieted many times by scien-| In this case the crossing was ‘tists who devote study to shellfish, | “guarded” by gates. But the gates ‘The Chesapeake and its tributaries|were frozen and would not work. The ware the home, or at least one of the| gate tender says that he stood in the homes, of the oyste; weuld be ssddened to sec that home | lantern, but that the ambulance driver cieserted. This gection was one of the | did not heed. There is nobody to sup- hemes of the wild turkey and wild | port this testimony. The occupants goose. They are gone. Years before|of the ambulance are both dead. The that it was & home of deer and bear, | guard may have been inside of his Both gone! More recently it was a|shanty, out of the cold, in point of home, or at least & popular resort, for | fact. ‘the wallard, the canvasback and other | There is only one assured way to | tack v men. Yet the time was nog’nen!h the tracks or carry it over them. Then, and then only, will there be se- curity from disaster. Mot until this is done will any street or road intersect- ing a railroad line'be other than a menace to the public at all times, no matter what devices are adopted or how dependable are the guards. Be- tween indifferent gate tenders and heedless drivers the tracks will eon- tinue to take their heavy toll as long as street and rail line are on the same level. —_— The Drug Evil. Secretary Hughes' letter to Chair- man Porter of the House foreign af- fairs committee gives assurance that his department of the government will aid in every possible way in the sup- pression of the drug evil through the checking of the manufacture and im- portation of the materials from which habit-forming narcotics are produced. Most of these abominable materlals come into this country from outside. If the importations could be cut off absolutely the problem of drug-sup- pressfon in the United States would, jas the Secretary says, be greatly sim- plified. A certaln quantity must be permitted, for medicinal and scientific purposes, but this quantity is very small compared with the amount that is poured in for individual consump- tion in clrcumstances to lead to one of the worst evils from which any peo- ple can suffer. The country is aroused by the extent land gravity of the drug trafic. Every y has organized aggressive warfare upon it. Police ar¢ making arrests by the hundred ily of addicts and of peddlers. Courts are giving them the heaviest possible sentences, the addicts for cure and the peddiers for punishment. But these processes -of correction are slow, for the habit is strong, the profits of the traffic are enornious and there is a powerful in- centive to continue in the face of the most severe penalties when caught. The real cure, therefore, lies in cutting off or cutting down the supply. Just what methods may be adopted to this end is not clear. The incentives of the traffic are so great that the gravest risks will be run in smuggling the materials into the United States. Can effective agreements be made i with foreign governments to check the | fore had returned from a trip to Ja- | exports? If Secretary Hughes can se- | Pan. After the guest of honor had cure such agreements he will have con- jferred one of the greatest blessingshe setrled upon the American people ever gained through diplomacy.. Big Things. Snow removal in New York city i8] a big job. and the big city has to at- it in a big way. It costs big money, money in terms of millions. Up to the most recent snowfall the New York department of street cleaning had spent this winter $2,500,000 in clearing away snow, and when the snowfall of February 6 came the com- missioner, of street cleaning asked for an appropriation of $1,000,000, and got it in the twinkling of an eye. It is possible that the snow was really re- moved, but there is as vet no officig! report on this. New York is a town of big things. ———————— The service at an Essen hotel is the kind that might be expected where the patronage is that of one from whom no tips whatever are to be ex- pected. i —————— The Russian crown jewels are the subject of “Lost, Strayed or Stolen” advertising turesque news interest. ———— ‘Washington can still boast of a miid winter climate by compering its ther- mometer with those of some of the northwestern states. ————————— A conference is frequently an as- semblage of distinguished men in the hope that something unexpected will happen. —_—————— An accident of geographical loca- i tion prevents Belgium from being neu- tral in an anclent feud. —————— SHOOTING STARS. BY PHILANDER JOHNSON. Fishing. Everybody's fishin’, .everywhere you | 8o, Fishin’ fur e bank account or fishin® fur a beau; Fishin’ fur a compliment that may be false or true; { Fishin® fur position to command the |yined with their pleas for recognition public view. n’ fur & place In life to call your very own. Fishin' fur e fireside warm or fishin’ fur a throne. body's fishin, an’ you need & holiday Fishi Every] !'To do e little fishin’ in the plain old-| were fashioned way: 1 Fishin’ in the big outdoors, beside the ! whisperin® stream, re, when the fish ain’t bitin’, you can doze an’ maybe dream. You sort o' want to concentrate upon the simple wish To do some real fishin’ just fur nary fish. ‘Whei ordi- The Living Present. “Future . generations may monuments for you.” “But what 1 want to know,” said Senator Sorghum, “is whether the present generation will raise a cam- paign fund for me.” raise Jud Tunkins says fame just natural- 1y comes to some people, George ‘Washington got more credit for chop- ping a cherry tree than anybody else | could get for breaking up a cord of ‘wood. The Egoist’s Impression. Why {s it what I have to say Seems such a serious matter, ‘Which others hinder to display An idle line of chatter? Immature. hate to wear an old gown,” said Mrs. Flimgilt. e “Evidently,” repliel Miss Cayenne. ‘The one you have on is apparently so young it hasn’t had anything like its proper growth.” “Talk is cheap,” sald Uncle Eben, “excep’ when de salesman’s eloquent- celebrated ducks. Though not all gone, | make e grade crossing safe, and that | ishness gits you landed foh a couple of &hsic price is hish above the purye g te lpunals i S0k the alresl ba-}. s of meathly (ngtelpsenta that has developed pic-| | June 13, whether there's a ship sub- happens to mark the biennial anni- all concerned clearly understood that Harding often calls “the livest wire back to the windswept shores of Lak wooed at the tender age of thirteen, its earliest coples, reverently framed, ok ok ok from the Jersey varsity town, Is a mandeer suitable quarters in the Jerseyman, Representative Bacharach Drowne (Princeton, '86) has just & rock-ribbed republican community. new congressman from Tigertown i * ke which a member recently attempted Albert D, Lasker, chairman of the United States Shipping Board, Intends pulling up stakes in Washington on aidy or not. Mr. Lasker, unlike Wood- row Wilson, has no special partiality for the 13th, but the date mentioned versary of his taking the helm at the Shipping Board. The President and the Lasker chalrmanship would end after two years, so the man whom Mr. in the United States” avers he is “merely keeping a date with himselt.” Presumably Chicago and his vast ad- vertising business will lure Lasker Michigan. Advertising became h profession by accident. His first lo: was a Galveston, Tex., weekly news- paper called the Free Press. One of ‘occupies a niche of honor in Chair- man Lasker's private office at the Shipping Board. Dr. Charles Browne, mayor of Princeton and representative-elect visitor to Washington. He took time by the forelock and came here to com- House office building for occupancy next December. To his agreeable sur- prise Dr. Browne found a brother of Atlantic City. in charge of House office space assignment, so his honor of Princeton was well taken care of. wound up four successive terms as i mavor of the city, though he is a Wilsonian democraf and Princeton is Dr. Browne says he “was at Prince. ton with Wilson—only he got pald for &oing to lectures and 1 didn't.” The was a classmate of Roland 5. Motris of Philadelphia, former ambassador to Japan, and 1s a native of Philadelphia. They're telling with mingled glee and contumely at a certaln club in Washington of the thrifty manner in to settle his share of a subscription dinner. The price was $5 a plate. { The member in question not long be- i taken his departure, a club attendant i passed the hat. Next morning when | up with the committee of arrangements, the uttendant said he {was %5 “sh Some guest. instead {of proffering American legal tender, had dropped ‘a Japanese tep-ven mote nto the “kitty.” Investigation and ! nsolence ensued. A yen is worth about 49 cents. * ook % One of the most remarkable Eng- lishmen who have visited us in recent times is Washington's week end guest, Sir Frederic Kenyon, K. C. B., since 1909 director and principal librarian of the British Museum at| London. Archeologist, historian, | sclentist, poet and explorer, he round- | ! i { | { DO FOR [From the fore Join! 19151 ent of Theodore W. Noyes bh- i gressional fiscal committee in | w, | The mation has recogmized the pe- {culiar obligation, coupled with and | proportionate to supreme power and i control, tmposed upon it in respect to | the capital, even while it was woe-' | fully fatling to meet this obligation. For example, the executive heads of | the nation. in formal message to Con- igress, have recognized and defined | this obligation, and urged that it be i met. % Practically all of the Presidents, either by word or act or both, declare ! that the fact that the Distr !erned by a legislature which it has {not chosen and in which it is not even fractionally represented. imposes upon this legislature a peculiar obli {gation of sympathetic consideration ‘of the District's welfare, compelling, {according to some of the Presidents, the careful ascertainment and the scrupulous carrying out of the rea- sonable wishes concerning its own lo- cal affairs of the unrepresented com- | { munity itself. ! The thought that the constitutional { power of exclusive legislation confer- ired upon Congress imposes a spectal and pecullar obligation is expressed in varylng forms of words by many Presidents, including Van Buren, Polk, Fillmore, Buchanan, Lincoln, Hayes and Benjamin Harrison. Peculiar Obligation Recognized. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison com- | jot the obligation based on power sug- { Bestions of another obligation spring- {ing from® the national sentiment and {from national pride. Monroe was gs- peclally polpted in his appeal to na- tional pride in behalf of the nation's city. Following him in the same line Taylor, Fillmore, Buchanan, Grant and McKinley. Some Presidents have urged that the peculiar obligation upon this leg- islature, not chosen by the District, thus generally recognized, is to act lin respect to local legislation precise- {1y as if it had been so chosen; that is, it should represent in such legisla tion reasonable public opinion among its capltal constituents. carefully as- certaining not only local needs, but local public . opinion, and meeting those needs in a manner conforming to that local sentiment so far as the national interest permits. The first President to urge specific- afly the application of the injunc- tion, “Put yourself in his place,” to legislation for the District by a legis- lature not chosen by it was Willlam Henry Harrison, who, in his inaugural message, said “The grant to Con: ess of exclusive jurisdiction in th~ Biatrict of Columbia can be inter proted so far s respects the aggre gate people of the United States as meaning nothing more than to allow to Congress the controlling power necessary to accord a free ani safe exercise of the functions assigned to the general government by the Con- stitution. In_all other rewpects the jlegialation of Congress should be' ted to their peculiar position and ECHOES FROM A DEMOCRAT’'S OPINION OF SECRETARY MELLON. You can always tell where Secretary Mellon stands. When he says today that he stands for a certain proposi- tion or against a progposition yYou may put it down that tomorrow he will be standing right on that same spot— Representative Oldfield, Arkansas, democrat. IN SUPPORT OF PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENCE. The dll{r. for‘wfl;;l mnllnt :: sucoe: y counte pointing the bonefits derived from alien -con- i o5 i i t is gov- | ¢ ed out an amasingly versatile career by Joining his territorial regiment in Boptember, 1914, und werving with it #ulively In Kratice untll 1919, though he was fifty-one when the war broke out. Kenyon's richest fame came from his discovery, while browsing about the ruins of anclent Athens in 1801, of Aristotle's “Constitution of Universities throughout ored honorary degrees upon him for his indefatig- wble activities fn the fleld of ihe Kenyon i tearing across the United States. from the Atlantic to the Mlssissippt, in the course of an eighteen-duy sojourn under the au- Apices of ‘the ~American Classical Laaxue. He claims the distinction of being at least one Englishman who has come to “the States” not to lec- ture, but to learn. R Secretary Hughes, whose rebuke to Chinese offcial dilatoriness in ad- fusting the matter of an American life taken by Chinese soldiery isnow the topic of the hour in the far east, is personally filled with Inexhaustible kindliness toward China. He divested himself of a good one this week when somebody asked if Dr. Alfred Sze (pronounced Zee) was returning to Washington ax Chinese minister. Hughes observed that Sze recently was deposed as minister of foreign nffairs at Peking, sharing the fate pre- viously visited upon Dr. Wellington Koo. “Looks as if China had run the @amut of the political alphabet.” said Hughes, “with a succession of foreign fecretaries all the way from Koo fo Sz * % A Pennsylvania republican state politician named Lafferty, who burns incense before the shrine of Boies Penrose’'s memory, has introduced a bill in the Harrisburg legislature to appropriate $100,000 for a statue of the great Keystone boss. Some of Senator Penrose’s foes think no more of him in death than they did in life. A Philadelphia newspaper, which liked him not, remarks. anent the statue project: “We are dommitted to economy this session. For the leg- islature to appropriate $100.000 or any other sum for this purpose would be to erest a monument more enduring than the brass of the cheekiest polit- ical toady to the state's spendthrift inconsistency.” * kX % Fiction is stranger than truth. Apropos the case of Sister Cecilia, the nun abducted from a convent at Frederick, Md., this observers atten- tion is called to a short story written * | by the voung English novelist, Aldous Leonard Huxley, less than a year | 480 in his volume called *Mortal Colls.” Tt deals with the abduction of a nun from a convent in France and her overy twenty-four hours later in hovel, where her kidnapers had ieft her almost dumb with fear and from maltreatment. In many details the experience of the imaginary nun in “Mortal Coll&” coincides with the strange adventures of Sister Cecila at Frederick and Baltimore. Huxley is @ son of the celebrated English scientist. He is only twenty-eight years old, but already famed in the world of belles lettres, WHAT GREAT NATIONS THEIR CAPITALS onformable with their ons of thelr owa fn-:the various fat and dumpy diction- | of art. representing an fnve Put Yourself in His Place. Johngon, in B veto message (1367 elaborated the same thought. saying “In all matters then affecting their domestic affairs the spirit of our dem. ocratic form of government demand that their wishes should be consulted and respected, and they be taught to feel that although not permitted prac- tically to participate in national con- cerns fhey are nevertheless under @ paternal government, regardful of their rights, mindful ‘of their wants and solicitous for their prosperity. was evidently contemplated that all local queations would be left to fon, at least to @n extent not be incompatible with the object for which Congress was granted exclusive legislation over the seat of government.” Taft in rubstance indorsed the same doctrine in his message of 1910, in which he holds that the fact tha Washington is governed by Congress and that the citizens have no direct control through popular election District matters properly subjects the government to inquiry and critictsm by the citizens and that “such criti cism should command the careful at tention of Congress.” This obligation upon the nation af fecting legislation concerning the Di trict applies to tax-legislation as di tinetly as to any other. It suggests, for example, that Congress, having lascertained how much money should | | be raised by local taxation for capital | StUff, another fathead could maintenance, should permit the tax payers representing the local com- munity to raise the money in the way which they find most desirable and least burdensome. . Congress as Local Legislature. Applying the doctrine of an exac ing and far-reaching rfatlonal respon- sibility toward the capital, what is the obligation resting upon Congre when it acts as local legislature Clearly it denies the justice when legislating for the District of disre garding entirely local needs, o tions and prejudices and using th capital as a national experiment sta tion, where dubious legislative prej- | ects may be tested as an example or a warning to the nation. It makes of the congressman as lo- cal legislator a representative under the Constitution of his capital con stituents as directly as if elected by them ana under the same obligations, as if thus elected, to consider pa. tiently and sympathetically their point of view, to crystallize into legisla- tion, as’ far as practicable and rea- sonable, their opinions and wishes. and to protect faithfully their inter- ests and welfar An local legislator under the Con. stitution, the congressman represents not the nation, not the state, not the congreasional distriet, but the District ot Columbia and #ts 350,000 Ameri- cans. The extensive powers in respect to the capital conferred upon C involve equally far-reachi: aibilities and obligations, fices in the ni quired on both % of the partner- ahip.. A great power is to 4obly exercived, controlled by no mo- tive or impulse that is small or mean or base. The greatest legialative hody in the world, representing the wo 's fore- most nation, 4s to build up, typifying that nation, the world's capital. The mation’s city which the foretathers n be perfected CAPITOL HILL CUBA LIVING UP TO OBLIGATIONS. Cuba. having a debt of $7.740,500, ave bonds, and has regularly paid nstallments of principal and inter- est.—Representative Burton, Ohio, re- publican. ONLY CHANCE FOR A MERCHANT MARINE, I am satisfied that we will never have and maintain & merchant marine TR e s seas un o) it—Senater Fletcher, Flor- P in | The Library Table BY THE BOOKLOVER. Although the analysis of the oir- culation of the Literary Digest, show- ing that the Distriot of Columbia |leads the entire country, has already [been quoted in The Star, comment on the significance of the tabulation I8 especfally appropriate to this column. I have long held that Washington's population has the largest and prob- ably the most intelligent reading ap- petite in the country, But here are concrete facts, which furnish strong evidence that this is true. Figures have been worked out by states and sections giving the percentage of Digest subscribers to the general population. These figures show that the District leads with 3.51 per cent of its population as subscribers to the Di- gest. The next highest record Is that of California, whose percentage is 2.83. For the entire United States the percentage is 1.29. * ok koK Iu recording the impressive showing made by the District, which Is “far and away ahead of any competitor,” the Digest states that the reason “may be found in the fact that a considerable portion of Washington's inhabitants are selected from the na- tion at large because of their mental jand intellectual ability. Cynics may scoff at the presence of these quali- ties among congressmen; neverthe- less there is a multitude of civil serv- lce employes, attaches and the like Who are chosen because of their edu- cation.” The Digest further refers the population of Washington as handpicked” “and states that it ould therefore be excluded from any group totals. * & x It seems to me that it is fair to conclude that the preference of the District's population for this high- class weekly would be found to be matched if an analysis could be made of the circulations of other leading magazines with good literary standards and of the book-buying and reading habits he Washington supports many bookstores, whose numbers seem to be constantly in-| creasing, and they all appear to be! doing a thriving business. Their managers report that good books are bought in such quantities as to ju tify the conclusion that the Digest's estimate of Washington's literary tastes is sustained by the books read. The Public Library, which is in close touch with the reading tastes of the public, has long reported an insa- tiable ‘appetite for books on the part of Washington’s population, and that | the demands for the best books al- ways fur exceed the library's abi to meet them. In all of these ev ! 1 * |dences of the keen demand of Wash- lingtonians for good books and maga- zines the Booklover takes keen delight. | i | * Ok ¥k ¥ “The House That Died” is the title of the most recent novel of the French traditionalist, Henry Bor- !deaux, that has been translated into |English. The younger son in a family |of peasants is murdered by his broth- ler. The murderer is never publicly laccused, but each of the five mem- bers of the family, in turn, explates the crime. At last even the old house explates also, and after sheltering | generations of Couverta for three! centuries it is abandoned to decay. * %k ¥ ¥ Books, like other commodities, are | often produced to meet well defined | wants. The universal interest in | people prominent in the public eye | is responsible for the publication of | * k¥ ok laries of cotemporary blograph go ! useful in editorial rooms, libraries {and administrative oMices. The cur- | rent volume of “Who's Who in| America," issued blennially, and now | in its twelfth edition. has sketches of more than 25,000 pecple in its 8,000 | pages. The glish “Who's Who" ! {includes more than 30,000 biographies | 1in its 3,000 pages. After uuspend-[ ing publication for eight vears, the German “Wer IsUS" has just appear- ed with more than 20,000 sketches in te 1,800 pages. ‘There is also ai ‘Who's Who in Canada,” and for | that newer gountry there are mus- {tered 3,500 prominant people, whose i deeds dre recorded in 1,600 pages. | {Similar books have also been pub- {lished for other foreign countries ibut nome recently, so far as 1 know. | The sketches in such books are | | usual based on information furs {nished by the subjects, ordinaril {bare statements of fact. but they ar none the less often highly interesting { reading i Rex Beach was in business in Chi- | ;cago when he received his inspira- | {tion to become an author. “I wasi doing very well in the firebrick busi- | 59" lie writes, “when a friend of | nine showed some stories he had | written for a harvester company's| {trade journal. T determined that if thiy fathead could write and sell his So 1 sat right down and wrote a piece about Alaska. I sent it on to Me- Clure's” Magazine, thinking to start lat the top and let it work down to ithe Poultryman's Review by the natural law of gravitation. Bit Mo | Clure’'s accepted the story and asked ifor more. Then I threw all m { bricks out of the window and jto work at the author busines: . * Ok ok ok The recent death of Katherine Mansfleld, just as she was making a place for herself among the British flctionists of the younger generation, |is a loss to the literary world. Her | reputation rests on her two volumes lof short stories, “Bliss and Otner | Stories” and “The Garden Party an i Other Storfes,” both of which in the subtlety, compression and delicate technique suggest Tchekov. Kath- erine Mansfleld was the wife of the { English _eritic, J. Middleton Murry author of “ountries of the Mine Essays in Literary Criticism 1y published. i i * k k % ‘Writing on the influence of Thomas Paine's writings in the ca of the American revolution, Gamaliel Brad- ford says in the February Harper's Magazine: “His words burn everywhere with a | large” and splendid ardor for demo- cratic ideals, for liberty, equality and opportunity for everv one. * * * He preached federal union; that petty Jealousles and local narrowness should be forgotten. ‘Our great titie is Americans—our inferior one vartes with the place’ It was Thomas| {Paine who first used the words that| inow echo over the whole world. “the United States of America’.” * %k ¥k ok Those who were either in or bored by Romain Rolland's colossal novel of “Jean Christophe” will be correspondingly thrilled or chilled by the news that the distind suished French author has started off on another long novel in many parts called “L’Ame Enchantee.” Part I, which is intended mersly as a prelude, is called “Annette et Sylvie, and introduces the Teader to Annette Riviere, whose life s to be followed for a long period of time, as was Jean Christophe’s in the earlier novel. * x ox % Harry Franck, Who has been writing travel books since his 1910 “Vagabond Journey Around the World,” which he undertook virtually without cash, has been in Chink ever since last spring reparing for t books about TaE Country. 1N wIeh 80 ARy new i H interested that Ofl'flnfl:"»' t ithe respective {one I not CAPITAL KEYNOTES BY PAUL V. COLLINS. It would be hard to find arguments against the adoption of the pro- posed amendment to the Constitution changing the time for the beginning of the terms of actjve service of the President and members of Congress. At present the law provides that a] newly elected President shall take office on March 4, after election in | November, and members of Congress, elected at the same time, do not be- &In to serve for thirteen months lfterl election—the December of the follow- ing year, unless there is called a spe- clal session. £ The proposed amendment, which passed the Senate last Tuesday by & vote of 63 to 6, provides that the terms of President and Vice President shall begin on the third Monday of January, and of congressmen on the first Monday of January following | the November election. Congress chall meet at least once a year and begin its session on the first Monday of January, unless by law it fixes some other date. The House has not vet voted upon the amendment. * Xk ¥ ¥ The reason such a long interval was arranged by the original Constitu- tion was because, in those ploneer days, travel was done with horses only, and it took =a congressman months to reach Washington from the distant regions. Today there is no place upon continental America more than four days’ travel from fhe capital. - The trend of legislation is toward bringing the masses into closer touch with their servants, the legislators. “Let the people rule!” * % % % There are virtues in the proposed plan of reorganization of the depart- ments of government. 1f merely the nomenclature of some of the depart- ments were to be corrected it would be worth while to consider it For example, with all the brilliant history of our Navy, why has its use- fulness in war not been recognized? We are proud of the spirit in battle manifested in “Don't give up the ship!” and “I've just begun to fight!” The Navy had something to do with the opening of hermit Japan the world; it was ready when Mr. Gridley was authorized to fire on the enemy ships and forts in Manila bay, also at Santiago. But only the Army h had the honor of being designated as the “War Department.” Why, no- body know: | The new plan propeses to _combine | the Army and Navy under a Secretary of Defense, with undersecretaries for | branches of defense, | including a new branch—air defence. If this change meets congressiona approval, will it not revive the rumor hat Secretary Denb, the Na will be made ambassador to Japan Tt would seem to be a graceful way | to proyide for him without any -ug-“ westion of demotion. It is understood | that the Secretary of War, Mr. Weeks, | will beeome the Secretary of Defense. It is proposed to create a iet office—a Secretary of Public Welfare. This will include the bureau education. public health service, ans' Bureau, and a new bureau of_social service. It is surprising .that in this new department there is not also included a bureau of fine arts. Such a bureau | in close relation to the bureau of education, vet not confined to educa- tional activities, would become an uence of vast importance in cul- tivating and directing the arts, both fine and industrial. The fact that Americans have the reputation of being too “practical” to care for the “fads and frills” Is exploded nonsense. ‘Washington is soon to have erected a_magnificent permanent expositioh ment of $30,000,000 by the National Society of Arfs and Industries. Other develop- ments of art in the city, familiar to our readers, represent millions of | dollars, and this tendency toward re- finement and intelligence in the use of beauty in industry, as well as in the highest ideals of culture, has come without any organized government encouragement. The time has come when the American public can no longer afford to boast of scorning th. esthetic, . 1t we are a “practical people, we must know that §n the competit of thé world, that which is both us and beautiful will always w er the ugly or crude. class nation of partment of fine arts as a f its government. 1f Americ a bureau of art, under the Se of Public Welfare, it would he step toward modernization, and wo be influential in perfecting standard- of taste and methods of training all kinds of art, which would <o be reflected In fmprovement in Amer fcan manufactures, as well as build ings and monuments. [P tture had or Once more the House has re opposition to the free seed graf which for many years has taken hu dreds of thousands of dollars ann ly from the Treasury for scatter! seeds of kindness and radishes onlons and cabbages over a suffering nation. Not that our statesmen cared a hang about what grew from those free seeds, g0 long as votes ripencd It was a half- lion-dollar bribe the gullible voter—that's all. No ag ricultural society, no farm paper, no Secretary of Agriculture ever dorsed the graft. It was never ag: culture—always polit The appropr some_months tive Langie Kentuck new bill & king an annu manent appropriation of the same purpose, feated by a tie vot That gives n couragement for fulure atiempts fc renew the abuse of public funds, and it may be expected that the attemy will be repeated next session * Of course, it would be the heiz of effrontery for an ordinary 1 man—civilian—to undertake to crit clzo trained naval cxperts upon an subject so technical as the running of a man-of-war. Dur FEdison offered forty-fi for use in the Navy. Ldison ilian-—therefore a fi val experts” to sn of his forty-five new tried out by the Navy But Thomas Edison science. He has mad revolutionizing inventions of a practi nature. To assume fore, that the smug, orthodox * experts” were justified in rejecting 11 of his inventions, which he offerca solely from patriotic motives. . stamp the ) y with petrificati common sense or pure pat Professional jealousy had 1o ri jeopardize lives and the state its in time of war. That most of the ventions were radically different fr anything already in use was all i their favor, for they would have bee all the more bafing to the enc This_is not . nst of the imps ) of the Nav same spirit ha: Ar also. and tepresen oftered 1 and per £500,000 for that was de nd 5 g the s a eiv atio of new id cropped « It is tradition * % % While there was not n he report of the commissioner education of Pennsylvaniu re what he had found to be the cond - tion of Washington schools, it teresting to note that this cxpe such matters does not mince in setting forth our schoul shortec ings. It ought not to be neccssa call upon experts, like Mr. Thomas Finegan, to tell Congress that W ington schools need more capacity 80 that every child of school should have & seat during full hours, and that teachers and should be pald adequately. expects its capital to be a m especially in such qualities as for good citizenship. It cannot such if its children are neglected « ing their vears of development (Copsright, P. V. Collins, 1 t o words ¥ Clare Sheridan Leaves America Convinced She Has Failed Her BY LA MARQUISE DE FONTE) Clare Sheridan so gifted a much interest when she first arrive this country two years ago that| cannot but regret that she should | have exhausted the welcome accord- | ed her, and the good will even of those who were most enthusi- astic about her originality and un- conventionality. has arrived at the unpleasant conviction that she has ceased to please in America; that | her writings are no longer in demand here and that her striking portraits in plaster and in clay no longer at- tract attention. Consequently Wednesday— on the the objec children away struggle” which she self-sufficient.”” up her residence wit NOY. | is so brilliant and | woman and excited so | in She he is leaving next iling from New York for Hambure. with | getting herself and | from “the individual | America—a country ! < “too prosperously | proposes to take h her youngsters in h ow native land and in beautiful county of Sussex, - family, the Frewens, have shed ' for, so many cen in Berlih, so as to be v reach of troubl when w to be present urope” and de- plores that America “will not inte: st itself in the travail.” - tha wh been turie Yet Clare Sheridan had everything in her favor, good looks, birth and oyal favor, a sufficiency of money 1d an assured position in English and foreign society. When she first came here as a girlhood friend of the | late Crown Princess of Sweden and frequent guest at the court of Stock- holm, King Gustav had conferred upon her the ladies’ “Order of Innocence,” In inheriting the gifts of the fami- lies—English and American—that flow in her veins, she likewlse became pos- sessed of—I1 would almost say handi- capped by—their oddities of character. The Frewens have always had a tou of wildness and of revolt against the humdrum of existence. Her father, Morton Frewen, s an example there- of, and so, too, was his brother Dick, who, while yachting of® the coast of { Ireland, perished in a storm. Veryi clever and very outspoken, he could not govern his tongue. He could not restrain himself from glving utter- ance to his thoughts, no matter how Startling and unruly, and as a_result, e ended by having but few friends, since mobody knew what he was go- ing to say next. ok ok ok The American Jeromes, to whom Clare Sheridan belongs thorugh her mother, are also Aquite the reverse of conventional and free of speech. In Clare Sheridan these peculiarities were emphasized. She gave free reign to her originality—did not shrink from sarcasm—deflled the qu'en dira- on, and the outcome of it all has been that people have turned against and that e leaves this coun- try, in which she so often expressed her wish to spend the remainder of : a disappointed and embittered voman. “Forelnnr- never seem to be ahle to understand that Americans of every class concelve in thelr mind certain standards up to which they expect their guests from abroad to measure.. They are rather cxacting atandards, - But when the foreigner—. 1 1 man or woman—fails the American disappc the form of actual re feel that their che have been destroved, and 1 welcome suffers in cor eigners sometimes run idea that the United S from conventionality permit themselves a dress, manner and speech. They do not realize that they f crities than —not jon for on ngs and pec on high conceptions of the to which they expect and requi guests from abroad to live Count Hugo Lerchenfeld Koeffer who has recently arrived in the Unite ates, and who Wwas entertained with can wife at a rge di given in his honor on Friday last at the Hotel Astor, New York, was for a con- siderable time prime minister Bavaria, virtually driven to resign by reason of the insults ¢ and hostility displayed reactio 3 lunich and elsewhere nst. his wife., on acc The counte hel Wyman of Detroi: o1l know where her mar ‘ptember, 190 her A was M @ talented indeed, in New riage took pi St. Patrick's € The Lerchenfel erations _prominent service of Bavaria, an same 1¢ having been for m « quarter of a_century Bavarian plen: potentiary at Berlin ¥ York in quarrel w the latter chancellor. 'he Lerchenfelds wers @ urt of Munich, Count Lerchenfeld throughout more than two decades most trusted confidant and chicf of milltary household of the late Ki Louis of Bavaria. * ¥ K The American Countess Lerchen- feld's experiences during the pre- miership of her husband were not enjoyable. For life in those days following the great war was held v in southern Germany. Politi- inations, or so-called ‘‘ex- ecutions.” were frequent among those in authority, and who were supposed to stand in the way of the realization of all the various plots and con- spiracies. Letters used to reach Count Lerchenfeld every day threaten ng his life, and his American wi bereft of all sympathy on the part of the people of the land of her adoptior never knew when her husband left the house, whether he would return alive or dead. Before the count took office. at the instance of his friends, for the purpose of restoring some kind of semblance of law and order in Bavarid, both he and his wife witnessed all the horrors of mob rule in the Bavarian capital, and scenes of ruthless destruc- tion and of savage bloodshed. Their visit to America, which is to be of some duration, will afford the countess some relief from the terrible strain of anxiety ‘and worry which she has been called upon to endure ever since_the revolution broke out in south- ern Germany, after the flight of the ex- kaiser into Holland. Count Hugo Lerch enfeld has always shown a sympathetic understanding of the United States, and after his marriage remained in this country for eight months or more in order to become thoroughly acquaintsd, and to get into close touch with his wife's people, about whom he has written a most appreciative book h Bismarck, which removal from the of x