Evening Star Newspaper, March 15, 1925, Page 43

Everyday Religion Not a Talk on Theology, But Upon Life and Right Living, BY RIGHT REV. JAMES E. FREEMAN, D. D., Bishop of Washington. The Permanent in Life. I_Corinthians, $.13: “Every man's work shall be made manifest, of what o sort it s, HE test of the value of a thing we say or do is in its capacity to endure. However careles Iy we y do the work we have in hand, there is a ural feeling within each one of us that we want it to last. From early days on until the latest hour we a building against the future. The thing that gives to us a sense of se- curity is the knowledge that the foundations upon which we bufld our superstructure are well and securely lafd Recently I watching the at National ington. and a: ¢ them placing one stone upon other two queries came to mind. “Will the foundations the weight as the building rises s great ight? The second “If the foundations are secu how long will such a building last The first question was really the more mportant, for without security in e foundations it would be easy to determine the strength and perma- nence of the superstructure. If we would build high, we must build deep. I recall that Westminster Abbey, the ne of Great Britain, has stood through some 800 yvears, and its walls seem to indicate that they will stand indefinitely. life is When we signally fail in we find st inevitably that it the result of defective construction Ther carelessness or indifference somewher We put too great weight upon our foundations they were not able stand the strain. Many a business fails because of too great expansion, based upon a miscaleulation or a wrong conception of what constitutes efficiency. Many 2 man comes to a place of honor and large responsibility, only to discover his weakness and incapac He eould fill with reasonable satisfaction a smaller place. He is embarrassed and incapable in the larger one Sooner or later “every man’s shall be made manifest, of what sort it is” Under happy or fortuitous cir- cumstances, supported by the genius of others, he may, as the world says “get by” for a time, but ultimately he experiences disillusionment and f: ure. Lincoln had this in mind when he d, “You can fool all of the nat- | work | people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. ¥ e We are being frequently remil\god in recent years of defects in our edu- | cational system. Many, too many, of our youths know a little about many things, but not much about |anything. When it confes to the fine | things of character, those things that make us what we really are, the test is more severe. There came under my observation some time ago a young person who seemingly was possessed of all the refinements that careful education and culture could guaran- tee, and coupled with this was per- sonal charm. 1 gave the person in question ‘an opportunity to recover |ground that had been lost and to | overcome mistakes that had been {made. Al went well for a while, | but presently old defects in the sub- structure disclosed weaknesses, with | consequent failure. The foundations |of character are evidently not ren- | dered secure through processes of culture and education, however care- | fully these may be cultivated. ok % % the work of fife of what sort it is, we in- | evitably find that the things that |endure” have to do with character. We are learning today as we never have before that deep religious con- victions constitute the footing stones of character. The method of the Master .was to deal with the®deep, fundamental things of life. His con- demnation of the religionists of His time was directed against their superficial methods. “Ye make clean the outside” was his weord of scorn. In every place we are finding today conspicuous weaknesses, and when we trace them to their source we dis- cover that they rise out of defects of character To come to the full- ness or to the latter end of life with knowledge that our work is to be made manifest, to be classified according to its quality and worth gnd its ca- pacity to stand, is a serious reflection. | To know that somehow the character we build, whether it achieves large rewards or small, is so well and thoroughly constructed that it will stand the final test of a discrimi- nating and righteous judgment, is to attain life's highest and deepest sat- isfaction. It is well to keep in mind as we do the day's work that “Every man's work shall be made manifest, of what sort it {s." (Copyright, 1925.) When is made manifest, German Republic’s Fate Hangs - By Thin Thread, Says Expert (Continued fra action could only seize power by the strong arm if red revolution could be galvanized in the foreground— and it cannot by any conceivable flight of imagination be so discov- erad. But 1 do not think I exag- gerate when I say that the future of the republic depends upon a rela- tively early turn of the tide. The drift is all against it. The turn seemed to have come with the Dawes plan, but the Cologne episode upset the tendency, at least temporarily negatived most of the beneficial effect of this adjustment. Eighteen months ago the German was flat on his back—perhaps more exact. he was flat upon his head. With the inflation crisis he was * utterly bewildered and almost com- pletely hopeless. Perhaps there has never been In modern history any such colossal nightmare, such a glgantic spectacle, as the German rush to financial chaos. But all this is over. en the effects have par- tially worn off You can exaggerate the extent of the ri very, but there is quite another rman walking abroad on the streets today than at this time a vear and a half ago. This German, by and large, asso- ciates all his past misfortunes with the deeds of his foreign enemy, and mainly with France. He hates ¥rance, and his hatred is general, in- tense and on the whole rather in- creasing. It is founded, as I have , upon the conviction that France has been and is out to destroy Ger- man and this fact must be ac- copted. But it is founded, I think— although here I am sure my French friends and perhape some of my Americans will disagree with me- upon a cardinal assumption, which might be in a relatively near future proven inexact. It might be demol- ished, at least largely, if evacuation should take place under terms in con- formity with the treaty as the Ger- man understands it. Industrialists Powerful. T find it excessively difficult to give any exact picture of the German situ- ation, b . it is itself very chaotic —and the Germans are notoriously in- scrutable. But on broad, general lines I think it is comprehended in the. statement that materially more than 50 per cent of the people still « advocate > republic, but not, in all probability, 50 per cent measured by influence and political power. Most, but not all, of this 50 per cent belongs, politically speaking, to one of three parties—the Social Dem- ocratic, the Clerical, and the Demo- ecratic. Ten per cent, perhaps—the Communists—are equally against the republ and restored monarchy, equally hostile to Weimar and Pots- Then t remains 40 per king up the People's party Nationalists of all stripes, both extreme The Peo- which numerically weaker than the Soclal Democrats, the Clericals or the Nationalists, is, on the other hand, excessively power- ‘ful, since It represents the great in- dustrialists For domestic political reasons, largely tariff, the People’s party seeks coalition with the Nationalists, and the present government represents such & combination, with the more or less passive consent of the Clericals. But neither the Clericals nor the People's party has any present wish to the Nationalists in the restoration of the monarchy, and the larger fraction of the Nationalists perceives that the thing is today out of the question Control of Key Positions. serious thing is that such a inevitably places the Na- tionalist party in control of many of the strategic posltions. It is steadily replacing the old Republican party representatives in the official com- mittees and posts whieh are most im- portant Thus you cannot blink at the fact that ultimate restoration would be easier as a result of what has happened recently and is still happening. But, again, this would Smply continuation of the present decline in the prospects of the re- public, a protraction of unfavorable foreign conditions, To sum it all up, then, ¢ been and is still in reaction against the republic, which has lost ground and is losing ground, but it has not Yat lost so much ground as to be doomed. Hard any one with whom 1 talked would assent to the notion that it had no chance. A surprisingly large number believed it would in the become perhaps a habit and con- tinue, but not without luck, not with- out a favorable break in foreign af- G dam ere cent, m and the including ple’s part assist The coalition many has fairs; not, above all, if the conviction survived and expanded that the French purpose was to destroy Ger- many, and no fulfillment would make any difference. The impression of the visitor who comes here without any exact knowl- edge and must necessarily depend upon such information as he can collect must be that there is a tre- mendous amount of confusion in all minds. It is not merely that opinions differ. That is not quite the case, for there is an area of agreement in all views. It is that there s a frank too obscure to permit any really au- thoritative ~ judgment. Those with whom you talk have, after all, the appearance of indulging, quite openly, in guesses rather than in forecasts. Great Country Confused. You must See Germany as it is—a great country; 11 vears ago the great- est country in Europe; now absolutely without power, Incapable of enforc- ing any of its views, stripped of all that made it a force and a great force, conscious of defeat in the war and of cruching disaster.in the postwar pe- riod, only very slowly coming out of the time of utter prostration, only recently released from the most pri- mary problems of existence—food, heat and clothes—barely gaining a renewed sense of life and perhaps of strength. What will this restored Germany be when the restoration of strength is complete? Will it be the old Ger- many of the Junkers and the mili- tarists? Will it be a new Germany of the western democratic stripe? Will it be a Germany different from both conceptions? These are questions I do not believe the wisest German him- self could answer, lst alone the most observant foreigners resident in Ber- lin. The truth is, I think, that Ger- many has not yet sufficiently recov- ered to make an answer possible. If you believe Germany is to be the old military and aggTessive country, certainly you can find voices, German voices, to confirm the belief. precisely the same way, if you believe Germany Is to be a new, democratic State, you will not lack evidence. You can belleve anything-you want about the Germany of the moment and find confirmation for any preconceived judgment or prejudice. But if you come with an open mind, seeking to form a judgment without any bias, it seems to me that in the end you will hardly get beyond the view that it is too early, much too early, to form any sound decision. Ludendorft Not Factor. One further point: There has been a notion in America that Ludendorff might, with the aid of the army, stage an overthrow of the republic. But on the ground it is clear not only that politically Ludendorff does not count, but on the military side the army has quit him. He has become, not the hero of a lost cause, but the culprit whose folly and obstinacy made it a lost cause. On the military side the situation lies all in the hands of Gen. von Seeckt; he commands the army, he could throw it where he would, but no one believes he is planning to lh_row RA anywhere. Certainly his mission is to organize and maintain the army, to preserve public order, to crush any rising. Probably his sym- pathy is quite with the old regime, in which he was a considerable figure. Beyond much doubt he would not use the army to crush a nation-wide move- ment toward the restoration of the monarchy, but on all sides there is testimony to the fact that he is play- ing the game fairly and keeping out of politics. He 1is, one says, the great enigma of cotemporary Ger- many, but he commands respect and, seems rather to invite confldence than suspicion. Certainly he is not a cheap plotter, & man on horsebac] at least he is a silent man, who takes abuse from all political sides and goes about his business, which is maintaining or- der and reorganizing German mili- tary strength so far as he is able, which is not too far now. The outside conception of a Ger- many united, resolved to renew the last war, committed to a struggle of revenge, waiting its moment, on the point of overturning the republic and replacing a President with a Kaiser seems to me to lack any confirmation, here. The mere notion that Germany is, intellectually speaking, united, knows its own mind, has reached a decision, seems almost ridiculous on the spot= Rather Germany seems the arena of many contending influences and desires, of every sort of political, domestie, political maneuver, of end- less foolish specch-making, dominated rather by fear of French purpose, fear statement by all that the situation is| And in| BY HENRY W. BUNN. HE following is a brief sum- mary of the most important news of the world for the scven days ended March 14: The League Council, Ete — The League Council met at Geneva on March 9 for an important session. On the 12th Austen Chamberlain, Brit- ish secretary of state for foreign af- fairs and president of the councll, made a notable speech announcing rejection by his government of the “protocol of arbitration and security” and giving the reasons therefor. M. Briand made an eloquent and ironic speech answering the British objections and defending the protocol. Dr. Benes of Czechoslovakia pro- posed that the protocol be referred to the next league assembly, to which the councll agreed. The main reasons for rejection pre- sented by Mr. Chamberlain are as follows: 1. The British government is cold the, principle of compulsory arbi- tration, as already shown in connec- tion with the World Court. It takes particular exception to the provisions of the protocol which contemplate eakening of those reservations in Clause XV of the covenant which were designed to prevent interfer- ence by the league in matters of do- mestic” jurisdiction. This objection would alone suffice for rejection by the British government, because of the attitude of the outlying com- monwealths of the empire. 2. The protocol, if adopted, would unduly increase the responsibilities already undertaken by states that are members of the league. “The fresh emphasis laid upon sanctions, the new occasions discovered for their em- ployment and the elaboration of mili- tary procedure insensibly suggest the idea that the vital business of the league is not so much to promote friendly co-operation and reasoned harmony in the management of in- ternational affairs as to preserve peace by organizing war, and it may be war on the largest scale.” 3. The above line of argument is perhaps just a thought sophistical, but the following objection is most certainly a vogent one: “It is most unwise to add to the liabilities al- ready incurred without taking stock of the degree to which the machinery of the covenant has already been weakened by non-membership of cer- tain great states.” (Mr. Chamberlain, of course, is glancing chiefly at the United States, Germany and Russia.) “Economic sanctions, if simultane- ously directed by all the world against a state which is not itself economic- ally self-suficing, would be a weapon of incalculable power.” “This, or something not very dif- ferent- from this, was the weapon originally devised by the authors of the covenant. But all this is changed by the mere existence of powerful cconomic communities outside the limits of the league. It might force trade into unaccustomed channels, but it could hardly stop it, and, though the offending state would no doubt suffer, there i$ no presumption that it would be crushed, or even that it would suffer most which begets boundless hatred, than by a German purpose to make new war. In the end this conflict of forces, this collision of tendencies, may result in a triumph of reaction, a restora- tion of monarchy, a return of aggres- sive militarism, the possibility can- not be blinked. But just as surely it may not. One of the most absorb- ingly interesting dramas in modera political history, the most interesting by all odds on the world stage of the moment, is taking place here, butone has the sense of seeing the first act, not the last, of lacking any present basis for estimating how the last act will turn out. In the end I am bound to say that it seems to me the fate of the repub- lic will depend upon its ability to se- cure the evacuation of German ter- ritory and in some measure at least gain for Germany that treatment which a numerically great people will infallibly demand as they become more and more conscious of the restoration of their own physical strength. And this is, after all, only another way of saying that the allles, that France and Britain will, finally, have to make up their minds whether to take certain risks with respect of a restored Germany or run the other risk incident to the latter, but inevi- table recovery of a Germany which will not be either republican or in any sense peaceful. (Copyright, 1925.) New Senate Rules BY ARTHUR CAPPER, Senator From Kansas. Vice President Dawes’ plain-spoken arraignment of rules that hamstring legislative procedure in the Senate reiterates a growing conviction of many members and voices a general bellef that the paraphernalia and modus operandi of legislation is due for extensive repairs and renewals. When these rules were formulated the business of national legislation was relatively simple. Providing revenues, parceling out appropria- tions and providing means of national defense were virtually its sole tasks. There were then fewer people in the Nation than are now crowded in a few of our larger clties. But population increased. New em- pires were added to the original Na- tional Domain. Science and inven- tion and commercial genius wrought miracles of progress. Living and so- cial relationships grew more and more complex and intricate. With these the tasks of legislation grew more complex and technical. But the modus operandi of legislation re- mained fixed. As a result the seven labors of Hercules are but holiday pastimes compared with the chore of trying to break through a “legislative jam.” It's like trying to deflect the flood . of Niagara through a garden hose! For example: A bathing beach for ‘Washington engrosses Senate genius for debate for two hours, and but a scant half hour is given to consider- ation and passage of two of the larg- est annual appropriation bills, involv- ing the spending of millions. The public observes these absurdi- ties. It sees in the jam behind the talk that trickles over the rules dam such proposals as the World Court ol Justice, the proposal to reorganize departments of Government in the in- terest of economy, agricultural and transportation legislation, ~Muscle Shoals and the like. ‘At once it is flashed over the coun- try that theye's a “filibuster” on. But such “jams” are not invariably the result of a concerted “filibuster” plot. The failure of the recent ses- sion to enact any legislation other than supply bills was not the result of an organized, dilatory filibuster. Tt was the result of an involuntary fili- buster forced by the existing rules. The legislative machine is a high- powered affair. Well organized. In- dustrious. Of proper motives and a patriotic desire to serve the welfare of the country. But its weird con- trivances are such that ‘the greater the stress, the more the power is ap- plied, the tighter clamp the brakes! Undoubtedly it needs to be towed into the shop and overhauled and equipped with “forward speed” at- sachments, | i 4. Much of the of protocol is obscure. In conclusion, Mr. Chamberlain pro- posed reconsideration of Lord Robert Cecil's scheme of regional pacts un- der the auspices of the league, a scheme shelved in 1923 owing to op- position by the smaller nations. “Since the general provisions of the covenant cannot be stiffened with advantage and since the extreme cases with which the league may have to deal will probably affect cer- tain nations or groups of nations more nearly than others, his majes- ty's government concludes that the best way of dealing with the situa- tion is with the co-operation of the league to supplement the covenant by making special arrangements in order to meet special needs. “That these arrangements should be purely defensive in character, that they should be framed in the spirit of ‘the covenant, working in close harmony with the league and under its guidance, is manifest, and, In the opinion of his majesty's government, these objects can best be obtained by knltting together the nations most immediately concerned, and whose differences might lead to a renewal of strife, by means of treaties framed with the sole object of maintaining as betweene themselves unbroken peace. “Within its limits no quicker rem- edy for our present ills can easily be found, mor any surer safeguard against future calamities.” One proposed regional pact, at any rate, is mot to be. The recently made German proposals (referred to in my last summary) have been rejected by France as prejudicing the German- Polish ~and German-Czechoslovak frontier arrangements—indeed, as com- promising all the frontier arrangements of the Versailles treaty So the “protocol of arbitration and security” is dead: for it seems out of the question that it can be revised acceptably to Britain and the idea that it will be adopted by all or part of, the other league members inde- pendently of Britain seems absurd But as for the Franco-German frontier “We should worry," says M. Briand, who with his usual astute- ness seizes this psychological mo- ment to invite attention to certain clauses of the Versailles treaty which provide for demilitarization of a Rhine belt and declare that aggres- sion by Germany on this belt would constitute a casus belli for all the allies. “Voila!” says M. Briand. “Volla! There you are, gentlemen. After all, the poor old treaty, so much obfuscated and derided, contains a large part of what is necessary to our salvation.” = r language the The British Empire.—General elec- tions are to be held in Ulster in the near future. Prime Minister Baldwin of Great Britain recently made a graceful gesture for friendly relations with the Labor party and has shown clearly that he does not 'propose to make an overbearing or vengeful use of his considerable majority in the Commons. Of the of the Hindu religion, outcasts, 9,000,000 are der the age of 1 220,000,000 people of India 53,000,000 are girl wives un- including under 11, 400,000 are girl widows, forbidden to remarry. This at .least is certain: The outcasts would not benefit by abolition of the British Palestine line was inaugurated on March 12 by the sailing from New York of the steamship President Ar- thur, There was a tremendous demon- stration at the pler (foot of West Houston street), as well there might be, for, as Jacob S. Strahl, president of the line, observed, “This event marks the appearance for the first time in more than 2,000 years of the flag of Judea on the high seas.” Most of the passengers are tourists. A good many are going to witness the dedication of the new Hebrew University. %* A E Chile and Peru.—The most impor- tant features of the award rendered by President Coolldge as arbitrator of the Tacna-Arica dispute are as fol- lows: The general question of possession is to be determined by a plebiscite, as provided by the treaty of Ancon. The essential conditions to govern the plebiscite afe lald down (a com- mission, to consist of one Chilean, one Peruvian and a president to be named by the President of the United States, will frame detailed regulations and supervise their execution). The northern or Tarato boundary of Tacna is fixed as per Peruvian claims. The question of the southern boundary of Arica is referred to a commission. It is reported that both Peru:and Chile are perfectly satisfied with the award. The aforetime Peruvian prov- inces of Tacna and Arica have, since the war of 1879-53 ended dlsastrously for Peru, been in the possession of Chile as departments of the Chflean province of Tacna. The treaty of Ancon provided that Chile should govern and exploit the territory for 10 years, at the end of which time future possession should be determined by a plebisclte. But the Peruvian and Chilean govern- ments could not agree on the condl- tions to govern the plebiscite, hence postponement thereof to this day. It is to be hoped that the famous con- troversy is now at a point to be con- signed to eternal rest. The area of the territory in question is 9,250 square miles, its population about 24,000. It is desert country, with few oases, tortured by intense heat and by frequent earthquakes; but valua- ble because of its rich deposits of nitrate of soda and minerals as yet but little exploited. * ok ok % United States of Ameripa.—On March 13, by a vote of 63 to 14, the Senate ratified the Isle of Pines treaty. By this treaty the United States relinquishes fu favor of the Republic of Cuba all clalm of title to the Isle of Pines in consideration of grants of coaling and navul sta- tions in the Island of Cuba, hereto- | The | fore made to the United States. treaty had been pending before the Senate for 20 years. The Lausanne treaty with Turkey has been recommitted to ithe foreign relations committee of the Senato. : Destroying to Employ BY IDA M. TARBELL. UST we des&:oy to employ? One of my favorite editorial writers (you would not know him, unfortunately, since his journal is a small special trade paper, going only to those interested, but in which, be- cause they tell of those things of which they know something, one generally gets excellent good sense) —well, this favorite editorial writer of mine has been talking nonsense—a kind of nonsense that takes hold. He has been defending the Ameri- can habit of building and tearing down, propounding the theory that this is the way to keep men at work. A talk with a friend just returned from Europe started them off. “In Europe,” the friend told him, “what they build endures. Here noth- ing lasts 20 years.” “And that,” he tells his friend in his editorial, the reason Europe has s0 many people unemployed. We tear down every 20 years, therefore every man is kept busy. Let them do the same thing and then they will be kept busy, and be as Prosperous as our- selves. 0 “I have seen it work. I have seen destruction bring a building boom. It was in Houston in 1915, when the hurricane came and leveled 11,000 chimneys, and carried oft all the roofs and blew out all the windows and leveled hundreds and hundreds of buildings. There was not a tele- phone nor an electric light nor a tele- graph connection left. But the next morning everybody woke up and went to work. Men who had had nothing to do for weeks were employed at higher wages than they had ever earned. The whole building trade prospered as never before.” *x k % % To be sure the building trades did prosper after the Houston hurricane —so_they did after the San Francisco earthquake. But how about the own- ers of the chimneys? And the own- ers of the electric light plant? How about the period of enforced idleness for all sorts of activities—shops, fac- tories, mills? How about the activ- ities destroyed that never have re- vived? One class of workers, and only one, were thriving on the de- structien. And if my editor friend would ex- amine into the records of Houston he would find many a man who is still making up for what that period of destruction cost him. He might find, too, that some-of those carpenters and electricians, who for months had all that they could do, at wages high- er than they had ever before received, had lost their homes and have not, in spite of the building boom, yet been able to make up for what that night's destruction cost them. A rding to this argument, Europe ought to be rolling in wealth at this moment. She certainly has destroyed enough In the last few years—thou- sands upon thousands of buildings of all sorts. And what was allowed to stand have fallen into sad condition because of lack of repairs. Why, then, is she not made rich by the amount of work that there is for her to do and that she Is doing? You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. You destroy a chimney, you destroy a house, and you have taken something of accumulated value out of the world. Hasty building and hasty replacing in America is not the cause of prosperity, as my editorial friend argues. It is one of the bane- ful effects of the prosperity, which comes from what sometimes seems limitless natural wealth combined with almost limitless brain and mus- cular energy in developing it. Never before in the world was there so much of what men need and want— or imagine they want—made in such short periods of time. We have made machines to make things in quan- titles 500—a thousand or more times as great as a man once could make them—shoes, cotton, cloth, building materials, for example. * ¥ kX It is not strange that this amazing prosperity goes to people's heads or that it should drive out of their minds many other considerations that go into the making of really stable and continued wealth. One of its baneful effects is the limitations it puts on the imagination. Once men get it into their heads, like my editorial friend, that tearing down and re- building are the means of keeping people at work, they are very apt to feel that this operation can go on over and over again in the same place. That is, they forget that there are spaces beyond to be developed. Is not the really fine thing to build solidly and move on into new and unbroken spots when more room for factories, more houses for homes are needed? This theory that prosperity lies in tearing down every 20 years shuts the mind to the enormous ad- vantage—and_ profits—in spreading out. Building and tearing down and re- building in one place is at least part- 1y cause of that hateful and sorrow- ful thing we call congestion—crowd- ing people into one district where they live unhappy, unhealthy, irritat- ed lives. It is bad for them, and it Kansas Editor Lauds Coolidge Program for BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE. President Coolidge’s first inaugural address is a model of sanity and clarityt He knows exactly what he desires to say, says it briefly, clearly, forcefully and then quits. His theme is simple. He stands for just two things—economy and peace. He has no well thought out scheme for the betterment of humanity outside of these two means. Reduce taxes and keep out of war is the Coolidge panacea for all the ills to which the country is heir. The Coolidge plan has one thing to commend it. It is simple and work- able. If he cares to apply himself faithfully to the job he can get it done. : When it s done he will have no utopia. The strong will keep on oppressing the weak: justice will be a8 remole as it ever has been Its Workability But something will have been ac- complished, something badly needed. Given peace and the economy—which Coolidge may easily bring us—and the world then will be ready for the next stage of its forward journey. ‘The weary liberal, who at the present seems to be molting, then may come down off the perch and take charge of & yearning world. It is the business of the liberal, who has no great following just now, to do one of two things—convince the world that the liberal program is right, whigh seems rather difficult in view of thé conservative state of the human heart, or help this sincere, honest, courageous conservative in the White House to realize his rather uninspiring but certainly immediately necessary vision. For what Coolidge asks can be done. And what is more, it should be done. Miscellaneous—Dr. Walter Symons has been elected by the German Reichstag acting president of the reich. He is head of the Leipsic Fed- eral Court. He was foreign minister when Germany signed the Versailles treaty, and as forelgn minister he headed the German delegations at the Spa conference fn 1920 and the Lon- don conference in the Spring of 1921. The new German Ambassador to the United States, Baron Ago von altzan, has presented his creden- tials. A big strike of metal workers is on in Lombardy, Raly; the first big strike since the Fascisti seized the power, It was begun by Fascisti trade unionists, and Socialist trade union- ists have followed suit. This is very interesting. The new Jugoslav Skupshtine, or Parllament, is in session. It is claim- ing that, though the Pashitch combi- nation, with its unitary program, has a majfority of 11 in a total of 315, 1,- 360,000 votes were cdst for opposition candidates; who favor a federal sys- tem, as against 1,040,000 for the gov- ernment or Pashitch candidates. The opposition charge that the govern- ment achieved victory by terrorist methods. Turkey and Greece has accepted the decision of the World Court interpret- ing the Lausanne convention for the compulsory exchange of population. A rather startling rival of brigand- age is taking place in Greece. The other day an automoblle party of four students of the American School of Archaeology at Athens (Including two women) and one Eriton were held up near Arta (southern Epirus) Dby brigands and one of the American men was shot, though not fatally. After being robbed the party were allowed to proceed. Sun Yat Sen died of cancer at Peking on March 12 Roy BScott Anderson, the American who negotiated the release of the victims of the Lincheng bandit out- rage in 1923, died at Peking on the 12th. He was the son of an Ameri- can_missionary to China, was born in China and lived there most of his lite, engaged in business of impor- tance. He was a general of the rev- olutionaries, an intrepid and inter- esting man. Director John F. Hayford of the Northwestern University College of Engineering died of heart disease the other day shortly after his determi- nation of the equatorial and polar diameters of the earth had been ac- cepted by the International Geodetic and Physical Union. He found the equatorial diameter to be 7,927 miles and the polar diameter, 7,900 miles. So the earth, as Newton inferred from the fact that it is a revolving body, is a slightly flattened sphere, but the | flattening isn’t much. Dr. Francis G. Bease of the Mount Wilson Observatory of the Carnegle Institute of Washington has deter- mined the diameter of the star Mira of the Consteilation of the Whale, showing that Mira and not Betel- geuse, as previously supposed, is the second largest known star, Antares (Constellation Scorpio) being _the argest. Mira was discovered by Fab- | ricius in 1696. It varies two-hundred- fold in brightness in an eleven-month period. Its light, moving at the rate of 186,000 miles a second, takes 165 years to reach the earth. is bad for soclety. Men and women who are thus crowded are not only feverish In body, but hectic in temper as human beings must be who have no quiet place in which to sleep and never have enough fresh air. An intelligent Englishwoman who has been traveling up and down our ~ountry sald recently that if all the world had American food to eat, in the quantities in which it is put be- fore us, Boishevism would disappear. That is, it {s pebple on short rations which are restless. They threaten revolt, as who would not if he went hungry and saw no other way to satisfy his hunger but to change the running of the world? You get the same dissatisfaction, the same desire to change things in overcrowded dis- tricts, with lack of air and elbow space, without “gardens and quiet. People Who never in the world would hate anybody hate all the world, and particularly the government under which they exist, when deprived of air and space. P Luckily for us, there are those who see this side of the matter and when they need to grow take their facto- ries to the country, build houses where there is land for the children to play, for the women to raise flowers, for the men to dig. Nothing is more heartening in all the country than a modern factory, set down far outside the city limits, with a gay, well plan- ned, well built, industrial village in its neighborhood. Here you have no destroying to employ, but spreading— and it does the work. This mania for tearing down and building higher creates terrible in- difference to beautiful things in our great _cities. There is New York. New York is rich enough to destroy anything, she boasts. She can de- stroy and replace without feeling it. At the same time New York doesn't feel herself rich enough to save a work simply because of its beauty. She is about to tear down one of the gayest, gladdest pleces of architecture in this or any country, a building perfectly fitted to be a people’s play- house, because she wants to build something bigger on the site, some- thing that will make money for somebody. New York Cit§ thinks she cannot afford to keep Madison Square Gar- den as a place of pleasure for her people, a thing for the country to look at when it comes a-visiting. She is wrong. She cannot afford to destroy the beautiful thing—simply because it is beautiful and adaptable. It is rare that both beauty and joyfulness are achieved in any work of art and they are far more precious than even a hundred stories all rented out at whacking prices! It is because of these limitations in this too common notion that there is something beneficent in tearing down and replacing that I protest against the theory and am grieved when I hear it defended by those from whom I am accustomed to hearing good and sound economic doctrine. (Copyright, 1925.) Fren(I Students Going to Work Living on herring has gone out of style in the students’ quarter of Paris. In the first place, the price of herring is far higher than it user to be. In the second place, spurred by American example, the students of Paris are giving up the venerable idea that to do manual labor for a living Is low and_dishonorable. The demand for intellectual work-—book reviewing, translating, copying—is so great in Faris that there is not enough to go around. The students must fall back upon jobs as walters, errand boys or valets—or go without food. Until recently, French students ob- jected to surrendering the tradition that thelr years at the university were a long holiday, during which they must live and be treated as “gentlemen.” Lately, however, they have been urged by their professors to pattern their conduct after that of many American college students— work their way through college” and achleve successful and honorable oareers. Howe About Beautiful Nonsense; Protecting the Dum- bells; Fools and Fights. BY E. W. HOWE, “The Sage of Potato Hill.” “ ONCE knew a man who was old, il and crippled. Suddenly he married a woman as unfit as himself. 1 was so displeased that word of my displeasure got about. I heard some one hobbling into my office. It was the bride. “I understand,” she said, “you did not like our marriage. 1 suppose you have observed that we didn’t hesi- tate on that account to get married. Good morning.” And then she hob- bled out before I was able to say a word. It is that way with all my more intense likes and dislikes. * K % * The silliest thing I have ever seen in print was found lately in one of the oldest and best known American magazines. 1 have read the passage many times, thinking that possibly there s beauty in it and that it has escaped me, but always I come to the same conclusion—it is the silliest thing I have ever read. The writer, a woman, says: “Last night in reading I came upon this quotation from Blake: ‘Every kindness to another is a little death in the Divine Image’ How marvel- ous. How infinitely beautiful. These words make my whole being stand still in a wonder of delight and wor- ship. I set down here ‘my ardent gratitude to Willlam Blake for hav- ing concelved anything so_marvelous with beauty and insight. When they came to him I think his whole being must have been standing on tiptoe reaching up to a higher shelf of thought than any of us shorter peo- ple could reach for ourselves. I am infinitely grateful to him for having been able to reach his high thought and to have handed it down to us dis- tilled into these lovely words. The words infected me with a wild rap- ture. They made me want to run about and shout with joy. How toxicating words may be. The lov liness of these words of Blake con- tinues to prick me with fresh de- light.” If T am mistaken, and this_ stuff is beautiful, I-am unfortunate. It an- gers me that I find such writing in a magazine costing me 35 a vear. I do not understand the quotation from Blake: and his admirer has further complicated it. I wish H. L. Mencken and Carl Van Doren, noted literary critics, would oblige me by giving an opinion of the awful mess quoted above. Tt is lit- erature or even good writing? Has it any meaning? Has an editor a right to buy such stuff and dignify it in thirteen pages? * k% % Daddy should hesitate a long time before engaging in 2 row with mam- ma. He will find all the women, most of the men, the courts, public opinion the newspapers and the funny men in the shows pretty generally against him. Look at that Michigan congress- man who had trouble with his lady. She is not only abusing her husband to general applause, but when she tells a tough story on the men he assocfated with a cheer goes up. And many of these stories are evi- dently made up, like jokes in a show. Meanwhile the husband has surely lost his job, and, when the courts get around to the question of alimony, he will lose his money. * K ok ok A man hears so few %ind things about himself that a compliment is liable to upset him. I once met a man and thought him good looking. In a printed reference to him later I so referred to him. It was a mistake; he immediately began gcting foolish, and continued in it until now he is in an asylum. Every row, great or small, is an at- tempt of fairly sensible men to keep the fools straight. This was true of the recent big row, the war, and it true of every little row in the humblest community. There are ways making a fuss because they are compelled to obey commonsense rules in the best interest of all. The fool is the world's greatest curse, and we are too lenient with him. For his good and for the good of all, he should be punished more promptly and h schemes laughed at. Many of hi schemes are now regarded with ver eration as great discoveries for hu man betterment, and decent peopls suffer a long time before his plan are finally discredited and deserted * * ¥ % I can never understand people who have photographs taken and then say they do not look like them. For, ¢ course, the photographs do look them. A wise gentleman in a recent writ ing says automobiles are not properly used; that the only remedy is to edu cate the people in their use. 1 know of nothing that is used properly; the remedy in everything is to educate the people. But a certain proportior of the people cannot be educated. So I see no hope—automobile accident will continue. In everything, thoss who have a little intelligence mus watch out constantly or be run into by others. It is foolish to hope for « world without trouble. We cure noth ing, and new evils are constantly ap pearing to annoy x x No reconciliation tween the physical and physical creature may thoughts, but cannot carry them out The physical life may be summed demonstrated, by today. vesterd last year, the past century, but ¥ cannot prove the spiritual yourself nor can vou find any one who tells reasonable story about it. If ¥ cannot prove a thing, it does not exist * x % ¥ There is a style of vehicle desiz nated as a coupe. The dictionary glves but one pronunciation of the word—koo-pa. But I heard a school teacher say lately that so many call it “coop” that it seems prudish to use the correct word. This is quite gen- erally the case in other things. Mil- lions who know better apparently in- dorse wrong words and principles rather than offend the ignorant. ST I have just put down a foreign magazine in which appears a state- ment by a dissenter in Turkish poli- tics. He sa: The press is muzzled. Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly mno longer exist. Independent opinion is suppressed, religion persecuted. We are forbidden to talk, to write, to be- leve, to think.” How familiar that talk! T have been hearing it in the United States ever since I can remember. It i heard in Africa, India, China, Japan in Australla, New Zealand, among the Indians of the plains and of the islands of the seven seas. It . corded in tablets now being earthed in the buried cities of tiquity. And here it is in the latest print Yet T doubt the story was ever t anywhere. The people have nev been forbidden to talk, to think, write, to believe. What liars men are! ‘What old lies they tell! And we are all reformers on « side or the other. There is occasion- ally something new in most things but the lies we tell are always the same. 1t we should become as persistent In fairness, politeness, as we have been in misrepresenting and trying to injure each other, surely it would be better and easier. Those on my side, stung by the lies told about us by the opposition, in- vent greater lies. Perhaps some one hurls a stone. Then a fight, a riot and gerleral wa Isn't it surprising that the weakest of us are unable to realize the ab- is possible be- spiritual. A have spiritua an plenty of sensible men to run the world properly, but the fools are al- surdity of it all? (Copyright, 1925.) Charge Anti-Aircraft Trials Were Spoiled by “Economy” (Continued from First Page.) the shells now being used and the fuses will be more sensitive and less erratic. Lack Modern Planes. Just how thls development will compare with the progress of air power, however, still is as uncertain as it was before the tests werc held. Air service officers say they are restricted in their operations by lack of modern machines. Gen. Mitchell pointed out to the observers who visited Langley Field on their trip to Fort Monroe that, with the exception of the 12 ma- chines which happened to be visit- ing Langley at that time, all the others were “but junk.” They were war-time products. Many of them had been rebuilt, repaired and re- conditioned in a way that kept them serviceable, he said, but did not com- pare with modern craft. Just as the anti-aircraft guns are belng made more effective, 5o are the airplanes being developed. The new types of alrcraft give a greater cruising radius, an increased speed of flight, more flexible air maneuver abllity and more protection from hos- tile opponents, either on the ground or in the air. Also they can be oper- ated at times when weather condi- tions would force the older types to keep on the ground. Their carrying capacity, measured in terms of bombs, personnel, fuel or other load factors, have been stepped up. Airmen Are Confident. So, the Air Service experts sav, let the anti-alrcraft ground defenses have their new guns. Give us ma- chines to fly which are as modern as their guns, and we have no more to fear from gunfire than we do now with the ships We are using. The question of relative values, therefore, appears likely to keep its present interest as gunfire gains in efficiency and the airplane gains pro- portionately in speed, bombing and machine-gun_accuracy and can be lifted to higher altitudes. The race can be continued between the two services—anti-aireraft and aviation— until the maximum possibilities of each are found. But as far as experts of the two departments can foresee the final heat of the race will end with the ground gun and the aero- plane each in about the same valu: tion it now rates. It was the expressed opinion of both Army and Navy ordnmance ex- perts, as stated after the three-inch gun tests against the airplane-towed targets, that little could be expected from a battery of two guns of the 1918 model and fed with war-time ehrapnel in that demonstration, The slow rate of fire was as unimpressive as was the accuracy of fire. Some thought the machines passed so swiftly, with the targets fiying at the end of steel cables 1,800 feet long, that the fire-control devices of the battery could not be kept up. It was plain to the spectators that the ma- jority of the bursts were In the rear of the target, and the failure of the guns to correct that defiection strengthencd the opinion thal the fire control was teo siow to be corrected on the swift-moving target Critics of the airplane were out spoken in their praise of the demon stration given at all times during the tests by the Army air pilots. T machines arose from Langley Field in the face of a wind officially measured at the time at 83 miles velocity. That stunt alone, it was said, could not have been successfully accomplished several years ago. The air exhibition was spectacular. The pursuit and combat planes pre ceded the big bombers in a simulated attack on a warship silhouette. Thev swooped down through the air on dangerous angles of descent, opened machine guns on the target and let loose a veritable hailstorm of 25- pound demolition or personnel bombs Just as swiftiy as they came on their downward course, with motors cut out, they banked upward and away, fiving zigzagged and with quick changes in elevation, making in every respect much more difficult targets for ground guns than did the targets which the bombers towed on steady courses at right angles to the guns and within ranges averaging about 5,000 feet for the three-inch rifles when the gunnery tests were held. Since the guns failed to score a single actual hit on the targets, it is 4 conservative estimate that the casual- tles to the air forces during the Lang ley Fleld exercises would have been minor indeed Planes Beat Searchlights. The airplanes scored another clean- cut victory over the anti-aircraft de- tenses of the fort in the night prob- lem. That was to have been a demon stration of anti-aircraft fire and searchlight illumination of aircraft as they flew over the fort on a theo- retical bombing mission. It turned out to be an illumination of the fort from the air, the planes dropping blinding flares, throwinig the figures on the ground, as well as the guns and the walls of the fortification, into a strong relief picture, visible to the aviators and for the moment blinding to the ground troops. Suffice it to say that none of the airplanes which participated in this phase of the tests was found by the searchlight oper- ators until the lights carried by the aireraft had been flashed on to show their whereabouts. In this problem, however, the searchlights used were of modern de- velopment, equipped to throw a beam 19,000 feet into the air. They were assisted by sound-detecting devices. designed to register the range and direction of the airplane. It was a clear, starlight night, the sort when searchlights work to the best advan- tage and the aeroplanes should be the easier spotted. The lights were planted along a circular line, laid down well beyond the fortification itself for the purpose of illuminating the aircraft with their beams and making targets of them for the guns before the ships got over the fort or in a position to bomb it. The ma- chines got into bombing positions directly over the main fortifications apparently with little, if any, danger from the searchlights or the ground defcnses,