Evening Star Newspaper, March 22, 1925, Page 41

EDITORIAL PAGE NATIONAL- PROBLEMS SPECIAL ARTICLES _Part 2—12 Pages "PEACE RATED GERMANS’ CHIEF HOPE AT PRESENT War of “Revenge” Unlikely for Years, if Ever, Provided Territory Is Evac- uated, Says Observer. BY FRANK H. ERLIN.—In previo from the German capital I have discusced the outward appearance of Berlin and its inhabitants and the prospect of tha republic as disclosed by such evidance as I could obtain In my fairly wide range of conversations, both with Germans and with Ameri- can and British residents here In dealing with the appearance of the peoplo 1 emphasized the fact, which is still more strongly impressed upon me daily, that one has the feeling of encountering a people which has suf- fored terribly and well nigh univer- silly has only recently escaped from gravest anxieties and is stil} reveal- ing many signs of the experience. As to the future of the republic, I mought to make clear that the best opinions which were available agreed the probability that for five, and perhaps ten, years the republic could 16t be overthrown, even by these who were most determined enemies, hecause of the foreign <omplications which would result. At the same tima I indicated that even the oppo- | nents of the republic conceded that | within five years or ten the republic might easily become so firmly estab- lished that it would survive, as did | the present French Republic. | Republic Belleved Strons. | The best thing said to me about the republic was the warning of a woman of the old monarchist circle, | who said, with utmost frankness: IpAst remember one thing—any one who tells vou anything positive about SIMONDS. dispatches swift and easy triumphs of 1866 and the long agony of the 1870, but with 1914-1924, which penetrated to very tiniest detail in the life of every individugl German and took from him most of all that life had had of com- fort, of pleasure, of security—indeed, of the viry smallest necessities of life Long Period of Misery. For the German, the declarations of war in the first week of August, 1914, mark the beginning of a period of aightmare which had hardly ended 10 years later. That Is what war meant and means to the German people—to all of them, save perhaps 4 handful of old officers and old offi- cials, who lost all and cannot regain anything save through some new con- vulsion. War meant to the German people in 1914 the short and glorious sweep to Parls, a second 1870, with conquered provinces. high indemni- ties and all that accumulation of glory. It means now 10 indescrib- able’ years of privation, of misery, ending in the utter prostration of their country, the loss of provinces the loss of the individual bank ac count, along with the obligation to pay reparation indemnities. At least, if and when he goes to war again, every German will think of what is coming, with only the vivid memory of the recent past, he can have no illusions and he will have none. That is why It is prac- tically impossible to conceive of Ger- At | M8ny rushing to war in the active! lifetime of the men and women who know the recent struggle. One must the republic. as to lts lasting or as to its falling, distrust him.” 1f T were | a betting man and had to base my wager on the comment which 1 have €0 far heard, 1 uld incline an the republic. | would not suggest that it would be a sure thing, but the weizht of opinion seems to favor its| ultimate survival, as it unhesitatingly | asserts its present security, for up- ward of a decade. Now, bearing these preliminary cir- cumstances in mind, what of the for-| eign policy of Germany, what are the aims and objectives of the men who are directing and will direct German affairs for some time? Once more it is essential 10 emphasize the fact that one is not dealing with a clear and open situation. Exploring in Ger- ‘many now Is like traveling in a doubt- ful state in a presidential election to Teport the probable outcome. It is @ll a speculation. You can find any- thing here you came here to find, be- chuse of mind is repre- | sented. The supreme difficulty is to | find way assessing the com- » strength of the separate ele- | wents | sh to bet every state Yet one must realization Deople w termost i 1 think, begin by the | it one is dealing with & | us to the ut- of & lost war.” Whether man people underwent greater than the allled countrles during the struggle is a matter of conjecture. For myself, I doubt it Butl certainly since thd armistice and the signing of the treaty no allied country has known anything remotely comparable to the misery and moral and physical turmoll of the Germans during the period of the Ruhr. privations % Disaster After the War. The war hrought | [ the about the over- | rmy and of the whole | ]l strength, which in | minds was impregnable. n. however incomplete | strained, did sweep away all| left of a monarchy and of | monarch< almost overnight, while the circumstances of their going was | well nigh fatal to their future hopes. Then finally the inflation period de- mtroved the money of the country and educed people suddenly te an incon- | of barter. The sav- litetime suddenly became the earnings of three were barely enough te buy stockings at one moment and one stocking five minutes later. The never was a madder, more fantaptic, more incredible witches' than that through which Ger- many passed a vear and a half ago. v it the fault of ans them- <elves? Perhaps. E the fact re- that, without knowledge of | or with false explanations millions and millions of | isrmans passed through this incredi- | hie iod. 1t was for them the cul- minat perience of the war, not | to be scparated in their minds from | the wai itself. Thus the war, which #hithe German pre-war conception 925 o end in three months, actually, Hithe strain and misery, lasted 10 years. and first and last overturned Ardkctically ev foundation stone of sir existence. Moday the recovery {s beginning— sdetovery economie, political, moral— J) the sen<c of a recovering of men- A1 balan And as this recovery be- 4ins the outside world Is patiently A<King with anxiety, will this mean th& return to the old Germany, of the Garmany which to the allied minds is fvnonymous with militarism and War? ‘Thus the main question one| J=dr= on all sides in lLondon, Paris, 4nd even {n Washington, is: Is Ger- Qiahy planning a new war? Is the| r of revenge inevitable? | Extreme Views Are Held. ow. It you want fo find evidence stich a purpose, signs of such a ermany, then it will not be difficult. e Nationalist newspapers, the ex- reme organs, give plenty of disquist- & slgns. In a wav. it is precisely h¢ sama situation of last year. whan hany of my English friends on the Aberal and Labor side pointed with axror to the Chauvinistic utterances f newspapers like the Echo de Paris “There is France for you!" they sald with indignation. But when I finally oama to France, what 1 found gen- | crally was something quite different— gomething which revealed itself speedily in the election of last Spring, and for once quite satisfied my Eng- lish friends. Now, the sense I have of Germany at the moment is decidedly not of a country rushing determinedly and unitedly toward a war of revenge. You cannot quite confront the evi- dences of past suffering, of present anxiety, which are evervwhere, and feel that any people which has suf- fersd so manifestly will run to a new struggle, which must mean a repeti- tion of the recent agonies, with en~ thusiasm. If Germany had heen the ons country many believed in alliad countries, as I myself tended to helleved, which escaped most lightly from the conflict, got off with only !‘thrfl('(.] scratches. then one might fxpect one sat of things But I have seen nothing in Germany to suggest the feeling that Germany ~soaped anvthing. You have on avery side and in all circumstances the -ense of a paople which was beaten ich know it was heaten, and which s cclate war, not with the throw of m of 1 erman volut and e that caivable state of a manths Aance [ the cause signed as | such look to the new generation to expect war, if at all. One must look to the tima when the immediate truths of the last war have passed from the nge of experience ta that of gends. For what it is worth, then, give my first conviction, which that the muss of the Girman people have xdequately educated In the is been | meaning of war Now, then, on the state of public mind will the government seek in foreign affairs? What Is the direction of German policy? The people and the officials are equally conscious of Ger- man impotenice. The Frenchman talks of the eventual German menace when Germany recovers; the German tells you quite simply that to risk war now would be to commit suicide, because French, Polish and Czech armies would overrun his territory from all directions almost over night. basis of this what can and Might Grow Desperate. Nevertheless, the German undec certain circumstances, fight, in despair now, in hope ultimately, un- less certain present convictions hould be abplished. 1f the allied armies stay on the Rhine, if the French feeling of fnsecurity leads to the practical scrapping of the provi- sions of the Treaty of Versailles, with respect (o the evacuation of the three zones, beginning with Cologne, then the chances of peace in Europe are exactly nil. The German—mil- lons of him, all of him—I think, Is convinced that it Is the real purpose of France to prevent German recov- ery, stay on the Rhine, dominate a helpless Germany By contrast, if the present govern- ment is able in negotiation with the British and the French to reach a settlement by which the Cologne area s evacuated this Summer, simultane- ously with the Ruhr, as was agreed at London; if the fact is made clear by this evacuation that at pointed dates the other areas will be vacnated, then the most potent weapon In the hands of those who would restore the old regime, repeat the old policy, plan and deliver a war might, | of revenge, would vanish, Every German with whom 1 have talked has sald, in substance, that all hope of peace in the world is contin- gent upon the restoration to Germany in the West of what the Treaty of Versallles left here. All have satd— and I do not mean to attempt to as- sess the value of the testimony—that Germany would not make war to re- cover Alsace-Lorraing, but that all hope of a restoration of living condi- tlons between their own country and their neighbors must be based upon the performance of the treaty in respects as it held out assur- ances to Germany Basis of Animonity. Today the hatred of France dominating emotion with Germans. One must not disguise it. Germans would, I think, despite ail that they have suffered from war, respond to a call to arms agalnst France. But the basis of the hatred is the conviction that France means to stay on the Rhine, to creats a vast Alsace-Lor- raine in the area that Paris treatles assigned to Germany, that Britain is too weak or too seifish to restrain France. and that America will not lift a finger. Tomorrow, if the evacuation were assured and begun, I am bound to say that it seems to me the basis of hatred, the sense of present griev- ance, would disappear. This cause of war would disappear. because, in my judgment, while most Germans would fight to recover the Rhineland and the Saar, few Germans would run all the risks of a new catastrophe simply for the moral or immoral satisfac- tion of paying off a French score. At least, you have the French parallel ter 1870, and merely to recover Al- mace-Lorraine no sensible Frenchman advocated a war of revenge. The sufferings of the “terrible vear” were oo deeply burned into the minds of the French people. Every German with whom I have talked has quite freely conceded the need of finding some way to give France a sense of security in return for French evacvation of German territory. There is an almost curious readiness to give any kind of German assurance, to assent to any Franco- British-German compact which would establish as inviolable the frontlers of the west as laid down at Paris. But, incomprehensibly to the German, the Frenchman is not satisfied with this pledge. He wants some other assurance. He will not trust. And this dissatisfaction easily transl itself in Germany into a hidden deaire to stay on the Rhine—to hold Ger- wmany down. Middle Course Advised. If you are Francophile, you can beliave that France must be protected agalnst an inevitable German attack; if you are Germanophile, you can just as easily believe that the peace of the world is threatened bacause a wicked and militaristic France means to hold German territory. and thus dominate Europe again, Byt If you are even a moderately sane human being, must perceive that either the peace of Europe has become a mere dream and all European civilization 1is doomed or that there must be suffi« 5 (Continued on Third Rage.) the ap-| is the | you | - EDITORIAL SECTION he Swnday Staf WASHINGTON, D. C, SUNDAY How His Vermont Neighbors Feel Toward The Man Coolidge Made Attorney General BY LOUIS M. LYONS. LUDLOW, Vt., March'18. OW has the frontier come home to' New England. ~The ap- pearance of “Gary”' Sargent in the cabinet of the Presi- dent of the United States robs the West of its glamour. It seems almost & fabulous figure that has stalked out of these Vermont hills to & Key post in the Coolidge administratfon. So much lore and legend cling to his ca- reer that it is next to impossible to distingulsh fable from fact, that no fabrication could improve. 1t is as though & great, good genls of the North, striding from his lair to take over the administration of the laws, had lef: a trail of affectionately cherished but Incredible tales that de- light hearts of children.’ ‘ * % k% 4 But to set the new. Attorney Gen- eral down simply as a favorite son, or as a picturesque character, s only to hint at his story. He seems to have been a sort of great-hearted Uncle Horace to the voung folks and a spoiled child of half the old ladies in several townships. His appetite, his bulk, his dress, his manners and his ways are a part of the unwritten history of Vermont. His habits and build, taken together with his knack of getting on with his fellow men, probably rival the en- semble of any character in recent American history. He collects pipes. Hs collects clocks. He is an antiquarian. He is tinker. He has the biggest office the State of Verment, and exte nally the plain He long had a hob- by of honing razors and has often asked to be allowed to take home dull | razors for even casual acquaintances to put in shape. He reads French and Italian newspapers when | he hasn't anything else to do. He stil] drives a Dpair of Morgan horses into a loose-jointed Democratic wagon, | though he has three automobliles. He loves to farm and to camp out. When he soes camping he does the cooking. Intimates who have been in- vited on fishing trips with him at his camp have vivid recollections of wak- ing the first morning in eamp to hear a xiant's naked feet paddling sround the kitchen, and then to see Sargent's great frame in flapping nightshirt as he atood over the breakfast. 1 ok ox % | In Rutlang, his nearest home city, i | la i | hem and in Montneiier, the State capltal, he is a familiar figure in buff-colored, broad-brimmed hat and coonskin coat, with tails flapping out from what is | described as a harness strap. with | which he girds his middle, letting the strap ends fall into one of the capa- | clous side pockets. He carries a rudi- mentary medicine kit in his lawyer's | bag and hi been known to apply un- solicited ald to sufferers from colds and sore throats upon the merest scratch acqualntance. He is maild to wear aize 14 shoe which he has to have made to order. One day, the tale is told, the local shoe clerk hafled him going by with, “Oh, | general, one of your shoes came up by today’s frelght. The other'll prob- ably be along tomorrow. eneral” is the titls of respect given to. him since he was attorne: general of Vermont, by those neigh- bors and acquaintances who formerly used what Mrs. Sargent calls “his | Irish nickname, ‘Gary.'” His “Irish nickname” is short for Garibaldi. | The fact is his front name would | have been of little practical use as a | handle for Mr. Sargent in his earlfer days, befors his brothers moved Wast, for his father had an amazing affec- tion for the mame John. It was his | name and had been his father's betore | him. He gave it to all of his four sons. The first was Jehn Garibaldl, the second John Rudbari, the third John Wesley. A fourth sen died in infancy. Of two sisters, one was named plain Minnie, the other May Jane Ina. And It 1= with “Gary"” Sargent a though the whole State were his na- tive village. ' * o ox % One can talk all day with his neigh- bors and never get a glimmer of & notion that this genial glant is one of the most conservative of mortal There 18- nothing in the tales of his foibles and hobbies to suggest the b, gest corporation Jawyer in Vermont. In few communities would it delight the hearts of the lowly to learn that the attorney for such an array of big business in the Standard Ofl Co., the Boston and Maine Rallroad, the Ver- mont Hydroelectric Power Corporation, the American Express Co. and the Trayelers’ Insurance Co., had been ment machiinery of the Nation. But it was like a Christmas message when the magic waves of radis wafted the news of “Gary” Sargent's appoint- ment down into the nooks and eclu | tered crannies of the Green Mountain: In the barber shops and on the cer- ners, the village folk were ejaculating their delight. “Well, I haven't heard nothin’ in a leng timé that's tickled me 30" w a typical comment frem a farmer from the outskirts of tewn. ““They may think he's a cheese box,” put in another, “but they'll find down there ‘Gary’ Sargent’s got something under that old brown brim.’ placed in command of the law-enforce- | MORNING, MARCH PRI i b “GARY” SARGENT, VERMONTER. Mrs. Sargent's Fuvorite Picture of the New Attorney Gemeral. with apples. he has not outgrow in separate papers through to Spring. ok ox % Five milles out of Ludlow two shab- by, old farmsteads flank the deeply rutted brown road. In these homes of an earlier day began the close re- lationship between the family of Cal- vin Coolldge and the family of John Garfbaldi Sargent. The great-grand- to keep | father of the President and the grand- father of ed on his new Attorney General opposite sides of the same His appetite for kppl'!] They wrap them | posed. them | of &0, 1 icap of his country schooling had im- | He finished fourth in a class | But he had time to be a huge £00d fellow among his classmates, to enjor the rough and tumble of cam- pus life enormously and to play center rush on the foot ball team. He weighed 300 then and his six-foot-four made him a landmark. There is a | story of a little opponent who had the | the streak of road in a time before mow- | ing machines. Not far from that road, on a farm not unlike either of those, “Gary” Sar- gent was born on an Octobar day in 18360. His people later moved farther back into the hilis. to an isolated farm nearly 3 miles back of Col. idge's general store at Plymouth. It was 0 far back that the boy “Gary” 4ldn't havae a chance to go to distri scheol until he was 10. By that time he was a great, gawky boy, almost as competent- as & hired man behind the plow or in the woods. Before he fin- ished district school at 16 he could outdo his father's man hoeing or mowing, or eating fried cakes. He was a handy lad, and he inherited, to- gether with a Yankee thrift, a knack with his hands, ‘with an Irish buoy- ancy and keenness, and from the mix- ture a blend of character that is sug- gosted by the almost cynical geniality of his comfortable countenance. His ancestry has been described by 2 local historian as half Irish on one side and all Irish on the other. His mother, . Ann Eliza. Hanley, was born on a Vermont farm of Protestant Irish immigrants. = His father’s mother, too, a Henmon, was of recent Irish strain. ! But the name Sargent has been native to Vermont almost since Ethan Al- len's day. His father was never well off, not even as comfortably off as the Cool- idges in the notch below Sargent Hill. Often he had to ask a needed hand to | wait for his money 'til some logs were sold. When “Gary” went away to school, at the Vermont Literary In- stitute in Plymouth Union, he used to carry a big bex of crackers on a Mon- day merning, and a full pail of milk, and live largely on orackers and milk through the week until he was home again, * xix X Sargent taught a Winter in district mchool when he was 19. There are mothers of grown daughters in South Reading and Five Corners who yet re- member getting their lessons from the “Suppose they'll have to laugh: at |him a little at first in Washington,” chuckled a meighbor. “Guess ‘Gary’ can stand that.” Up in Plymouth Notch the radio an- nouncement went to the right spet with Col. John Coolidge. The Presi- dent's father was actually merry over the appointment. ‘Why, I've known ‘Gary’ Safgent, man and boy,” he sald. “Always known him. Knew his father. His grandfather and mine were clo: nefghbors on the Ludlow road. The President has known him all his life. Used to see him as a little fellow when Gary's father'd drive down to the store with his oxcart to buy feed and groceries The colonel chuckles and then laughs right out when he thinks of his early | recollection of & small boy with a big appetite, who used to come over to the house where Col. Coolidge lived and help himself to a candle, lizht it, go to the cellar and A1 his pock rustic glant from Plymouth. Then, older than most college graduates of his day, Sargent entered Black River Academy in Ludlow, 15 miles from his father's home, and for four years worked his way toward college en- trance. He Md everything that he could turn his hand to with profit. He cut students’ hair; a trick he had from being the family bafber on the farm. He came naturally by his zest for honing razors. And he used to work in ‘the woods at what was counted a skilled form of artisanship then, shav- ing scythe snaths from ash poles. He boarded with an uncle, bringing the bulk of his frugal fare with him in potato sacks from the home farm. This interval at the village acade- my rouxh-tewed the farm lad for a mature entry into Tufts College in Medford, Mass., where several school chums had gone before him. At Tufts he did chores and taught French and plugged at his books, ridding himseif of a burden of condition that the hand- Cool- | | ot Ingenuity to dart between the lsgs of colossus at center, for a handy zain, and the tale concludes that Sar- gent was incapacitated for pursuit by his own hilarity over the method of attack * o ox o He was at graduation, and he meant to be a teacher. He went home and got married that Summer to a lovely girl named Mary Gordon. While he was walting for school terms to commence, Willlam C. Btickney, one the rising lawyers of the State, suggested that Sargent study law In his ofice. So the bridegroom grad- uate moved into father-in-law’ house and Mr. Stickney gave him desk room. Three vears later he was ad- mitted to the Vermont bar and to part- nership with hix employer. Mr. Stickney became governor. He made his junior partner one of his secretaries, and that let him into the innards of politics in Vermont. He has never been outside since, though his has often been an influence that was felt only at the center of the political situatfon. He won a reputation as State’s at- torney for Windsor County a quarter century ago by his success in catching and convicting a pair of notorious murderers of a local sheriff. Col. Coolldge, as a deputy, served most of the writs he issued. Ten years later he had the same job on a State-wide scale, when he was elected the first attorney general of Vermont in 1308, and again in 1810. His work carried him to the far cor- ners of Vermont, and the fame of his bulk, his appetite and his canniness with juries spread throughout the State. He used to drive his span of black Morgans to the courts within a day's ride of Ludlow, and into dls- tricts but infrequently accessible by the rather incidental railroad service. He had to put up at farmhouses and small inns, and at all of them he .is vividly remembared. He would drive n at wayside farms perhaps late in the evening, after a leng day, order supper and kick off his shoes while he waited. Then, after a meal to stag- ger even a Vermont farm wife, he would lle down for a cat map full length an the sitting room floor. Home from these legal jaunts, he put on old clothes and worked around the zarden, Or, if he could’ snatch a day or two clear, he would hitch up his Morgans and drive the family out to the old farm, a dozen miles from Ludlow, where he loved to rusticate in a camp he had largely constructed himself. Here his intimate friends were often entertained. It was the base for fishing trips. He loves to fish and is an expert marksman, * %k % Busy as he has been all his life, he is a comfortable man who knows how to drop thé world's business for a day’s boylsh play. Perhaps that ac- eounts for his tremendous capacity for work. Often he works in his cozy den until 3 in the morning. But be- tween stacks of work he has snatches of ease that he hugely enjoys. His work has taken him to Boston, New York and Washington. He has repr santed his State In its long-standing boundary dispute with New Hamp- 29, 1925. shire. He has headed tne State com- mission on revising the statutes. He has had such offices and honors as he has cared to accept, and the cream of the law business of his State. Buc he has kept his office always in his home village, and there, too, is his only home. He has literally hired a hall. It used to be the lodge hall. It is 36 feet by 27, striding it off. Great car- pets cover the floor; law books line the walls. A desk of cabinet size is toward one side, with pipes and to- bacco and writing materials littered upon it Near the center of the room is a wood stove that would hold a quarter of a cord of maple, unsawed. It is fed with 4-foot sticks. Down one side of the room, half the length of a subway station, stretches a benchlike table on which open law books overlap 4t the statutes to which they were last opened. An office for a Titan. The other partners have offices of normal size, and in cubby-holes beyend are desks of the clerks and law students who seek advancement in the law with the distinzuished firm, even as “Gary™ Sargent dld Perhaps it is in his home you com- plete the picture of Sargent. It is a | plain brick house, just across the bridge from the village. You see the red barn as quickly as you see the house and the orchard and henhouse beyond. Inside, the first im- pression is of substantjal comfort, with ro sign of wealth. The second fmprsssion is of the ticking of many clock:. After that impressions blend into suffusion of warmth, cozin tasteful old-fashioned furniturs the smeil of nine logs in several great open fires. A tall, dark, friendly you welcome and takes your wraps. Mrs. Sarzent fits into the lurking hos- uitality of that home too perfeatiy not 10 have heen the creator of every de- tail of its arrangement gracious gentle hostess she ix. one it is bard to picture transplanted from the home | atmosphere she has fashioned here to the great transiency of Washington. There is a plate of rosy red big apples on the table. Such apples in| March any guest would set down as artificlal, untfl by invitatien he is munching one and exclaiming that it 1s McIntosh, by all the rules of pomelo- £Y outseasoned two months ago They are boiling sap this week, Son-in-law Frank Pearson superin- tending the sapping. Those pine logs | whose pungence attracted from | the hall are cut on the woods lot that | stretches up back of the house. The | 75 meres of village farm stretches away from the window, a big panel pane with a seat full of begonias and fer woman makes you * x * * A cluster of pipes Is over the fire- place. There are nine fireplaces in the brick house. Half of them were going the evening of Mr. Sargent's appointment. Clocks, great old-fash- foned clocks, each with a history, stand on tables, mantels and in the corners. There are nine in one room, any one | of which would gladden the heart of an antiquarian, Mr. Sargent not only collects thes | elocks, but he repairs them and makes | whole new wooden works for those | that have zone nast tims-keeping days. A bench in his workshop, in the all off the living room, is cluttered with clockworks and pipes and tinker's tools. A story of an old neighbor who loves him ilke a apoiled nephew accounts for one of the clocks. It had long at- tracted his collector’s eye in the hum- bls cottage of a neighbor who worked for his father. He insisted on every | call he made thers that his old friends | must leave him that clock in their will. | Finally one dav the dear old lady, who | had humored him since his doughnut- begging days, sald to him: “You might as well have the clock. Yeu'll never be satisfled without it. Just ai soon as we get another clock to tell time, you can have it.” The next week a handeome modern clock came by ex- press from Rutland, and Mr. Sargent ot his antique. The eve roams from elocks and fire- places to the book-filled mantels and the loosely arranged hookshelves in the corners and through the door in the shop. A full met of Kipling flls one mantel. Beveridge's life of Johf Marshall is impressive in its solid volumes, There is a full set of Britan- nica back against the wall and remi- niscences of Chauncey Depew alongside the varfous Coolldge books that have recently been published. The Waver- ley novels are there, Wells' history, books by Jack London and Winston Churchill and all ‘of W. W. Jacobs. There are Bacon’s esays and Whate- ley's annotations.. Sterne and Thack- eray and “Tom Jones” flavor his work- =hop shélves, and there are several books on fungi and bird life and con- siderable sprinkling of best sellers, present and past A great framed enlargement of a snapshot of Mr. Sarent rests on the plano. It 1s his wife's favorite ple- ture of him, taken at his eamp and showing him with long, curved pipe, flannel shirt, knee breeches and ex- posed galluses. His thick brown hair is gray only at the edges. His girth is lessened since that picturs was taken. He was Il two vears ago with a diabetic attack that took nearly 100 pounds off the giant heft. But his family insist he is In first-rate health again now and that the heavy burden of his new office should not wear mors heavily on him than the grist of work he has habitually turned off. The family consists of his wife and daughter, Mrs. Gladys Gordon Pear- son, her boyish husband and their 7- year-old daughter, Mary Gordon, a pal of her grandfgather's and as great a horse lover he is. She has three Shetland ponies and the villagers ses her go at full canter through the main street most any afternoon with a little girl neighbor riding at her side. * ok % o* “Gary” Sargent's brief case is one of the best known lost parcels in the Green Mountain region. He ia always leaving it on trains or in offices. But he never worries about it. It always NEW SPIRIT for a Complete Sentiment BY N. 0. MESSENGER. HO can remember the time when the favorite indoor sport of legislators and politicians was to harass the railroads? Ons does not have fo hark back upon the trail of memory very far to locate the campfire ashes of the who leaped joyously into the on- slaught on the railroads as soon a they came into the limelight or to a favorable scene of action Now it is all the other wav. To help and facilitate the railroads is the approved order of the day among legislators. Men are taking advanced position on remedial efforts, which would have been deemed impossible a few years ago. Recognizing that the promperity of the railroads constitutes a material and necessary element in national prosperity, they are saeking now to help by practical legislation. rather than to hinder by demagogical and fallacious restriction As Congress folded its tents, and, like the Arab, silently stole away, one for the next session bulked in the congressional program the two houses shall meet again. The prospect seems now as- sured that favorable action will be had early in the next session on legis lation authorizing the consolidation of railroads. Just a few vears ago the very mention of this proposition would have caused the anti-railroad poiiticlans in Congress to foam at the mouth. It was as the sight of water to a vietim of hydrophobia when Comnolidati Why, railway Sensiment Strong. sentiment on consolidation the subject of has progressed the point whers it is now sug- gested to practicglly make rallway merger compulsory. Friction between the rallroads and objections hy tain State railroad commissions exist against some features of posed. but there will he taking up the subject Congrees 1o Iron out th President Coolidge, Chairman Wat- son of the Senate committes on in- terstate commerce and the Inter- state Commerce Commission itself &re all deeply interested in the sub- jeot and are expected to give it close atfention during the congressional recess. The hopeful featurs of the outlook for the future and of the expectation of something constructive being _accomplished lias In the changed attitude of the public and the politicians toward railways. Dlans time bhefore in the next features pro- In Polities Adjourned? Speaking of politics, it was auently sald after the country taken the hurdle of the nat tion Congress that “politics fra- had nal elec- had gotten wway s adjourned Well s it now? Here comes Charles W Bryan. the Demooratic candidate for Vice Presidant in the last campaign, after a long tour by automobile through the South following a visit to some Western States, with some new ideas for the rehabilitation of the Democratic party. He does not warm up (o the suggestions of Franklin D. Roosevelt for an early “get-together” conference to prepare for a solld Democratic front in 1928 Mr. Bryan thinks that the future of the Democratic party rests with the prograssives of the West working with the solid democracy of the South, regarding the future of and | democracy of the East as practically a lost cause Mr. Bryan cannot see a Democratic party in the East being set up which would command the support of the Degocrats of the West and South In the West the Democratic party HE need for mora complets, de- tailed ‘information regarding the Aleutian Islands, which was emphasized when the world flyers were preparing for their epochal achfevement of cfr cumnavigating the globe by is about to be met by Col. E. Lester Jones, director Coast and Geodetic Survey, pleted arrangements. with the co- operation of the Coast Guard service, by which during the field season of 1925 a party equipped for the first time with modern scientific apparatus constructed especlally for this work will make & very careful exploration of these fslands. Not quite a year ago the world fiyers were undergoing their first great test—the cromsing of the Pa- cific. It will be remembered that they utllized the chain of islands known as the Aleutians to make their flight possible. While they were able to get sufficient Information for their immediate requirements from the va- rlous Government bureaus whose ac- tivities extend to this region, espe- cially the Coast and Geodetic Survey and the Coast Guard, attention was focused on the need for more accu- rate surveys in this region of the has com Existing Mapa Inadequ: The Coast and Geodetic made an exploratory trip in the 70s, and later some of its vessels made special crulses, but little was accom- plished, according to modern stand- ards, in that region west of Unalaska Island, except the survey of Kiska Island. The Coast Guard has made yearly trips in connection with its Ber- ing Sea patrol and the maintenance of order throughout the islands, and in- cidentally collected information, but the fact remains that this region is relatively unexplored and is more In- adequately mapped than any region under the jurisdiction of the United States. The extent of the area covered by the Aleutians is much\ greater than most people realize. Dutch Harbor, on Unalaska Island, near the eastern end of the group, is 1,700 miles from Seattle, and it is nearly half this dis- tance, or 750 miles, from Dutch Har- bor to Attu Island, the westernmost of the group. The whole group, with contiguous waters with such depth as to require survey, probably covers an area of 25,000 square miles. An adequate survey with a large sur- veying vessel would cost a sum which the present amount of shipping scarcely warrants, and would require many years, while the demands for surveys elsewhere in Alaska to meet pressing commercial needs neces- sarily puts such a project far in the future. WIll Start at Key Point. However, the most pressing needs are concentrated at certain points, Survey comes back te him. Why? Because i's "Gary™ Sareent's. (Copyright, 1925.) , worked out and on this basis a plan has been for aitacking the prob- lem this season. The Coast and Geo- Consolidation acmagogues | the | airship, | Uncle Sam. | IS SHOWN TOWARD THE RAILROADS Marks Reversal in Public Opinion. | has been badly shot dependent move stage of the pr very precarious basis. Mr. Bryan contends that the Democratic party cannot hope to outbid and should not attempt to outhld the Republican par- ty for the high tariff and financial vote of the East, becauss, he sayvs it Is out of our reach and out of sympathy with the grest Democratic principles the party represents.” For |the Democratic pariy to lead tha | massex of the people in the next con test, he contends, it will be necessary for them to be specific on the big na- tional economic in which the | voters of the South and West are In- terested, and adds | Al local issues and all other | sues dividing the parties glong raclal | or religlous lines must be forgotten 1f | the party is to represent the masses | of the peope as a whole on questions | that really affect the Nation.’ | It will be recalled that after Democratic national convention year William Jennings Bryan self, the brother of the candidate pressed the sentiment that the East was hdbelessly lost and the party would have to turn to the Wess and |South for any hope of victory. Tha respective ideas advanced by the Br an brothers and Franklin D. Roose velt are calculated to receive a great deal of comment from Democratic leaders over the country and the Democratic press to p nts and ecdings is es by in- at this upon 2 t last him- Eyes on Next Congreas. Some of the leaders &re a hold that it is look begin to consider Democratie disy far and ¢ active afield to sntend preser ne 5 there is ot There is Represen naas nstance paign commitine the first job for the the congressic carry that this »f excommuni i always the task of the party has been ousted in na | to devote its attention next to carry | Ing the House of Representatives in the succeeding congressional election | This 1s based on the proposition | which has so frequently been demon- | strated of the reaction of public senti- | ment, expressed: in ational election by the party in |ing the House of R hile in full swing. There I sions when this ted to ndslide cut the underpinnings f Mr. Oldfield and jon. Tt which elect any e ar on as the n in power at work upe eyery = cinet, 1 to recap, tives fr s Al the Ph is not sdjourne New York State, but Is very active at this | very hour, having a bearing on prest- dentlal politics of the future. Gov Alfred E. Smith is now engaged with the Republican Legislature in a par- tisan struggle for advantage which is recognized as being with his presidential aspirations for the future. The Legislature Is in a tur moil and its politics simple. if not pure. Later in the Fall, and with the preliminaries thereof even in the making. there is to be another political whirl over the mavoralty in | New York City. which is considered * only taking | large. it | thought I another presenta Histines associated nter in ampa st &n the prospect the has adjourne politics guess ¢ SURVEY OF THE ALEUTIANS WILL BE BEGUN THIS YEAR detfe Survey ix going 1o place a fie party, fully equipped for scientif work in this region, which, by ploring one island at a time, is ex- pected to add greatly to our present knowledge. This will be made pos sible by the co-operation of the Coxst Guard, which has agreed to land th | survey party on an island. then sume its patrol work, and later plh up the surveyors and take them another Island. The party will consist of Lieut. (i C. Jones of the Coast and Geodetio Survey, who has had six sea work in Alaska: Ensign J. C. Boss and two men, all specially selected, R0 that the party, though smali, will be exceptionally fitted to carry on Its work. The program to be carried out at each island visited will include collection of {nformation which ‘will be of use when the survey is eventu ally made: magnetic observations, in- 1ding the determination of possible local magnetic disturbance due to the character of the roc ; determination of accurate position of at east one point by astronomical observations: operation of an automatic tide gauge whenever the conditions warrant topographic survevs of tha harbors, and collection of coast pilot informa- tion. ons of Compass Now Unreltable. The magnatic information avgilable is very meager, and it is hoped to supplement it with data highiy valuable to the mariner, who has troubles enough navigating through practically unsurveved wa- ters without having his compass heading continually a matter of doubt Also the magnetic data collected will be highly valuable to supplement tha generat knowledge of the earth's magnetic field. The location of many of these islands is doubtful, in son cases by several miles. Astronomic location of an island will not only make its location definite, but will help to place other nearby islands better, which will be of immense value to navigators. The coast pllot Information will in- clude descriptions of the islands and their approaches, facilities for get- ting water, weather conditions and any special knowledge which will be useful to other Government bureaus. In getting the longitudes, which have in the past been the most doubt- ful, the new radio method will b used, modified to meet the special conditions. In this method ohserv tions are made on stars .nd adio signals are received, thus makine it possible to get the difference In time between the transmitting station ans the place of observation, which i« in turn, the difference in longitude betweon the two places. This meth- od is vastly superior to the old method on which the faw known longitudes of points in the Aleutians Are based, the carrving of chronome- ters back and forth, b