Evening Star Newspaper, December 11, 1927, Page 63

THE SUNDAY STAR. WASHINGTON, D. C., DECEMBER 11, 1927—PART o & - FARM POLITICS JOLTED BY LAND BANKS REPORT President’s Message Indicates Situation on Agricultural Loans Has Cleared Recent Months in and have BY WILLIAM HARD. HE forees ende agricuttural politics with the Federal Farm Loan Bureau were severely jolted last week by the plain words in the President’s mes-age to Congress re- garding the conditions of certain joint #tock land banks and by the convie tion and the sentence to imprisonment of Guy Huston, chairman of the boar¢ of the Joint Stock Land Bank of Southern Minnesota It became clear that ldge ha 'n quietly ng stock to the public | usea oring to play | | price of the stock up on the market to | § a share, at which price they made | sales of it to innocent purchasers; and then the actual condition of the bank has necessitated the passing of divi dends, and the stock has fallen, and the innocent purchasers have found | themselves owning stock of which the true final value was $13.50 a share. Three Members Removed. Officers of a joint stock land reintroducing | have organized companies to buy real strict business methods into the gov-|estate from their bank; and they have ernmental supervision of the joint|sold the stock in those companie and banks for the salvation of touchingly called et e O 580,000,000 of bonds now in the | panjes”——to trusting customers; nd hands of investors: and it became|then they have unloaded onto those probable that the President’s chief|companies and onto those customers agent in this large effort, Bugene Mey- [ all the inferior and worthless invest er, jr. would be triumphantly con-|ments which they themselves had cor firmed by the United States Senate to | yiacted in the joint stock land bank, the post of being the Federal Farm |but which they thems did not Loan Bureau's “executive officer.” He | wish to carry. has held this post under a recent “re-| Officers of a cess appointment” which is now be- | heing also owners of an ordinary regu fore the Senate for action. | lar bank, have transferred a long line i Qe of unwise and insecure mortgages from Mevor's: Viows Changed. the bank which they owned to the It has been the conscientious opin- | bank which they officered and con fon of Senator Fletcher of Florida and | trolled. but did not own of certain other dissatisfied Senators| President Coolidge, some time ago that Mr. Meyer, who happens to have | removed from the Federal Farm Loan had large financial experience in pri-| Bureau three members under whom vate busines ificiently | such practices had by inadvertence “farm-minded se the opera- |and by lack of rigid supervision been tions of agricultu nancial institu- | permitted to flourish. One of them tions. It has been, and is, the opinion |attended the trial at Mankato, Minn., of President Coolidge that Mr. Mever | the other day. of Huston of the Joint became thoroughly “farm-minded” and | Stock Land Bank of Southern Minne even specifically and in detail “corn- | sota. His testimony was in the di minded” and “hog-minded” and “oat-|rection of extenuating and excusing minded” in the course of his eminent- | Mr. Hnston's accounts and repor )y success.ul management of the hun- | rendered to the Federal Farm Loar dreds of millions of dollars of agricul- | Bureau. 1In the face of his testimony tural loans made by the Federal War from an_agricultural region Finance Corporation, of which he was ton guilty on 11 counts; an managing director, and in the course A. Cant was so deeply in also of his spectacular rescue and ad- | preseed by his fail thay e i vance of the price of cotton at the [upon him the extremely severe son time when President Coolidge sent|tence of nine vears in P oa G him on that special mission through | R A e { Began Final Cleansing. the South. ‘The confest between the opponents | That sentence was the beginning of ver has | the final cleansing of the last of the and the supporters of Mr. M been a contest between those who, | unfortunat gover! 13 situations in effect, maintain that farm finance |which President: Comion Joponons i8 farming., and those who, in ef-| At the time when he removed three f.P(‘[, maintain that farm finance i | members from the Federal Farm Loan finance. The latter are at this week | Bureau and appointed Mr. Meyer and end in a stronger and stronger posi- | Floyd Harrison and George Cooksey to tion as the news keeps rolling into | take their places he gave no reason Washington of the moral scandals |for his action. It is thought that onls and financial collapses that occurred | the attacks upon Mr. Mover amd Mi in the joint stock land banks when | Harrison and Mr. Cookses brousti they were under the supervision of |him to the frankness with \!hh'llgln a Federal Loan Bureau which did not | his recent message to Congress include Mr. Meyer and in which so- |spoke of the “improper and unsound called “farm-minded” members Were | practices into which certain joint stock land banks have fallen.” It is dominant. Three in Hands of Receivers. thought, furthe; of those practices will &0 to the last The Kansas City Joint Stock Land |limit of thoroughness, and that the Bank and the Bankers’ Joint Stock |accompanying revelations will amply Land Bank of Milwaukee and the Oho | convince the Senate that a change i Joint Stock Land Bank of Cleveland | the personnel of the Federal Farm e in the hands of receivers. All|Loan Bureau was unavoidable. joint stock land banks are private | It is also and finally thought that institutions, and the money which they | legislative representaiives here of lend on land is private money, but |farm organizations, who have been the bonds which they issue and sell | defending the ex-members of the Fed. to investors are made tax-exempt eral m Loan Bureau as * by the Federal Government and|minded” and who have besn dec carry with them the color of govern- | Mr. Meyer and ment-backed securities. All joint stock | Cooksey as e-minded,” land banks are, therefore, supervised |about to find their vocabulary losine by the Federal Farm Loan Board,|caste on Capitol Hill, and are abees and the insolvency of the three banks [t0 have to abandon their long above-mentioned is a grave reflection | cherished idea that a sympathy for upon the quality of the supervision | Cotton plants and forty-acre Jots is 4 TRAC san Teltg civen ho thbm. sufficient equipment for supervising In addition to receiverships of |the issuing and the selling of aimoti joint stock land banks, there have |three-fifths of a billion of agricultues] joint stock land bank officers. Such in- | securities. i dictments have been brought against| The practical immediate political officers of the Southern Minnesota | effect will additionally and probably e Joint Stock Land Bank, the Kansas |that when the McNary-Haugen bill City Joint Stock Land Bank, the|of some equivalent for it, is again Chicago Joint Stock Land Bank and | passed through the Congress, it will the Des Moines Joint Stock Land |cease to provide that the members of Bank. Among the practices alleged | the new proposed Federal Farm Board in some of the cases are the follow- | should be nominated by farm organi- - zations, and will permit them to be nominated directly and solely by the President of the United Stat SEPULCHER WITH STONE SNAKES UNEARTHED IN President Cool bank int stock land bank Judge W Officers of the joint stock land bank have taken money which they got by 95 Serpents Set Like Soldiers to Guard Sacred Edi- fice—1Idols and Other Articles Painted in Bright Colors Also Recovered. Excavations on the Aztec pyramid of Tenayuca in the calley of Mexico by the Department of Archeology of the Mexican Ministry of BEducation | this vear have disciosed a curious| sepulcher and have brought to light | altogether 95 serpents hewn of stone set like soldiers around the pyramid walls to guard the sacred edifice. The structure, believed to be the top of a sepulcher, is a hollow casket- like stone box, se on a form near the southeast corner pyramid at its base. The stone c is about 4 feet long and a foot and a half wide, and is decorated on the inside with polychrome paintings sym- bolic of death. The illust ions are six craniums and other figur blue, yellow, red, white and blacl The exterior of the stone box ca ries out the same symbolism by mean of elght craniums carved of stome and set into the masonry at regular intervals around three sides. Ther: guarding wall of kes once r: around the base of the structur The pyramid is otherwise in good condition and is believed to have been covered with earth by the Indians to save it from the fate of most of the Aztec temples after the arrival of Cortes. The superstructure which | must once have stood on the top of the pyramid is gone, and many stones from the north and west side of the pyramid have been carried away long ago for building material. Small idols of haked clay have been found during the excavations, bearing curious Aztec countenances, some of which appear to be portraits and others merely conventionalized figures There are also broken knives of idian, perhaps once used in the sacrificial rites which took place on the pyramid centuries ago, as well as lance or spear heads. Other Relics Recovered. Small ornamented and perforated are also square stone insets showing clay disks used to rest the point of the spindle also were found, as well conventionalized figures of what are as many painted pottery fragments, thought to represent crossed uln: bones, resembling fancy Christian | 35 crosses placed askew. | Two large stone shields, like those in The casket was empty when the|eagle are among the other notable excavators found it, but it may once | relics recovered. have contained votive offerings to the | A much smaller but similar pyramid dead. It is thought that under the|at Santa Cecilia about a mile away is solid platform on which the super-|also known, but no regular work of ficial casket rests there is probabiy a | excavation been done there. The true sepulcher with some human re-| pyramid of Santa Cecilia is curious mains of some ancient Aztec lord or | for the large number of stone crani- high priest, sufficiently important | ums which once decorated its sides enough to have been buried by the | but which have long since fallen. pyramid. More than 50 of these craniums have Stone craniums have also been | been collected in an orderly pile and fourd set in the sloping pyramid walls | resemble rows of real skulls in some at varying intervals, giving the im-| ancient catacomb. pression that the structure may have| A third pyramid of the been dedicated to Mictlantecuhtli, | Near the town of Cuerna AZtec god of death, as well as fto|neighboring State of Morelos, and a Quetzalcoatl, god of the evening star, | Study of the three is being made by n me type is in the Dy a from the apparent orientation of the | the Mexican department of archeology coiled figure of a huge snake of ma e sonry in front of the nid, with | Phalznns gy dn front. ‘l hilippine Hardwood Two sides of the pyramid have now | T : : 3 almost been completely excavated. On Is Used Widely in U. S. the south side there is a low rampart | —_—— running around the base of the struc-| jrardwoods are a remarkable item ture, surmounted by 43 coiled ser-|among Philippine products shipped pents of stone, highly conventional-|to the United States. One of the jzed. In the oisicr and at regular world’s finest remaining stands of jntervals the pents are larger and | hardwoods is on the American public extend their grotesque heads with|domain in the islands, where not their monstrous fangs out beyond the | half enough mills are working as yet, battle line of the others. There are|but more are being installed as the 13 of these larger serpents on the e market increases. During the first side. {half of this year the United States " " o 5 bought more than 17,000,000 board Painted in Bright Colors. teet of Philippine hardwoods, 3,000.000 The south side has a similar ram- | more than during the same p part with 52 such carved serpents, of 1926, the price belng $761.784, or Which 19 are prominent by th tra{about $45 ‘per 1,000 board ‘feet. at Mize. The protective covering of earth, | Manila. The rest of the world takes 2 tich has recently been removed, has | the remaining cut sold outside the preserved remnants of the bright col- |islands, which is about 40 per cent Prs with which the figures were once | altogether of what America buys. Dainted On the other two sides the|Japan is the second most important Duflding has been badly damaged at|customer for Philippine hardwoods. abe bottom. but it is thought that the China is the third. g or paying dividends on that | same stock and have thus forced the | . he | that the uprooting | AZTEC PYRAMID all | od of | the fourteenth in 2 be pi blished 1 “Pheid Note —In story of Civilization.’ Sunday. Dr. Durant will write of ek Art.” Euripides the Human, HIE greatest of Greek dramatists was born, tradition says, on the ve 2y of the brttle of damis, and on the island If, where his mother had after the sack of Athens. father, Mnesarchus, we Know of his mother, “weise than nothing,” for the gossip of time describes her as keeping a grocer's | shop and hawking fruit and fowers on {the street. Let every grocer’s son take courage, | " Like so many ¢ eniu combined athletics with sch j s He won the victors crown the E'eusinian games, and thn pass. | from the gymmnasium to =cience and | philosophy. His father must have been a man of me for we hear of Euripides receiving i on in | physics from Anaxagoras, in rhetoric | from Prodicus and in ethics from Iro tagoras. Euripides became a passion te lover of literature, I}u‘_ tirst | private individu so far as | we know, to collect a | modest home, facing the historie bay, | became a rendezvous for Athens’ free | s. Here it that Protagora; read his famous paper ““On the God | for which, despite the e | cles, the intolerant pop drove him into exile. We are to picture the age as akin to | the French enlightenment of *he eight- | eenth century. Iconomic development and political supremacy had brought, under Louis XIV and Louis XV, leisure, letters and irreligion. Neither side,” says Thucydides, “carcd for re ligion, but both used it with enthusi- asm as a pretext for various adious purposes.” " In this Hellenic illumir { tion Euripides was the Grer Of h nothing; ce of Athens Voltair worshiping the Goddess of Reason with free thought and clever innucnde in the midst of dramas that were staged | to celebrate a god. * Kk % Was it strange that the crowd at the theater did not like him, that clung to its ancient deities and won dered why these blasphemous pl should be presented at uli” Enripides ! produced dramas for haif a centur | But in all that time only four prizes were given him, and not until 40 did | he win the highest award. Neverthe {less the people, after their contrary | fashion, thronged to these plays as to | no others, and taiked about them | more. Socrates, who would not take a step to see other drama, said he would walk to the Piraeus (a serious matter for a stout philosoph to see a production by Euripides The Athenians nated the man and liked his pla They did not object to his faults of dramatic technique—his failure to weave his plots into organic wholes, his deviation into picturesque details, hi (or ingratiating?) w of bringing in a god at last to punish the wicked for their sins and console it BY HENRY W. BUNN. HE opening of Congres: its central feature, the I dent’s message, so tremendously overshadows for us the week's | transactions in the rest of the | world, that T postpone to next week | notice of the latter. Nothing could be more profitable than a close stud | each annual presidential message Clongress, providing, as it does, a con where to be found. It is hoped that the following summary of the main features of this year's message will help to drive home those features: 1. During the past year the country has_enjoyed * perity never ex- ceeded.” Though *some parts of agri culture and industry have lagged and some localities have suffered from storm and flood, such losses have been absorbed without serious detri- omens promise a good year ahead. 2. “Constructive economy ernment expenditures” is largely to be | credited with the remarkable pros perity of the past four years. Let there be no relaxation thereof. At the end of the current fiscal year the n: | tional debt will have reduced | from its peak to about $17.9 n the annual been ly the same interest will have n reduced from $1,055,000,000 to 6,000,000 Note of as high signifi ance in this connection that during the past year the average rate of in- tepest on the debt has fallen below 4 per cent; the lowest rate paid by any great power. Through three ures taxes have no longer to bear y. tions have been increased until 115, 000,000 people make but 2,500,000 { individual taxable returns, so that | turther reduction should be mainly for the purpose of removing inequal- |ities.” * The recent recommendations lof the Secretary of the Treasury {looking to *a much better balanced | system of taxation” have the Presi- |dent’s complete support. 3. Our policy respecting | Navy and fighting air forces is one strictly of detense. The Army should be handsomely maintained approxi- mately on its present basis. The five year program adopted for our air forces is adequate and is being real ized with sufficient rapidity. In view of the magnitude of our foreign com merce, our outlying territories in the Pacific and the Atlantic, our interna- tional duty of defending the Panama Canal and our gr continental | stretches of sea coast we need “a very | substantial sea armament”; subma- vines, as soon as the N Depart- ment les upon the best type of -onstruction’; airplane carriers, and material addition to our force of ” Though we have “put away the Old World policy of com- petitive armaments,” we are bound to take order toward adequate national defense. Tn our efforts to secure @ three-power treaty which should extend the principles of the Wash- ington mnaval treaty to types of craft not covered by that treaty, ‘“‘we were granted much co-operation’ by Japan, | but were unable to come to an agree- ment with at Britain { This much, however. we learned from the negotiation, namely, t agreement in that sense is imagi | which should do away the netessity lof “a considerable building pre on our part.” The failure to | should not cause us to build either ! more or less than we should had there been no negotiation. “We should enter on no_competition, but we should re- frain from no needful program.” 4. “The Shipping Board is constantly under pressure, to which it too often vields, to protect private interests, rather than serve the public welfare. More attention should be given to merchant ships as an auxiliary of the avy. The possibility of including their masters and crews in the Naval Reserve with some reasonable com- pensation should be thoroughly ex- plored as a method of encouraging private operation of shipping. Public operation is not a success. No in- vestigation, of which 1 have caused several to be made, has failed to report that it could not succeed. It should be our policy to keep our pres- ent vessels In repair and dispose of them as rapidly as possible, rather 75,000,000 meas- as tax-reduction been reduced So hardly. “Exemp- Army. ‘2 ruisel His | orts of Peri-| ment to our economic structure.” The | in Gov- | 4l | »f about $26,600,000,000 | | | spectus of the naticnal scene not else- | I | Phoedra Confesses Her Crime. the virtuous for their virtue. But it was not to save his plots that Buripi- des imported the gods into h t was to save his face and his head: it was a sop to supe So, when the angry crowd, enraged at 'a skeptical line, refused to let his play proceed, the dramatist rose in his place and bade the audience be com forted; the speaker of the line would be roundly punished in the end. (One can hear the laughter of Socrate: ac 2,000 years). / nearly ever one is killed or ruined at the close of a Euripidean play, it was a promise that could be safely made. | “Meanwhile the people enjoyved the | Iyric quality of his applauded and dramati tales. It is true that they \thusiastically when atitized the style, the themes and the Miosophy of these plays; and it we that they preferred the “ideal- m" of Scphocles, in theory, to the ealism” of Euripides. But in prac- ice they found the older poet plati <udinons and moralistic, and the younger one stimulating even heresies: their keen wits relished the subtlety of his lines, and their excitable | minds were thrilled by the romantic No one had ever pathos of the scenes them o pain‘ed human beings for sympaihetically: no one had lavished such tenderness upon his heroines or revealed so intimately the sufferings of the soul. o The man had an almost Shelleyan sensitivity to the misfortunes of man- kind. Bdith Browning felt it and called him . “Our Euripides the human, than undertake any new construction. Their operation is a burden on the National Treasury, for which we are not receiving sufficient benefits.” (Note well the above in view of the fact that Congress is expected to take definitive action at this session respecting Government policy in re- gard of merchant shipping. The severe rap at the Shipping Board ems likely to have consequences.) The President fication the rapid development in com- mercial aeronautics and the excellent work being accomplished by the De- partment of Commerce under the enabling legislation of the last Con- gress. He Is solicitous that our Gov- ernment and private enterprise in our country should vigorously co-operate with the governments of sister coun- tries to the south toward development of a regular aireraft service of com- munication between our country and those si 6. The President has caused much unhappiness by his recommendation that future Federal appropriations for good roads be less generous than those of the past. Federal contributions toward such construction should, says he, be confined to trunk line s) tems, and the Federal tax on auto- mobiles is nearly sufficient for such outlay. (But note that the revenue bill just introduced proposes reduction of the tax on automobiles) On the other hand, he expresses great inter- est in the projects which contemplate a system of motor highways which should connect this country with “all the principal points in this hemi sphere south of the Rio Grande.” He hopes “that private interests in this country will look with favor on all reasonable loans” sought by the countries to the south for such purpose. 7. The President expresses himself at considerable length on the most contentious of the problems facing the new Congress—that of relief for the farmer. But he does little more than restate, Jucidly and cogently, views on the problem sufficiently well known from his many previous statements thereof. The proposals of Government price-fixing, of a Government subsidy, First Feed BY BRUCE EARS ago | lived in the same apartment house with a professional idealist. He was such a superior person that | used to feel quite ill at ease in his presence. He talked about social revolution, economic readjustment and other matters | do not understand, and was frankly contemptuous of our middle-class habits and philoso- phies. But | noticed a slight rip in the fine garment of his perfec- tion. His soul was so much ab- sorbed with nobler thoughts that he neglected the little detail of supporting his wife and child. He did not pay his bills. And when he went away for the Sum- mer he left his cat in the hall- way. We had to feed the cat. Now, | am content to have you label yourself an “idealist,” a “liberal” or even a “reformer,” provided you don’t assume that this gives you the right to ride free on the world and criticize the paying passengers. Some one ought to point out occasionally that not all idealists have been an t, by any means. Persecutions and wars are the fruits of idealism, as well as revivals and reforms. Said Anatole France: “Robes- pierre was an optimist who be- lieved in virtue. If you want to make men perfect, you end, like Robespierre, by de: g to guillo- Aristophanes | in his | notes with grati- | With his droppings of warm tears, And his touches of things common Till they rose to touch the spheres. Aristophanes charged him with sen timentality and had excuse; Eurini des is never through with the pangs of despised love and the breaking of material hearts. But these were the things the others ignored; their plavs and poetry had told of kings and wars. but not of women and men, not of wives and mothers left mourning dis tantly, nor of common soldiers crushed under chariot wheels. Euripides, then, is the romantic dra matist par excellence; like Miranda, he suffers with those he sees suffer and he writes with the resentment of a man who cannot understand why men hould suffer so. Alschylus was con fident that the gods would reward virtue and punish vice; Euripides re grets to announce that the evidence runs the other way. He stands to 2schylus doubting Job to be lieving T : no wonder some schol have thought the Book of Job a Euripidean tragedy. Human fortune | or misfortune, our dramatist thinks. is not a gift or a blow from the gods; man’s history is determined not by supernatural decree, but by his char- acter; and a man's character, as Hera- clitus put it, is his fate. So Euripides writes with fecling and without apology. He has mnot the stern sublimity of /Eschylus, nor the - calm and objectivity of Sopho. he bears the same relation to these as the emotional Dostoievski to the tiatanic Tolstoi and the impeccable Turgeniev. But it is in Dostoievski that we find our secret hearts reveal | are still anathema to him as of old. It is evident that he would be ice to any | new measure of the McNary-Haugen complexion. He would increase the efficiency of the orthodox existing Government agencies, which minister to the farmer. le favors creation of 1 a Federal Board to aid the co-oper: | tive movement in agriculture and to | be provided with a revolving loan fund for the necessary financing. But he will not hear to any plan which should | not leave the farmer “substantially standing on his own foundation.” . “The last year,” says the Presl- dent, “has seen considerable changes | in the problem of Muscle Shoals. De- velopment of other methods show that nitrates can probably be pro- duced at less cost than by the use of hydro-electric pow Moreover, “ex- tensive investigation made by the De- partment of War indicates that the (Muscle Shoals) nitrate plant is of little value for national defense.” The this property be sold and the proceeds applied to research looking to more economical methods of producing fer- tilizers. 9. Apparently, before penning his observations on’ the Mi ppi_ flood {and the flood control construction ssitated or indicated by that di the President carefully studied chief of engineers of the Army, car ving recommendations based on an elahorate survey of the situation cre- ated or emphasized by the recent flood, and those observations may perhaps properiy be considered as largely in the nature of approving comment on | the report. (That document was for- warded by the President to Congress on December 8. those observations as cold and un- sympathetic; the explanation ~sug- gested by me, if correct, tends to dls- pose of such criticism. “Legislation by this Congress,” says tho President, “should be confined to our principal and most pressing prob- lem, the lower Mississippi, cor tributaries_only so far as they terially _affect the main flood prob- lem.” Does not this read like a note on the following paragraph in Gen. Your Cat BARTON. tine them. Marat believed in Jjusti and demanded 200,000 heads.’ This is too cynical a state- ment, but it contains a large grain of truth. Some one once asked me: “Are you a liberal or a conservative?” I answered: “If, by a conserva- tive, you mean a man who thinks that we live in the best of all possible worlds, then | am not a conservative. If, by a liberal, you mean a man who thinks that Whatever is is wrong, then | am not one of those, eithe Our present social order, with all its defects, represents the best that human beings have been able to work out for them- selves. Before any man sets himself up as a professional critic of it, | want to ask him four simple questions: One: Have you a family and are you supporting it? If not, don't pick on me. | have, and am. Two: Have you engaged in some gainful occupation and shared the problems and worries of the employers you are so ready to condemn? Thr Are you tolerant and fair-minded toward those who sagree with you? Four: Do you pay your s? 1 am an ineffectual being in an imperfect world. But if you are going to appoint yourself to act my preceptor and guide, | in- sist that you first feed your cat. (Copyright, 1927.) * President, therefore, recommends that | the report of a hoard headed by the ome have criticized | BY WILL DURANT, Ph. D., Author of osophy.” | ed and our secret longings understood; and it i in Euripides that Greek drama, tired of Olympus, came do\_\'n |10 earth and deait revealygly with men. “Have all the nations of the world since his time,” asked Goethe. “produced one dramatist worthy tc hand him his slippers?” Just one. * %k % X The Pacifist. As Euripides looked about seemed to his eyes that men were ex him # ploited by kings, and women by men. | ind all of them by gods. When he was 20 (in 459 B. C.) the first Pelopon nesian War broke out between Athens and Sparta, and raged for 13 years | When he was 50 the second Pelopon | nesian War hegan; for 30 years, like an intermittent fever, it ran its de- structive course, and Euripides did not live to see its bitter close. Judge his feelings from this prayer, which has come down to us as a fragment | from the lost play “Cresprontes t plenty as there is no O Peace, thou giv from a deep sprin heauty like unto thine; mo, not even among the blessed gods. My heart yearneth within me, for thou tarriest; I grow old and thou re- turnest not. Shall weariness over- come mine eyes before they see thy bloom and thy comliness? When the lovely songs of the dancers are heard again, and the thronging feet of them that wear garlands, shall gray hairs and sor- row have destroyed me utterly? 2eturn, thou holy one, to our city; abide not far from us, thou that quencheth wrath. Strife and bit- terness shall depart, if thou art with us; madness and the edge of the sword shall flee from our doors. t Like Plato, Euripides plead with his | countrymen "to make peace, and to unite with Sparta in a Pan-Hellenic | League, rather than fight with her till | all Greece should be exhausted and | ripe for barbarians. But they would | not hear. The war went on, heaping brutality upen horror, a war of Greek iinst Greek, shot through with all | the ferocity of relatives. ~When the | citizens of Melos refused to enter the war on_ Athens’ side the Anthenians besieged their capital, devastated it. put all the men to death, and enslaved all the women and children. It was in |the very mext year (415 B. C.) that Euripides, with the audacity that made and was to break him, produced one of his most powerful plays, “The Tro- jan Women.” All who heard him knew that Troy Melos, and that the dramatist had re solved to make clear to Athens the other side of victory. Never was imagination more nobly used, nor a greater plea ever made for peace. * K ok X Just as modern novels begin where respectable novels used to end—with marriage—so Euripides begins where simpler poets would have closed— after the victory. It is not the tri- on Sixteenth Page.) The Story the Week Has Told Jadwin's report? “Plans for the flood control of the {ributaries will be de- veloped as funds become available in accordance with an act passed at the last session of Congress. It is im- practicable to present such plans at this time because of lack of data and time.” But perhaps there is a certain justification for the contention that it re far better that Congress should than that it should underestimate the importance of the tributaries in relation to the general problem of flood control; that ascer- tainment of the required data should be vigorously prosecuted, and that there should be no niggardliness in respect of providing funds for such purpose. The Jadwin report calls for a_total expenditure of $296,400,000, $185,400,- 000 to be devoted to flood control con- struction, the Federal Government paying 80 per cent thereof and the States benefited 20 per cent, §111,000,- 000 to be devoted to channel stabiliza- tion at the expense of the Federal Government. According to my inter- pretation, it is by way of comment on the above that the President at some | length insists that the inhabitants of the regions to be benefited by the | new construction be required to make |a special substantial contribution toward defraying the costs thereof, though _its o to the total cost hould be less than as prescribed by | existing law in such cases—namel one-third. Not otherwise, he argues, would the special beneficiaries bring pressure against extravagance. One X a_mighty logomachy in Con- gress in this connection. Though, says the President, the Government *is chargeable with the rebuilding of public works and the humanitarian duty of relieving its citizens from distress, this does mot mean restoration. The Government not an insurer of its citizens against the hazards of the elements. It does not under citizens for loss and damage incurred under such circumstance: acteristically solicitous lest dan- precedents be established by extension of Federal function, the | President in his preoccupation omits to make an appeal. (at any rate, his critics fail to find such) for private Nation-wide generous aid toward re- habilitation of the ravaged areas. Many are bitterly offended by the al- ed omission, failing to take proper note of the so-admirable solicitude. 10. The President seems to assume that the Congress will at this session act decisively on the question of stabi- tion of the levels of the Great Lakes and that of creating or com- pleting a channel for oceangoing craft from the Great Lakes to the sea. 11. The President recommends con- struction of the proposed Boulder Dam. For guidance as to details of the legislation proper to this impo) tant business he refers the Congress to Secretary Work's annual report. 12. “Legislation authorizing a sy tem of fuel administration and the ap- pointment by the President of a board of mediation and conciliation in case of actual or threatened interruption of production, if needed.” 13. The President urges consum- mating action respecting property still held by the alien property cus- todian. 14, The President very strongly urges legislation to facilitate railroad consohdation. Pending the needed consolidations, he says, “no adequate or permanent reorganization can be | made of the freight-rate structure.” | 15. The President favors establish- | ment of a Federal department of edu- cation—a contentious question. 16. The President expressed himself with great complacency regarding the administration's foreign policy and conduct of foreign relations. I must postpone notice of the open- ing proceedings of the Seventieth Con- gress, which assembled on Monday. December 5; of the organization of the House; of the delay in organization of the Senate; of the senatorial action on the cases of Senators-elect Vare and Smith, ete. I must also postpone comment on the President’s budget message; on the annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury; on the revenue bili in- troduced in the House; on the reitera- tion by Mr. Coolidge and Mr. Hughes of previous refusals to be considered candidates for the presidency; on the selection of Kansas City for the com- Ing Reuublican national econvention and ot; matters. was a symbol for | ake to reimburse its | 'U. S. RADIO COMMISSION TO USE FULL AUTHORITY IDecision to Cut Number of Broadcast- ing Stations Nearly in Half February 1 Expected to Go Before Courts. BY W. R. McCALLUM. INE months of attempts to solve the Cretan puzzle having failed, months passed in the hope that some universal pan- acea might crop up for radio ills, the Federal Radio Commission has trotted out the full weight of it authority, unleashed the dogs of war and announced flatly and ~without | equivocation that it intends to cut ! nearly in half the number of broad | casting stations. | 'Not only that, but in so many |the commission decides arbit Iput it up to the broadcaster himself to prove his right to radio existence. 11t he doesn’t like it he may go to the | courts for legal redre Quite 4 change in the hitherto conciliatory policy of the Federal body, which hi set out to thrash the wheat from the |chaff and bring to the millions who have invested many more millions in {radio equipment radio programs free {from interference and the squeals and squawks that go with it Yet there it is in black and white under the sig |nature of the Radio Commission—a determination to grasp the issue full bhodied and fight 't out—in the courts if necessary, but to fight it out at all costs. And in_taking this radical step—of cutting the 694 broadcasters at pres- ent on the air down to something like 394—the commission only doing what the radlo industry told it to do as long ago as last April. In other words, it has taken eight months for the commission to realize that the only way to solve a congested air problem is to eliminate some of the trouble breeders. Pickard Explains Policy. “Definite policies for the further clearing of the broadeast band by the further transfer of certain stations, as well as by denial of broadcasting licenses, have bheen determined upon,” in Commissioner Pickard’s words. “These denials and transfers become effective with the expirations of the series of 60-day licenses on February 1. Individual members of the com- mission have, from the very first, realized that elimination of some 300 broadcasters was eventually the only real solution for the present over- crowding of the air channels, approxi- the law of 1926.” With these words the big stick has been thrust through the velvet glove of conciliation and the Radio Commis sion, if it lives up to its announced policy, is in for a merry little struggle of its'own. From Congress and from the constituency of members of Con- gress is to pour a stream of protests to add to the already prolific bundle of “kicks” about the heavy hand of Federal air authority. If the commission lives up to its announced program it will be a queer and wonderful radio world which comes into existence the night of Feb- ruary 1. That night will resemble those great nights of r_ception back in 1921 and 1922, when the rug manu- facturers, the pickle makers and the purveyors of garden tools had not yet discovered the magical new means for spreading propaganda into the very heart of the American home. No more heterodyning, no more squeaks and squawks. Only the rumble of na- ture-made static, and a noisier rumble, far off in the distance - - the clarion voice of the broadcasters who have fallen in the battls for existence—the emphatic voice of their attorneys as they plead in the Federal courts the air. Throwing Down Gauntlet. For the commission intends to | throw down the gauntlet to the broad- casters who have not proven their right to places in the select circle of the elect, their right to the purple by virtue of proven public convenience and necessity. They've decided—the four remaining commissioners—to cut ‘em out and let the legal chips fall where they may. Recognizing that important consti- tutional questions are involved in license denials and transfers, and that court action might be expected in {many cases, the commission put back in its files the words of the radio wise | who told them back in April their job was to eliminate and not to encourage. and have moved back on fundamental principles, trotting out the old creed, ‘Cut 'em out.” To have undertaken to deny licenses at the outset of the work of the air control body might have tied up the commission by in- junction and court orders, preventing it from making progress in tackling many of the big problems it confront- ed during the Summer. So these men, mately the total of those who came | {on the air during the breakdown of | through the land their right to be 0n| | during the Summer, under the able | direction of the late Rear Admirml | Bullard, decided to make ths best bf |a tickiish situation, “and ' denying | licenses to none, carried out both local and national reallocation of existing stationm. ¥inds Situation Altered. Now the commission finds itself fn a wholly different situation. The | groundwork has been cleared; the enemy trenches battered down by an intensive shelling, and the attatk- ing force is ready to move across No Man’s Land into the camp of the opposition. Federal authority, held back for nine months, is going to step in and challenge unbridled pri- vate assumption of jurisdiction. Lo- cal stations are now separated by at | 1east 50 Kilocyeles; all stations are on even 10 kilocycles separations “€f they keep on their assigned waves) | power jumpers have been put back in their proper places as dictated by merit; the Canadian ch: been cleared, and a band of some 35 non-heterodyning channels has been | ordered clear across the continent far January 1. In the vernacular, the commission seems to find itself “sitting pretty? Instead of mollifying broadcasters by attempting to place them in some ad- | vantageous pla in the radio spec- trum, it invites them t0 take _their complaints to the courts and thrash out, once and for all, the right of the Government to interfere in the the- ater of the air. “Members of Congress,” Mr. Pick- | ard says, “and others interested in radio matters would like to see ad- judicated by the courts the rights of the radio supervisory authority un- der the 1927 law to deny licenses, in order that definite knowledge aof the status of the law can be laid before Congress fn planning fi- ture radio legislation at the present session.” And in this connection it might be added that Congress now has before it many bills designed to amend the radio law and several to continue the commission beyond its present statutory abolishment on March 15, tadio legislation in the House will be in the same efficient hands this s sion as during the last session, for | again Representative White of Maine has been made chairman of the House committee on merchant marine and fisheries, from which came many of the provisions of the present radio ad- ministration law. Court Action Expected. Local and national recept to February 1 wiil be put in the b possible condition. And on that date the lopping off of heads will coms mence, while far in the distance the rumble of court proceedings will be heard, moving into a crescendo of litigation as the broadcasters test out the authority of the commission in the United States courts, for they don't intend to give up their radio e istence without a struggle. Court in junctions issued on behalf of manw stations whose service does not corres spond to the interference they cause cannot now interfere with the clear- ing up that has been accomplished in the long-wave arsa of the radio spec- trum, the commission believes, and jt can now proceed to clearing up the re- mainder of the broadcast band by big stick methods. Already the commission has taken. punitive steps to clear some 25 na- tional channels by shifting several sta- tions around to give cleas access to | some of the larger stations the come ion tlinks the long-distance-seek- ing radio fan may want to get with his eight-tube wonder. 1In the shifting process station WRC has been res quested to shut down at 11 p.m., in, order to allow Eastern and Midwest- ern radio fans to get KFI, at Los An? geles, which is on the same waves length and is unreachable when thes local station is on the air. Broadcasters who are parties to" placing “annoying” interference, ink stead of programs, on the channels assigned them are not looked upon by. the commission as serving public i terest and necessity. These are the radio gentry become general nuisances, and instead, of creating good will for themselve have become unpopular because they blanketed and interfered with other stations. So, if the commission has its way. | and is not hampered by a maze of in- | Junctions, radio’s millenium is at lasts on the way, and the late Winter may+ a return to the conditions which rtained before WJAZ in Chicago red up the mess which has kept radio in hot water for nearly two years. e v who haver STILL COOLING Not Be Known Until Sometime about next February, scientists at the Bureau of Standards here will know whether or not they have the largest disc of optical glass ever cast in the United States. During the war, when European sources were closed, the bureau be- gan to make optical glass. Last Ma these experiments reached a clim with the casting of a disc of glass 70 inches in diameter and 121 inches thick. This is the largest disc that has ever been cast in the United States, and one of the largest in the world. But such a disc is not finished when it is cast. Glass conducts heat very poorly. It is very hot when cast, for then it is in a molten condition. If s soon as ns to harden, the outside would cool much more quickly than the in- terior. In doing so it would shrink. and the result would be that the disc would soon be merely a pile of small pieces of broken glass. Even if cooled more slowly, strains might be set up in the disc that would cause it to crack as soon as efforts were made to grind it into the dish shape of a re- flecting telescope mirror. Accordingly, it is necessary to ex- tend the cooling over a period of many months. In making such a big disc, it is carefully inclosed in sand and fire clay so that it takes nearly a year to cool. This is called annealing. By February, 1928, the 70-inch disc at the bureau will have cooled sufficiently for the scientists to uncover it. Then they will know whether they have a disc or some pieces of broken glass. Annealing is not always successful. The largest disc that has ever been cast, from which the 100-inch mirror of the big reflecting telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory was made, was completed only after a number of attempts. This was made at St. Gobain, France, where, before the war, the principal factory for large dises was located. Time after time dises were cast. only to find months later that they had cracked in annealing. Even the one finally used was not perfect, as it was cast in thred layers, y. | LARGEST OPTICAL GLASS DISC AT U. S. BUREAU: Molten Glass Poured Months Ago, But Results Will; February, When An- nealing Forms Are Opened. Even if the disc comes out of | annealing safely, it s not kno‘:: what will be done with it. The St. obain works were demolished and" any of their most skilled workers killed in the war, so large discs are very hard to obtain. Several Amerjs can observatories are in the market for big discs for reflecting telescopes," but just how the bureau's disc eoulds e trunsferred to one of them is not certain. There are legal difficulfies hampering the sale or gift of 'the glass, and so it might take an act of Congress to dispose of it. But the bureau whrrving _about present. What terested in is have the disc. officials are not this problem ~ at’ they are chiefly Ins whether or not. they: Jacrm Filipino Made;?;ces Financial Difficulty. Troubles for Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo,. Filipino leader, have not come singly,. A few weeks ago he was compelled, to buy the friar land he has been holding since the revolution, and to. bid for it under the hammer—tanta- mount to relinquishment. Then the insular treasurer probed his vet’ erans’ organization and reported it: financially unsound. Its dissolution by law, unless immediately made sol- vent, was recommended. It seems- that among other things funds of the organization had gone into the pur-, chase of a limousine for Aguinaldo. The treasurer rebuked this act, point ing out that obligations to members could not be met. The matter is. still pending, but evidently Aguinaldo is hard up. a Ripening Bananas. Ripening of bananas by electricity, is being done by a firm of fruit mer- chants in Hull, England. in order to! develop the port into an important: and, when completed, showed two layers of bubbles, like the filling in a layer cake. So it may be that the American optical glass workers will find in a few monthg that they have to try again. b P PR distribution center. These banana, rooms may be heated by three inde- pendent systems, electricity, gas andy hot water. Electric fans will change? the air from hot to cold in from fi to eight minutes. 1