Evening Star Newspaper, December 4, 1928, Page 8

THE EVENING STAR With Sunday Morning Edition. __ WASHINGTON, D. C TUESDAY.....December 4, 1928 THEODORE W. NOYES....Editor tar Newspaper Company usiness Office: ."apd Pennsylvania Ave. Office: 110 East 42nd 8t. Chicago Office. Tower Buildins. Buropean Office 14 Rezent St.. London. England. The Evening S Bu Rate by Carrier Within the City. The Evening Star_.. . .......45¢ per month The Evenin (when 4 The Evening and {when 5 Sunda 60c per month ar -.65¢ per month L1 8e per copy at the end of each month. Orders may be sent in by mai) cr telepnone Main 5000. Rate by Mail—Payable in Advance. Maryland and Virginia. Dally and Sunday....1 yr., $10.00; 1 mo., 8¢ Daily only i ) mo.. 50c Sunday only 1 yr, $4.00: 1 mo.. 40c All Other States and Canada. Datly end Sunday..1 yr. $12.00; 1 mo., $1.00 Daily only .........1 yr. $8.00; 1 mo. 78¢ Bunday only . 1 yr. $500: 1 mo. &Oc Member of the Associated Press. The Associated Press is exciusively entitled to the use for repusiization of all 1 ews dis- patches credited to it or not otherwise cred- | ited ia this paper and alio the local news | published herein. Al rizhis of publication of | special dispatches herein a reserved. | = St = The Impasse in the East. Absorption in the presidential elec- tion and other domestic affairs has di- 'uu, the revamped McNary-Haugen arm bill, they hold, would not be enough. Mr. Hoover, Senator Borah and other Republican leaders who urged the farmers to trust their case to the Republicans rather than to the Democrats during the presidential campaign promised that the farm-aid program should be comprehensive: that it would include tariff revision, which would benefit the farmer: that measures looking to greater development of in- land waterways would be undertaken. It is obvious that no such program can be considered in the present session of Congress. The Western representatives say that to put off for another year work on such a program is not fair to the farmer. The brigade which believes in “letting I things ride” and in doing nothing which it does not have to do, however, is| usually strong in Congress. So far as its members are concerned, next year, or even 1931 or 1932, would serve for | consideration of bills which they regard as fanciful, to say the least. S e The Five-Hour School Day. Interviews with several prominent child specialists, as published in The | star, would indicate that the present five-hour day for children of the first | and second grades in the public schools is a menace to the child’s health, and | verted the attention of Americans from | the grave international situation which persists in the Far East. Japan and Nationalist China are now in the fifth month of their apparently insoluble differences. The deadlock gives no sign of being broken. While it lasts the world at large is bound to look upon Sino-Japanese relations as a potential powder barrel. The imagination does not have to run very far afield to en-, visage the illimitable consequences of any explosion which might come out | of it. As the first power to accord rec- | ognition to the new € iiews go73™"- ment at Nanking, the United States; has a paramount interest in develop- ments on the other side of the globe. Japan and China are at loggerheads over three basic questions. The first | concerns claims for loss of life and property resultant from disorders and armed clashes in Tsinan, Hankow and Nanking. The second point of contro- versy relates to the revision of the Sino- Japanese treaty of commerce and nav- igation, negotiated in 1896 and abrupt- ly terminated by China in July of this year. A third bone of contention in- volves the adjustment of financial and economic relations, including China's demand for tariff autonomy. On all of these issues the two coun- tries have exchanged diplomatic com- munications which at times were not devoid of bitterness. In particular, Japan holds that China was guilty of & high-handed violation of interna- tional law in abrogating without notice he 1896 tremsy. Two factors esvs ~rto the Sino-Jap- anese imbroglio which, while not spe- 1 cifically connected with any of the points at issue, overshadow all of them. Japan on her part doubts both the sta- bility and the solvency of the Nation- alist government, while China remains more than skeptical as to the purity of Jepan's policies and purposes in Man- churia. Nanking is anxious to obtain control over the foreign relations of China’s great province in the north, while Japan views with alarm the pos- sible consequences of such control over her vast economic interests in Man- churia. Dr. Wu, the special commis i sioner of Nationalist China now in ‘Washington, puts the Manchurian sit- | uation graphically when he says that| until the province's allegiance to the | Nanking government is fully and for- mally acknowledged “two flags will fly in China—the flag of Nanking and the flag of Mukden.” Still another factor which has en- | tered into the Far Eastern situation is the new accord between Great Britain and Japan for “co-operation” in China. It is claimed to be “a simple under- standing intended to check possible ex- ploitation of differences between for- eign powers by the Chinese govern- ment.” In former times the so-called Great Powers presented a united tmntl vis-a-vis China. But that concert seems | to have come to a formal end with the action of the United States in recogniz- ing the Nanking government and con- cluding with it a separate treaty with- out waiting for action by the rest of the world. o A mission of good will is regarded as & highly valuable enterprise. Any busi- ness man will say that “good will” is among his most important assets. —————————— Work on Tariff to Begin. ‘The House ways and means commit- tee is to begin hearings on the tariff January 7. This determination was reached by the Republican members of the committee yesterday. It was fur- ther determined that when a tariff re- vision bill is reported, it shall be a general bill; that no effort should be made to put through a tariff bill dealing only with farm products. Nor is there any expectation that there shall be tariff revision at the present short session nf‘ Congress. The work which the ways and means committee is now undertak- | ing is designed entirely for framing a bill which will b> presented to the new | Congress which comes into being after | March 4. It will be presented either at | & special session in the Spring, a special session in September, or at the first regular session of the next Congress, which opens next December, While Speaker Longworth, who s | opposed to a special session of Con- gress in the Spring, sat with the com- mittee yesterday and concurred, it is announced, with the decisions of the committee to go to work on the tariff, 80 did Majority Leader Tilson of Con- necticut, who has favored an early spe- cial session of Congress to deal “with the whole tariff problem. There is a certain forehandedness about the whole proceeding that indicates a strong sus- picion in the minds of the leaders that there is to be a special session soon after Mr. Hoover is inaugurated Presi- dent. The President-elect has promised the farmers of the West, the East and the South legislation which will help them to an equality in American prosperity with the manufacturer and labor. The siort session of Congress, in the opin- ien of many of the Western Senators and Representatives, does not offer suffi- that the hours should be shortened. But | Dr. Frank W. Ballou, the superintendent of schools, sums up the issue in a few | words in meeting the criticism with a statement that the five-hour school day | for the lower grades is the present prac- tice throughout the country and evi- dently meets the wishes of the majority. His implication is. of course, that if ‘Washington parents in a sufficient num- ber show their desire for a change, the change will be forthcoming. Five hours in school for a youngster of six or seven, especially in the Win- ter months, when only an hour or two 2 A3vlight remains after 3 o'clock in the afternoon, is a rather stiff schedule. The animal instincts of the child to get out of doors and whoop like a wild In- dian are undoubtedly suppressed, and suppression, according to the modern philosophy, is apt to cause tremendous harm. On the other hand, the children with whom the child specialists are most concerned probably do,not repre~ sent the average child. If the average child were so adversely affected by the long hours as to require the attention of a doctor, the five-hour school day would come to a quick end. The schoois must necessarily deal with the average child. So far the weight of evidence has shown that from an educational viewpoint five hours of school in the lower grades is required as necessary preparation for the upper grades and, from the health standpoint, the vast majority of children stand up under the strain. The five-hour school day has been in effect here for five years now—a suf- ficient time in which to conduct the ex- periment. The Board of Education would do well to find, from parents and from the city’'s health authorities, whether there is a desire for a change to shorter hours, and whether this de- sire is founded on evidence of harm traced to the existing schedule. If the experiment has been successful it should continue. ‘There may be many children who de- velop ailments due to spending five hours every day sitting in the classroom. But it is to be doubted if this time spent is as harmful to the child as the fact that under present conditions in the ‘Washington schools the average num- ber of pupils per teacher in the second grade is fifty-five, when the best stand- ards call for thirty-five plus. The amount of learning to be absorbed by a child of seven sitting five hours a day in a class of fifty-five, and receiving the attention of only one harassed teacher, cannot be considered as profound, at any rate. Somehow an hour or two of difference in the length of time he sits in that class, under the present crowd- ed conditions, cannot seem so important from the standpoint of education. ——————— A big show charges $5.50 for a seat in Washington, D. C., and gets $7.50 in New York. The Capital of a great Nation still commands deference. ————————— A Coming Battle Royal. Literary hoaxes are probably as old as literature itself, but that the pristine pages of the dear Atlantic Monthly should be soiled even by the unproved suspicion that it has unsuspectingly participated in the perpetration of a canard is Something new under the sun. The public will find of more than ordinary interest, therefore, the out- come of the dispute which has arisen over the publication, beginning in the current number of the Atlantic, of certain hitherto unknown letters of Abraham Lincoln. The authenticity of these letters has been attacked by Paul M. Angle, executive secretary of the Lincoln Centennial Association of Springfield, Ill.; Oliver R. Barrett, a Chicago collector of Lincolniania, and by Edward L. Dean of New York City, an expert collector of rare manuscripts. Ellery Sedgwick, the editor of the At- lantic, has made the plea, and in all fairness it should be regarded, that those who doubt the genuineness of the letters should defer their final judg- ment until the entire series has been published, so that the original manu- seripts may then be examined by those interested. Whether or not the criti- cism that has begun will cease, in defer- ence to this request, remains to be seen. But it is certain that the original manu- seripts will receive a searching inquiry when their publication is completed, and that the battle now begun will be fought to a finish, with the Atlantic Monthly or the critics to be pronounced the winner ir the end. Mr. Sedgwick undoubtedly antici- pated the attacks that are now being made. In an article in this month’s Atlantic he carefully details the steps he took to verify the authenticity of the letters, which came to him from Miss Wilma Frances Minor, the owner of the collection. He describes the chemical tests to which the letter paper was submitted, and which showed that it contained none of the pulp which goes into the present-day manufacture of paper. He tells of the long after- noons spent with a magnifying glass, comparing the dotting of the “I's” and the crossing of the “t's” with known Lincoln handwriting, and of the pains- taking scrutiny of marginal notes in cient opportunity for the adequate con- sideration and adoption of such a pro- gram. The mere passage of one meas- i Lincoln’s handwriting discoversd on the yellowed pages of old books., He also THE EVENING STAR., WASHINGTON D. €, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, ,1928. went to experts on Lincolniania and | received their judgment to the effect that his material was genuine. He " demonstrated that he did not rush in | where angels fear to tread, as is so often the case with those who come into accidental possession of supposedly rare papers. But he approached his task with commendable caution. If he has been victimized, the criticism sure to follow would undoubtedly be tempered by knowledge of the means he employed to be sure he was right. ‘Washington has a peculiar interest in these letters, for the Atlantic has already arranged with Herbert Putnam, !Lhe librarian at the Congressional | Library, for their display with other | Lincoln collections at the Library. But that, of course, depends upon their authenticity. The forthcoming battle | of the experts over that authenticity will be a merry row indeed. et Police Contradictions. An amazing contradiction in police work has been offered in Washington during the past few days. On Thursday night a gasoline station manager was shot down in cold blood by a member of a bandit gang, which fled the scene immediately after the crime. Clues were scarce and although the police arrived soon after the killing it was apparent that a difficult case’ confronted them. Undismayed, however, by the lack of motive or evidence which would lead to the slayer they set out on the trail while | it was still hot and by as fine a piece of detective work as has ever been re- vealed in this city they have already captured the gang and obtained, they claim, confessions from all members of it. ©On Friday a policeman approached a man leaving his. home and rudely de- manded, “What kind of a joiny is this? Resenting this characterization of his house, wherein resided his wife and children, the man requested an apology. The policeman thereupon, according to testimony offered in court, pulled his| gun and broke the windows in the vic- tim’s car, later charging him with disor- derly conduct and haling him before a judge. The case was, of course, dis- missed, but the unhappy victim of the policeman’s wrath probably had to pay for the damage to his automobile besides suffering the humiliation of being taken to court. It must be discouraging for men who have performed the meritorious service to the community of solving within a few days a particularly difficult crime to have a policeman of this type bring discredit upon the department. e —ee—. Gunmen sometimes are not caught until other gunmen decide to give them up. The mysterious secrecy of Chinese colonies has been imitated in the under- world life of our own time and people. A way should be found to snap out of remote ancestral complications. ) When Mussolini refers to his ambi- tious expectations he must be recon- ciled to a candid scouting of his pre- vious fulfillments. e After a manful effort to correct it, Vice President Dawes will be compelled to leave the United States Senate to its own fate. - No great sympathy is extended to the left-overs. Some of the best jobs in the business world have been given to “lame ducks.” SO il A statesman who has nothing to say is often one who has large ideas, but, just at present, no audience. o Gavels will be in order on Capitol Hil It is feared that hammers also will come into attention. ————— When many physicians are sum- moned there is not any reliable strength n numbers. ———— SHOOTING STARS. BY PHILANDER JOHNSON. Unrest. Our present comfort we disdain, Of some inhospitable land We hear and take an aeroplane. An exploration is on hand. Our sympathies are led afar Unto some strange and cheerless spot. We really like it where we are— Yet want to be where we are not. Relativities. “Your constituents say your speeches are not as good as they were in days gone by.” “Perhaps the present oratory does not show so much mentality,” admitted Senator Sorghum, “but neither does some of the voting. Jud Tunkins says game laws will never be strict enough to prevent a large section of the populace from go- ing hunting for nothing when they might be getting something by work. Things Waiting to Be Said. “Why do you insist on allowing your wife to drive the car?” “I want to hear what happens,” said Mr. Chuggins, “when Henrietta de- cides to discard restraint and talk to a bicycle cop the same way she does to me.” “There is gold at the end of the rain- bow,” said Hi Ho, the sage of China- town. “Like other beliefs, this persists because no traveler has been able to say it is untrue.” : Smiling Sky. ‘We've each had some sorrow In days drifting by. ‘We're striving to borrow A smile from the sky. The twilight is glowing ‘When daytime is gone. Bright colors are showing Again at the dawn. We'll wait for the morrow With never a sigh. ‘While learning to borrow A smile from the sky. “De trouble dat you makes foh yoh- self,” said Uncle Eben, “usually gives you de privilege of braggin’ dat you did a purty good job.” — e But They Won't. From the Lansing State Journal. If the army of hunters now in the North woods would bring us each a Christmas tree, the trip could not b2 put down as & total loss, ‘Thousands of workers make a mi take, strictly from their own stand- point, of barely allowing themselves enough time to get to work in the | morning. We say nothing of the employers standpoint. Employers usually can take care of themselves. It is an unfortunate thing that some employes seem to need guardians. one just flashes under the wire as the worker’s welfare. Every employe owes it to himself, as well as to his firm, to come to work in the best frame of mind possible to do his task with vigor. From- his own standpoint, he ought to be able to en- Jjoy his work after he gets there. One of the best methods in existence for achieving this double program is also one of the easiest, and yet some- times it would seem to be the most difficult of accomplishment. It is no other than allowing one's self plenty of time to get to work in a leisurely manner. Perhaps the only ones to be exempted from this mandate so constituted that being rushed actu- ally brings out the best that is in them. There are, of course, such persons, but one may question whether there are one-fourth as many as the hurry- ing, scurrying crowd one sees scuttling off to work every day Surely half of these would be better off, physically, mentally and even mor- ally, if they would come to the good determination to allow themselves plenty of time to get to work. S g ‘There is something about the unhur- ried attitude that expands a human being like sunshine the petals of a rose. The fragrance of personality blos- soms only when the best that is in a human being is allowed to come to the surface. Time is necessary for the accomplish- ment of this everyday miracle. ‘Take the case of the sallow-faced, thin-lipped clerk, who rushed into a restaurant to get her breakfast at four minutes to 9 o'clock. Hers was an extreme case, it must be admitted, yet typical, nevertheless. What she did is done in lesser degree by countless hundreds of persons. Seizing a cup of hot coffee, she stood up at the counter and drained it of its contents in exactly 30 seconds. Half a minute was all she took to eat her breakfast! That it was all she needed, an observer doubted. It was not alone the ruin of her digestion which mattered, but even more the sad things being done to her personality. As she started off at a run for her office, one wondered if her whole morn- ing had not been like that, always on lo!n her clothes, hurried away to the car ine. She was angry at herself and at every one else all the time, thinking that fate had it in for her, and that the world was terribly out of step, when, as a matter of fact, all she needed to do was to slow down. Her tempo, as one might say, was too fast. She needed the calming influence of plenty of time to bring out the beau- tiful pink shades of her personality, and to cause others to be glad when they met her. e The unhurried attitude is a thing To have every move so timed that | bell rings—that, one must submit, is a | big mistake from the viewpoint of the | are those persons who by nature are | the run. She jumped out of bed. threw | THIS AND THAT BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL. which may be cultivated. There are | some persons to whom it comes natural- |1y, and such may count themselves | blessed, except upon those occasions when hurry is needed. In such cases | such persons are likely to find them- | selves subject to worry. A little worry now and then, however, will hurt no one. The propaganda in favor of opti- | mism has landed rather heavily on worry, but the plain truth of the matter is that an ordinary amount of worry is not harmful Many people worry through a long and eventful career, forcver preparing for something that | doesn't happen, or anticipating some- | thing which fails to materialize. It | may be said that their worry did them | little hurt, after all, merely intensifying | surface anyway. | “'Those to whom the unhurried atti- | tude does not come by nature need not therefore despair of attaining it, if they finally make up their minds that it fs a good thing. Like most mental states, | it may be cultivated to a certain degree. One to whom it is not natural may not | be able to attain the perfect state, but he will achieve much in the mere culti- ation of the habit, and will gain | immeasurably from his trials and tribu- | lations, even if he fails to reach the goal of perfection. If you slip on a banana peel, and go sprawling in the street, your unhurried | attitude is broken up with a grand | smash, and not even the most ardent advocate of that blissful state can | honestly say otherwise. If you see your | bus rounding the corner, and feel it | necessary to make a hundred-yard dash | to cateh it, there is nothing to do but | unlimber the old.muscles and do the | best you can. Such emergencies will in no way militate against the validity of the general proposition * ok ok The one most mecessary step in achieving carly morning lack of hurry is to get up in time to permit leisure- ly dressing and breakfast. Every person must be 2 law unto himself in these regards. Some can throw on their clothes in 3 minutes, others require an hour. Some gobble breakfast in 10 min- utes, others like to talk or read the paper with their rheal. Dark Winter mornings make for nat- | ural tardiness in arising. Perhaps many | think that because the sun doesn't seem to be up and doing, human beings may well emulate his example. The sun, however, is really at his task, no mat- |ter how many clouds happen to ob- | scure his shining. | Early rising is the one essential step. |If it is necessary to go back farther, in |order to get up early, there is nothing to do but see to it that one goes to bed carly enough to permit early getting up | out of jt. “Zarly to bed, and early to |rise,”” as Franklin said. This is easier said than .done, it may | be admitted, but still it may be done any case where one comes to be- lieve in the need of such a program. After all, most human beings more or ilt‘ss do what they want to do. There | are many exceptions, but the rule holds good in the majority of cases. The second essential step is to allow one's self plenty of time to get to the | office, whather it be by private car, bus | or street car. Instead of taking the last | possible vehicle which will. get you to | work barely on time, take the one ahead |of it. Thus by taking thought, one be- comes the unhurried man, refreshing to himself as well as to others. [ The filing of the inventory of the estate of Payne Whitney and the death a few hours later of Thomas Fortune Ryan, even more wealthy than his one- time associate in the financial world, have served to impress the public mind with opportunities for success in Ameri- can life. The Whitney inventory breaks the record among settlements of large estates. Both men are praised for their outstanding ability in the management of 1arge personal interests. The Whitney estate, with its total in the neighborhood of $200,000,000, is viewed by the New York Times as estab- lishing a figure which “is difficult for the parade of great sums through the press.” The Times points out that ““the terms of his will establish one fact that can be grasped by every one—that he was a generous, kindly, charitable man,” whose estate was ‘“the product of two fortunes in financial union,” but neither of which, however, except for his man- ag:ment, “could have represented any- thing like half of this total.” “Payne Whitney’s father, Willlam C. ‘Whitney,” according to the New York Evening World, “was about as poor a young man as ever left a Western Mas- sachusetts hilltop to seek fortunes else- where. He made his money in the sur- face traction developments of New York City a generation or more ago. But those investments of the father were very transitional. We find little or no trace of them in the son’s listed wealth. Alliance with the Payne family of Cleve- land gives the clue to their reinvest- ments. . Standard Oil stocks predomi- nate. * * * Their disposition in the Payne Whitney will is generously pub- lic-spirited as such fortunes go on the average—many millions to hospitals, li- braries and other philanthropic insti- tutions.” * ok ok ok ‘The fact that Mr. Whitney’s inherit- ed wealth “was increased by his own skiliful management” impresses the Charleston Daily Mail, which feels that “it would be interesting, if we had any way of determining the fact, to know what proportion of all the fortunes inherited, whether large or small, were well managed and increased by the recipients or wasted by mismanagement.” “To equal the enormous sum left by this man, by no means so well known as his brother Harry Payne, and popu- larly esteemed as one concerned more with social and sporting activities than with the accumulation of wealth,” gests the Newark Evening News, $80,000,000 estate of J. P. Morgan, the elder, and the $90,000,000 left by John Jacob Astor would have to be combin- ed and still be $10,000,000 short. The $60,000,000 Mr. Whitney bequeathed to educational and charitable institutions alone is but $5,000,000 less than the entire estate left by Russell Sage, and makes_insignificant the $20,000,000 An- drew Carnegie was worth when he died —he having in his lifetime, however, given away some $350,000,000. But so was Mr. Whitney a generous, if an un- ostentatious, philanthropist while he lived.” “He was a good steward,” says the Worcester Telegram, referring to the expansion of his inherited wealth under his own management, and the Tele- gram adds: “His riches never kept him from enjoying the leading of a healthy, friendly, wholesome life.” The Louisville Times, considering the in- evitable tendency of American fortunes to “increase to such an extent as to pass beyond the conception of the hu- man mind,” holds that the power con- ferred may be put to varying uses. It quotes from Milton, who said ‘“good and evil are twins,” and concludes that “great wealth, giving great power to do harm, confers ability to improve the condition of the human race.” * ok K K “A rich man who uses his money wisely, helping others over some of life's hard places,” comments the Rock Island Argus, “and who has true friends who like him for his own, not merely for his money's sake, ought to be very happy. Mr. Whitney seems to have been that sort of a man.” The Char- lotte Observer also testifies that “he seems to have led a happy life,” and Mr. Whitney's public benefactions that paper describes as ‘“the biggest shake of the cornucopia on record.” The death of Mr, Ryan, coupled with | Americans to grasp, used as they are to | 'Whitney and Ryan Estates Hold Proof of Opportunity the filing of the Whitney estate fig- ures; is received by the Anniston Star with the statement that “such vast per- sonal fortunes are almost inconceivable to the average man here in the South,” but it expresses the hope that “as for- | tunes accumulate in this State of Ala- bama, our men of wealth will likewise remember in their wills our institutions of learning that are doing such a won- derful wo The Omaha World- | Herald, observing that “the world’s | financial ~center gasped” when it | learned of the size of this estate, adds that *“a generation or so ago it wouldn’t have gasped at an announcement like this; it would have dropped dead.” ik ok Whitney and Mr. Ryan are paid by the Scranton Times, which states that the latter, “while he belonged to a time and shared the views of financial® leaders now dead, nevertheless was able to re- tain his hold on the public imagina- tion up until the very end.” The Grand Rapids Press, recognizing American op- portunities, declares: “These two boys— the blueblood and the redblood—began far apart, but became in the end two of a type—hardworkin; sponsible executives. * * * Ryan's great opportunity to rise from poor boy to man of wealth came be- cause the elder Whitney wished his es- tate protected and properly managed.” “Fortunately this is a Drosperous country,” says the Duluth Herald, “by other measurements than that of Payne ‘Whitney's fortune or that of Thomas F. Ryan. It is a prosperous country meas- ured by the number of its people who are gainfully employed at good wages and on comfortable hours of work. It is a prosperous country measured by the number of savings bank accounts, by the number of people who own good stocks and bonds, by the number of people who own their own homes, by the number-of people who own auto- mobiles and radio sets and phonographs and pianos and washing machines.” o ————— Accident Proportion Statistics Compiled BY E. E. FREE, PH. D. A new way of comparing the dangers of accident in different occupations, by the number of years needed for the average person exposed to risk to kill himself taking it, was used by engi- neers of the Interborough Rapid Tran- sit Co. of New York City in presenting to the recent annual Safety Congress figures concerning the subway lines op- erated by that company. Safety statistics are usually com- puted, it was pointed out, as the propor- tions of accidents or deaths to the total population. This method is often mis- leading, for it fails to take into ac- count the number of hours during which the average person is exposed to risk .of accident. In computing safety in the subway, for example, the num- ber of passengers carried each year was multiplied by the minutes of average ride. That gave the total number of passenger. minutes of risk of accident during the year, just as railways com- pute their traffic in passenger-miles or in_ton-miles of freight. Dividing this passenger-minute total by the number of passengers Killed by accident, the Interborough engineers computed that the average passenger waiting to be killed by accident could ride in the company's subways 24 hours a day for 11,728 years before his time would come. Computed on this same basis of exposure to risk, the average person would be killed by accident after 1,600 years on New York City streets and after 1,200 years of riding in an automobile. —~e— . It’s Different Now. From the Toledo Blade. Ananias did pretty well for the op- portunity he had. There were not so many things to lie about in his day. — e Speed the Day. From the Toledo Blade. It's easy to foresce the time when there won't be room for more parking signs, | traits which would have come to the! Tributes to the abilities of both Mr. | NEW BOOKS A MODERN PLUTARCH. John Cour- nos. The Bobbs-Merrill Co. John Cournos, or any other modern story-teller, seeking inspiration and" pattern out of the past, could not do | better than to take stand beside the | old Boeothian, Plutarch, whose great | book of “Lives” has held something like rivalry with the Bible itself in long life and devoted reading. | To be sure, in_these days of external | | tumult, “Plutarch Lives” may not seem | | to be Holding its own. For that matter, | no other serious reading is, either. | | Nevertheless, there is good evidence | that Plutarch is still a going concern. The book in hand is such evidence. And there are other signs for which there is no space here. No longer than vesterday, or thereabout, Joseph Can- | | mon, looking backward 75 years to life ; Plutarch. Miller gave eager support to the old Greck. Further and further back, all along the 1900 years, and more, since Plutarch’s day there are lined up warm advocates of this old genius—Voltaire, Rousseau and many_another celebrity. Rabelais, with a shout of laughter, pounds the “Lives” in joyous and ro- bust support. And Shakespeare! What would he have done without Plutarch " and “Antony and Cleopatra” and Timon of Athens” and yet others of the great dramas! And_now, right out of the present, John_ Cournos names himself a “mod- ern Plutarch” and falls to the business of creating “Lives” out of the human stuff that is near at hand—about 20 of the nearby celebrities in life and letters contributing to the work. Cour- nos opens his book with an apology to Plutarch. A modest gesture, but a needless one, since the work so fully justifies the effort. Seeking the source of Plutarch’s sus- thor finds three eclements of possible accounting. The first of these is that, invariably, Plutarch held himself to the basic human elements, out of which arose such marvels and variety of ac- tivity as characterized the 50 men who make up these immortal biographic studies. Men. at bottom, are of identi- cal stuff. The same feelings, desires, passions animate them all. The par- ticular course taken by each, the spe- cial quality of his achievement, the use made of his powers—these derive from varied sources, such as blood, training, the age around him, more or less ac- cidental, all. Ty holding to the basic qualities of his characters Plutarch in- sured to himself an unbroken effect of | the current and, cotemporaneous hu- man. Again, Cournos found the old Greek to have the gift of words. words to dress the idea and to embody it, easy words, and an imagination winging straight from the thought to be illumi- nated. And yet again, he caught the value of Plutarch’s comparisons be- tween the nature, the ambition, the achievements of this man and that one. These, the three elements that to this modern writer seemed, in large part, to account for the sustained ‘interest and charm of “Plutarch's Lives.” And thus equipped with a fresh out- look upon his model. John Cournos set |about the stories that make up this | book. Projected here are 20 ‘“Lives. ( Projected, not in biographic comple! ness, but in a consideration of those essentials which stand for the character | of the subject in hand and stand as well for the quality and effect of his achieve- ments upon the life of his day and suc- ceeding days. You will be deeply interested in the comparisons set up here—that is, you will be interested when, with the au- thor’s help, you have untangled the rea- sons for bringing this pair, or that one, together for the purpose of illuminat- | ing each. The critical power of Cournos comes out in striking fashion through these comparisons and contrasts. For | instance, Mark Twain and Anatole France, unlikely consorts, stand up here, side by side. Brought together, these, by the tragic philosophy of «both, an identical philosophy that with one is- sues in laughter and with the other in a sardonic smile of pure irony. In- teresting and stimulating studies, all | of these, whose immediate effect is to spur readers to a more thoughtful and intelligent _attitude toward writers of | account. Here side by side are Gaugin and Thoreal, both repudiating society, | but from different sources of urge and | in a wholly different manner. And here | are others brought into partnership for ! some good and deep reason—George | Sand and George Eliot, Robert E. Lee | and Simon Bolivar, Cecil Rhodes and | Ferdinand de Lesseps. Others, too, and all of them most interesting from this point of view. But there is time to say only that John Cournos has vaid strict attention to the business of telling the good story, just as his great exemplar | paid such attention. He begins in the middle of something—something inter- esting, which beats by a long way, starting in at the beginning. Begin. nings are likely to be dull. It ‘ake: action, motion, speed to create warmth Cournos knows this and minds it, too So, there is always entertainment here, as well as fact and critical considera- tion. A fine achicvement—and no apol- ogies are due Plutarch. No doubt he is delighted with his new disciple. * Kin SPOKESMEN. T. K. Whipple. D. Ap-| pleton & Co. | The “spokesmen” are 10 of our mod- | ern writers. The author, professor of | English in a Western university, s | these writers a critical and appraising | consideration here, against the broad background of American life asit is and | against an equally broad background of American idealism in art which, as yet, is hardly more than a beautiful and elusive dream. These writers run from Henry Adams to Eugene O'Neill, chosen not only for the genuine sub- stance of their work, but for the fact that these, in a way, represent a courterpart of an earlier period in the settlement of this country, say the pioneer period. The general trend of the study here is that America is not, | as yet certainly, a fruitful soil for the growth of a matured and mellow art. America has not the “poetic temper,” as the author puts it. This temper has been shut off, or calami- tously delayed, by the spirit of prac- | ncallg' that seems to absorb the Amer- ican ‘heart and soul. It turns out that the pioneer period was not the great and manly adventure that it has been supposed to be. No, this period so ab- | sorbed the pioneer for the wherewithal of personal life and safety that the poetic temper had no show at all. Just simply died, a-borning, if it got even that far. What the pioneer failed to do | against the poetic temper the Puritan pretty nearly finished—not quite though, since it was left for the capitalist to put the fine and finishing touches upon a country-wide philistinism whose soul, conceded that it possess a soul, has no talent for anything better than the products, the material products, of this | great country. At the end of these 10| studies—and, by the way, they are in- teresting studies of good critical con- tent, of spirited projection, of read- able ideas and judgments—at the end of them there is an analysis of “the American situation,” which, in effect, summarizes the 10 writers as partak- ing, quite inevitably, of the sorry con- dition of the country as a whole. In- deed, this is a word of encouragement to write: all American writers, to hold on “till the national point of view shall be shifted from the practical to the poetic temper.” * * * “When the millennium dawns the United States will be ready to make a start, ready to attack its real problem of devising a less naturalistic life, which will lead not to frustration but to human fulfill- ment.” I don't know what that means. I hope you do. It hardly can seem to us, in the face of so much being done for every kind of folk, so much being done to open ways for the aver- age man to help himself—it hardly along the Wabash, voted positively for | Not so many years before | that, Emerson and Thoreau and Joaquin | a source of supply for “Julius Cae- | tained vitality and interest, this au- | | tuberculesis in its early stages, denies This is a special department devoted to the handling of inquiries. You have at your disposal an extensive organiza- tion in Washington to serve you in any | capacity that relates to information. | Write your question, your name and your address clearly, and inclose 2 cents in coin or stamps for reply. Send to The Evening Star Information Bureau, Frederic J. Haskin, director, Washing- ton, D. C. Q. How tall are Herbert Hoover and Charles Curtis?>—C. A. J. A. President-elect Herbert Hoover is 2 iittle less than 6 feet tall. Vice Presi- | dent-elect Curtis is 5 feet 9% inches. H Q. Are there more blind people in the United States than there are deaf mutes?—E. E. R. | _A. The blind population of the United States in 1920 was 52,567. The number of deaf mutes in 1920 was 44,885. Q. Is the new chapel at the Univer- sity of Chicago donated by John D.| Rockefeller sectarian?—L. E. M. | _A. The chapel presented by John D. | Rockefeller, and endowed by the Laura | Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Founda. | tion, is to serve all sects and to pro-| mote the religious idealism of the stu- | dents of the University of Chicago. Q. In entertaining friends at a 6 o'clock dinner, is it correct to use bread and butter plates?>—L. C. E. | A. Bread and butter plates are used | | at informal or formal dinners. At the | { most formal of dinners bread and butter plates are not placed because there is np butter served. However, except upon | rgre occasions, bread and butter plates afle being placed at dinner. | Q. What kind of German Roller ca- | naries are companinis?>—H. H. A. Individual birds with exceptional ability as singers are used as instructors for young birds, and are known as| “companinis.” These birds are imported | from Germany, where some of the finest canary birds are raised. | There was a physician in New York who made a specialty of tuberculo: He had been treating such cases years, and, being a strong man, he was { unconcerned as to his own health. Th-n he found that he was growing strangel fatigued without apparent adequate cause, and when a fellow physician ex- amined him it was discovered that the doctor’s lungs were badly infected and | he was far gone in consumption—the | very disease in which he was a com- petent specialist, yet which he had not suspected in himself. There is a doctor in Washington, closely connected with public health work, specializing in tuberculosis. (He tells this story on himself.) He is the proud father of three little children, and employed a colored girl of 13 years of age to care for the children, espe- cially the baby. The mother, being extra careful, after several weeks of this contact with the nurse girl, sug- gested to the doctor that the nurse ougnt to be tested for tuberculosis. Just a mother’s instinct! It was found that | the colored girl was then in an ad- vanced stage of the disease. There was no cough or other familiar symp- toms—yet she was daily endangering the doctor’s ¢hildren. There are 130 tuberculous children barred from the public schools and sent to “special health schools” in Wash- iington. There they receive their in- struction in school studies, but do not receive special therapy for their disease. They are in the “health schools” 5 hours out of the 24 of the day; the other 19 are spent in their home en- vironment, ‘which is usually far from being sanitary and especially suitable | for their cases. There is no provision in Washington—no hospital for tuber- culous children; Congress will be asked this year to provide such. Where tuberculosis cases are taken in hand in early stages, more than 80 per cent recover. Even taken in advanced stages, more than 50 per cent are cured. No medicine is required—just rest, fresh air and abundant nutriment, without overeating. Rest is the princi- | pal essential—absolute rest 19 or 20 hours daily in' bed. In a children’s tuberculosis sani- tarium the child-patients are required to remain on their cots at least 19 hours out of ,24. They are taught| games that they can play in bed. That would be difficult in most homes; home is not the place, therefore, to save tuberculous children, even though it be | financially well supplied. Almost always the patient, suffering from that anything at all ails him, hence rebels against staying in bed. Yet rest—rest—and more rest—constitutes the chief “medicine,” and that is just what he fails to accept. No longer is the tuberculous patient | ent off to distant climates for recu- | veration. No climate compares with his | own home environment. The experts declare that he should remain among | family and friends, and recover in that | environment, where he will stay after recovery. Arizona and Colorado are no | better than the District of Columbia— | not so good if his family home is here. But he nceds a sanpitarium here for proper treatment. . R Rest? Yes, science,now has learned | how to rest one lung at a time, putting | it quite out of commission while it re- | cuperates and reknits its diseased parts. This is new—discovered within the last | five years. It is as simple as blindfold- ing one eye and doing all the seeing with the other. In normal health, the lungs simply | hang within the pleural cavities, without contact with the sides. Each pleural cav- ity is filled with air, at ordinary atmos- pheric pressure, which permits the lungs to expand and contract as one breath Each lung hangs in its own cavity, sep arated from that of the other lung. So | the surgeon takes a hollow needle and punctures the cavity of the lung wiich is to be “laid off,” and, through that| hollow needle, air is pumped into that | pleural cavity until there is sufficient | air pressure to hold .that lung and keep it from expanding with the intake of breath; so it gets a complete rest, while the other lung takes up all the work of breathing, and purifving the blood. While the idle lung rests the diseased spots heal, though the patient must not overexert and put too heavy a burden on the one active lung. Rest! Rest! Rest! Of course, this treatment is not continued long enough to atrophy the idle lung. There are other treatments practiced very successfully. The disease spots of the lungs are cut out surgically, and the patient then recovers by being ex- posed to direct sunlight; the sun heals the wounds made by the knife while the patient remains quiet. Rest and sunlight! No medicine! Food and rest and sunshine! - . * ¥ * Any one can detect tuberculosis when the victim has a chronic and deeply drawn cough and spits blood. But that is far from being the first sign) The ! vendor of patent medicines used to ad- vertise the inquiry, “Have you that tired feeling?” Now that query is recognized by scientists as really the earliest symptoms of tuberculosis. Extraordinary fatigue without ap- talists that, all together, are standing in the way of that poetic temper out of which alone the great works of literary art are assumed to spring. Very much of this book is finely suggestive—that a:rl of it which rises legitimately from e student’s trained activities. When it touches upon life, however—the life that is progressing so encouragingly outside of the study—at this point the ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS BY FREDERIC J. I1ASKIN. Q Why is the moon sometimes so far north and sometimes so far south? -J. L A. The Naval Observatory says that the moon does not revolve in the plane of the earth’s Equator, but in a plane inclined to the plane of ‘the Equator at an angle that variés approximately from 18 to 29 degrees. In any month the moon may be seen at least 18 degrees south of the celestial Equator, and after two weeks at least 18 degrees north of the celestial Equator. In some years, as 1913 for instance, the moon may be seen nearly 29 degrees south of the celestial Equator, and then, two weeks later, nearly 29 degrees north of the celestial Equator. The moon's rapid northerly progress occurs about one week later than its farthest south, and about one week earlier than its farthest north. Q. What is the religious affiliation of Carlyle B. Haynes, author of “Re- turn of Jesus"?—H. E. B. A. Carlyle B. Haynes is a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He is at present one of the vice presi- dents of that denomination, being in charge of the South American Division, with” headquarters at Buenos Aires, Argentina. Q When were “the various crusades? A. First crusade, 1096-1099; second, 1147-1149; third, 1189-1191; fourth, 1202, diverted from its purpose; fifth, 228-1229; sixth, 1248-1254; seventh, Q. What is the longest street in Chi- ago?—L. M. K A. Western avenue, with a length of 2315 miles, is considered Chicago's longest street. Q. Wh ing?—C. Generally speaking, the natives of Finland are the most law-abiding. A police system is not found necessary. at people are most law-abid- C. C. BACKGROUND OF EVENTS BY PAUL V. COLLINS. parent cause is a dangerous symptom. Next comes the cough which hangs on and refuses to be reached by cough medicines. Then loss of weight fol- lows, and the patient reports “indiges- tion,” but the “indigestion” is not due to weakness of {he stomach, but to tu- berculosis of the lungs. R Science is making great advances in fighting tuberculosis, though the dis- ease is not yet fully conquered. Cal- mette of the Pasteur Institute in Paris is doing constructive research in con- nection with babies. He vaccinates with “non-virulent” virus whem the child is 2 days old and separates the ¢hild from its mother at that age. It is made immune by this vaccination, according to the doctor, but the treat- ment 1s challenged by other doctors, | who claim to find that the virus may | be virulent. The treatment is stili experimental. The most scientific investigation car- | ried on in America is by Dr. Willlam Charles White of this city, chairman of the medical research committee of the Nationa! Tuberculosis Association. Bac- teria cultures are developed until great quantities are created—a pint at a time—and these are chemically ana- lyzed. All this work is too technical to be of practical interest to the lay- man. Yet the layman alone can sup- port it, through supporting the “Asso- ciation for the Prevention of Tubercu- losis,” and the one method which in- terests the layman in that support is that of buying the Christmas seals now - being sold at the rate of 100 for $1 —seals that may adorn letters and Christmas gifts. 3 * wk K ‘The sale of Christmas seals is the only way the work is being financed. It 1s worth while, for the pulmonary tuberculosis death rate in the District of Columbia in 1900 was 183 among whites and in 1925 it was only 49 per thousand population; among colored people it was 592 in 1900 and 245 in 1925. Intelligent following of scientific discovery and treatment operates in saving 134 whites per thousand per year, and 247 colored victims, who would have perished. In all classes but one, marvelous im- provement. has been made by science in the last 20 years, in fighting tuber- culosis, The statistics of the U. S. Veterans’ Bureau reflect the improvement in the cures of tubercular cases; June 30, 1924, the . hospitals held 9,887 such cases and on June 30, 1927, only 6,956 —a betterment of some 3,000. On the, same dates, the neuropsychiatric cases showed an increase in three years of more nerve cases than the decrease of tubercular cases. Even in the last year there is a marked betterment in tubercular cases. On “November 30, 1927, the hospitals held 7,282 tubercular patients, and October 31, 1928, only 6,741 * kK Ok The one class which shows no im- provement but an increase of the dis- ease is that of young women between 15 and 25 years of age. Girls have taken up the suicidal fad of wanting to be slender, so they starve themselves into consumption. Similar conditions prevail in France and other countries, except that in England the fad has not been taken up and English girls are growing ropust. In America the girls want to be of “boyish slimness,™ and the result is ghoulish sickliness, ending in consumption. So that age— 15 to 25—is now recognized as the “dangerous age.” Also the silly, sui- cidal age! Loss of weight is not always attribut- able to shortness of nutritive food, but to wrong foods and especially to over- worry or overdissipation in social af- fairs. Rest! Rest! with fresh air and plenty of correct#food are what doc- tors prescribe. Not meditine. * kK k story ot the Christmas seal is as romantic as any the “Arabian Nights” stories. It tells of a miracle. The idea was first utilized during the Civil War, when, in 1862, a group of Northern women held “fairs” through- out the North, at which “post offices” sold “charity stamps,” and rafsed more than a million dollars in two years for the care of Union soldiers in hospitals. Thirty years later, in 1892, when the Red Cross Society had been well e: tablished in many nations, a similar stamp to raise funds for the Red Cross was used in Portugal. In 1904 a Dan- ish postmaster, Einer Holboell, re- invented the stamp for raising funds to build a tubercular sanitarium for children of Denmark. Thence the idea reached America again, in 1907, through a letler bearing one of the novel stamps to Jacob Riis, a Dane living in New York City—a philanthropist and friend of President Roosevelt. Mr. Riis wrote an article for the Outlook Magazine, telling about the stamp, and that in- spired a Red Cross worker, Miss Emily P. Bissell of Wilmington, Del., who was undertaking to raise funds build a tuberculosis sanitarium near Wilming- ton. She used the sale of stamps, and succeeded in selling $3,000 of them for her sanitarium. The next year she in- duced the National Red Cross Society to use the stamps for tuberculosis fund: So the Red Cross handled that work for 10 years, raising increasing amounts from $135000 the first vear up to & total in its 10 years of $35,000,000. financing an enterprise which now holds hospital property valued at $175.« 000,060 with maintenance cost of $40,- 000,000 a year. That accounts for the wonderful life-saving of two-thirds of the annual white victims and more than half of the colored. The sale of the stamps is now exclusively han- dled by the National Tuberculosis As- The book sounds like utter nonsense, for can scem to be true that we are the carth - bound, s°lf - seeking Puritanic hard-heads, the hypoceritical sentimen- whose support the author has chosen, not in complete security, 10 of our out- standing writers, 4 sociation, the Red Cross having turned it over to that organization after the full development of rk. (Covyrizht. 1928. by Paal V. Colline.)