Evening Star Newspaper, January 20, 1929, Page 26

2 ——— THE EVENING STAR Wil unday Morning Edition. WASHINGTON, D. C. SUNDAY .January 20, 1929 THEODORE W. NOYES. ...Editor The Evening Star Newspaper Company | usiness Office: it and Pennsylvania A Offi 110 East 42nd St. Office: Tower Bullding. Chicago Office: 14 Regent St.. London, England. Buropean Rate by Carrier Within p- Evening Star..... . he Evening and Sunday (when 4 Sundays) The Evening and Sunday Star (when 5 Sundays)..... 65¢ per month The Sunday Star ........... per copy Collection made at the end of fach month Orders may be sent in by mall or telephone Main 5000. Rate by Mail—Payable in Advance. Maryland and Virginia. Datly and Sunday n Daily only, Sunday only . AR Other States and Canada. Dalls and Sunday..1 yr..$1200: 1 mo., $1.00 Daily only .........1 yr. $800; 1 mo. 75¢ Sunday only ‘1 yr.. $5.00! 1 mo.. 80c Member of the Associated Press. The Associated Fress is exclusively cntitled to the use for republization of all rews dis- patehes credited to it or not otherwise cred- ited in this paper and also the local news published herein. All rights of publication of special dispatches herein are also reserved. o = et Broad Widening Plans Needed. A proposition has just been made to the District Commissioners by a com- the City. 45¢ per month. 60c per month mite of the Washington Chamber of | on the money invested in the shape of | Commerce for the widening of Hstreet from Massachusetts avenue to Seven- loss of revenue from taxation, as hun- dreds of cottage owners along Chesa- peake Bay are ready to dispose of their places bought on account of the fine fishing formerly enjoyed. Maryland na- tives along the bay who cater to the wants of the anglers will also be de- prived of a big source of revenue, and this affects boatmen, lodging houses, stores, gasoline stations, efc. This year many who formerly were not opposed to the purse netters are | now in favor of a bill prohibiting their use. It is doubtful if any legislation in Maryland outside of the oyster ques- tion has aroused as much interest, and the Conservation Department of the | State of Maryland is more optimistic this year than ever that the two bills will be passed at this session of the Legislature. Conservative’ estimates have placed the number of local anglers visiting the many fishing grounds along Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries at 5,000 weekly. These anglers agree that each trip costs them from $3 to $5 apiece, and thus they have been turning into the hands of Maryland merchant$ and boatmen each week during the- fishing season between $15,000 and $20,000. But this outlay was considerably lessened last year because the anglers were returning home empty-handed time after time. If there is one thing that the angler wants, it is a fair return fish. If he does not get it; he will soon visit other places, and unless some ac- teenth street. This proposal illustrates | tion is taken by the present session of anew a difficulty that has arisen through the occasional and piecemeal the Maryland Legislature to offer local anglers better fishing the number will widening of downtown thoroughfares | pe still further reduced. for the relief of traffic in the area of greater congestion. Wherever these widening works have been undertaken the effect has been to bring about sud- den constrictions in the arteries of traf- fic. The traffic streams do not dimin- ish naturally at these points.? The re- sult is that serious congestion is caused at these “bottle necks” and along the Rt K SRR N LS The Democrats and Prohibition. Rapresentative Box of Texas, who recently wrote to Gov. Roosevelt that the forces which controlled the Demo- cratic party in the last campaign should no longer control, has told the House that he will not continue as Democratic whip of that body in the riarrower stretches of the partially | next Congress. Representative Garner, widened streets. also of Texas, is to become the Demo- The experiences of the past tWo OF | ciatic Jeader, and Mr. Box pointed out three years, during which several im- | gt 4t would not be reasonable to ex- portant street widening works have|p,act that Texas should have both |college in California,.after having pre- Democratic ington, have not been such &s to en- | iy ang that it had been understood | 8irdled the globe as a traveler, and courage a continuation of the policy of | that he would not continue as whip | Wrote countless magazine articles and accasional enlargements. In every in-|gfier March 4, the close of the present | books dealing with his exploration of been accomplished in downtown Wash- leader and Democratic stance the traffic congestion in the Congress. narrower portions of the partly widened But although Mr. Box is withdraw- streets 'has been greatcr at the €on-|ing from the position of whip, he is clusion of the operation than it was at | no¢ pack-tracking on his statement to | Whitney. Later he was editor of Out- Gov. Roosevelt that John J. Raskob, traffic has grown more rapidly than the | the present chairman of the Demo- |Outdoor America. the beginning. In other words, the street widening has given relief. cratic national committee, should give |he was one of Herbert Hoover's lieu- A comprehensive study of this ques- | yp his present office. His resentment | tenants in the Commission for Relief of tlon is required. Washington must be | against the appointment of Mr. Raskob | Belglum. considered as a whole, not as a series | 15 take charge of the Democratic or- of neighborhoods, else street widening | ganization apparently is due to the | membered name. works as they may become NECeSSAIY | fact that Mr. Raskob, in the opinion |of America and the fine traditions of in the adaptation of the Capltal's plan | or My Box, has sought to make the |clean combat which distinguish them to present and prospective conditions | pemocratic party the “wet” party of [can never be discussed by future his- will prove to be excessively expensive. | the country. He said in his address to It is obviously in the interest of econ- |the House: o A;\ny to draft a plan for systematic aftery provision through the widening of exisfing thoroughfares or possibly the provision of new ones. duestion, which is of the most pressing ipportance there because of the im- mense values at stake. The latest pro- | the htenth posal broad | and cherished by a s, cratic State and overwhelmingly adopt- . ed by the Nation in a constitutional Island, perhaps four or five | way, highway spaces from sast to west across Manhattan of them, and each comprising one or Early in the recent campaign Demo- crats heard with dismay that the na- tional part; placed in the charge of a master of " ith it finance x‘:;w the ll)!q)ub’lll,l:n'x p.&y (am:, 2 «New York is struggling who, without becoming a Democrat, | as to make sure of collecting the gov- took charge of the dishonored and per- . 80 verted organization largely for the pur- organization had been of using it to repeal or emasculate eighteenth amendment, ~ratified every safely Demo- It is quite clear from the attitude of possibly two complete blocks in width ! the Democratic whip of the House that from north to south. These spaces, it |any further attempt by Democrats of 18 urged, would be of the highest value | the North and East to make prohibition for the accommodation not merely of | a major issue, with the Democrats tak- rhoving traffic, but for parking and for | ing the wet side of the argument, will bus terminals. The cost today would | pe resented strongly by a very large mount into the hundreds of millions. number of Democrats in various parts But the cost twenty-five years from |of the country. Mr. Box does not be- fiow would, at the rate of value in- |lieve that the 15,500,000 votes cast for crease that has prevailed in New York | Gov. Smith indicate the strength of the | (" \octore Standard Ofl interests to! for some decades past, mount. into. the | wet cause in the country. He calls|ipir old status of “Just one happy | attention to the fact that he ‘himself | billions. . It is not believed that Washington | supported Gov. Smith in the recent will ever conceivably require any such | campaign, and the inference is that drastic means of traffic accommodation | thousands of other dry Democrats did | ward peace among nations when a gen- the same. as that just advocated for New York. But in the same spirit of prevision there should be some co-ordination of | question of prohibition and its enforce- | plans such as have been drawn by sev- | ment strongly in the public eye. The next four years will see the The eral agencies of inquiry for the future | Democratic party, like the Republican, d, indeed, for the almost immediate requirements. continue indefinitely proposals will have to determine what its attitude Otherwise there - will | is to be in the next national campaign for [ toward this subject. There is reason street widening along greater or smaller | to doubt, however, that an effort will distances prompted by urgent local|again be made to make the question meeds, but not brought into harmony of prohibition an issue in ‘a national #ith a broad plan. e —————— It is entirely possible that Mr. Hilles will enjoy being relieved of patronage responsibilities. The job not only keeps & man busy, but imposes a great deal of wear and tear on his sense of human { #ympathy. campaign, other than its stringent. en- forcement. —————r—————— Legal procedure concerning leader- ship of the Salvation Army will tend to exploit a very old sentiment oppos- ing the development of politics in re- ligion. = .- - Maryland's Fisheries Bills. ““Twenty thousand local anglers have | turned their eyes and ears to Annapolis fo see and hear what the present session 4t the Maryland Legislature will do| when the two bills looking to the pro- tection of black bass and the game fish fo Chesapeake Bay are introduced. Twenty thousand or more anglers realize that unless the bill to prohibit the use of purse nets in Maryland wa- ters is enacted into law there soon will be no fishing in Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. - Twenty thousand or more local an- glers also realize the necessity of Mary- land having a black bass law similar to those in effect in Virginia and the Dis- trict of Columbia prohibiting the sale &nd shipment of this game fish. ‘The Conservation Commission of M-ryland is backing these two meas- ures, and the Izaak Walton Chapters of Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia are doing everything pos- sible to push these two bills to a suc- cessful conclusion. . Conservation departments of many States have agreed that the purse net 4s the most deadly killer of fish and have passed laws prohibiting its use. The State of Maryland at present is block- dng the way, both in regard to the purse-net law and also for the protec- tion of bass. Virginia passed a bill for the protection of bass and the Congress of the United States passed such a law for the District of Columbia. Illegal gatchers of bass in the lower Potomac and its - tributaries ship their hauls to the Baltimore markets. With the closing of those markets to these fish- hogs this evil will be practically stopped, because the cost of shipping to farther points would be prohibitive. Unless the Maryland Legislature en- 2cts & law prohibiting the use of the furse nets the State will suffer a big B The problem plays inside a theater amount to little, compared to the park- ing problems just outside. -—oe—- The Rockefeller-Stewart situation shows that in financial friction oil does not necessarily lubricate. —— -t The Food Division. A feature of the inaugural parade that has just been approved by the committee in charge will attract general attention and form a suitable item in the ceremonial. This will be a group of marchers who were assistants to Herbert Hoover in the Food Adminis- tration during the war and post-war period. It is not expected that there will be a large number in this “division” of the parade, but whether there are a | score, or a hundred, or a thousand, they will serve as a record of a work accom- plished by the new Executive which developed the qualifications for the high office to which he was elected in November. : Mr. Hoover's Food Administration work was not in the line of his general training, but it followed logically from his experiences in Belgium during the first two and a half years of the war. ing great numbers of people. his excellent judgment of individuals, cumstances. When chosen for the administration of Belgian relief, Mr. Hoover had had no contact with the problem of .provision- He ap- plied to it his capacity for organization, his ability to effect systematic and har- monious co-operation in difficult ecir- ‘When the United States went into the war and Mr. Hoover was sent for by President Wilson to undertake the Food Administration work he was, by virtue of his service in Belgium, an expert rationer. Again he organized the serv- ice that was intrusted to him with good effect, exercising his sound judgment regarding persongl capacities and ef- THE SUNDAY STAR., WASHINGTON, D. C, JANUARY 20, fecting a remarkably harmonioys and- co-operative unit of Government.serv- ice. The spirit of loyalty which has been manifested toward him by. the per- sonnel of the Department of Commerce during his seven and a half years of service there was displayed by the smaller group that constituted the Food war period. It is this spirit that has | caused the proposal to be made for .l i special participation in the inaugural ! parade, and the arrangement that has | been now reached to include this group | in the pageantry of the day is particu- larly a happy one, for it is both historic | and significant. : vt | An Outdoor Authority. All members of the living generation lof sport-loving Americans will regret | the passing of Caspar Whitney, war| | correspondent, expert on -athletics, | travel writer and authority in the boundless realm of outdoor life. Mr. Whitney has just succumbed to pneu- monia at New York, aged sixty-four. He was perhaps at the heydey of his literary career in the early days of the present century when, as a cotemporary of men like Richard Harding Davis and Walter Camp, Whitney stirred the imaginations of American youth, par- ticularly of the college type, Wwith his outgivings on athletic subjects. He came to be regarded as oracular. His views and decisions on controversial occasions, in the fields of amateur sport, enjoyed judicial respect. He made and unmade reputations on the gridiron, diamond and track. Whitney was long a power in the affairs of the American Amateur Ath- letic Association, which placed the hall- mark of its rulings upon records and record makers, and determined the con- ditions under which the youth of the land played games. He was a stickler for cleanliness in sport and waged un- ceasing warfare against professionallsm within amateur ranks. Whitney was a native Bostonian and a sclon of the distinguished house whicly traces its origin to Bradford, the first Colonial Governor of Massachu- setts, but was graduated from a modest pared for Harvard. More than once he unknown parts. It was his contribu- tions on outdoor life in Harper's that first attracted national attention to ing Magazine, and later of Colller's | From 1914 to 1917 | He leaves an honored and well re- The popuiar sports torians without paying tribute to the part Caspar Whitney played in estab- | lishing them. - B France proposes to establish pari- | mubtel machines in all large cities so | ernment tax on betting. In France, while gambling may be wrong, tax- dodging is worse. P r———— Broadway theaters ar$ hiving a quick succession of failures. - Managers are willing to try anything once, and the | American dramatist is having the | chance of a lifetime. SEEE A Consolidations of capital are supposed to providé facilities for cheapening and | improving service. Nevertheless, the number .of straphangers will doubtless g0 on increasing." . . It will require some time and patience family.” ———————— The world takes a step forward to- eral sentiment in favor of it is so em- phatically expressed. . SHOOTING STARS. BY PHILANDER JOHNSON. The New Politics. Now politics is not the same. It is a very nifty game Presided over by some dame Of haughty pedigree, ‘Who never says “dese,” “dem” or “dose,” But with an air of great repose Her social prestige will disclose, ‘While deftly pouring tea. ‘Ward workers now must all behave. The men when audience they crave Must be particular to shave; The girls must all look neat— No more in line the bouncers stand— She needs them not, for her command Of social power gives her hand ‘The cards that can’t be beat! Giving Value, “You make rather long speeches.” “Yes,” answered Senator Sorghum. “I know brevity is the soul of wit. But out our way, even when it comes to talk, taxpayers want a lot for their money.” *Jud Tunkins says there ought to be some way of meeting parking problems without depending entirely on a police- man with a plece of chalk. Mid-January. The growling beast will help, they say, To teach the birds to sing— A fleeting sunbeam shines each day To light the way to Spring. Making It Short. “Feeling 112" “Rather.” “What's the trouble?” “Flu.” “Sure?” “No. But there’s no good in aggra- | vating discomfort with conversation. | ‘Flw’ is the shortest word for an ail- ment that I know of.” “Men are like children,” saild Hi Ho, the sage of Chinatown. “Stlent suffer- ing is admirable, but a bawling baby gets the most attention.” Socially Uninterested. “Saciety is not for me,” Began a plaintive ballad— “I care not for ice cream or tea— I don't like chicken salad.” “I keeps wishin’ foh my old mule,” said Uncle Eben. “When a mule balks, all you has to do is wait foh him' to Administration in the war and post- | | March 2 and March 6 next, just nicely shop of Text: “Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another?”— St. Matthew, “The Logic of Depression.” ‘This is the startling query that John the Baptist addressed to Jesus. He had been thrown by Herod into his loath- some prison house. His dramatic ‘min- istry had come suddenly ‘o an end. From widespread and increasing popu- | larity he was sent by a cruet and licen- tious monarch to prison, there to await execution. He had literally descended from the mountain tops of an exhila- rating and inspiring experience to the shadowy depths of depression and un- certainty concerning his mission. For the while his unfailing faith in the One of whom he had been the forerunner suffered an eclipse. From this stand- point there is reasonable logic in the inquiry he addressed to Jesus. With communications with the Master cut off, with his own ministry interrupted and seemingly defeated, it was reason- able that he should ask the question, “Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another?” He had heard in prison of the works of Jesus, he had noted His evident progress, but he would know more of His authority and His assumption of divine power. His situation illustrates one that is common to all of us. Now and again we pass through experiences that are 50 utterly depressing, so spiritually en- ervating, that literally “hosannas lan- uish on our lips and our devotion dies.” The testing time comes to us when our area or vision is restricted, when our freedom is inhibited, when contacts with rejuvenating spiritual forces are denied us, and when the light in our skies seems for the time to be lost. John Galsworthy had this in mind when he wrote in the early stages of the World War, “Three hundred church spires raised to the glory of Christ, three hundred million human crea- tures baptized into His service, and war to the death of them all!” To his shat- tered vision it seemed like the defeat of a sublime cause. The Prince of Peace had been dethroned and the god of war had taken his place. That our post-war age is given to doubt and speculation more than those periods that have gone before is clearly obvious. Some call this “a wistful age;” it is certainly one that is char- acterized by drifting. It is an age that calls for more of discriminating judg- ment than our generation has hitherto' known. We can hardly pick up a piece of our current literature without finding in it some virulent attack upon the Christian faith. A distinguished crim- inal lawyer makes bold to declare that EVERYDAY RELIGION BY THE RIGHT REV. JAMES E. FREEMAN, D. D, LL. D, W ashington is but a figment of the imagination. The tragic thing about most of these assaults upon the Christian faith is that they offer no reasonable substitute in its stead. For that which has given unmeasured comfort to countless thou- sands of human lives they offer nothing in the way of an alternative. It is not strange in the face of such conditions that now and again those who are possessed with a strong Christian faith | should ery out, “Art Thou He that should come, or'do we look for another?” It is hard to dispossess those conceptions or ideals of life that were given us in childhood and that constitute the legacy of early and sacred associations. Even age does not dim them to our vision, nor do the chilling blasts of disappoin:- ed hopes destroy their charm. Tragie, indeed, is that situation in which a man finds himself hopelessly without this heritage. Conspicuous as are the attacks upon the Christian faith at the present time, they are in no sense unique. Again and again men have striven to defeat the high and holy purposes of Jesus of Nazareth. Again and again have futile attacks been made upon the citadel of the Christian faith. In spite of all these, it still per- sists. The -answer of Jesus to his de- spairing forerunner was, “Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see.” A like answer may be given today to the honest inquirer. In spite of all said to the contrary, the sheer persistence of Jesus in human thought, His continuing influence upon human lives, His raising up of those morally dead, His giving freshened im- pulse to those who are halt and lame, His opening of eyes that were blind to the high claims of His philosophy, His gospel more universally preached to men and women of every type and kind—all these attest His place of in- fluence in twentieth century life. No single personality recorded upon the pages of human history has so per- meated human thought, so stimulated human action, or so inspired men to deeds of noble service as this sublime Son of Man. He stands before the world today as its unchallenged teacher and leader, saying to it as He said to John of old, “The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepsrs are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have ‘he gospel preached to them.” “And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.” There is no substi- tute for His sublime teaching, there is no panacea afforded to human hearts comparable to that which proceeds from His divine lips. He penetrates the prison house in which we seem to see the defeat of our most cherishied hopes and refreshes and inspires us with His immortality is a myth, that the hope that has soothed many a broken heart word of divine assurance and His life of supreme triumph. BY WILLIAM HARD. The new National Conference of Or- ganizations Supporting the Eighteenti Amendment—which is the grand con- solidated army of all our dry forces— will pitch camp and hold maneuvers in Washington on some date between hitting the inauguration. ‘The meeting will be attended by all the dry generalissimos of the Nation. ‘Thé accolade of approval and of support will be laid wpon the shoulders of Her- ber{ Hoover. A large and wide engraved and illuminated piece of parchment will be presented to him testifying to the trust reposed in him by the as- sembled "hosts and strategists of the dry cause. . F' The new’ administration” will' start ?rthgd pure in a baptism of prohibi- on. Three heavy and loud guns will be at once fired to signalize the devotion of the new administration to the solving of the prohibition problem. One will be the projected presidential commission of altitudinous citizens 10 look and see how prohibition and othes | Federal laws can be made to command a greater obedience from the citizen. The second will be the proposed trans- fer of the Bureau of Prohibition from the professional administrators of the Treasury Department to the profes- sional prosecutors of the Department of Justice. The third will be the initiation of a vast governmental propaganda to persuade the citizen by leaflets and posters and other exhortations to be- | lieve that every day in every way he would be better and better if he heeded the call of his country and its laws and became soberer and soberer. k. The wet citizen is going to be way- laid and attacked from every side. Evea if and when not sent to jail, he will find himself spending his time rud!in& re- ports on the contributions of whisky to crime and looking at pictures nailed to telegraph poles by the Federal Govern- ment for the purpose of impressing him with the sanctity and rounded beauty of the Constitution. A full line of such pictures, sketched roughly but effectively in pencil or crayon, has been presented to the President-elect by an enterprising firm of printers and lithographers dedicated to the marriage of law enforcement and art. The President-elect has vouch- safed no opinion about them, but it is remembered with happiness by the drys and with misery by the wets that it was by means of posters and the like that Herbert Hoover, as food administrator during the late war with Germany, per- suaded the American public to go in for meatless and wheatless days of food conservation. It is believed highly credible that he now might start a poster campaignu for drinkless days. 1t is precisely with that end in view that Senator Jones of Washington has introduced into the Senate his proposal for an appropriation of $250,000 to be spent by the Bureau, of Prohibition on “educational” work regrading the merits of prohibition and the menaces cf law~ lessness and bibulousness. One of the pro) d pictures displays an_absolutely efficlent and domestic workingman returning to his absolutely clean and neat cottage, peopled by a plump wife and numerous rollicking children, while a caption at the side of the picture describes his condition con- fidently as that of being “Sober, Indus- trious and Affectionate.” . It is reasonably thought that the farther along a man is in his cups, the more he will weep with contrition upon beholding this scene. * K ok X The fact is that the pictures are ex- cellently done and the fact is further that there can be no doubt that argu- ment and persuasion will be even more used than prosecution and conviction by the next administration as weapons of prohibition enforcement and success. This policy has the full support of the new “Ohio gang.” Dr. E. C. Dinwiddie, secretary of the new National Conference of Organiza- tions Supporting - the Eighteenth Amendment, hails from Ohio, F. Scott McBride, - general - superin- tendent of the Anti-Saloon League, hails from Ohio. Mrs. Ella Boole, president of the Na- tional Women's Christian Temperance Union, hails from Ohio. Ernest H. Cherrington, secretary of the National Temperance Council, gen- eral secretary of the World League Against Alcoholism, chairman of the executive committee of the Scientific Temperance Federation, general direc- tor of the publications of the Anti- Saloon League and master mind of publicity and propaganda for righteous- ness and against rum, hails from Ohio. This “Ohio gang” wastes no time in play. Nor does it, on the other hand, change his mind, But when a fllyver balks, what is you g'ineter dofar wear long flapping black coats or high black stove-chimney hats or big round Dry Forces to Open Campaign Here at Inauguration Time folks are now much more terrible. They dress for business and they go at their stuff that way. Their notion seems to be to make the wets, and not them- selves, look old-fashioned. They are keen for the presidential commission to inquire into possible im- provement of conditions under the eighteenth amendment. They calculate —with much reason—that Mr. Hoover will not direct that commission to in- quire into whether or not the eighteenth amendment is a good idea. They think that Mr. Hoover thinks that the amend- ment is a legislative policy fully settled for the time belng by action of the Congress and by action of the State Legislatures which ratified the amend- ment. They calculate—justifiably— that Hoover will instruct. the eommis- sion to ihquire simply into methods whereby the eightcenth amendment and other Federal legislative policies can be rescued from the present orgy of law- breaking. EikxE Even at that, the proposed commis- |'sion has the enthusiestic support of | most of our outstanding wets. “Any inquiry of any kind by a Hoover commission into this general subject is bound to do some good,” says Sena- tor Edge of New Jersey, distinguished wet, to this writer. “A commission which starts looking into any part of this subject will be bound more or less to look into the whole of it. The main thing now about prohibition is to get to somewhere about it. Any comm appointed by Hoover will be certain to get to somewhere. You may say for me that no matter who the men are that Hoover appoints and no matter what the instructions are that he gives them, the whole thing will most assur- edly be managed scientifically, if it is managed by Hoover, and I am delighted with the prospect.” Thug the wets are pouring out liba- tions to Hoover while the drys are rat- tling their bones for him. ~The drys are banking on his being pure. The wets are banking on his being sclentific. Both are hopef, —— e Credit Men to Crusade Against “Failure” Frauds BY HARDEN COLFAX. With grim determination to knock a few sizable segments out of the bank- ruptey rings which burden the business fabric of the United States, the Nation- al Assoclation of Credit Men last week launched a drive to raise a fund of $1,750,000 for investigations and prose- cutions. Commercial crimes cost the people of this country around a billion dollars a year and of this it has been estimated that $250,000,000 is involved in busi- ness fallures. It requires no chart to demonstrate that this item forms a heavy tax on the purses of the ultimate consumers. The two-gun highwayman gets the srgfga“um headlines, but his bland brother who preys upon business gets the real money. It has been estimated by conservative authorities that 75 per cent of bank- rupteles are tainted with some degree of fraud. During 1928 there were 23,942 commercial failures in the United States, with liabilities aggregating $486,559,000, in contrast to 23,146 and liabilities "of $520,105,000 during 1927. These figures are higher than in 1925 T?g‘ 1926, but lower than in 1923 and The National Association of Credit Men deals with wholesale credit; trans- actions between manufacturer and wholesaler and wholesaler and retailer. The Associated Retail Credit Men, a separate organization, assumes the bur- den of relations between individual con- sumers and retail dealers. It is in com- mercial credit, rather than individual jcredit, that the opportunities for fraud jare presented, ‘mtunlly. * kX New York City business is echoing with the noise of another disturbance over hankruplc{ cases. What happens in the metropolis often has widespread effects; in commercial failures there usually are creditors or other parties at interest far from the Harlem River. The Federal judges of the southern district of New York, in the midst of an uproar over the disappearance of a man who had acted as receiver in a number of bankrupt estates, announced last week that arrangements have been made with a bank which hereafter is to be named receiver, negotiations to this end having been under way sev- eral weeks. Several jurisdictions already follow this plan. Representative Celler of New York, on Thursday, introduced in the House a bill to amend the na- goggles. That stuff is all out. These tional bankruptey act so as to Jm\-ld. that & bank, nzher'mm an individual, | the United States civil service, according | Capital Sidelights BY WILL P. KENNEDY. Five feet ten inches and 150 pounds of tireless, wiry energy, a live wire with a square-set, fighting jaw; piercing, kindly eyes ever searching human mo- tives from behind tortoise-shell glasses; high forehead affording ample space for an active, analytical brain—that's a word sketch by one of $he well known Washington correspondents that George Rossiter Farnum, assistant attorney gen- eral, can't get away from. Whether he is battling the claims of German own- ers of vessels interned during the war, or refusing to intercede in the Sacco- | Vanzetti case, or presiding at a recep- tion by the Massachusetts State Society (of which he is president), or denying that he is a candidate for Attorney Gen- eral in the Hoover caoinet, this human dynamo in the Department of Justice, who worked his way through Boston University law school as a brakeman on the Boston & Maine Railroad, some one comes along and reminds him of this pen and ink sketch. Few men have so impressed themselves on official Wash- ington in two years' time, by dint of work well done through tireless effort—- and Farnum enjoys a soclal evening by way of relaxation. He is now arranging a reception for the Massachusetts dele- gation in Congress and all the old neighbors in the Bay State. * kK x ‘Washington is a veritable beehive of experts who are extremely busy doing unusual things that amaze the common run of people. Take Dr. C. G. Abbot, secretary of the Smithsonian Institu- tion, who is ispecializing on studies of the radiation of the sun and of the stars. The other day he amazed mem- bers of the House appropriations com- mittee by describing how he takes the heat from a star, collecting it with the great 100-inch telescope at Mount Wil- son, Calif, and measuring the heat 1n its spectrum. One of the most dum- | founding asfertions he made was that this work was done with an instrument composed of the wings of a common housefly. It was so_exceedingly deli- cate that the wings of a single housefly would be sufficient to make half a dozen of those instruments. With such an instrument, Dr. Ab- bot says, he was not only able to observe the heat of the star but the distribution of that heat in the d.\(-{ ferent colors of the spectrum. He says he himself was surprised to receive word from Dr. Henry Norris Russell, director of the observatory at Prince- ton, who advised him that there was nothing he could do that would be more important in the eyes of scien- tific men than to carry on this study of the distribution in the spectrum of the radiation of the stars. * kK X Another little stunt that is being| carried on is the making of an inter- national map of the world on the mil~ lionth scale. A conference was held in Europe last Summer of the various nations interested to discuss the feasi- bility of this undertaking. The Amer- ican delegation included E. Lester Jones, director of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, and Mr. Boggs, the State Department’s photof rapher. The plan as outlined to Con- gress by Wilbur J. Carr, assistant Sec- retary of State, is for each country to send maps of the territory under its| jurisdiction to the central bureau for | criticism and standardization. The membership of the United States is desirable in order that the American Government may have use of the maps of the other portions of the world, not included in American territory, on the scale of 1,1,000,000.| It is considered most desirable and| advantageous that this Government should adhere to the central bureau, not only for military and naval rea- sons, but also for commercial, geograph- | ical and geological reasons as well. | ‘The American portion of the interna- tional map of the world is being pre- pared by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey with the help of the pher of the . State Department. he State Department. submits the maps as they are completed to the central bureau, which is located in| Southampton, England. * ok ok There are now 568,715 employes in to. & statement just submitted to Con- gress. Of these 61,388 are in Washing- tton—36,843 men and 24,545 women— and 507,327 are in what is called “the | field service,” outside of Washington— | 452,034 of these being men and 55293 women. | The largest number of employes is | in the postal service—310,935—and this does not include 34,305 clerks at fourth class offices who are employed | n | and paid by the postmasters and 22,278 | mail messengers. The Treasury De- partment comes next with 51,507 em- | ployes and the War Department third with 45,408, In the District of Columbia the Treasury Department has the largest | number of employes, 13,818, and the Navy Department second with 6,637, the Department of Agriculture third with 4,88¢ and the Department of Commerce fourth with 4,621. The ‘White House has 45 employes under civil service—42 men and 3 women. * ok ok X The Medical and Surgical History of the World War has been written. The revised proofs on the last volume have been sent to the Government Printing Office. There are in all 17 volumes. This little job will be entirely completed by the War Department before the close | of the fiscal year. In all 2,500 sets are being printed and distributed to libraries and to a limited extent in foreign coun- tritex. Each Army Hospital is to have a set. be appointed receiver in every juris- diction of the Federal courts. Two years ago Congress enacted sev- eral amendments to the bankruptcy laws in hope of tightening them against fraud by bankrupts and by officials of the court in such cases. The amend- ments have had a healthy effect, but so long as human nature remains what it is it appears there will be some will- ing to take a chance; this in spite of the number of persons who languish in Federal prisons for their misdeeds. Credit men consider as highly im- portant a decision handed down {y the United States Supreme Court last Mon- day upholding sentences for contempt of court for failure to comply with orders to turn over to trustees record books or assets, which decision stressed | the importance of a turnover order. | * ok K % Four yedrs ago the National Associa- tion of Credit Men started the first| heavy drive against commercial crooks by raising a protective fund to set up a special organization for investigation and prosecution. They went after $1,000,000 and succeeded in raising $1,400,000—sufficient to carry the work almost through the present year. In the three and a half years this special fund has been available, the credit men have handled 2400 cases where there was reason to believe fraud been committed, and these cases concerned more than 100,000 persons, financially. Having brought about conviction of more than 600 persons, while 63¢ more indictments await trial, the credit men are now going out for further victories. Business having expanded, they want a larger fund, which they calculate will carry the warfare forward for probably five years more. Solicitations from banks and business houses in all parts of the country, excepting the far West, where the first campaign was waged only last year, will be made from now until the end of June, city by eity. With court machinery nmclfonlnz under strengthened laws, including not only the amended bankruptcy act, but statutes against shipment of stolen prop- erty in interstate commerce, the credit men believe the life of the commercial crook is going to be made increasingly difficult each year. If this be true, the overhead of doing business will be re- duced and ‘the ultimate consumers should share in the resultant benefits. (Copyright, 1920.) fishe) Pnclfi side.” WITCHES AND WIZARDS BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN. One of the most extraordinary testi- monies to come out of the York witch- craft case, in the opinion of most peo- ple, was the constant reference to men, | such as Blymyer, Rehmeyer and Len- hart as witches. For some centurles past people have always thought of witches as women, and they usually aie pictured as liorrid hags. Such pic- tures we saw in our childish story books. ‘The male sorcerer was a wizard or a warlock. ‘That the York witchcraft springs di- rectly from very early sources, rather than from our own Salem witches or those of modern Europe, is indicated because one to two thousand years ago the same term was used in England, Scotland, the Scandinavian countries and Germany, gender. The York witches have a longer direct genealogical line than our Salem witches had. These particular witches were almost | exclusively good witches—at least at first—for the early Saxon and Scandi navian and Gaelic words for them c incide with the modern word “exorcise. which means “to drive away evil"” However, it is quite possible, if not probable, that this friendly expression was attached in the same fearful sense in which the Greeks called the Furies “Good Friends.” Of course, to this day, species of witcheraft are practiced in Scotland and in the islands nearby. Many oid women have what is called second sight. They foretell things with uncanny ac - curacy and often are struck with a sudden realization which amounts to a conviction that something has hap- pened to a certain person, death or some disaster, at the ends of the earth. Almost infallibly this type of witch- craft, represented by mental telepathy or something akin to it, proves abso- lutely true. In England the Druids were gifted with supernatural powers, according to | all legends concerning them. They, of course, were pagans. And the most fa- mous wizard known to English-speaking people is Merlin. Then there is Way- land the Smith, who, with the aid of dwarfs, according to legend, forged swords which were invincible in the hands of the champions of those days, such, for example, as the knights | King Arthur. Merlin had one of Wa; land's swords. Sung in Poetry. Probably the wizard of the British Isles was Michael Scott, who lived at Melrose Abbey and is regarded with a certain amount of veneration to this day. The people of Scotland have always set great store by witches and warlocks. Burns' “Tam o' Shanter” and other poems tell how the people of his day dared not stay out after dark alone. Belief in witches was in the blood— and still is. In the time of the Cov- enanters dozens, if not scores, of witches wers brned to death by these zealous Profestants because they. had cast spells on persons, dried up the. cat- tle, prevented the ewes from lambing and otherwise brought harm to the peo- ple. Protestant ministers of the Gospel were responsible for these Lturnings: Catholic priests were responsible for many more burnings, perhaps because bbb b et with no_distinction of | ¢ | Witch hazel. second most famous | there were far more prissts than min- isters. One Catholic prelate is reported {to have condemned 20,000 witches. Au- thorities disagree on the number burned in the grand old witch-hunting days of .the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- turles. The minimum estimate is 100,- 000 and the largest over a million. Our Salem witcheraft, which resulted in quite a few deaths, attacked us in }691 and 1692. The last conviction of a | witch in England was in 1722, but the !last in Germany was not until 1782. | George Washington was alive. ~"The | United States was an independent Na- tion. It was not so very long ago. Witches of Both Genders. As time has passed witcheraft has come to be more and more regarded as the peculiar talent of women, and so it is the more surprising to find the men of York not only practicing the black arts, but being called by the name of witches instead of wizards, locks or magicians. Quite likely, however, hyp- notists in an earlier century would not have been able to come into the open, but would have set up as magicians and if apprehended by the authorities have been burned to death. Thurston, the stage magician, and the late Houdini would not have lasted 2 minute. Church or state would have had them instanter. Or perhaps ‘they would have become gods. To be sure, female witches have al- ways outnumbered the wizards. Horace describes a witches' Sabbath very en= tertainingly and, in Greece, the women of Thessaly were especially famed. A large part of witcheraft working evil is attributed to the familiar, as it was called; conceived to be actually some animal into which a witch or magician could project his personality and go about unsuspected, making mis- chief. The story of Gyges' ring, to wear which made one invisible, comes from the earliest times. The familiar has been a recognized trapping since witch- craft has been practiced. There was the Witch of Endor, of whom Saul, seeking to raise up Samuel, said, “She hath a familiar spirit.” Socrates - referred to his daemon which guided him. ° Millions of people daily find some use for the medicinal preparation called Not so very long ago peo- ple employed witches to locate under= ground sources of water so that there ‘| they might advantageously dig wells, The witches used what many people use to this day—divining rods. “The. medicinal preparation referred to is made largely of the bark of the hazel bush, which the witches employed in finding water, so, therefore, it is called, witch hazel. . Many people are so afraid of witch enemies that they keep taeir real names. secret. They have separate names known to the public. In some cases parents give the secret names, which they do not disclose to the child until | maturity, when he understands the ne« |cessity for keeping the secret. The reason is that it is feared that if an enemy knew the real name he. could conjure with it, possibly to do the per- son harm. - And the old witch man, Rehmeyer, fought until death to prevent another from getting a lock of his hair for pre- cisely the same reason—that he might not conjure with it. Fifty Years Ago In The Star Half a century ago preparations were | being made in anticipation of the tak- ing of the decennial cen- A Census 5us of 1880, and there was een interes mat- Complex. tor"because of the aspira- tions of certain cities to make a good showing in the population returns. The Star of January 14, 1879, says: “The feature of the new census bill which prevents, as far as possible, the protracted enumeration of the popula- | tion and confines it to as brief & period as is thought practicable is doubtless a good one. But it involves superhuman iabors on the part of competing cities like Chicago and St. Louis. The ordi~ nary method of causing one’s self to be counted several times by the census taker, which under the circumstances municipal pride tempts each citizen to practice, is ineffectual. It is thought that only the severest straining of ‘Western capacity and enterprise enable the inhabitants of these two cit- ies to appear in different places at the same time in sufficient numbers to vin- dicate their directories. An instanta- neous enumeration is not without its disadvantages.” t * % ‘Washington's city post office had an itinerant and vagrant career for many years before it was finally Postal esubusrh\e‘d in a home of its own. ty years ago a pro- Needs. to give it such a defi- nite habitation was again before Con- gress. The Star of January 16, 1879, says: “The communication of the Postmas- ter General to the House of Representa- tives yesterday supplementary to the recommendation of its annual report that new quarters be provided for the city post office should receive the early consideration of Congress. The reasons for & change by which all the branches of the Post Office Department shall be brought under the same roof and need- ed relief be given to some of the rooms, now overcrowded, are as evident as the necessity for more commodious and more convenient quarters for our post office. In time we may expect that one of the unoccupied spaces that are found | of even in prominent and central locali- ties in Washington would be adorned with a handsome, permanent building for this purpose, which will be credit- able to the city. To relieve the pre: necessity of the present the commit appointed by the Postmaster General suggests a method commended by its in- expensiveness and the rapidity with which it can be made available. The people of the United States, as the con- stituency of the Post Office Department, should desire that obstacles to its ef- fective working be removed. The people of Washington will certainly, take a'l similar interest in our local postal fa- cilities.” * / * x While for many years following its purchase by the United gl:tefl Algesn was regarded as “Sew- The Wealth ards folly.” s real value was beginning to of Alaska. be realized fifty years ago. The Star of January 18, 1879, says: “The special Government commis- sioner to make an examination of Alaaka has been interviewed at San Franeisco on his return from that Tér- ritory and is evidently of the opinion that Alaska will turn out to be a good investment. He looks for one of the greatest mining excitements of the age at no very distant day all along the coast islands. The unfavorable dispo- sition of the native trib:s, which makes unsafe the life of any man exploring Alaska, has prevented groapecnnx in the interior. But enough is known to convince every one that the whole region is rich in gold. It is thought that by maintaining a strict patrol by gunboat, by enacting and enforcing laws for the protection of life and property and by teaching the interior tribes that the white man must be permitted to pass to and fro unmolested this comparatively unknown country will have a future of unexampled prosperity and discoveries will be made which will astonish the whole civilized world. Besides its min- eral resources the timber of Alaska is said to be valuable and inexhaustible, and the fisheries, though in their in- fancy, already yleld enormously. Seven thousand salmon have been caught at a single haul of the seine. When Alaska comes, as it is thought it will, to supply the world with fish, we may look for squabbles with Russia on the as with England on the Atlantic This and That By Charles E. Tracewell. Sometimes the cat fancier feels sad over the long procession of furry shapes which have come to his door and gone away. ‘They came in the Spring, in" the Winter, in the Summer, some with gray coats, some with yellow, others w}::,hothel: black. ¥ Id‘ and every one ami roaming’ to g::uke of a 'b':m{ milk, of & bit of beef, and then ‘to go awdy again as noiselessly as he had come. Some of them were full grown, “able to take care of themselves; others so small that they might have been held in_one hand. Yet each and every one ventured forth again, tail held high, on the mysterious missions which Nature had assigned to them. * K Kk The feeding and care of strays is a pleasure known better to the friend will of cats than to the friend of dogs. Although there are more lost dogs than cats, although they wander away. from their homes easier, and do_not seem to be able to find their way back as well as cats. dogs somehow.manage. t?‘ht:ke themselves completely out of sight. It seldom happens that a stray dog comes to a back door for a “hand- out.” Perhaps this is so because & dog is typically a “one-man” animal. He is suspicious of every one except his master. * ok x ¥ The cat is a friendly animal, #f one will take the trouble to understand him. Too many persons, alas, will not take the trouble! But the cat has had even closer relations with man- kind than the dog. He has slept in ;l:e' bentch‘llrshlng“in the best beds. centuries he sat \uj 1 frent of the fire. He hu‘?l‘olfiy h: best to exercise his great function of. mouse-catching, so that he might thereby earn his board and keep. So when & cat comes to a strange back porch. and meows softly for ad- mittance, he does not come as a smn{or, no matter how much he may mistake the inmates, but he comes as & friend, as one who has had & long line of ancestors who were the friends ' man. Perhaps this simple point is too often overlooked by those who do not like cats, as they say. Likes and dislikes re curious things, and many a man who “hates cats.” as he takes pride in saying, had a grandfather who loved them. Many a woman who claims to desnise them has a son who cannot resist the temptation to stoop down and pet every furry wanderer that comes his way. * ok ko No animal is so grateful as the cat for a good meal. It is common to call the cat selfish, and to say that all it likes about a home is its meals, that any one else who would feed it would be loved as well, but those who have studied them know that this ::nh::l‘de is h:lf wp.l;l).:lrydol'nd the re- er untrue. e 's. ng. tall is no more indicative orwt‘h.a'rlm: than the satisfied purr of honest Tom, who makes no great pretense of stick ing by you, only to run away the next day as Fido may and often does: When Tem comes to the back porch; therefore, the friends of his tribe— and there are many—will stop whate ever they are doing and will see to it that his faith in them is not in valn. For it is faith which he has, & faith in humanity, and this is all more strange, since his ancestry knew thousands of incidents of crueity and abuse, each worse than the one which | went” before. Yet he is buoyed up, not consclously, because he does not know or think as we do, but uncon< sclously, with the whole of ‘his ancestry behind him, by immemorial- memories of the days when he was a god in far Egypt, when he was sacred, n to take his life was to forfeit iife in re- turn. So he comes to the back 'h today, half afraid on account o}”{:';, evil days, half venturesome because of his proud past, ready to flee at the :I:.I:’I.y g:l‘;tgrnzgk broom, or equally rink milk contentedly out « your best china saucer. e ————— So Undignified, Toé. From the Florence Herald. . A New Orleans woman's jaw dislo- cates every time she yawns. . Which must be disconcerting to her pastor, i i OO -y It's Called “Blessing” Sometimes From the Louisville Times. . . The tie that binda lstt blessed 1t bas caught on the rear collar thlton: 3 e 3