Evening Star Newspaper, January 22, 1929, Page 8

THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1929. .THE EVENING STAR [evil is evident from innumerable dem- | was put through during the closing days With 8 Edition. unda; WASHINGTON, D. C. TUESDAY......January 22, 1920 THEODORE W. NOYES....Editor The Evening Star Newspaper Company ‘.ulén;ll ‘\'.l: s and Pennsylvania Ave. fiice: 110 East 4ind St Office: Tower Buildine. Office; 14 Regent St.. London. Englan Rate by Garrier Within the City. .. .45¢ per rvonth Btar .-80C per month Star 65¢ per month ...5¢c per copy Ord Be et 1y all o telephoné lers may be sent in by mail or telephone Main 5000. Rate by Mail—Payable in Advance. Maryland and Virginia. ly and Sunday....1 yr. $10.00: 1 mo,, 85¢ iy only . 26.00: indsy only 1 yr., $6.00: 0 1 yr, $4.00: 1 mo., 40c All Other States and Canada. Daily and Sunday..l yr. $12.00; 1 mo, $1.00 g-n: only . 1yr., $800: 1 mo. T8¢ junds; -1 yr., $5.00; 1 mo.. Member of the Assoclated Press. ‘The Associated Press is exclusively cntitled to the use for republication of all rews dis- atches credited to it or not otherwise cred- ted in this paper and also the ' published herein. All rights of public special dispatches herein are also re The District’s Surplus. Something resembiing the finger of scorn seems to have been leveled at the : Commissioners because of their failure to contemplate, in advance of hearings on the current District appropriation bill, the expenditure of surplus funds remaining to the credit of the District in the Treasury. By the end of the next fiscal year the surplus will have reached about ten million dollars, and as five million dollars represent a safe and desirable margin to be left in the Treasury as required by the law of 1922, the balance of five million is available for spending. Commissioner Dougherty's letter to the House subcommittee, however, writ- ten in explanation of the Commission- ers’ inability to answer questions relat- onstrations. The heedless disposal of smoking materials, the thoughtless ex- posure of matches to chance ignition, the accumulation of inflammable trash to invite the flames—these are the chief elements of the appalling fire toll now being paid in every city in the country. Every little while a frightful disaster occurs, with a heavy loss of life, in the destruction of a hotel or rooming house, dormitory or institutional structure. The cause is usually found to be some act of carelessness, the perpetrator of which cannot be identified. Warnings are repeatedly given against conditions making for these holocausts, but are unheeded. Building regulations requir- ing strict fire-resisting construction are ignored or are obeyed only in part and not in spirit. Old rules that allow flimsy and fire-inviting cohstruction are tolerated until catastrophe occurs. Fire prevention is one of the easiest of tasks. It is simply a matter of com- mon sense and systematic attention to the fact that flames may come from carelessly thrown matches or cigarette ends. In these times, when so many people eor [8re living in multiple unit dwellings, tenements and apartments, it is rather appalling to think that their lives may be endangered by the heedless act of some person who has no conception of safe conduct. It is for their protection that fire regulations are written and supposedly enforced, that trash accumu- lations are prohibited, that building construction is in theory at least re- quired to be stout and fire-resisting. It is for_their sake that prosecutions are conducted whenever arson is detected, and for their protection that every careless action involving the possibility of fire in occupied buildings is punished. ————————— “Damn the Torpedoes!” As Vice President Dawes muses to himself during his parting days on the Senate rostrum, he must often hark back to that explosive March 4, 1925, ing to the expenditure of this money when the questions were asked, shows clearly enough that there is not and never has been any great problem in discovering ways and means to spend the money. The problems were how much to spend safely and how to spend 1t wisely. In 1922 Congress ordered the Dis- trict to be plaged on a cash, or pay- as-you-go, basis by July, 1927. This provision was part of the five-year fis- cal program on the 60—40 basis of contribution which Congress enacted, and which it has required the District to carry out in every detail that im- posed additional burdens upon the Dis- trict, though it has itself indirectly nullified the 60—40 definite proportion eontribution, which was the only fea- ture of the five-year fiscal program ‘which was justly favorable to the Dis- trict. ‘The Commissioners were directed to Taise annually and lay aside such a sum as would be necessary to put the Dis- on the pay-as-you-go basis in 1927, and they decided that by putting aside six hundred thousand dollars an- nually for five years a desirable surplus of three million dollars would be ac- cumulated. This balance, plus the lump sum which becomes available at the be- ginning of each fiscal year, would enable the District to meet the expenses of new appropriations in advance of the time that its own tax-raised revenue would become available. The tax rates were fixed accordingly. But at the end of the first four years the Commission- ers found that the surplus in hand was mearly five hundred thousand dollars short of what it should have been. In the fiscal year 1927, however, there was an of revenue credits over ap- propriations and the surplus was brought to $3,760,000. It had become apparent, meanwhile, that although thrée million dollars were contemplated as a safe margin, or surplus, for a budget of thirty million, the budget Was nearing forty million dollars, and that a greater margin would be neces- ‘sary. The Commissioners now contend that & margin of five million dollars is the time since the fiscal year the surplus has unexpectedly If it continued to enlarge at i t rate, it would reach ten 1 dollars by the end of the fiscal year for which Congress now is appro- priating. But a sum of more than a ‘million dollars is already acounted for in supplemental estimates before Congress, 'and the Commissioners have already 'suggested methods of spending the re- Part of the surplus is caused by re- fusal of the Budget Bureau and Con- -gress to appropriate it in accordance with the recommendation of the Com- missioners and failure to appropriate 4 for other purposes. ‘The fact that the expenditure of the surplus was not taken irto consider- when he admonished a talkative Senate in. vain to mend its loquacious ways. The upper house of Congress is at this moment going through exactly that kind of performance which Gen. Dawes assailed as a system deliberately designed to clog the wheels of public business. ‘With less than six weeks of the ex- piring session left, the Senate is dillying and dallying over irrelevant matters while pressing legislation awaits action, endlessly held up under the rules per- mitting unlimited debate. A few days ago, when his colleagues were wasting time in hairsplitting over the Kellogg pact, Senator Robinson of Arkansas, the Democratic leader, deplored “the pathetic exhibition” the Senate was glving of itself. Criticism even from wtihin its own most responsible ranks apparently leaves the chamber cold. Once again, while the affairs- of the Republic burn, the Senate fiddles. It is tHe cruiser bill which is the victim of the pending orgy of procras- tination. The measure is the target of a so-called undercover filibuster. The opponents of the Navy's needs have not the hardihood to fight them in the open and court a roll-call decision. They know they will be worsted the moment the Senate can be polled. They are therefore resorting to the more subtle and the more deadly subterfuge of parliamentary obstruction. They throw into the breach a three-hour speaker on prohibition, as they did yesterday. The Senate rules, against which Vice President Dawes tilted, allow for dog- in-the-manger tactics such as the anti- cruiserites are now pursuing. It is true that they also provide for cloture. But cloture is invoked reluctantly by Sena- tors, and there is always the possibility that men who favor a given measure, like the cruiser bill, may be unwilling, on principle, to vote for cloture against even arbitrary and useless debate. Senator Hale, chairman of the naval affairs committee, is in charge of the cruiser bill. He has shown almost too much patience. He let the Kellogg treaty have the right of way immediately after the holiday recess, on condition that the cruisers thenceforward should have smooth sailing. Instead of that, Mr. Hale found their course strewn right and left with artificial icebergs and synthetic snags, whish but smoke- screen their real purpose. That purpose is to wreck the cruiser bill by preventing action during the remaining days of the session, and thus postponing their authorization for at least another year. The country favors the cruisers. The Senate is unquestionably ready to vote them. Let Sénator Hale take the bridge with his courage in both hands, imbibe the spirit of Farragut at Moblle and Dewey at Manila, “damn the torpedoes!” and lead his squadron of supporters ruthlessly through the ranks of the ambuscading armada. The prediction is ventured that they will be speedily con- founded and disrupted. —atre ation by the Commissioners earlier fs It is now deemed impossible to pre- not nearly so important as the principle which enters into the future expendi- ture of this money. Substantive law, never repealed, calls for Federal rev- enues for Capital maintenance and de- velopment in definite and fixed propor- tion to District revenue. The surplus of District revenues should be appro- priated as it was accumulated, and the Federal ' Government should add its lawful forty per cent. Instead, how- evér, it is planned now merely to ab- sorb the surplus by appropriating it for projects in which the Federal contri- bution will be nothing. Nearly two and & half million dollars of this, it is planned, will go for the purchase of land for the municipal center, a project in which the Federal Government should participate equally with the Dis- trict. : 2 Spending the District’s surplus as planned merely increases the District’s share in the burden of maintaining and building the American Capital, with a resulting decrease in the share which should be borne equitably by the Fed- eral Government. —————————— Fires in Dwellings. ‘Two small apartment houses in this city have lately been visited by fire. The occupants in the first instance ‘were rescued with some difficulty, and in the second case one of the dwellers was killed. These fires appear to have been of accidental origin, no suspicion of incendiarism having been aroused. vent the teaching of “evolution.” The student is at perfect liberty to entertain himsdif by elaborate theorizing and de- cide on his own account whether or not he will accept the conclusions. ——te The Pocket Veto. “When is a ‘pocket veto?’” That is the question which the Supreme Court of the United States is finally to pass upon, it is now announced. Under the terms of the Constitution all bills and joint resolutions of Congress designed to become laws of the land are sent to the President for his approval or dis- approval. If the President signs them, giving his official approval, they be- come laws. If he returns them to Con- gress with his disapproval, then under the terms of the Constitution the Con- gress has the right to enact them into law, despite the disapproval of the Chief Executive, provided it can muster a two- thirds vote in both House amnd Senate to ‘override the presidential veto. A time limit, however, is set upon the President by the Constitution when it comes to dealing with measures sent to him by the Congress. It says on this point:, i If any bill shall not be returned by the President (to Congress) within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be law, in like mannper as if he had signed it, unless the Congress, by their adjournment, prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law. The question is brought to the Su- Inquiries are on foot now by the Dis- triet authorities to determine the cause of the blazes, particularly of that in ich life was lost. carelessness is the root of this preme Court now in a case affecting a group of Indian tribes in the State of Washington. The decision of the court, however, will af the status of the Norris Muscle Tesolution, which l of the last session of the present Con- gress, but which the President failed to sign or to send back to Congress with his disapproval. The Congress ad- journed before the ten-day period specified in the Constitution in which the President might act on the resolu- tion had elapsed. The President did not sign the resolution and left it sus- pended in the air. The whole question turns, apparently, on the definition of “adjournment,” as the word is used in the language of the Constitution. Those who ingist that the President cannot “pocket veto” a bill by the method he adopted with regard to the Norris resolution insist that “ad- Jjournment” has reference merely to the close of a Congress at the end of its two-year period, in other words, the expiration of a Congress. They differ- entiate between an adjournment at the end of a long session of Congress, such as that last June, when the Congress continues in existence, and the adjourn- ment which is coming March 4, when the Congress goes out of existence. They point out that the President might have returned the Norris resolu- tion to the present Congress when it reassembled in December, thereby giv- ing the Congress an opportunity to say whether the resolution should become law despite the disapproval of the Chief Executive. After the close of a “short session,” which winds up the life of a Congress, there would be no opportunity to send a bill back to the same Con-’| gress, It is a nice question. Opinions of various Attorneys General have held that an adjournment of any session of Congress complies with the language of the Constitution fixing the time limit in which a President may return a bill gu without his approval. On the other hand, the judiciary committee of the House disputes this contention, and in- sists that a bill may be killed by a pocket veto only at the close of a Con- gress. — e Reticence on the part of responsible statesmanship is always pardonable. Yet 1t might be a public service to drop a few words now and then to excite enough interest to draw popular atten- tion away from the gunmen. ———— Halting automobiles a block away from the theater in New York may on rainy nights suggest a generous ar- rangement on the part of agents to lend an umbrella with each theater ticket. - oo Several small countries might benefit by a distinguished example and en- courage leaders in local agitation to promote good will on their own ac- count. ————— ‘There is no doubt of harmony in the Gr O. P., although some of the old lead- ers are inclined now and then to sug- gest a performance in a minor key. ———— If Judge Gary were alive it might be possible to persuade Col. Stewart and John D. Rockefeller to arrive at some kind of a gentlemen’s agreement. —_——————— Science is confident of being able to evolve peace plans from the laboratory that will cause a suspension of hostili- ties by the flu germ. ————— Inventors claim to have produced a mechanical man who can talk without thinking. Something like this has been heard of before. ————— Paper money will be smaller in less than six months, but not so reduced in size as to make it much harder to find than at present. et SHOOTING STARS. BY PHILANDER JOHNSON. Truthless Singer. My friend who likes to write in rhyme Keeps me deluded all the time, Concerning which way is inclined His state of mind. And when he gives a gentle trill Of twilight sky and purpling hill, He wants to turn his thoughts away From a tough day. And when the storm he will extol ‘With words about his raging soul, I know by this intense display He's feeling gay, And wishes somewhat to reduce 1 A levity too great for use. And that's why poets, we belleve, ‘Will all deceive. Trying to Be Patient. “What are your views on prohibl- tion?” d “I desire it most heartily,” answered Senator Sorghum. “But, of course, no man- can expect to have ardent wishes fulfilled without a certain amount of delay in the formalities.” Jud Tunkins says he takes his folks to the movies every night to keep them from reading some of the books now so popular. March 4-Casting. Why should we prophesy new states- manship ‘With patient care? Let's try to give the snow and sleet the slip And start from there, Discretion. “Would you marry a gambler?” “Not offhand,” said Miss Cayenne, “I'd wait and find out how lucky he was.” “Wisdom that leads only to contem- plative idleness,” said Hi Ho, the sage of Chinatown, “is the worst of folly.” New Paintings, A thin strabismic girl I see, ‘With palpitating heart. Some day a model she may be For modernistic art. “When you stahts braggin’,” said Uncle Eben, “you ain’ liable to git much further dan to excite a little curiosity concernin’ what you's talkin’ 'bout.” ——— . It’s an Anti-Split Treaty. From the Oklahoma City Daily Oklahoman. And even if the Kellogg treaties suc- cead in abolishing war, a lot of people will still have the split infinitive to worry about. o He’s to Be Congratulated. From the Loulsville Courler-Journal, Boston has discovered a citizen who didn’t know about the election or that Shoud be THIS AND THAT BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL. “I have & perfect neighbor,” sald ‘Templeton Jones. “Yes?" queried Henry Gearshift. The tone of the latter was doubtful, as if he questioned the possibility of such a thing. “Y%s." continued Jones, with convic- tion, “I have a perfect neighbdr. would like to outline him for you, since he is so exceptionable—" “Go ahead,” replied Gearshift, hastily, resigning himself to the possibilities of being bored. It was a pleasant Winter day, so mild that the two men stood without head covering in the yard. Neither was as young as he once was, so neither felt the advisability of going hatless as the younger men of the period do. % & ok “This paragon,” said Templeton Jones, has 14 or 15 major points to his credit, as I see him, and nd doubt I could find that many more if I would extend my- self a bit. “What would be the use? His 14 points are so many more than the average neighbor has that a search for the remainder is unnecessary. “In the first place, he always sticks to his own property. He never en- croaches on the property of others. “He bought a certain house and par- cel of land, and he believes rightly that sald house and bit of land are all that belong to him. “Because he pays taxes on lot so-and- 80 and square so-and-so gives him no right, he properly feels, to attempt to do what he pleases with somebody else’s lot and squace. - “He mows his own lawn. “When he erects an antenna he hitches it to his own chimney, not to mine. * ok ok X “He never harbors nuisances, such as vines which tear others, or unsightly piles of trash, or loud radios, or noisy ests. “I waive a dissertation on this point to go on to his third, which is nothing more or less than that he always smiles. “When you think of all the dear neighbors who are offended at the slightest thing, who almost seem to be waiting to be insulted, or hurt, the wonder of an ever-smiling neighbor is great. “No matter when, no frown ever ap- pears on his face, but there is always a smile to greet every one, from children to grandmothers. “Surely he knows the value of being cheerful. v * ok ok % “This brings me to his fourth great merit, that he is not a bit ‘touchy,’ as the common phrase has it. “He neither wears a chip on one shoulder mnor expects to be handled with gloves. He puts no exalted valus ation upon himself, nor, on the other hand, does he abase himself by dis- playing an ingrained case of inferiority complex. “He minds his own business and ex- pects others to mind theirs. There- fore he is always the same—his fifth good point, as I see it. As I see it, re- member my dear Gearshift. * ok kK “In the sixth place, he is willing to meet his neighboss half way. If there Ridicule of Russian Forgeries Tempers Public’s Indignation Indignant newspaper comment on the atf to besmirch Senators Borah and Norris through forged documents, purporting to show that they receifed $100,000 each from Sov:fil Russia, is tempered by evident reafization that, however malignant the motive, the American public regarded the libel itself as too ridiculous for serious con- sideration, The congressional report clearing the names of the Senators was accepted as a foregone conclusion. Nevertheless there are demands for uncovering of the slanderers and the Louisville Courler-Journal expresses a widely held opinion in declaring that “if this commercialized spying, black- listing, defaming mania in America has reached the s of foreign trade in fake documents, it is high time for somebody personally interested to give it a through scotching.” The Canton Daily News suggests that “some day there will be a real wolf,” and asks, “Then how will the givers of the alarm get themselves believed?” “There must be a reason,” the Chat- tanooga Times thinks, “why even so ill-minded a person as the author or authors of this libel selected only two of the scintillating brilliancies of Amer- ican statesmanship as the victims for their ‘foul calumny’ If only this rea- son can be found out and established, perhlg the identity of the assassins may discovered.” The San Fran- cisco Chronicle also observes that “there 8 some public interest in find- ing out who forged these documents and whether there was a more sinister motive than to mulct some gullible purchaser.” “Why were the forgeries prepared?” asks the Milwaukee Journal, adding: “With the thought that some one would pay for them. The only possible use could be to attempt to throw temporary discredit on men who were opposing somebody's schemes. What is sug- gested is an effort, unintelligent and wide of the mark, to discredit known enemies of exploiters. Framing is an old way of g to get crooked things past the opposition of honest men.” “Of all the country's public men,” according to the Charlotte Observer, “there are probably none about whom the people would slower to believe such accusation. They are party men, and as such their campaign actions have not always fitted into their char- acters, but both have long been known as rocks of honesty and sincerity in their handling of the public’s business. such charge against them 1s so foolish on its face as to merit not even the consideration which it has re- celved.” 1In similar vein the Duluth Herald pays the tribute to these Sen- ators, “Borah and Norris, by their vig- orous independence, often make them- selves most annoying to those who adore regularity, but they are honest, and there isn't a chance that anybody can be induced to believe that offering them };r]lllns would be anything but suicidal olly. “Fantastic to the height of folly,” is the Brooklyn Daily Eagle’s verdict on the attack, and it says further of the attempt of present holders to sel “the ghief of these papers” to the con- gressional investigators: “The commit- tee could not, should not and did not buy them. It has probably light-killed and_destroyed their maleficent value. It deserves congratulation for having put a spoke into an ugly business.” “It had been hoped,” declares the Seattle Daily Times, “that we were done with that sorry sort of business when the true character of the Mexican papers was revealed last year. It is likely that the fraudulent Russian pa- pers would have received no attention whatever had not Senator Borah and Senator Norris demanded that the charges be sifted. The forgeries have served one useful purpose—they have taught the American people to beware the slanderous reports concerning public men. Cupidity or revenge leads un- scrupulous persons to undertake such criminal enterprises. It is a human failing that evil communicatons are fre- quently accepted .at face value. It is sounder policy to withhold judgment until proof is produced. One wise man said that calumny would soon starve and die of itself if nobody took it in and gave it lodging.” “Senator Borah. may be exasperating at times to the members of his party,” remarks the Reno Evening Gazette, But no one ever has questioned his high- mindedness or his integrity. Senator Norris, joined with him in the accusa- Hop, 15 & AR of Felatively small means, " ansouncers, 1| doing what his conscience tells him is some mutual repair to be made, he is not only willing but he is anxious to do his part. “He does not feel that some one is deliberately trying -to slip one over on him. He does not lle awake thinking up good excuses to prevent him from he ought to do. “If it is a question of any sort of desirable co-operation he is not only willing. but anxious to co-operate. ‘“‘He expects, you see, co-operation in his turn. y * ok ok ok “Above all, he is helpful. “He does not shirk the chances which are offered to take in his neighbors’ parcels, to do small errands for them, to help them in any way possible. “His telephone is at the service of a]l those who do not abuse the priv- ege. “He is willing to overlook the faults of his neighbors which he does not like, but which, after all, are only small blemishes upon them. “This, his eighth good point, in some respect is his greatest merit. It is manifestly impossible for every one in a neighborhood to always intensely admire every one else, but it is always possible for every one to overlook lesser faults. 'R “This, #lso, is precisely where 99 out of 100 families fall down. It is be- cause all too many persons are utterly unwillicg to overlook a thing that there | are so many neighborhood ill feelin®. ‘“Nine-tenths of the bickerings and quarrels of neighbors would be done away with if every one could or would get the attitude of this good neighbor, who knows that he is not perfect him- self and so he never expects others to be. “So he is willing to forgive and to forget. He does not hold grudges, un- less they are merited; he passes over small slights or even big ones, if they do not touch on his honor. “He holds no resentments, thus he never feels called upon to go back into the house when he sees some one ap- proaching whom he has wronged. * ok kX “His children are not allowed to dis- turb any one, nor to prevent others from keeping their lawns in good order, to reflect credit on the whole commu- nmlt);!. His domestic pets are kept well and. “Above all, he does not belleve that home ownership gives him a right to ‘do as he pleaseS, so he throws no ‘wild parties’ to disturb the peace of such as his neighbors as believe in Ben- jamin Franklin’s wise motto about early to bed and early to rise. “He retires early, and disturbs no man. His normal habits seem to be considerate of others as well as of him- self. Lastly, but far from least, he keeps up his property, so that it is a pleasure for him to contemplate it, as well as for others. It is a credit to the community. So you see I have a per- fect neighbor,” -concluded Templeton Jones with a smile. “Where does he live?” asked Henry Gearshift. “Over there,” replied Jones, pointing to an empty house. but, like Borah, his integrity has al- ways been beyond dispute. It is prob- ably just as well that the request of Messrs. Borah and Norris for full pub- licity has been complied with in the interest of some future historian, who might come across the forged docu- ments, but their reputations are too higuh to need any formal verdict of not guilty.” among all the Senators as to whom such charges would be known to the public to be without foundation, “no two could have been picked out as the victims of such a charge against whom it would be so absurd as it was against Borah and Norris.” “A charge of that kind reacts as a boost,” in the judgment of the Boston Transcript, which suggests that “it is not usually regarded as a compliment by statesmen, or any other cl of citizens, for that matter, to be accused of accepting bribes.” That paper con- tinues: “Probably no two distinguished men in the Unifed States are oftener at odds with their fellow countrymen in matters of opinion than Senators William E. Borah of Idaho and George W. Norris of Nebraska. * * * We do not recall that Senator Norris, although rated as a radical, had interested him- Self particularly in the affairs of So- viet Russia. Mr. Borah had long been an advocate of the recognition of the Soviet government, and for reasons which have not appealed to the Gov- ernment of the United States. * * ¢ Norris and Borah have sacrificed popu- larity, influence and very much else that might fmnm their political path- way easy, for their opinions. ¥ Public confidence in these men’is not established by the conclusions of the m’;"mmmltfiee; it is merely con- Famliy Histories Urged by Biologist BY E. E. FREE, PH. D. The necessity, for soclety’s sake, of keeping family records of such things as births, deaths, ilinesses and -mental abilities as accurately as mankind keeps the far less important records of busi- ness or political transactions was urged by Prof. F. E. A. Crew, distinguished biologist of the University of Edinburgh, in a recent health lecture in Glasgow, Scotland. Heredity, which is Prof. Crew’s specialty, is as important for health, he said, as it is for almost every- thing else in human character. Meth- ods of modern sanitation cannot accom- plish everything. To them must be added the breeding of a healthy race. Unfortunately, when - students of heredity begin'to examine the relations of that factor to health it is found that adequate family records are usually lacking. Especially is this true, the lecturer said, of mental defects. The theory of heredity makes clear—and statistics have confirmed the fact—that many individuals apparently normal mentally carry concealed inredltlry factors able to produce mental defects in subsequent generations. The prac- tical problem of mental-hygiene, Prof.] Crew believes, is to identify and cure these ‘carriers of invisible defects, or at least not to allow them to transmit their defects to the next generation. A universal habit of complete family his- tories would make this possible, he be- lieves, more surely than any other pro- j cedure now known. ————— Yes, Six Excuses. From the Springfleld, Ohio, Daily News. That couple, married by six different religious rites, will have more than the usual number of excuses to fight: .o Distance Lends Enchantment. From the Loulsville Times. All in all, could there be more outlandish sound than that produced by an amateur slide 'trombone player who is a poor judge of distance? Train Callers Next From the Charleston Evening Post. Now that the American Academy has put on a diction contest for radio broad- casters, some agency ought to take upl the cause of the with train The Gazetts also feels that| o, NEW BOOKS AT RANDOM LG M THIS MAN ADAMS: The :{:ver Died. Samuel McCoy. Bren- no's. It appears that he did not die after all—this John Adams, born at Brain- tree, Mass, in 1735. He is not only still alive, but prodigiously active and influential as well. Such is the first discovery projected by t%his robust ac- count, offered in evidence of the valid- ity of its claim. Again, it appears that the most of us die because we've never been born—not really born. Such is the astounding theory presented here for anybody to work over as long as he sees fit, for proof or disproof. s However, the direct business in’ hand is “This Man Adams.” According to the wiseacres, seeing is believing. To be sure, we have learned better, yet sight does stand for some measure of evidence, for some substance of truth. And Samuel McCoy saw John Adams, saw him strolling along the road, a sturdy and erect man who, upon ap- ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN. What do you need to know? Is there some point about your business or personal life that puzzles you? Is there something you want to know without delay? Submit your question to Prederic J. Haskin, director of our Washington Information Bureau. He is employed to help you. Address your inquiry to The Evening Star Inform: tion Bureau, Prederic J. Haskin, Di- rector, Washington, D. C., and inclose 2 cents in coin or stamps for return postage. Q. What was the last play in which M-ua!e{ A;dlnu appeared on the stage? A. It was “A Kiss for Cinderella.” Q. What proportion of the people listed in “Who's Who in America” were born in the United States>—H. A. A. Of the persons included in the volume, 89.77 per cent are of native birth. proach, bowed gravely and said, “John Adams, your servant, Sir.” And that was the way of it—the convincing way of it. Out of such meeting came the adventure of acquaintance with this man, on the part of Mr. McCoy. And this passed into wonder at the clear case of one man who has circumvented time to the toll of 200 already counted years. A man who out of such a past stands today a vital part of the funda- mentals of this twentieth century of progress and power. The adventure becomes ours by way of the good serv- ice of Samuel McCoy. A new kind of blography. Writers for some time now have been tinkering with this troublesome form of ac- counting. ‘The time sequence—birth, living, death—the old way, would no longer serve. It had become a wooden thing, fit only for deep interment with the ferishable being whom it sought to repgesent. These experimenters in biograj have made good progress toward the essential realities of life. Nowhere, so far as I know, has any one so completely recharged a man with the vital and dominating forces of his existence as has Samuel McCoy in his adventure with John Adams. Desire and the guts to go after the thing desired. That is John Adams. “There’s the secret. ‘John Adams wants this! This is mine! Mine! Don’'t you touch that! It's mine!'” “And nothing on God’s green earth”— McCoy talking—“is going to stop these ‘me’ men, these ‘mine’ men, these ‘property’ men, these ‘possessions’ men, these ‘my rights men’ from getting what they desire.” John Adams was that kind. So were Columbus and Watts, and so are a couple or so right around us to- Pick out these two or three and watch them, “Luckily for us, Mr. Adams yelled and howled for the right to keep what be- longs to us,” and so we have a self- governing country instead of a country dependent upon Old World notions of caste and control. So we have any number of things, precious things, in the way of rights and liberties that, but for the John Adams kind and but for John Adams himself, we might never have had, certainly would not have had as early as we did. You know as well as this author does the steps in our colonial history that mark the career and the service of John Adams. In this adventure Mr. McCoy takes you over the familiar road again, not to refresh the facts, but to bring you close tead to this irascible, tempestuous, domineering ‘me’ man who 4t no point will be denied, because it is not in his nature to give way about these things—freedom from England, self-governing colonies, a federation,'a declaration of independence, a war to secure it, and then the establishment of new relations with Europe on the basis of ity and freedom of intercourse. An old story?. To be sure. Here, how- ever, the story is ed to many & point of liberating explosfon by the the irresistible vitality, rsonal “Will you never grow weary of fight- ing for liberties?”—you, J Adams? “You are eternally a rebel, an agitater; a man who says, ‘If there is no prece- dent, it is high time that a precedent should be set.’ " o Q. Please give some information about Georgia Tech.—H. B. A. Georgia School of Tec! at Atlanta, Ga., is a college for men, owned and supported by the State of Georgia. It was founded in 1888 as the Technical College of Georgia. Co= operative courses enable many students to earn a large part of living expenses. Q. What is ski wax made of?—W. A. It is usually & mixture of wax and tar. 1m mefiotl!\‘ umyevz:o hard rubbing spreads the mi ren= Iy and it enters info the grain of the Q. Is the Flateyjarbok in the United States?—S. N. A. Tl‘:‘ll!: col!ecth‘n' of sagas is in“th': Royal rary af they‘work of t-ncofim priests (1380-95) and is one of the chief sources for the Norse discovery of America. BACKGROUND OF EVENTS BY PAUL V. COLLINS. Now comes Dr. Austin H. Clark of the Smithsonian Institution with a theory which “bears” the monkey mar- ket so panicly that monkeys can be bought up for a penny a pair and are no longer quoted on margins. They cease g be indispensable stock in anthropological contests for the survival of fits. If Dr. Clark can hold fast to his doctrine as tenaclously most fundamentalists have clung to their no- tion that Darwin was very wicked in making monkeys out of us all, he ‘will go back into cavedom while others climb the trees. He denies that manknid has improved upon his forefathers— which will rile flappers of today and make him unpopular with smart youths. Poor Dr. Clark! Alnog’s :Ale was such a romising anthropol o Older and more conservative scientists feel very sorry for him. In the impul- siveness of youth unrestrained he has swallowed the bait of a theory 20 years old—bait, hook and sinker. “Who's monkey now?” Where Darwin found one survival of the fittest and descent from one creation, Dr. Clark finds four major creations with four lines of descent. “He who makes two bl grow,” etc. A “blade” is a youngster. ‘What has Dr. Clark proved? He pre- sents a theory. Theories are legion. This one is nearly two decades old, Other scientists are content to stay Dar- are discovered in the sun and stars, Matter is uni 1, and if the inorganic matter of were destroyed, animal 1life would end. Dr. Clark traces this in describing how indispensable are the minerals to animal life. Yet no scientist has ever found how to create a single specimen of animal life out of chemicals, nor even out of vegetable ingredients most nearly resembling the food and chemicals of the animal. “What mem::’!'x :‘u. do not m‘{:u Chemistry, W] made marvel advances within the last two decades, cannot create the simplest insect. The animal life has to be started by High Creation, however it may progress later. Burbank could “create” & new plant out of old ones, by crossing the pollen, or by changing the environment. Maize is believed to have been developed out of a certain grass of Mexiao, and that same grass has developed into 500 other kinds of grain. Who made the original grass? Not one of the 500 grains ever made a watermelon nor an oak tree. Burbank took the cactus which grew mire, S pbel o e wi 3 tted it and for he would = 5 e e, iy forgot the spikes, for they i m.ded.’s‘a the spikes many atrophi hat had been winian and remain “long” on y8. “Blood is thicker than water.” They protest against breaking home tles. * K kK This column is a sort of “connecting link” between the technical scientist and the “man o' the street” Its function is to interpret words like “pterobranchiates” and “cephalochor- dates” into just plain un entist tried to tell about. Sometimes the writer does not know and often- times the scientist is in the same boat :.hllldm;:':l I:; t”l?z painting of the little el TOW. Last s-gam. Dnl" %n!%l!. the h:“dl; ical missionary rador, Wl himself a scientist, described the out- s characteristic of science dur- ing the last 25 years as being great modesty; it frankly confesses that the farther we delve into the mysteries of creation and of the machinery of this “going concern,” the universe of uni- verses, the mightier it University was ?obed as saying that in the galaxy, of which the sun and earth are members, there are 10,000,000 other suns and planets—and this is only one of unnumbered galaxies—but the following week, in a lecture by Dr. Abbot, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and a specialist on the sun, he stated that the number of stars in our own galaxy is between 30,000,000 and 40,000,000—or was it billions? Thereupon & devout member of the church where the lecture was delivered rose to say that all this revelation of the majesty and infiniteness of creation strengthened his faith in the ex- Yet what & glorious thing for us— |anq you and me and the rest—that John Adams was a rebel and a fighter. Did he make enemies? Oh, hosts of them, who to this day are hostile, bitterly criti- cal! He doesn’t mind. He loves an enemy, without whom he could no longer fight. His wars were of the big sort—fighting for a country to be born, for a nation to be set upon its way, for freedom to have fair chance. Great John Adams! How deep in debt we are, too, to Samuel McCoy, who has here so exactly fitted the medium by way of which this doughty patriot comes to us with the savors of his own lusty life upon him, ;;nh 'ltll:e ardors of h:'own unconquerable fllmhl‘ 80 reely before us. Splendid! * ¥ % X THE ROMANCE OF FORGOTTEN MEN. Pohn T. Faris. Harper & Bros. If school children ever stopped to think—which, luckily in the main, they do not—they would wonder how in the early years the country managed to make shift with no more than a dozen men to look after it. All great men—Wash- ington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Franklin— with no sign at all of lesser folks to help along. These youngsters, if they were not so bent upon mightier matters, might feel surprise that these were the people, the whole people, of that day. Later the very natural query gains sub- stance and a looking about for its answer. Here by way of John Faris is a pat- tern, admirable in both form and spirit, to serve the purpose of a question like this. Here are 15 stories drawn from different points and periods of the earlier history of this country. Each centers upon an individual who, by his personglity, or achievement, or by his failure® maybe, stands out as a figure of romance. Mr. Faris has a genius for the past, a clear sympathy with it, a feeling for its moods and efforts and colors. This he has proved more than once by creating pure romance out of the commonly accepted prose of maps afd boundaries and rivers. myself have a book by John Faris that often and often satisfies the restless wander urge that takes everybody now and then. With this book, a map becomes people and adventure and other lines incorpo- rated with my own. So, a Faris book promises me much. This one does. ‘Whether I read about Elihu Burritt, the learned blacksmith, or Humphreys, who did so much for the American Navy, or Sutter, who figured so picturesquely in the gold rush of California, or Christo- pher Ludwick, who turned baker for the whole Continental Army, or another or another of these “forgotten men,” I am absorbed in the sheer interest that Faris is able to create with distance worked upon the something like a wizardry of immediate and glamorous effect. Take, for instance, the story of Baron Sitegel, perhaps the most romantic of all these tales. An immigrant of 1750 who, land- ing at Philadelphia, moved almost at once into the back country of Penn- sylvania. He became rich through his lumlcets thlrfil lcog}'eem_wm“on into all 50! of usef ol t and pans and this and that. An » Some- thing like the same tribe of today, Stiegel expanded the business and thn became ambitious to manu- facture glass. This he’ did. Made money. Lived high after the pat- tern of the time. Coach and four, guns fired 8t his approach, a band playing to soothe his weary hours. Came to be The shocking feature of Dr. Clark's theory overlooked by anti-evolutionists is in the opening p-nmrh of his S evicw of Bioiog; showing terly Review 0gY, he t%se I:):-Ill‘.::fl defy evolution entirely. 2 “Creationism, or the idea that I things have at some time in the been created substantially in the same form as that in which we know them, has at the present time almost wholly given way to a belief in evolution, & doctrine which assumes the gradual development, st widely varying forms of life from an original simple structure. have erred in considering life as a thing apart from the inorganic world, a manifestation not measurable in terms which otherwise are of universal application. This is far rmm"u'\w Just what life is, we do not know.’ * kKX “We do not know?” Will science confess so frankly? When Dr. Abbot was telling about the sun, he too found a limit to science. For example, the Iaun gives off heat and light which amounts to an average of one horse- power per square yard, all over the ear Yes, and the same horsepower radiates not only over this lit{e speck of surface—the earth, a mere dot in the immense globe of space described by the same 93,000,000-mile radius from the sun—but for every square yard of s at the surface of the globe of radius from the sun there comes a horsepower, and it has been flowing out from the sun constantly for untold ages, yet sclence cannot dis- cover that the sun has lost one iota of its weight or substance. ‘Where does the sun get its supplies of ‘el to make up for what it is m}; ing out into space through m and billions of years? Against the walls of the National Museum, there rest several heavy meteors - which had been floating through space, until they hit the earth. It has been suggested that the greater gravity of the sun catches many such meteors, but even so, their total weight must be insignificant, as compared with the constant outflow of light and power from that great furnace. Light is substance, and it flies out into sme— until it is so attenuated by its like expansion of radistion from its start- ing point, that it is lost in darkness. But then it remains matter, and, ac- cording to sclence, it is creation of new worlds, for matter never ceases to exist. How did it be- gin? The same mineral elements as those found in our,own soil and rocks bit of this ware you will i the hundreds for even -plwllpl;!:. Somewhere inside this ironmaster was a tiful things. And so, the glass factory. At the old town df Manheim there men e e o Bl o roman for the annual ceremony is in nmuvfl!:l‘"na fer of certain p , chureh . was in m to the mym consideration, the stipuation that at the ‘Town of Manheim in the month of June called “Baron,” I suppose as many a man since has come to be called “Colonel.” Finally Stiegel failed. ldn’t pay his creditors. Went to jail. Indeed, Stiegel ran the gamut of the quick rise and the speedy fall. Today, as you pass through the Metropolitan Museum in New York you will come upon exhibits of the Stiegel glassware, fine and beau- iul, and 8 sale, Jou wish 10 buv & yearly forever hereafter the Rent of One Red Rose shall id to the heirs of Henry Willlam jegel. Lovely, don't you think? The whole story is simply another Tevelation of that enigmatic creature, the human. And all of these tales are in discernment and in- terest and ‘special creation”? No; it is “bugs,” and to explain what the sci- | puf ‘becomes. ara Not long ago a sclentist of Columbia S thn;wt.ha by step, of all the |simply “Creationists and evolutionists, alike, | in th implements. bronze age, and be! there was copper, and beft were polished stone weaj a;d before that, mmthetr polish stones, so weapons were chipped stones; they did not know lever« age, so they had no handles to their weapons. They did not know that they could make tools out of bones. “Now we are discovering all these evidences of man’s development. Re- cently in Moravis, Czechosi , 8cle entists dug up on a single acre more than 300,000 of prehistoric tools, and there are hundreds of acres alongside equally rich in evidence of man-made implements. “Some one has said that the brain of in thousands of years. That is denied, so far as cons cerns its gray matter. True, a huge head of a Cro-Magnon has been found, but with that big head was a big body, ur: quiring & corresponding nervous sys and J\iu matter of the brain—not gray ‘matter, which is mentality. You cannot appraise a brain by its size alone. * K ok “We trace the Cro-Magnon back 30« 000 years, finding man and his tools. o e alf o ‘million years thropus erectus, a old. psir Arthur Keith, one of England's great anthropologists, tells us ‘the Pithe- canthropus was a human being in stature, human in gait, human in all its parts, save its brain,, ki there is the Heidelberg man, 300,000 years old, ‘but the teeth are human teeth and the jaw seems tran- sitional between the ant ape and man, and in the same sand-pit were found crude stone tools and bones of an el nt and other wild beasts—his { 000 used in the | ¥ down man saw, dreamt much as we do still’” But he romantic fellow who had to make beau- | lished of him and of the fact that in the trans- | to ason, reconciles the two theories 0 u;nreconm cilable of a M“ er:avg:: .fli of many creations. theory of worlfl-w to Daniele Rosa, a professor of Modena (Italy). He published its complete de- ‘Ologenisi," \‘.hhonul.w-‘\ in