Evening Star Newspaper, February 8, 1929, Page 31

TFFCAL EXPLAMS R..ASTOCK NP Col. Davis Says Imagination of Public Has Wrought Sensational Clim". BY MARTIN CODEL. “Just what is the basis of this sky- Focketing of the stock market, especially in radio, which went so high?” This question was put yesterday by Benator Fess of Ohio to Col. Manton Davis, vice president and general at- tormey of the Radio Corporation of America, at the Senate hearing od Yadio. It elicited what is, so far as known, the first public reply ever made by an ofiicial of the wmfimy ‘whose stock gyrations have been the sensation ©f the world of finance. ‘The essence of the reply was that the » Public is so intrigued by what has al- |, Teady come out of the radio laboratories that it is expectant—whether rightly ©or wrongly, no one will venture to say— ©f more and newer marvels. This is the way Col. Davis answered, gripping the attention of every member of the Benate committee. “My opinion is all I can give you. I wil say that the price of the stock of the Radio Corporation is as much a surprise to those inside of the corpo- Tation as it is to those on the outside. Not:Easy on Workers. “There are a great many of us who have our noses to the grindstone, at- tempting to earn for those who invest money in the stock dividends on the investments they make, that find our- selves in no small degree embarassed by, the value that people in the market pud on the stock, and the consequent ex- pectation that investors bave in the returns they may sometime realize.on ~ their investments. It does not make it easy for those who work for the cor- poration to have such high value placed on the stock itself “Now there are a great many new things peeping out of the laboratories in radio. The interest of the public in radio receiving sets has been very great. The pyramiding volume of radio receiving sets is a constant surprise to :Jhuse of us who work for the corpora- on. “We have a budget of orders and for the last several years that budget of what we expect the manufacturers to produce for the whole year is over- Teached before half the year is gone. It is very difficult to adjust production to demand. “Then I have told you of the contri- bution that radio has made to the » talking machine art; that is, the ortho- phonic and panatrope devices are radios eomlilhunons. That has interested the blic. “Then the talking movies have very \ largely been developed in the radio laboratories. Television Leaked Out. “Television is in the process of being developed. I do not know how televi- sion escaped out of the laboratory door to be talked about, but it came out too e companies, Beople cxpect . grent comyj les. ple expect a greal many things from television. ther the development of radio has been so fast, it has been so spec- tacular, there have been so many dif- ferent flelds that have been opened up by radio laboratory development, that the public evidently is intrigued and Sees - the possibility of a reproduction of the Ford experience or of the tele- graph or of the telephone or any of these great things wherein some people invested a few huyndred dollars in the early stages and lived in afuence thereafter. “It is the imagination of the public.” Such a tenuous thing as public imag- ination, however, is bolstered by the Radio Corporation of Ameriea’s fiscal report just rendered, from which Col. Davis cited a figure slightly in excess of $18,000,000 as _the net profits for 1928, Yet when Senator Watson asked Whether the price of radio stock is not “a good bit psychological,” the R. C. A. om‘ih!lhmk ind:ld : the logical i t altogether psychol 1, 8ir” Then he added that there is no fight for control of the stock, so that its speculative value cannot be attrib- uted to such a factor. He reminded the Benate committee that “this matter of increase in sfock matket values is not in any degree confined to radio,” but *goes over the whole ” No Dividend on Common. Col. Davis assérted that he knew of no officers or directors of the corpora- tion who have profited to any apprecia- ble extent by the soarings of the R.C. A. stock. He pointed out that no common stock dividends have ever been There are 18,000 stockholders, he said. Upon Senator Wheeler’s request, Col. Davis read a partial list of the stock- holders, making .the statement later £hac he did this “unwillingly” and only ‘lest the conclusion of ty in the ownership, of stock be wn from silence.” As of December 31, 1927, he said, the General Electric.Co. held 248,106 shares THE VICAR (Copyright, 1928, by Public Ledger) By Gard?er unting. (Continued from Yesterday INSTALLMENT XXXIIL UT the crowd itseif was the great- B er " phenomenon. Here were thousands upon thousands of people! She had not guessed that there were so many in the whole city. And a strange crowd it was! Used as she had become to some of the changes in men and their ways that had been effected by the new element in their lives, she had seen no such massed evidence as this. Nearly everybody was on foot! Where at such a gathering a few weeks or months ago there would have been thousands of motors, here were dusty men, women, and children dependent upon their own muscles for making their way to and from their destina- tions—and eagerly forgetful, it seemed, of all discomfort. Like a country circus crowd, they swarmed toward the great entrance gates. Except that there was little jolity or laughter among them. Van Winkle divined some of her thoughts. “Chauffeurs are scarce these days,” he said, “and it's hard to get cars repaired—or even supplied.” Perhaps it was the dust; some of them seemed masked with it, as it settled on sweating skins. Besides, it was the mass effect that continually forced itself upon her. The tremendous scene had a unity of its own, that refused to divide to the eye or to the mind. The people were not people—they were a drove, o herd, a hundred thousand animals of the same mold and markings—of the same temper and intent! They moved alike, they carried themselves alike, they looked alike. It was as if some vital inner resemblance of each to all and all to cach had turned its way to the sur- face of every individual, obliterating all insignificant personality! Merely hu- man, all of them—cut to a fashion, like their clothes. As like as manikins! So many skins stretched upon so many sets of bones, upon so many skulls, vary- ing only where slight inaccuracies chanced, tiny mischances and misfits! Or as toys—wooden toys— turned on the same lathe, to the same form, smoothed in a tumbler, painted with a stencil. She seemed to see men as Nature saw them—a swarm, in which nothing mattered but preservation and propaga- tion of the species as a specles—where the individual was nothing! So might a Creator look upon them, who swept them hither and yon by crowd passions, crowd curlosity, crowd epidemic, crowd madness—who wielded them as a plastic mass, forming of them some whole in which the crushing of one or any to conformity was of no moment— was necessity, part of the plan! It was a stunning, dazing thing, that onward sweep of the multitude like the whitening rush of surf. Bubbles were no more alike than heads! The plunge of waves, driven by forces over which they had no control and of which they had no cognizance seemed no more blind than the incoming of this tide! Who but its Creator might dare to meddle with its ebb and flow? Within the gigantic arena—it was nothing less—was a great penned sea! ization of a sort was here. There was authority, direction. But the multitude was docile—so long as there was a continuous channel in which to flow. In streams it divided and swept in many ways and filled in where the vast basin was not already utterly full. But Phyllis became part of it, and forgot for the time that she nursed a delusion of separateness. She won- dered momentarily if the seats to which she and her companion were guided were not the only ones reserved. But there expectancy seized her like a fever, as_she looked down into that greal valley of humanity, in the center of which was but a small open space. “I suppose you understand,” said Van Winkle, at her side, “that Brainard has & new trick of releasing records She turned to him. Pt e ) the names of individual stockholders read by Col. Davis, when there was an interruption and the in- quiry switched to the subject of the radio bill itself. (Copyright, 1929, by North American News- paper Alliance.) WE HAVE IT But the faces Phyllis saw fascinated | 8™ “He discovered in making multiple records of one event and releasing them together, that when the vents in the bombs are enlarged, and the rec- ords free to flow at their own chosen pace, as one might say, they unite and form a scene independent of any con- fining boundaries. Also they retain their original light and need no arti- | ficial illumination. I suspect that light- ing has been part of Brainard’s blind to cover the facts about projection of records from the overcurious. But now multiple records of a battle, say, can be here discharged into the open atmosphere together. They will unite and appear to each spectator as if the battle is actually occurring within his view, exactly as it did occur, regardless of the mere present physical conditions, including light and weather, around him. The whole event frays out at its ultimate edges, I might say, but only as it might be lost to your vision if you were looking at the original.” He spoke as if the mere fact of seeing the past at all had lost all nov- elty to him. And to Phyllis the crowd | about them scemed to be in the same | state of mental preparedness for pro- sive wonders. “What are we to see today?” she asked. “Did you see the announcements outside?” “Outside? I think I had eyes only for the crowd.” “It is marvelous, isn't it—the crowd?” he said, and seemed to lose himself in looking off over the people. Then he turned again to_her. “Oh,” he ex- plained, “it’s St. Bartholomew’s day, in Paris—the St. Bartholomew's day, of course—the Medici little playspell.” “The massacre?” gasped Phyllis. “Yes,” he replied, without looking around at her tone. “I don't know what we shall see of it; but I shouldn't wonder if we might learn Whether or not the King really did fire on the Huguenots himself from a window in the Louvre.” He might have been speculating whether a favorite clown was still in the program at the Winter Garden! At her silence he did turn'to her again Tow. “Oh!” he said, understanding by | intuition. “It is queer, isn’t it? People seem to want the crime, the bloodshed, the cruelty of history. It's the old story; only the wickedness is interest- ing. People don’t realize the evil only makes the red smears across the white pages of the good! I wonder if the good is usually so pallid to us because it seldom falls into action. We are absorbed in the action of a human devil running amuck—and untouched by the drab heroism of a man’s quiet lifetime of unselfish devotion to a per- son or a cause. We would follow breathlessly the red career of a low- browed gunman, scarcely hoping that he gets away with it—and be bored to 0:30 M ven\'l"c‘“"“l;‘.‘g.‘ Beouss WAL STAR, WASHI death at the martyrdom of a doctor who gives his life to prove some sci- entific theory about disease. People would run away from scenes of Jesus of Nazarath teaching His followers to see Nero burn them! “Why do tyrant's lurid deeds stir people more than a prophet's truth? Why does the cruelest of the Caesars have more power over their imaginations than the divinest of teachers?” “Does he,” asked Phyllis, “after two thousand years®” “He does—when they can look at him!” Phyllis was silent, filled with a sud- den conception that awed her beyond words. “We've recorded experimentally the Passion Play of 1910,” Van Winkle went on. “It doesn’t go!” Phyllis turned on him. “But it—-" she began, and stopped. “Yes, I know,” he said. “If the Pas- sion Play, why not the event it com- memorates? Well, why not? Because as picturesque tragedy it pales besidé mere killings, like Waterloo, or Ban- nockburn, or Thermopylae, or Tippe~ canoe!” “Picturesque!” “Exactly. It's now—a show.” She was speechless. “Of course,” Van Winkle said, “it is infinitely—something else! After all, maybe the mob is right. It refuses to confuse its values, The Vicarion can fill an afternoon and the whole field of an afternoon’s vision; but the Passion covers two thousand years! And re- quires something more than vision to see. No, it won't be though the Vi- carion that 'the world will see the Sec- ond Coming!” He was silent. She could not answer him. Far away down there in the center, somewhere, there was music. She wondered what sort of musical score could go with the spectacle pre- pared for this day’s consumption. Behind her she heard two men talk- ing, “I saw the damnedest thing,” one said, “down at a little theater called the Welkin last night. I wonder if they'll put it on here, whole? It was a piece of a crowd wedged into a street in old St. Petersburg, with the Cossacks F Street at Eleventh proving that two colors are smarter than one. 397 Flat crepe dresses, accented in daring color contrast, are a mark of dress smartness for Spring. Ever so many new models in all the lovely Spring colorings provide an excel- lent selection at all prices. NGTON, 13 DS butchering at the red edges of it, &s you might hack at a—" Phyllis gasped. Van Winkle looked | & he said. “But wait till they see Cortez—on the terrible Causeway!” ‘The man behind her was just finish- infa his remarks. “They ate it up!” he sald. Phyllls started up from her seat. “Why, I had no idea—I didn't real- (To Be Continued Tomorrow.) MAJ. GEN. RHODES ENDS ARMY CAREER TOMORROW Winner of Medals for Heroism Served Nation 44 Years in Several Countries. Maj. Gen. Charles D. Rhodes, here on leave of absence, will end an active military career of 44 years tomorrow night and be transferred to the retired list by operation of law because of age. Born at Delaware, Chio, Pebruary 10, | & 1865, he was graduated from Colum- bian (now George Washington) Uni- versity in 1885 and from the West Point Military Academy in 1889. As- signed to the cavalry, he saw active service in the Sioux Indian campaign of 1890, the. Spanish War of 1898, the Chinese relief expedition of 1900, the Philippine insurrection of later years, and in the World War, and was fre- quently cited for gallant conduct in action. In the World War he was succes- sively a brigadier general and a major general in the National Army and took part in the Alsne-Marne, St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives, for which he was decorated by the United States, Great Britain and France. In the Regular Army he was ap- pointed a brigadier general in August, 1925, and a major general in Septem- ber, 1928. He has served several de- tails in this city, His latest duty was in command of troops on the Panama Canal Zone. W, B. Moses & Soms Public Confidence Since 1861 Main 3770 Bi-Color Flat Crepe Dresses FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8§, 1929. WoobpwARrD & [LOTHROP DOWN STAIRS STORE Full-fashioned All-Silk Chiffon Hose, $1-5° Slight Irregulars of Higher-priced Stockings Just 250 pairs of these lovely, clear-weave stockings, with the new shadow heel. In gun metal and dust shades only. ROMILLA Spring arrivals in stockin, full-fashioned, all-silk chiffon. $1.50. gs include the smart street shade, Peter Pan, in DOWN STAIRS STORE Handbags, $2.% Tapestry in a variety of rich col- ors fashions these bags, which women find will blend with prac- tically everything. Pouch styles, with covered and imitation shell frames, back strap or long handle. DOWN STAIRS STORE Youthful Short ew “Half-Size” Frocks $16.50 The short, slender, or larg- er woman who has dif- ficulty in being well fitted in frocks of the regulation sizes will appreciate this group of frocks, for they are designed for the most difficult-to-fit figures. Ex- tra inches have been put in, or taken out—still these frocks remain at a most reasonable price. Lovely plain shades and small prints are featured in smart fashions. Sizes 1434 to 26%. DOWN STAIRS STORE i ”“u,mlllll .|||’ W i, Straw is smartly used in New Hats, 4% Shiny straw—dull straw—some kind of straw is combined with felt in the new spring hats, to be very smart. The contrast of these fabrics is most effective, whether the color be a light spring shade, brown, navy or black. Sizes for women and misses. DOWN STAIRS STORE Vamp Pumps, 5% Patent leather pumps, showing the newly fashionable short vamp of youth, with strap and - instep buckle. The hexagon Cuban heel is unusual and appropriate with the square toe. DOWN STAIRS STORE IN STOCK We recommend the famous KOLSTER radio, because we know it’s quality throughout. Come in and see it...or arrange for home dem- onstration. "¢ GROVE e 523 11th St. N.W. Apparel of common stock out of 1,155,400 shares - i outstanding. It held also 27,080 of Always ferred stock out of 395597. West- house holdings of the same date ‘were 27,760 of common and 50,000 pre- ferred. s New York brokerage house - hole mostly in trust for clients, were m as of August, 1928, but Col. Davis de- clared the figures have doubtless changed considerably since that date. The par- tial list revealed was as follows: J. S. Bache, 10,373 common and 625 preferred; Arthur E. Brown and George ©. Moore, trustees under the will of T. H. Gibbon, 8,000 common and 12,500 preferred; H. Content & Co. 31,790 ccommon; Dominick & Dominick, 18,138 common and 80 preferred; Hornblower & Weeks, 10,406 common and 111 pre- ferred, and W. E. Hutton & Co., 13,110 common, ‘The completed list was not given nor Other flat crepe dresses in bi-color effects $16.75 to $59.50 ‘The Apparel Second Floor Eggshell and Brown . Eggshell and Black Burnt Orange and Green Marine and Chartreuse Aquamarine and Black Raspberry and Flax Blue Navy and Rose, Red and Black Colonial Wholesalers, Inc. Met. 2150 806 12th St. N.W. New Sweaters for Tiny Folk 5145 Women’s and Misses Sizes 14 to 40 Small affairs of all wool, in the convenient coat style, or at- tractive slip-overs; sizes from infants’ to six years. " “Always the Newest Hats” FOUNDER’S WEEK S New Blouses COMING | for School Girls W, D, NMoses & Sons SINCE 1861—SIXTY-EIGHT YEARS of PUBLIC CONFIDENCE Main 3770 F Street at Eleventh 9 AM. to 6 PM. isle Sweaters Made in France $3.95 Te our large collection of sweaters at $3.95 comes this new sweater fashion—lisle sweaters from France, in the weave seen in the smart Spring sweaters. Tweed effects, in green, tan, blue, navy, black, coral, pink and red. DOWN STAIRS STORE Recent arrivals are these 200 blouses which are so satisfac- tory for school wear, No school girl can have too many. In white and tan, with fancy collars and cuffs, and in all- over prints; sizes 8 to 16. DOWN STAIRS STORE Straw and Felt Combine for Chic A touch of straw combined with the bright new felts lends that lovely springlike appear- ance so desired in the new hats. Hat Salon, Pirst Floor