Evening Star Newspaper, March 3, 1929, Page 20

_ (Continued From First Page) and almost the whole Nation is dis- cussing what the incoming admini: tration may bring forth. Mere prophecy is idl; but. on the other hand, there is nothing more legitimate than to con- sider what are the outstanding elements ] ency seems only naturally to make the Government more and more its agent, and since the Government can bring other pressures to bear than those of legitimate business, national business, as well as national politics, tends tc be- come diseased. THE SUNDAY STAR. WASHINGTON. D. C. MARCH 3, 1929- PART 2. | We have not yet erected anything U. S. Isles Ird Page.) (Continued From 1 [ sent ther first “Ambassador” to Wash- | ington, a handsome native named Ma- | mea, who returned with what purported to be a treaty. The wise men scented more and more trouble, and wanted some one to pro- of Delight existing in them is that derived, medi ately or immediately, from the Prest- dent of the United States as Commanci- er-in-Chief of the nd Navy.” An order was Presider Kinley conferring upon the Navy | authority to govern America The commandant of the c in the political situation at the mo- |like an adequate machinery to deal with ment of change, and what forces, both | the nationalism of business when cup- in America and in the world outside, | ported by a government. | are apparently gathering power, what| The fact is that this problem. which. interests seem likely to dominate, and |if it is unsolved. heads almost inevitably | what are the means for dealing with |for war, can never be solved by any | them | country "acting for itself alome. It is| | tion was made a gove of the high cou of his authority to three ecach of whom admii T can laws and those derived riginal customs and tra | tect them both from foreign aggression and from civil war. Col. Steinberger !had convinced them that the United States would do just that. There was a | clause which stated that if the Samoans |at Pago Pago should have a misunder- One thing is clear. The next four | s—or eight vears -will not be like | he last. There are signs that the| period of “stand-patism” is over, mot | only in home affairs but in foreign | affairs as well. The country has beer. | making_itself over, materially, during | the political quiet of these last vears, | and now there are many signs that it is beginning to demand that politics also shall stir with_the new life of an cra unprecedented in material power. It is quite probable that there would have been a swing in the pendulum toward | more energetic forward-looking policies | even without the stimulus of “new | wealth, for eight years is about as long as any vigorous nation is likely to pur- | sue policies of patient waiting while the | world is moving so rapidly in other | ways. Moreover. there is a strong ele- ment in American life which is natural- Iy impatient of inaction. _President Eliot was right when he reminded us, | in the course of the discussion over the League of Nations. that the American | people love adventure. The romance of Lindbergh and the interest in Byrd's expedition are significant of passing in- dications of this_interest which has been unsatisfied in politics these last eight years Industrial Revolution Apparent. In the field of foreign affairs now that the old ing outlook in th> popular mind. This does not mean that the country as a whole gives foreign zffairs the right of We are still more interested in the | day’s work at home. The outside world is far away from most of us, and in a country so largely self-contained with immense internal commerce ard indus- try, the preblems of domestic politics are likely to remain the chief interest for years to come. Nevertheless, sense of self-sufficiency is gone. Policies built upon our historic isolation fail to satisfy the country as a whole. This is partly due to the influence of the World War. but the chief reason for it is the new industrial revolution which is sweeping over not only this country but the rest of the eivilized world as well. The influence of the World War upon the United States cannot be easily meas- ured. Politically the country was car- ried back to where it had been before the war; conservatism during the last eight years has been the chief keynote of administration, and this undoubtedly reflected the first reaction from the war itself. War-time emotions soon sub- sided, and as is always the case with emotions the reaction was strong in the opposite direction. But while the subsidence left the country apathetic, it was not permitted to recover the old-time provincialism and to go back to the quiet isolation of | Something more real | the prewar days. than sentiment began to hold the at tention of the world outside. This time it was a ma- terial interest, one which did not call for secrifice, but promised gain instead. ‘The United States began its new career as an exporter of capital to other coun- tries, and moving swiftly and with the power of its great rescrves became al- most overnight the leading banker of the world. ‘War Debts Caused Breach. First there were war debts to arrange, but the element of politics in these tended rather to separate nations than to bring them together; the industry for which they had been loaned was one of destruction and could not yield its divi- dends except by the taxation of those whose property had been so largely de- stroyed. But the funds of private Amer- ican investors went for productive pur- poses, or at least were supposed to be devoted to such ends. and soon these funds, drawn from the savings, the earnings and the loose capital of all parts of the country, became so large as to measure in the aggregate as much as had been invested in century in some of our oldest estab- lished industries at home. ‘The factories of Germn{ and France, of Czechoslovakia and Poland, as well as ‘of South America and Canada, are now earning incomes not only for great financiers, but for ti who live in little towns and farms as well, from Montana to Florida and Maine to ‘Texas. People who a few years ago had not known the meaning of a bond aré now studying the markets of Ham- burg and Rio de Janerio. A great new chapter of American history has been opened—one which, while it lies in the field of foreign affairs, touches the home life of the nation as well, and so, sooner or.later. is bound to call for political adjustment to its new realities. | s movement of capital abroad is not merely a product of prosperity. It is also a continuing cause of it and, therefore, is or should be a matter of real concern to the Government, even if it watches without interfering. The | outgoing administration was by n means unaware of the significance of this movement of American capital. But during the last eight years it has acted upon the principle which has generally been followed by governments in the early stages of a new economic era. It has, upon the whole, stood aside to let that era work out its own prob- lems in terms of business. Government Relatively Inactive. Bxcept for the vigorous Department of Commerce and the competent bank- | ing system of the country, the Govern- ment itself was relatively inactive. The period of Mr. Coolidge’s administration will stand in history chiefly as a busi- ness era rather than one of notable po- litical achievement, with the exception of Mr. Kellogg's treaty negotiations in the closing days of the administration. Now the policy of laissez-faire in for- | zn affairs comes to an end sooner or | ter, just as it does in home affairs. 1 the course of the nineteenth cen. tury every clvilized nation learned the | same lesson for itsell—that with the growth cf industry there were national interests to be protected and conditions | of labor to be preseribed. The problem of social justice could not be left to thase whose self-inte: lay in the ex- | ploitation of either the laborer or the | consumer. The scope of government was .then enlarged in most countries to | something like paternal oversight, if not control and agement, of some of the chief industri ‘This is the move- ment from liberalism to radicalism, largely embodied in the progressive movement of American politics, which | began the last decade of the nine- teenth century ! Now a similar movement seems indi- cated with referenc phase of the by and this be s is of the utmost impor tance that it should be in the direction ot lineral policies and not toward a re- mctionary dangerous conservatism. | The new problem naturally presents | itsélf from two different angles. the na. tional and the international. We shall deal with these in turn. Nationalism Covers Broad Field. Nationalism in the new business world of today extends over a wide and wried field, reaching all the way from | the traditional problem of the tariff to | new government monopolies. When na- | tionalism is rampant, tariffs become prohibitive and business is ajded in such ruthless methods as “dumping” upon elpless compe There has been ch of this unlovely lack of neighbor- ss in Europe since the war, in spite Il the protests of common sense st its inherent wastefulness, It is laps the greatest single danger con- ting the business world today. be- » with the increasing unification usiness inside the country the tend- H controversies have died | down. there is a new and forward-look- | the | United States to the| the course of a|ar, an international problem and the solu- tion lies in the participation of the | civilized world in those international activities and agencies which are capa- ble of dealing with it. How to do this and yet, at the same time, retain for each State the freedom of action which its own business interests apparently demand. is perhaps the supreme prob- lem in politics; and yet this is the very problem which the incoming adminis- tration of the United States will have to deal with, or at least will have to ace. Problem Seems Hard of Solution. When this problem is approached from the national standpoint it frankly looks insoluble; but it presents an en- tirely different aspect when taken up from the international point of view. The reason for this is that the prob- ems themselves are not national, but international in character. There is a mutual interest of the country that im- ports capital and the one that exports it, for the one must keep good its credit in order to lessen its interest charges, and the other prospers as its returns increase. Even the tariff is not merely a matter | of home concern, for the protection of native industry may affect the buying power of customers abroad. The size of our country prevents us from seeing clearly this international character of modern business, but the new wealth which is coming in as a result of the new methods of production and the un- orecedented harnessing of power in these last vears is rapidly ereating even for us the need of a close articulation with | what is called the “world market.” and | as that process of business growth pro- ceeds, the political orientation of the| | country must follow in the same direc- |tion. "A world market means world politics, and the nation which leads in the one cannot ignore the responsibili- | ties in the other. Now, the world problem in politics cannot be approached by the old ma- chinery of routine diplomacy, state de- | partments and foreign offices are in- | adequate to deal with it. The Depart- ment of Commerce, like the Board of | Trade, can serve effectively as the Na- | tion’s ‘agent in the statement and as- sertion of its case, but these organiza- | tions do not provide a machinery for | solving disputes either between them- | selves or others. They are still linked up too closely with a procedure that stead of with one that looks toward | business ways of settling business things. “Pacific Means” Considered Vague. The business way of settling business things is that indicated by the Kellogg- Briand pact. Article 2 of that treaty— which is the heart of the contract— tates that if a dispute is to be settled means.” This is a vague phrase and | during the next e¢ministration we may | very well expect to see it implemented 50 as really to mean something in times | of erises. | There is a World Court of Interna- | tional Justice, entry into which is now being worked out by the greatest of our jurists, Mr. Elihu Root, ere is the ar- and in the other treaties to which the United States is party, and then, still | more important for cases of hot dispute when national passions are aroused, the procedure of concfliation and of confer- | ence, where the issue at stake is ana- | lyzed and talked over without pledging | the dis eision. In the perfecting of these instruments |of pacific settlement there are some definite steps already clearly indicated. ‘The treaties recently signed with the Central and South American States for arbitration and conciliation should be ratified. Entry into the World Court is so obvious a duty as to need no ent. The procedure in both court and arbitration are well established. But we are still in the experimental stage in the fleld of conciliation and conference, which is the very field in which are the two techniques most pertinent to those disputes from which wars arise. Technique Conference Is Needed. ‘There should be an international con- | ference on the technique of conferences | themselves. For instance, it will be a | surprise to most readers to know that| | there practically never has been a suc- i cessful international conference when | the different governments participating failed to have beforehand a quiet inter- national conference of their experts, who then shaped up the terms of the discussion. not as attorneys for their governments writing briefs to strength- (en a case, but simply as technicians| concentrating on a solution. The disarmament conference in Geneva in 1927 failed for this very Locarno succeeded because the xperts had done their work together weeks before. There is, of course, a false appearance of success sometimes when one party browbeats another into momentary submission, but the real conference method calls for co-opera- tion upon both sides, not merely in the hour of conference but in continuing policies. These are great objectives—the up- building of those international institu- tions which from their very natural- ness grow more and more into the position of pacific substitutes of war, There is no doubt that an international community is beginning to come into existence in our day which calls for Institutions of this kind, to be used not merely in the hours of crises but in the normal conduct of affairs. To the his- torian this international community looks very much as the national state looked in’the twelfth or thirteenth cen- | tury, when national anarchy gave way to those instruments of government which made for domestic peace by as- suring stability and security at home. Action Is Speeded Up. _International institutions are not likely to be a mere copy of the parlia- ments and courts in which the grow- Ing self-consciousness of the native found expression: they will be adjuste to & somewhat different task, but the same kind of process is at work be- tween nations as formerly took place within them. The chief difference and the most ked is that the interna- tional organization will not take so long to build as was the case in that long and painful process of state build- | ing which reaches back to the days of Edward I or Louis IX, when Gothic cathedrals were rising on the soil of medicval Europe. The movement of cvents today is so much swifter than in the past that in terms of medieval history cach year that passes holds almost a century. The international community of to- day that embodies the interests of the business world is moving forward, not with the ox certs of the medieval mer- chants, but under the impulsion of its own high compression engines and the massed power of electricity and with the new cohesion of literacy among people never literate before our time. people whose literacy will not be only that of alphabet and journalism but of radio and television as well. The por- tentious stirring of the heart of China marks the dawn of an era in which this nation of ours is set to play a | major part; and the task of the engi- neer in statesmanship is not merely that of keeping a steadying hand upon the throttle; it is as well the building of new roads on the open fields of in- ternational intercourse and the install- ation of the proper machinery for use in_this task. In plain English, this mesns that ends in battleships and armaments in- | it must be settled by “pacific | | | { | ACROSS THE WORLD RUN THE LI? __(Continued From First Page) such conferences happened in Vienna. Mr. Canty and that brilliant and able representative of ours, H. L. Groves, gency. There had been a system in Austria (a typical example), by which local dis- tributors might import foreign (mean- ing, of course, American) films at the rate of 20 foreign films to each local film offered. Then, as there came to be a large number of imported films on there was a movement in the direction of reducing the number of films to be | | stead of twenty to one. Simply through these informal and extra-diplomatic conferences with gov- ernment officials and with local film agents, Mr. Canty and Mr. Groves were able to draw up a memorandum so satisfactory to every one that the in- tended action was abandoned and the present status maintained. At this very moment similarly ar- ranged discussions on the part of i1Charles F. Kunkel, our trade commis- | sioner in Wellington. New Zealand, are succeeding in making such an interpre- tation of the local laws that certain American aircraft already shipped and still on the water, will be taken out and flown in New Zealand, and not shipped all the way back to America because some government officials had reversed a ruling they had previously made. Or leap now to Buenos Aires and the Argentine. There we may pick out of the scores of possible tales one which {llustrates another way in which our sparrow hawks of commerce aid Ameri- can business. Learning of Aims. Not only do they seem nearly super- were the men who handled the emer- | hand, | imported to the ratio of ten to one, in- | OF AMERICAN COMMERCE HINGING EVERYWHERE ON THE WORK OF OUR TRADE COMMISSIONERS. | a little trip to New York. The conse- quences were entirely satisfactory to the American manufacturers. This is only an incident in the tale of a million and three-quarter dollars’ worth of airplanes exported by us dur- ing 1928, and of two millions and more of additional aeronautic products sent overseas. A jump. let me parenthesize, of a million and a half in a year. Always, in these stories and in the hundreds of others which I might go on relating. the striking thing is, first, the complete and instant knowledge of detail of all sorts which our men pos- | sess concerning the countries to which they are accredited. Again I prefer to inject a personal | experience. It was in Cairo that I [ found James F. Hodgson, now in charge tof the district offices in New York. | _Before Cairo there had been for Mr. | Hodgson, among other things. the in- troduction into Czechoslovakia of 15 | kinds of American cars to the tune of some millions of dollars. !""But now Mr. Hudgson was in Cairo, and he was to feave the next morning | for Vienna, where Dr. Julius Klein, head | | of the biveau, was to hold a conference | with a number of his ablest field men. | Most busy men, and certainly most gov- | ernment officials, under such circum- | stances, would have been far too press- ed to see a wandering journalist. But |1 have always found that the men who | accomplish the most have the most time at their disposal. | no exception. | Egypt Conditions Outlined. ! He outlined commercial conditions in Egypt and the delicate applications of local trade laws in their relations to the | curiosities of Egyptian government, in about 10 minutes of rapid fire, incisive | sentences. Then, when I remarked that | standing with other nations the United | States would use its “good offices” in | their behalf. | Mamea was on the grill several days | before the council of chicfs explaining | the terms of the treaty. especially “good {offices.” He was never able to convince |them that the term meant cannon and Irifles. In 1885 the semblance of actual | sovereignty was given when a United |States consul raised the Stars and | Stripes over the island. | The claims of rival native kings re- {sulted in several wars in Samoa in which the white settlers and residents took sides. A German warship had ac- { tually bombarded villages of tiiose op- | choice. Early in 1889 the situation had become so bad that there were seven | German and one British. A naval en- gagement might easily have resulted. Swept by Hurricane. Then the Storm King fell upon the | whole squadron, for onc of the worst | hurricanes known to history swept down | upon Samoa on March 15, 1889. i warships, with their crews of 1,500 men, | were thrown about like sockle shells. | I'All except one were either sunk or | beached and 150 lives lost. The disaster has been described by (Drawn by Austin Jewell) | gifted pens, including that of Stevenson Iposed to the King of their Teutonic | warships at Apia—three American, three | The | | insight into many a world of strange | with a fair knowledge of German and | psychology. | Norwegian also, she has just gone off For example, Arnold, in China, tells to Oslo to the thrill of doing some iof the American exporter of foodstuffs | more “pioncering”—to create in Nor- | who was locking for a market for an | the new work of being the first | extra large erop of California dried figs | trade commissioner in Oslo made into fig biscuits. He encountered | Then there are the stories of Miss | the Chinese superstition that those who | Elizabeth Humes. trade commissioner in eat figs can never bocome parents of | Rome. Daughter of an American naval {and that of a newspaper correspondent, | who produced one of the classics in re- p ! It was the iron hand of Bismarck | which gripped Samoan affairs later that |year. The German commander was dis- 1 ciplined for exceeding his instructions, especially in that he had arrested Ameri- cans and Englishmen. Late in 1889 representatives of the three countries orting, as he was an eye witness. Describes Navy “Pooh Bah" Rear Admiral J. L. several years ago the Naval Institu wh he seribes his own experiences at Pago as a young officer in 1901 s after the United States took | charge. - By an odd combination of ecircum- stances he found himself the com- mander of a cruiser, the c of the station, the gover island, the chief judge of the court and a few other things, which he sums up under the title, Naval Pooh Bah." When the World War occurred, in 1914, an expedition from New Zealand |landed at Apia and took possession of all German, or Western Samoa. in the name of the British crown. All that territory has been held by England cver since, its present status being that of being ruled by New Zealand under & mandate Meanwhile, the United tinued to govern her part w terruption under the rule of the ad- miralty of Pago Pago. | Population Is 7,500. ‘The Navy is the dominant factor in | American Samoa. The population is {only about 7.500 for all the islands { under American rule, of which there | are 180 whites and 300 half-castes. The 7,000 or so natives are of the pure { Polynesian strain. They have a com- plexion like that of gold and copper combined. Their features are fine and regular and among them are both men |and women of singular beauty. They are unusualiy tall for inhabiiants o the South Seas. Their hair is straigh all of “A Hodgson was bitration tribunal, both at The Hague, | naturally to learn what Governments|I was going on to Palestine, he said are going to do, but they know what | that he had just returned from a spe- local investors and possible purchasers | cial survey and would, if I liked, tell are plagning to do. | me_his impressions, If a business man of importance is{ Faster than a pencil could follow him, plannipg a trip to the United States, | he gave me his results. Never on col- our trade commissioner will arrange for | lege platform have I ever heard so him to get in touch with Washington, | swiftly painted and broadly envisaged a and through our offices here with every | picture of the economic and political utants to accept any given de- | g o . sl { which the prospective traveler is inter- | firm of consequence along the lines in ested. And, maybe, if he isn't planning |such a trip, his mind will be led along | the proper channels in time. Here in Buenos Aires the other day |there was the matter of the purchase ;of a $50,000 airplane. Competition from certain European manufacturers was keen. Alexander V. Dye, our commer- cial attache, and our trade commission- er, Tewksbury, persuaded two aviators who were looking for a plane to make there must be an overhauling and a modernizing of the instruments of diplomacy. The old silk-hatted dip- lomacy that disguised by cuumx eti- quette its ignorance of the ordinary interests of the common man must give way to a more realistic type of dealing. In plainer English stiil, this means that, in addition to our taking on the World Court, extending the | scope of arbitration and articulating {our relations with the League, we must | proceed as well with a far-reaching reform of the State Department and the diplomatic service, both in struc- ture and in personnel. This is primarily a matter of a budget. If for the next four vears there were de- | voted to the improvement of our diplo~ | matic service the equivalent of not five cruisers a_year but only one, the in- creased efficiency in administration at { home and representation abroad would do more than any increase in the fight- ing forces of the Nation to safeguard our real interests in the world; for the increased intelligence would in the very nature of the case be concentrated upon the improvement of pacific relationships which are the guarantee of continuing prosperity. The Rogers bill, designed to take the diplomatic service out of politics, was a doubtful blessing when not supported by 2 sufficient budget to make the diplo- matic career possible on the basis of pure merit. Any reform in this regard would be supported by the country at large if it were given to understand that the increased expenditure meant increased competence. Armaments Question Is Serious. Jn avoiding the role of prophet, we have so far kept away from the specific and detailed problems which will be- confronting the next administration. But there is one that cannot be passed | to diplomacy on the one hand and the | perhaps the most serious immediate | question before the United States in the fleld of international relations. We shall deal with it from two points of view, first, the cruiser question and naval rivalry and, second, the traffic |in_arms. | The best settlement of the Anglo- American naval rivalry would be for both nations to take the Kellogg-Briand treaty at its face value and frankly re- | adjust their naval strategy according to | its’ terms, which are nothing more or less than that both nations give up the right to use the navy against each other as the instrument of American or of British policy. Strictly speaking, the Kellogg pact has enacted on the seas the second of President Wilson's 14 points, that there shall be complete | freedom on the seas except as they are closed in whole or in part by interna- tional agreement for the maintenance of international rights. Pure nationalism in terms of war s banned from the seas henceforth. This is not the old freedom of the seas, but it is a better one, and if the two nations could be brought to see that they nave reached this point in their politi~ cal commitments the problem of sea strategy will be changed into the less | serious and infinitely less costly duty of an agreed police. But it takes time to learn and still | longer to apply the great lessons embod- ied in treaties of this kind; and. in the interval the easiest settlement is for both Britain and the United States to accept parity substantially where they stand at present and to stop any in- crease that bears the slightest resem- bla: to a naval race. It is perfectly true that there is no ’ by, that of armaments, their relation ; | Nation’s business on the other, This is | | forces at work in the new Zion. Knowledge of general business condi- | tions, knowledge of local personnel, acumen in judging the character of | those foreigners who must be used as | local agents, diplomacy in dealing with those government officials in matters of trade rulings, a nose for business op- portunities and opportunities for Ameri- can investment—all these do our spar- row hawks of trade develop. And, in countries still undeveloped, still primitive, they must acquire an mathematical parity, because the two governments do not build the same kind of ships; but the nations could, never- theless, agree to accept as parity some rule of thumb that would be satis- factory in the circumstances to all ex- |cept those few specialists who base their calculations upon the unthinkable event of a fratricidal war—unthinkable | except as these experts prepare the |mina to think in its terms. | such planning the common sense of both countries, once alert, would react a5 definitely and as clearly as was ;ulre:d_\' evident in the critical days of the Venezuela incident. The way to avoid this exigency is simply to stop | where we are now; a naval agreement | 1s possible if we want it. But the question of armaments is a much larger one than that of cruiser building. We have in our great privately owned concerns in this country the great arsenals for the potential wars of the future, whether our own or those of other countries. The munition trade and the relation of the iron and | steel industry to it is a matter too dif- Jncult to analyze in a few words. There was nothing illegitimate * about such industries 5o long as war was an admit- ted prerogative of civilized nations, but the Kellogg-Briand treaty, which limits legitimate war to either self-defense or co-operative defense under the League of Nations and denies its free right otherwise, makes it necessary for the United States to enter into further agreements with other countries so that export of American munitions should not be used so as to make us the moral or, rather, the immoral, accomplice of any natlon going to war in future for the assertion of its national policy. Peace-Time Investments Insured. Some suck: policy as that proposed in the Capper resolution is the proper solu- ment. arsenals of the treaty-breaking state. It is claimed that action of this kind would injure ore of our greatest indus- tries by denying us the right to make our share of profit in the markets of war. This fact must be faced. There is no denying it. We should be losing war profits in the next war if the Cap- per resolution were adopted. But com- bare the speculative profits to be made from the few months of the war-time sales with the amount of interest drawn from the countries that would be at war, interest on investments through Ieng years of peace, and the economic argument at once hecomes overwhelm- ing in favor of the restriction of ship- ment. For the restriction of ship- ment of supplies to a treaty-breaking state which would help to guarantee the continuance of legitimate business abroad. Viewed in this light, the restriction on the shipment of arms is nothing more or less than an insurance policy on our peace-time investments. 0se investments, increasing every year, are even now many times greater than the entire investment in the potential mu- nition warks at home. From the stand- point of pure business, therefore, we should take steps to limit the shipment of supplies of war to any nation violat- ing its pledge to renounce war as an instrument of its policy. _The argument so far has been en- tirely on the basis of material gain, but the Nation's honor is at stake as well. Fortunately, it looks forward with con- fidence that its keeping is in safe hands. The next four years may therefore see the question of armaments and disarm- ament on the road to final settlement tion of the whole question of disarma- | Our factories should not be the | boy babies. So he had to look else- where. | With stories such as this must our |trade commissioners be aware. And then they must add another thing. | They add a willingness—a positively | military eagerness—to endure any hard- | ship or danger in going after the infor- ‘ mation they want. Rare but not unique are such stories as those of Louis E. | Van Norman, packed in for days at a | time with peasants, typhus cases, goats, | peacocks, garlic and more peasants in | post-war trains whose very scats had been ripped out by the Bolshevists, crawling across Rumania, foodless, waterless, bedless. “To sell abroad we must buy abroad,” id Mr. Hoover. ‘To sell at home. we might add, under | | that new competition which is so often | | a competition of industry against in-| | dustry rather than a competition wi'in; | sa officer, much of her childhood was spent in Europe, so that she speaks German. French and Italian fiuently. | There is no doubt that much of her | exiraordinary success has been due to | that knowledge of Italian, but still more | is it due to that personality upon which the expert committee of judges in | Washington lay so much stress. For it | was with both that she has been able | to gain Mussolini’s co-operation. Red Cross Experience. 3 She had been doing Red Cross work | in Italy during the war, and when we | tention of the world about this time in | accredited Dr. Alfred P. Dennis as our | first trade commissioner to Rome she | went into his office as an assistant. | the United States, where he had lived. | Learned as that gentleman was, he had no knowledge of Italian, and he was| concerned most in Samoa met in Berlin and far from coarse and they dress be- and made an agreement. Under it the United States, Great Britain and Germany recognized Samoa as neutral territory with an independent | government and gave the natives the| right to administer affairs according to theif own laws and customs, in so far as such regulations were in accordance with civilization. Samoa then began to settle down to more peaceful days. Stevenson’s Home in 1889. This group of islands came to the at- an entirely new light Louis Stevenson, bel low Englishmen’ ai In 1889 Robert oved both by his fel- nd by the citizens of came to make his home on the island of Upolu. He was so delighted with the scenery and the mild climate and the | industry itself, we must be awakc to|S00n using Miss Humes in all his “con- | romantic surroundings that he decided | every lesson in economical production | and in novel expedient which the rest| of the world has to teach us. And,| smart as we are, the rest of the world can occasionally teach us something. | One From Washington. | Among our sparrow hawks for thia; sort of learning I commend to your at- tention one Axel Oxholm. head of the wood products division of the Depart- ment of Commerce in Washington. | Oxholm leaps out from behind his| | desk and flings open a cabinet in the | | corner. | “Results of my last trip,” he says.| “enough for me to work on here for two | years!” |7 The interior of the cabinet is piled | with the most extraordinary miscellany of wooden objec Here is something you kneel on while you scrub a floor. There is a wooden shoe hinged in the | sole most cleverly for use in acid plants, | cement works and so on new kind of folding chair, and here fis | a plece of wood fumed in a new way to| a_beautiful finish and a piece of veneer glued along its edges in another new | | way. Upon mr is something that looks | like a beautiful Egyptian temple. Ox- | holm shows that off trilumphantly. It is | something he saw in Caen, in France— 8 new way of pliling up lumber so that 4 per cent in your handling | cost. Here are the evidences of scores of ideas picked up in Sweden and Norway, in France and Holland and Germany, 1ideas which Oxholm is now demonstrat- ing to the lumber industry for economy in production and for expansion in use 1 So he, like others in this extraordinary | line of men, is able to answer for the | American_exporter such a question as| that which came over his desk while T | was there: | "'“I produce 56 kinds of woods. Can closed. And how can I sell it? Direct to the consumer?” And he is able from field experience | to answer: | but the Dutch will like it for floors. | cannot. sell direct. You will be boy- | cotted. ~You should have a regular| established agent. possibilities. You will not want an| agent who represents two houses in the | same iine, for he can play one against the other. He must be no sharper. but a conservative and reputable business man who will carry out your personal wishes.” While Oxholm was in Eumg‘e doing his regular job—though one hesitates | to use so conventional an expression of | the way in which Mr. Oxholm works— | he was gathering thousands of tabu- | lated records of the export agents of the various countries in which he worked. This highly confidential mate- rial he turned over to the department in Washington. I have said that women were given an equal opportunity with men to qual- ify for this service. Three of them have so qualified. Two of them have already qualified in the fleld of action and the third has just gone off with every prospect of making good. Miss Smith in Shanghai. The last I heard of Miss A. Viola Smith she was riding on a certain Sun- day afternoon through the streets of . Shanghai on a truck which contained a new refrigerating showcase, and see- ing that the window casing of the shop for which it was destined was taken out (since the door was too small) to let it in, and snndlnf over the coolies while it was accurately installed. Sellng American goods to the Chi- nese market had not been enough for Miss Smith—as it would not have been enough for any other trade commis- sloner. She had to make sure that these goods would have every chance to function. The St. Louis firm which exported lhe“ apparatus has her picture on its wa Miss Gundron Carlson I saw in Washington the other day—a tall, handsome young woman, charming, yet full of pep. She is entering the serv- ice at a fraction of the salary she has been receiving, and she is doing it, among other reasons, because she likes | “ploneering.” Young as she is (just turning into the thirties) she was one of the first women to strike out new paths in in- dustry. An expert and a lecturer upon food and food products, she succeeded in meking a new job for herself—and for other women—in the Institute of American Meat Packers. T. E. Wilson, then president, needed a woman for contacts, for scientific experimentation and for the broadcasting of its results. It was a new kind of work. Miss Carl- son's fallow collegiate highbrows as- sured her she would lose her hard-won mati‘g’e in the educational world if she But Miss Carlson was the stuff of which our sparrow hawks are made. Her motto is, “New and difficult, and | therefore interesting.” Speaking Swedish like » native and [ | | gave |had in_her head—knowled; tacts.” But she was far more than lni interpreter of languages. She was a | smoother and arranger of all sorts of | politico-social situations. | ~ Mussolini, in his first policy of creat- | ing an entirely self-dependent Italy, had | issued his famous order on the “Batalo } del Grano"—the battle of the uhr‘nt.‘ Italy was to grow all the wheat it need- cd by a stroke of the distatorial pen. } Dennis went to the International In- stitute of Agriculture in Rome. He went | to the minister of agriculture. He went to many other sources for such informa- He worked for days. He ended -handed. He happened, then, to mention to Miss Humes that he desired to know what would probably be the proportion of Italy's wheat croj p to Italian consuming needs. She instantl him, out of the knowledge she ge derived nformation tion. em| from official sources—the i he_had been seeking. When Dennis was given a roving west of Turkey, Miss Humes went alon, for those contacts. Among ot! . the conferred with Stambouliski, dictator of Bulgaria. With him Miss Humes conversed in German. Next day the dictator gave a xrelt| dinner in her honor. “Remember.” he said to her, “I am not as the others. Other governments fall. 1, the son of a goatherd, I under- | stand my people, I shall remain. Ten, twelve years from now return and you will find me here!"” At the station, when she left, there | were rows of young peasant girls who | strewed flowers before her in the dic- | fator’'s name. As the train pulled into the station in Paris the front page news | in the paper she bought headlined the ! assassination of Stambouliski. . | Mussolini’s wheat program collapsed. Stambouliski was assassinated. They were but passing the | incidents in Against | T sell this kind in Holland?—sample in- | crowded life of the young woman who | was to be made, two years later, a trade commissioner in her own right. On more than one occasion a visiting | American of importance who has asked | | "“This wood 15 too hard for furniture, | for five minutes with the great Mus- | You | solini and has been blocked in other | directions has been taken into the pres. ence by Miss Humes. And then it has 1 inclose a list of | been his opportunity to observe that the five minutes he has asked for has turned into a prolonged and animated conversation between her and Il Duce, greatly to the benefit and the interest of the important American. Trade Across the World. Here and there across the world the lines of our trade run, carrying that extra 10 per cent of business which makes for stabilization in our national industry, which takes ur the slack of depression and frequently spells just the margin between profit and loss. Here and there it runs, spotting at nearly every pin another story of the contribution of our trade commissioners to national prosperity. And those trade lines tie back into district offices dotted across the home- land, where a uleg.m or a telephone call gets an absolutely instant response of sgo'. news from Peking to Keokuk. The day has passed when the Ameri- can manufacturer has to rely upon casual information for broadening his markets. The day has passed when you are amused upon the steamer deck by the old classics of commercial travelers. Such stories as that of the American exporter who tried to sell coal-burning cook stoves in Costa Rica, where there is no coal, which is the favorite tale of Commercial Attache Peck in Panama. Or the story of the builder of streect rail- way equipment who had all the trolley cars he had shipped to Caracas returned because the signs “Don’t speak to the motorman” were painted in English. Or of the enterprising Cleveland merchant who journeyed all the way to Rumania to sell vacuum cleaners to the peasants, and who got a terrible shock upon his arrival by learning that Rumanian peas- ants have no electricity within some hundreds of miles and are not particu- larly interested in the virtue which is second only to Godliness. Today you are amused in a new di- rection, as I was, to find salted peanuts in Paraguay; to find Brazilians drinking grape juice in the midst of a wide-open town; to learn in Buenos Aires the word “Quacka” as an Argentine word mean- ing dge; to buy American silk stocl in Jerusalem from an Arab and a little yellow tube of tooth paste from an an, who had certainly never used it ; and to be able to reach for your own brand of cigarettes in Turkey. Those ancient storles of our ignorance of packing processes and of marketing processes which flourished before the days of Hoover have already bacome the Homeric epics, the myths of business. It is out of world vision looking away from our shores, and out of intimate home study within our shores—the study of personality here, of broad psy- chologles there—that this foreign trade of ours is swinging on its upward course. Our Sparrow Hawks of Commerce are their own sample line, to make Samoa his home. Near Apia. under the shadow of a high mountain, he built a rambling house which he called Vailima, a Samoan word meaning “‘Five Waters.” He also had a large plantation which he worked with the aid of the natives. This last man- sion of the novelist was visited by the society of the foreign coloniss and by tourists from all parts of th> world. Stevenson was greatly beloved and respecied by old Samoan stock, and to him they gave the name of Tusitala— “The Teller of Tales.” In the broad grounds before the house fetes were held comingly. Samoans have a graceful poise and many of the older men have a statel | dignity which gives them that nob! aspect seen in the North Amer dian. In their disposition, these now duly recognized Samoan cousins of ou! are light hearted, agrecable and affec- | tionate. | _When a new ship of the United States | Navy arrives in port, the natives go out | to meet it in canoes and greet those on | deck in the most cordial fashion. Their first inquiry. mc e in their own tongue means in effect: “You are friends to | me, what?" Being assured such is the case, they board the vessel with many presents of island delicacies, such as bananas, pineapples and other fruits and remain on board as long as the discipline of the vessel will permit. | Children of nature as they are, the American-Samoans have good stand- ards of morals. Their family life is idealistic and probably equal in its standards to that of people who make more elaborate pretensions to observing the amenitics. The Island of Tutuila is only about 54 square miles in area, and all there is of American Samoa is 75 miles of territory. The natives live mostly along the ccast. as the interior is moun- tainous. Here they have their plan- | tations, their groves and their small villages, in which the houses are com- | posed of branches and dried grasses. ‘They come to Pago Pago to their | in which appeared the Polynesian dances ; which so greatly delighted the visitors. The kava drink, a non-aleoholic stimu- |lant made from a root, was ceremoni- |ously passed, and the guests were re- aled h roast pig. taro, vams and | | other dishes for which Samoa is famous | Succumbed There in '94. | Stevenson took market places to sell their fruits and vegetables and also such wares as tapa cloth, grass skirts. fans, beads and elaborately decorated kava bowls. There are some settlements, however, further in the interior, which may be reached by automobile over very excellent roads. Have Village Police. a deep interest in the troubled politics of the region, s shown There is a |COMmission covering nearly everything | in his book, “A Foot Note to History.” | | which recounts the story of the clashes | and the plots and counter-plots with which he was familiar. Although he had gained some strength in the South | Sea airs, the beloved owner of Vailima | was under a great pressure of work, and in 1894 his body suddenly gave way. ‘The word of his death, carried by cable, sent a wave of grief about the world. His body was borne by Samoan chiefs to a stone tomb on the top of the mountain which rises above the white walls of Vailima. Many tourists make trips to Apia to see the house where Stevenson lived. The structure, somewhat remodeled, is now the resi dence of the British governor of West- ern Samoa. Internecine strife came to an end in of the bone of contention—the king- chip. Under a tri-partite treaty among the three powers, Great Britain with- drew from Samoa entirely. She was | Here are native villages in which the i Iife is more primitive. Here the young men and women decked with crowns of flowers and wreaths of the bright- colored blooms, such as the hibiscus. perform the native dances in which Stevenson found so much poetry. | The men wear loin cloths of tapa | cloth in bright colors. and the women have short skirts of the same material, knee-high and bound to the walst by bright-colored girdles. This with the floral decorations constitutes their en- tire costume. Civil ordering of things in Ameri- can Samoa is largely in the hands of the native police force of 40 persons, who are lavishly attired, as far as the climate will permit. Now that these dwellers about the harbor of Pago Pago are likely to be- come citizens of the United States, and | the islands in 1899 with the abolishing | send delegates to our natfonal political | conventions, the relations of Samoa with continental United States are likely |to increase. So far commereial inter- |course has not been extensive, as then involved in the Boer War and in | $150.000 in imports and exports each the international politics of the day— felt she needed the friendship of Ger- many. Britain therefore accepted from the Kaiser the Solomon Islands and other small possessions for her interests in | Samoa. Germany came into control of the islands east of 171 east longitude, 111!\9 United States those west of that ne. Pact Ratified in 1900. ‘This arrangement gave to Germany the large islands such as Upolu and Savail; the United States got Tutuila and several small islands, including, of course, the harbor of Pago Pago. This agreement was clinched by the formal cession made by the chiefs and other | claimants, and in 1904 a cession of Mana to the United States was made. The American flnf was raised once {more in 1900 when the agreement was finally ratified. The newsrlperl and magazines of the period welcomed this domain, considered American as far back as the seventies, but as yet Samoa was not an integral part of the United States. It was announced that to these islands “neither the Constitution nor the laws of the United States extended” and “the only administrative authority (Continued From Third Page.) servers—judged to be the most advis- able and convenient. This consisted in granting to Bolivia, mediterranean country, who lost her ports during the war of 1878, the two provinces under dispute, so vital to her economic life and prosperity. To either Chile or Peru Tacna and Arica repre- sent no more than a moral satisfaction to their national honor, but to Bolivia, to the seas, the solution of her com- mercial problems, and the key to her very progress. Portless, Bolivia never will be completely independent and c‘nlmbla of exercising her sovereign rights. Fully realizing the situation and de- siring in some way to right the in- Jjustice and bri Bolivia back from the obscurity in which she has been left since u;w-r of t;temr:clflc, I:‘em; tary Kel propose granting of these provinces to Bollvia, which if done would forever have settled the Pacific controversy without in any man- ner injuring the pride of one or the other, for the territory would have been given to neither Chile nor Peru, but to a third interested party, who to- day maintains friendly relations with both republics. This proposal, al- though accepted in principle by Chils le, failed before the unyielding stand taken by Peru, who declined to discuss it. Some time ut' more than two years since the Secretary of State’s last offer of mediation, Peru and Chile, at Mr. Kellogg's instance, renewed their diplo- on the other hand, they mean access; way would about cover the present | transactions. The principal commodity | that American Samoa has to sell s | far is copra. as coconuts are plentiful on all the islands. Islands Still Unspoiled. Many tourists who like to get away from the conventions of civilizations and to enjoy the charm of loiling under | tropic skies are already visiting these | islands, unspoiled as yet by the artifi-, | cialities of other lands. Of course, | many go there to see where Stevenson lived, just as they would go on & pil- | grimage to a shrine. ‘Their {tinerary generally ineludes Hawaii and the Fiji Islands, where there are several good hotels. There are inn accommodation at Apia, about 6 hours’ steaming from Pago Pago. Pago Pago has boarding houses kept by Americans and Europeans for those who would make a prolonged stay there. The steams usually remain a day or so in the harbor, thus permitting the tourists to have their quarters on board to which they can return after making their tour about the island | dtselt. American Samoa seems likely to be rediscovered now that it is to be soon officially welcomed into the family of the United States. Tacna-Arica Dispute Hangs on Plel)iscitt;. With Previous Moves for Peace Futile matic relations, with the result that negotiations once more were under- taken respecting the Tacna-Arica ter- ritory. The cable almost daily has been keeping the world informed of the steps that are being taken in this connec- tion, and today a final solution of the | controversy seems to be at hand—that of the division of the territory between the two republics. The world at large will rejoice in the confirmation of this |news. “That would bring to an end one of the most intricate international con- troversies of present times, although it |1s to be regretted that Bolivia, who is” | the most interested in that territory llnfl is still suffering the consequences }of the war of 1879, should be excluded from the benefits of its solution. . ’Norway Starts to Check ~ Minor Officials’ Time Working hours in_ the Norwegian i government offices have not been { wholly adhered to and many have been the tales of functionaries preferring the environment of cafes and restaurants. Henceforth this laxity will be unknown. for a decree has been issued requiring minor officials to enter their names in 8 book on arriving in the morning. This register is closed at 9:15 am. and late-comers must appear before their superior to explain the tardiness. e DG durng. sehce. Bours ernmen without special suthority.