Evening Star Newspaper, April 14, 1929, Page 41

Part 2—12 Pages PENDING GENEVA PARLEY FAILURE HELD CERTAIN Conscript VArmies Make Arms Limitation Impossible, Declares. BY FRANK H. SIMONDS. T is perhaps significant of the pres- ent state of the disarmament prob- lem in Europe that nowhere is anything of importance expected of the League of Nations commis- sion, which meets in Geneve to- mororw. Nominally the commission has at least three - questions to aeal with. There is first of all the fan- tastic Russian proposal, made a year ago, which envisages immediate ‘and complete disarmament. In addition are naval and reserve disputes, which con- cern the United States and Great Britain, and France and Germany, re- spectively. The Russian proj 1 is at once ab- surd and annoyinz. No one believes that it was offered in good faith or for any other purpose than to embarrass the representatives of the various other countries. It is a difficult thing for these representatives to have to confront their own peoples and the world in gen- eral, year after year, without a single result to show for endless and unending conferences. When Litvinoff quite the- atrically proposed last year that the way to disarm was to disarm, he at least touched a popular chord. Even those who recognized his insincerity were amused by the embarrassments he caused. No general or concerted program of disarmament is at present possible in Europe, because at bottom the old fa- miliar atmosphere of distrust still per- sists. Broadly speaking no country is today seriously afraid of any immediate attack by a neighbor. No government of any country, great or small, would Tun the risks incident to undertaking to lead its people to war. The exhaus- tion incident to the last great struggle is still sufficiently strong and the recol- lections of sufferings are still poignant enough to prevent, this. Germany Is Defenseless. But on the other hand it is just as | clear that no nation trusts the future sufficiently to lay aside arms. Germany, to be sure, is now in a state of prac- tical defenselessness. It has the best army of its size in the world and could, in a relatively brief time, expand it into an effective machine. But Germany still lacks the heavy artillery and tanks to make war and is unlikely to attempt to create them as long as her territory is occupied by allied armies. These armies of occupation must go before long. And when they go there will be & new situation. That & Germany of 65,000,000 peo- ple, when it again recovers complete in- <cependence, will consent to remain prac- tically helpless in the face not merely of France but of either Poland or Crechoslovakia, which have conscript armies limited only by their cannon fod- der while the reich is condemned to a Yvolunteer army of 100,000, is an absurd- ity on the face of it. Either the sur- rounding nations will have to agree to gl::;r.\ dow'illl\ ‘t: }t:'te German ‘nlevel or iny sist upon arming up to their level, 5 piis Yet at the moment Prance and her | allies are determined to stay armed in order to/insure that Germany shall re- main relatively disarmed; as a conse- quence all discussions of disarmament lead to nothing. Moreover, the position of France and her smaller allies, and of Italy as well, has been enormously strengthened by the British course in accepting the Anglo-French naval pact. Ever since the war Britain, like Ger- many and the United States, has been insisting that reserves—that is, the con- scripts who have served their time with the colors and become trained soldiers— shall be counted in reckoning the' mili- tary strength of a country. France and 2ll conscript nations have resisted this thesis, which would result in crediting France, for example, with an army of upward of 4,000,000. ‘Won't Give Up Conscripts. But in the Anglo-French compact Britain agreed to drop her contention. In abandoning this thesis she actually yielded to the fact, which was that there was not the smallest possibility of persuading France or any other con- seript nation to give up its stand. But on the other hand she also abandoned all hope of some later change of mind. Now, although American protests over the naval detail has resulted. in the practical abandonment of the Anglo- French pact, Britain can no longer, with conviction, , present, its old argu- ments. In return for British acceptance of the French thesis about reserves, it will be recalled that the Prench adopted the British contention that naval strength should be measured, not by total tonnage, but by categories. This meant that instead of alloting say 300,- 000 fons of cruisers to Britain and to the Unléfd States and allowing each to decide what size ships it would build, up to the 10,000-ton limit fixed at. ‘Washington, there should be at least two categories, so many 10,000-ton boats with' 8-inch guns and so many smaller boats with 6-inch guns. What this deal amounted to fact, a British agreement to'accept a French thesis about reserves, which would insure French military supremacy on the continent indefinitely, and a French acceptante of a British thesis, which was the thesis proposed Britain at'the Geneva Conference, and ‘would,"in effect, continue British naval sypremacy. Now, American protest and British public sentiment have prac- tically lished the pact, which was only conditionally agreed to, and it seems hardly likely that it will come up again in any form. It is, however, patent that the Prench view as to military matters and the British as to naval for the present pre- clude any real limitation of armaments. by Poland, Czecho- was, in |11 by | ciation, , Observer states of the war determined to stand by conscription, little can be accom- plished and the whole conference be- comes more or less of a farce. It is also unmistakable that the Anglo-American naval dispute has had a disastrous effect upon all disarmament discussions. The fact that we and the British have been unable to arrive at any limitation agreement, that the British in recent years have carried out a considerable program of construction and that we are tardily setting out to overtake them deprives both British and American voices of much influence in Geneva and | teaches by example that we both re- gard peace as procurable by force rather than by pact. Force to Procure Peace. ‘The British, with a general election close at hand, have no desire to have any serious discussion at Geneva now, because the attitude of the Tory gov- ernment might easily weaken its appeal to the electorate. France has no de- | sire to sce any change, save as the j change gives new physical guarantees of the maintenance of the status quo created by the victory. Italy is far less willing than France to consider actual limitation of armaments. Even Germany, while naturally eager to em- barrass her ancient opponents, is at the moment concerned with getting evacua- tion rather than with creating new armies or arousing suspicion as to her: future purpose. Literally there is nothing doing in the matter of disarmament in Europe | at the prseent time. Ever since the war | the continent has been divided between the satisfied powers, which insist that peace is only possible as the peace treaties are maintained, and the dis- satisfied powers, which argue that peace will only come when these treaties have been revised. Today the satisfied powers are armed to maintain the status quo, the dissatisfied powers are urging dis- armament as a means of removing the chief obstacle to revision. It is true that there has been in Washington at least the suggestion that when Hugh Gibson and his associates meet the British at Geneva there may be private conversations which could pave the way to a later meeting between the three naval powers and an adjust- ment of claims, such as proved impos- sible at Geneva two years ago. This is patently possible, but one has yet to see any sign of yielding on either the Brit- ish or our own side. We still insist that we shall have an equal allotment of tonnage with the British, that the max- imum shall not be over 200,000 tons, and that we shall be permitted to use our quota in 10,000-ton ships carrying 8-inch guns, The British demand at least 400,000 tons, a rigid limitation of 10,000-ton boats and a practical ab- sence of limit in the smaller class. i There is also the question of who| is to call the next conference. We have tried twice. The first conference, at Washington, resulted in the destruction of our prospective supremscy in battle- ships and put no limitation on British cruisers. The second, at Geneva, ended | in a practical British demand for a lim- itation of the ships we could use and an :lbunce of limitation on their favored ass, How About Tokio? Now if there is to be a conference it would appear that it is the Brit- ish turn to propose it and to propose some program. And this, I am satisfied, is the view of the new administration. There is, too, a pretty general idea that any new conference should take place in London or Tokio and not in Wash-| ington. The former Washington con- ference was disastrous for us, because at a certain moment Mr. Hughes had to chocse between facing the political consequences of a failure and agreeing to what was clearly a bad bargain. Probably the best solution would be a conference in Tokio. So far, disarmament as a practical thing amounts to no more than passing resolutions in favor of peace at home and embarking upon a_crusade to dis- arm the other fellow. Every one wants peace, but no one trusts either the League of Nations or the various con- tracts like the Kellogg pact enough to do anything practical. Praise peace and keep your powder dry—and ade- quate. This is the present situation. The pending Geneva affair is fore- doomed to prove the same flasco as the previous meetings. And following it, no doubt, we Americans will condemn the wicked Europeans and the Europeans will discover new evidence of American imperialism and worse. e (Copyright, 1929.) Tourist Issue A recent expression by Arthur Lind- hagen, president of the ‘Swedish Tour- ist Association, that Sweden must: be maintained in its present state of nat- 1 beauty and culture by the dis- couragement of tourist. influxes such as those which have taken place in'South- ern European countries, has aroused great controversy. Officials of the Swedish Traffic Asso- which is .with en- cous visits to Sweden by foreign- ers, feel that the business of “preserva- tion” must begin at home and that the greater the number of visitors the greater the inclination will be to keep old Swedish customs and institutions in their natural state. : Lind] n, whose organization is sup~ posed to be purely concerned with “se€ your own country” propaganda, is charged with getting out of his own territory. - In clarifying his views, Lindhagen said that he simply ‘thought it unfor- tunate to turn Sweden into a “tourist run,” catering to inconsideraate pleas- ure seekers who cared nothing for the finer things in the country. “I only wanted to stress the importance of ap- mllllfi to the better class of visitors,” sal h-oml “We cannot station policemen at the from | borders td examine the mentality and 5“5, : tastes of every foreigner, encourage visits by Kenple eei':'te the better things er.” it 5§§§ sl : : it | i i ) Eg % B g g -+ & WASHINGTON, D. C, SUNDAY MORNING, /APRIL 14, 1929. New War Against Slavery Traffic in Human Beings Continues i P 1 5 g_xsnlf,’f RELIC. THROUGH s AVES WERE TAKEN TO BOARD SHIPS FOR AMERICA. BY ROBERT B. PECK. HE United States Senate ratified the slavery convention of the League of Nations, virtuaily a supplementary clause of the St. Germain treaty, on February 25 without arousing any great clamor or enthusiasm throughout the country. Probably most of those who noticed at all the not particularly prominent ac- counts of the action in the newspapers | dismissed it with the vague thought | that the League of Nations was busying | itself and interesting the Senate of the United States in a matter which had ceased to be of importance to this na- tion or to the world at large about 64 years ago. | In effect, that was the view which the State Department took of the sub—i ject when the League of Nations' pre- liminary or draft convention on slavery | was presented to it in September, 1925, | The Secretary of State wrote to the secretary general of the League that he was “pleased” to inform him “that slav- ery and the slave trade are prohibited under the fundamental laws of the United States,” adding that the Gov- which looks toward the abolishment of all forms of involuntary servitude.” Senate Goes Even Farther. ‘The Government of the United States committed iself no farther in the mat- | ter at that time. The slavery conven- | Ay S 3 a2 V;ffi 2 RAS TAFFARI, ABYSSINIA'S ABSOLUTE MONARCH. ernment of the United States was|complete form, signed by 36 govern- “deeply . interested in any movement | ments, was submitted to the Senate of the United States on May 22, 1928. It took the Senate less than a year, there- fore, to decide that here was something which was worthy of an indorsement. scribing to the convention. The cus- tomary senatorial reservation in the |reasons for refusing to force an issue Mississippl. case of the slavery convention was posi- tive instead of negative, broadening the original document instead of restricting it. In the convention the use of forced In its confidence and its zeal to be|labor by a government in certain areas considered as absolutely opposed to slavery the Sepate weni farther even I | | | tion of the League of Nations, in its'than several of the governments sub-|and devoted its reservation is countenanced. - The Senate, however, declined to countenance any such thing to saying so. ‘Many Parts of World and United States Helps Combat It AN ARAB DHOW OF THE SLAVE- RUNNING TYPE. ‘That is why those behind the move- | ment which resulted in the framing of | the convention are particularly pleased, | | for the slavery convention is merely the | preliminary step in their program, which | | aims at the eventual abolition of forced |)abor, particularly in Africa, but, lncl-i | dentally, everywhere, including beyond doubt the Philippine “Islands, where | peonage is said still to flourish. Not a Stalking Horse. Not that the slavery convention is a | stalking horse, a subterfuge unnecessary except to conceal the ultimate purpose. | | 1t is framed to deal with an evil which | 3till exists, as it has from i | way, slave dhows still sail the Red Sea |and the Indian Ocean. { | Tronical though it may seem, the | princival headauarters of the present- | | day slave trade is in Abyssinia, which | |is & member of the League of Nations |and a signatory to the slavery conven- | tion. Tt is not, according to well in- | formed observers, however, the fault of the Abyssinian government, but its misfortune. i The government of Abyssinia, though | one of the few remaining absolute mon- | archies, has in some respects less authority than that of the most en-| | lightened republic, and has most cogent which is in any way delicate. 1 | | | Kingdom Is Feudal. In theory Ras Taffarl, who until last ‘ October was regent for the empress, |but who now bears the distinguished |title “King of Kings of Ethiopia.” is (Continued on Fifth Page.) ~ Guides America’s Trade Robert Patterson Lamont, Experienced in Affairs of Business, Takes Over Commerce Department BY ANNE HARD. 'E. the public, take a peculiar interest in the personality of the man whom President Hoover has chosen to carry on his own old work of steering the Department of Commerce. It comes with something of a sur- prise, then, to learn that his choice was made after no long personal ac- | quaintance. He had met the new Sec- retary just once before he tendered him | the appointment, and then only for a few moments. There was a sounder basis for his | choice than one of merely personal | regard. For, if you were to ask informed citi- zens of Chicago to make a list of half & dozen men putstanding in the busi- ness, professional and civic life of their city, there is not an atom of doubt that | the name of Robert Patterson Lamont | would apear on every one of them. Few Not Touched by Work. 1 Indeed, if the basis for elevation to a | cabinet post were an individual's popu- larity in his own home town and among his personal associates, none could seem more appropriate than Mr. Lamont. I make that assertion in spite of the probable fact that of the 3,157,400 in- habitants -of the City of Chicago per- Laps 3,000,000 never heard of him. They do not know of him because his whole | life has been given to that kind of solid constructive work which counts for the most and ‘says the least. Yet there are few of those 3,000,000 who have not been touched somewhere by some angle of his work for.Chicago. While the renainder—more or less— who constitute the informed circles and who include all the leaders in the business and professional world of that city, both love him and “point with pride” to him as the ideal of what an American business man should be. Two Chicagos Pictured. I know as I write these words they may be discounted by some one as the enthusiasm of overpraise. But I dare issue with that “Bob” Lamont with -any -one: who knows Chicago. The East, which thinks of Chicago of bootleggers, gunmen and Mayor Thompson, needs consider~ able enlightenment about the Chicago of the m:nlvel:lty.flfl;z orche;tn. the opera, .park and playground system, the Art Institute, the Newl Library, the museum, the Rosenwald “Industrial Museum, the Chicago of the cultivated, ing . home, before it can under- stand Mr. Lamont and the city he has hel to_shape. 3 . g z‘ummntmrhywm: those who' know him.. Neither is he talki SECRETARY LAMONT. Stephens said afterward. . “And he gave me the beautiful send off!” In many ways there is an interesting parallel between Mr. Lamont and what might be celled the Herbert Hoover of pre-public life. Like his new chief, Lamont began by being an engineer and afterward slid across the bridge which hyphenates en- gineering with business into becoming entirely 2 business executive.. He was born in Detroit. Both his father and mother had come thither from Canada and both were of pure Scotch blood. When you have learned that fact it is easy to account for Mr. Lamont's appearance, and perhaps also for much of his temperament. . , He is tall, and after 60 years still well it set-up and thin, He has an air that! would carry the' gréeen-and-blue check of the family tartan and a bonnet slantwise on the top of his sandy hair. Above all, his eyes ‘are of that bright blue which flashes only for a Northern Golf Ts_Outdéor Tnterest. Univer: of Chicago, knows Prenma:z “Lamont” to make it sound delioncy of & Anel aceént & 1 it wer of a final accent as were and he that the word a “favorite game.” It is the complete sum of his outdoor interests. . And: I have dwelt upon the Scotchness of his ancestry partly because it is only by ‘realizing it. that you can account for his obviously physical fitness. A round of golf a week could not do it, for a man who, like Lamont, is typically the indoor city man. Carried Over U. S. by Career. He began, I say, like Mr. Hoover, as an engineer. And while' Hoover, the { mining engineer of Stanford, was car- ried by his profession around and across the wgrld. x‘r;non civil engineer of the University of Michigan, was carried by { oo, his from place to place about the United States. In Boston, he worked at the building | Lamont still tells | stant shift of scenes. He had a chance | to take charge of the operation of manufacturing certain things used by ;:ll.ronds. such as iron and steel brake ams. His crossing over from engineering | into business was a perfectly logical ! development. For, while still in eollege, | he spent two Summers working as a | draftsman in the shops of the Michi- | gan Central, and he had even stopped | ! college entirely to work there for two iyears on end. At graduation, his | thesis had been a des! for an all-! steel boxcar—a type of car he then imagined 20 years before one was ac- | tually built. 1 Once over on the business side. his rise was rapid. First as vice president | of the Simplex Railway AppHance Co.. | | then as vice president of the American | | Steel Foundries Co., he began to be | | known in Chicago for integrity and | ability. Trustee of Library. By 1912 he was president of the Amer- ican Foundries Co. a concern which | manufactures hearth and electrical | steel castings for machinery and rail- | | way supplies such as steel wheels and specialties for railway cars and loco- motives. He became chairman of the | | during these years he found time for | the world of culture, which was grow- | :g up around him and which he was helping so much to shape, There is in Chicago one of the finest scientific libraries in the world—the man, he is a great reader of books, es- pecially in the field of American his- tory and biography. He prefers to spend his evening with such a book in his hand to spending it in society or at the theatér. There is in Chicago an art ‘museum which is more than a collectfon universities in the country. Mr. Lamont became not only a trustee but the in- timate friend of many of the faculty of that. There has been endowed by Julius Rosenwald an industrial museum the like of which does not exist this side of Munich. Mr: Lamont became very much intefested in that. Resigned 30 Directorships. Just. to' eut the enumeration short, sum up by saying that he Irom re’ than 30 directorships to come ‘Wash including that of one of Chicago’s oldest banks and ‘the biggest newspapers in the -He had once before come fo Wash- t0 do his bit in the war. Be- the | nor lose. B 2, H o 8z { coln, 1 in the case of Mr. Hoov | primeval. WEST GAINS ASCENDANCY IN NEW POLITICAL TREND Congress That Mee ts Tomorrow Faces Change In Geographical Point of View of National Control. BY MARK SULLIVAN. N the Congress that meets tomorrow, and in the Government as it is now organized, there is a new condition, from a geographical point of view. It is interesting, but I doubt if it is important. Political power does not di- vide itself sectionally to the extent that it once did. (At least it seems safe to make this assertion today: by the end of the coming special session we may think differently.) He has no parallel to the early stages of the conflict over slavery—when every time a new North- ern State was admitted to the Union a Southern State had to be admitted to keep the balance even in Congress. ‘The fact that for the first time we have a President born west of the Mis- sissippi, and also a Vice President born west of the Mississippi, does not really mean that the West, by virtue of that fact, has any special power or leverage. No one thinks of either President Hoover or Vice President Curtis as hav- ing a Western point of view, in contrast to an Eastern point of view. On the contrary, both Mr. Hoover and Mr. Cur- tis opposed the old McNary-Haugen bill with its equalization fee, which—so it was claimed, though by no mean proved —the West wanted Similarly, Secre- tary of the Interior Wilbur comes from the West—California. But Mr. Wilbur, together with President Hoover, has re- cently taken a drastic step in the con- servation of oil on Government lands, which step is approved by practically all | the country except the West—where three governors—Wyoming, Colorado nd Utah—have participated in a pro- test meeting which denounced the Hoover-Wilbur act as “the act of a Mus- solini.” (It should be added that, ac- ording to dependable information. much of the West agrees with what President Hoover and Secretary Wilbur ave done.) Changing Trend. ‘There is a changing trend of political power in the United States. . This real drift of power has little or nothing to do with the geo- graphical location of President, Vice President and cabinet members. Changes in the location of these officials justify treatment here because they are inter- esting, though not because they are important. ‘To_begin, the President was born in one State west of the Mississippi, Iowa, the first President born west of the Mississippi, California. Mr. Hoover is the first President born west of the The most nearly Western President we ever had before was Lin- elected from Illinois, although born in Kentucky. Similarly, for the first time, we have a Vice President born, reared, and now living west of the Mississippi River. Charles W. Curtis, of Kansas. He, as Vice President born west of the ssippl. Mr. Curtis is of the West Preceding Mr. Curtis the most Western Vice Presiaents have been Dawes of Illinois, born in Ohio, and Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois, who cerved with Grover Cleveland. Turning now to the cabinet. No par- ticular inference is to be made from the geographical distribution of it. Five come from the Middle West, two from Tennsylvania. one from New York, onc from New England and one from the Tacific Coast. Situation in House. If this survey be extended into Con- gress, it will reveal that a strikingly large portion of the chairmen of the more important committees come from west of the Mississippl. For exampl a list of important Senate committees, with their chairmen and the States the chairmen come from v ry, Norris, Nebraska: appropriations, ‘Warren, Wyoming: banking, Norbec kota; commerce, Jones. immigration, Johnson, California. h In the Lower House the showing is rather different. There the chairmen of the more important committees come from the East. About the only impor- tant committee chairmanships in the Lower House held by the West are: Ways and means, Hawley, Oregon; im- migration, Johnson, Washington. All this, so far, has comparativel | little meaning or importance. About all that can be sald is that there is a steady western drift of the center of popula- tion. Along with the movement of the center of population goes, in a rough way, political power. In the cabinet the Middle West has 5 of the 10 members and the Far West has 1 more. In the Senate a decidedly striking number of important committee chairmanships are held by Western Senators. In the Lower House, on the contrary, the West hardly | has its share of important chairman- ships. Head Tariff Committees. Neither one way nor the other does it mean much. For example, the two tariff-making committees are ways and means in the House and finance in the Senate. The tariff is supposed to be a subject in which. the manufacturing East is peculiarly interested. Yet both chairmen of the two tariff-making committees come from the Far West— Hawley of ways and means from Ore- gon and Smoot of finance from Utah. But no one has ever charged that these two Westerners are any less orthodox - |on the tariff than any characteristic Easterner would be. There are under way, however, some really important changes in the geo graphical distribution of political power. One is about to occur in the Lower House of Congress. That body during the coming session will be ‘“reappor- tioned"—that ‘is, the number of mem- bers from each State will be changed on the basis of changes in population revealed by the census of 1920 and to be further revealed by the census of 1930. To put it another way, the quota of each State in the Lower House will be renewed and dl{l n:‘m'. cu:;l wu‘lhhe changed in one direction or the other. The net of the changes will be that n aggregate of 23 Representatives will be lost by 17 States and the same 23 will be gained by 11 other States. (Twenty-one States will neither gain ) Urbanites Would Gal Speaking very broadly, these 23 Rep- resentatives will be lost by rural dis- and gained by urban districts. That is the direction in which popula- tion has been tending for more than of popula place in the United States are not merely a uniform drift to cities and towns—that has actually taken ice nearly everywhere—but along ith it have gfone -l‘tbn other striking concentrations example, during years or so two cities the last 20 which in 1910 7 v T, is the first | or theregbouts - were merely fair-sized cities have become very large cities. They are Los Angeles, in California, and Detroit, in Michigan. Consequently, in the new apportionment, California will get six additional Representatives and Michigan will get four. (The migr tions of population that have resulted in the growth of Detroit and Los Angeles, would seem as picturesque and significant, if understood clearly, as some of the past migrations that are considered historically important.) In Ohio no single city has grown as Detroit has grown in Michigan and Los Angeles in California.' But in Ohio a large number of middle-sized cities and smaller towns have grown greatly. What has happened in Ohio probably reflects the tendency of factories and business to flee from the high taxes, high wages and high costs in large cities to the more reasonable condi- tions of smaller cities. The net resuit. as respects Ohio, is that the State will have three more Representatives. States That Will Lose. ‘The States that will lose are, in the main, States that have no iarge citles, or are mainly rural, and. therefore, have failed to grow in population. The State that will lose the largest num- ber—three—is Missouri. Missouri, it is true, has two large cities, Kansas City and St. Louis. But these cities, especially St. Louis, have failed to show the same degree of: growth as cities | generally. Towa, a prevailingly rural | State, with only one large city, will |lose two Representatives. In a. | likewise a prevailingly rural State, with | one really large city, will likewise lose itwo Representatives. Precisely the | same phraseology can be used about Kentucky, which also will lose two. It seems to run counter to what has | so far been said to point out that three States which have very large cities— New York, Pennsylvania and Massa- chusetts—wil each lose one Representa- | tive. There are curious cross-currents | all through the redistribution of ‘pop- }ulaunn that is taking place in America. The inferencc has been made that | the 23 changes which will be made by the coming reapportionment will be, | speaking generally, from dry to wet. | That is, 23 Representatives who now represent dry districts will in future represent wet districts. This inference |is fairly correct. Congress .will make a reapportion- ment of Congress. Thereafter, in each State there will be a reapportionment of the districts within that State. In this latter reapportionment within the States the decline of rural populations and the incrcase of city and suburban populations will express itself in more Representatives representing urban dis- tricts that are prevailingly wet, and fewer Represeni2 enting rural stricts that are ngly dry. Witness Is Sconted. It will take more than this chang however. and more than any chang now forseeable, to make the Lower House of Congress (or the Senate, either) really wet or anywhere near wet. In the Lower House of Congress there are and will be 435 members. Speaking roughly, about 100 of these are wet. (In the recent Congress the total.wet | vote against the so-called Jones act Nearly all the remainder of the 435 are dry. (The vote in favor of the Jones act was 284.) Persons col petently informed estimate that in th: | ent Lower House there is a de- pendable dry majority of about 250 out of a total of 435. There is another shift of political power that will take place as a Tesult of last Fall's presidential election. It |is too complex to describe at length in what remains of this article. It is im- portant and it works toward making the Republican party increasingly dry. To state it briefly and partiall, In the recent electon the Repub- licans carried four Southern Staies that . South Da- | Washington; | result will be that these four States wil have much larger delegations in future | Republican national conventions than |they have had in the past. Under the official Republican rules each State will get. so to speak. a bonus of three extra delegates for going Republican. Souths’ Vote Will Count. | In addition, each congressional dis- |trict in a State that casts 10.000 Re- | publican votes gets a bonus of one extra | delegate. By the working of this part |of the rule the large Republican vote cast all through the South last Fall will count . heavily. The result, speaking roughly, will be that a State like Texas will come to have approximately as much weight in Republican national conventions as Ohio and not much less than Pennsylvania. All the Southern States in which | these increases in power will take place are strongly dry and presumably will send solid dry delegations to Republican national conventions. Running in the same direction—that |1s. in the direction of making Repub- lican national conventions increasingly dry—is what happened last Fall in Mas- sachusetts and Rhode Island. Those States went Democratic. They will, therefore, each lose three delegates in | Republican national conventions—that | is, in the next Republican national con= vention there will be six fewer dele- gates from wet States. | The net of all this may be stated, roughly and partially, thus ‘There is a steady drift of population from the farms, which are dry, to the cities, which are wet. This will ex- press’ itself in the law-making body, Congress, in a slight but not material increase, in wet strength. To turn to the Republican party, however, the increase of Republican votes in the dry South will work out S0 as to cause a material increase in dry strength in Republican national conventions. Peer I}?ges Ja‘pan“ _ Use Roman Letters Walls that arise from many of those forced to learn thousands of Japanese ‘and Chinese characters are not con- i fined to the poor and the ignorant. A movement for the adoption of Roman lettering for Japanese sounds, or Romaji as they ate called, has been growing for years in Japan and has even found its way into the official records of Peers. of the House . One of the most prominent advo- cates of the adoption of the Roman lettering is Dr. sessions = Upper crete lation follo fia oration, the minister of was on hand to answer him, and there was a great deal much amusemesnt ‘what is