Evening Star Newspaper, May 5, 1929, Page 29

EDITORIAL SECTION h ¢ Sunday Star Reviews -of Books Part 2—12 Pages WASHINGTON, D. ( HOOVER ARM CALLED MA Viewed as Giving S Armament Redu Up to BY FRANK H. STMONDS. NOT since Woodrow Wilson. by notes composed on his_type- writer in the White House. exile into Holland. has there been so successful a diplomatic opera- | tion as that conducted by President Hoover in the matter of naval arma- | ments. Viewed purely and simply as a diplomatic_gesture, it met instantly and completely all the accusations lev- eled at us by Europe and based upon an alleged purpose to seize naval su- premacy. And, concomitantly. it ap- peapled instantly to every ~ political group and every unorganized mass of Europeans who are h cisarmament. tically, too, the moment was enbsen with keenest appreciation. The Tory government. which has been domi- nated by the admiralty and is too weak to venture upon any policy of real parity. i¢ very shortly to go before the people of Britain for a general election. handling of the American naval ques- tion has been violently denounced by both opposition parties and even by one faction of its own membership. Thus Mr. Gibson's challenge put the Baldwin government in a position where it must fish or cut bait. drove William II a discredited ; seeking peace | Its | S CUT PLEA STER STROKE ound Basis for Real ction—Next Step SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 9, 1929, Investing in Childhood | | | | ! | Under our proposals we should have had | battle supremacy. but under the same circumstances the British would have had a superiority in the patrol field: their more numerous smaller ships would have enabled them to cover the seas. to control shipping. neutral and | snemy. as ours could not. A perfect solu- tion would be an agreement upon S0 many 10,000-ton boats with 8-inch guns and so many smaller boats carrying 6- inch guns. But, because of our widely separated naval bases, we cannot use smaller boats and, because of their, more numerous bases and more extensive sea lanes, the British do not need the larger ships in great number and do require the smaller in considerable number. Now it is perfectly clear that men who | actually desire to reach an agreement and are equally prepared to recognize the right of the other nation to equality tcan sit down and work out a system of adjustment. They can bring in all of the many factors, not alone tonnage and caliber of guns, but speed. armament and age of ships and all the other technical elements and strike a balance. Hoover Sees Pitfalls. ‘ But, on the other hand, it must be seen that, even if the conferees are ani- | | mated by the best of wills, it is going to When one turns from the diplomatic | be exceedingly difficult for them, charg- and political to the practical aspects of | ed as they are with guarding national the Hoover proposal. it is necessary to | security, to agree upon the various per- perceive at once that, while it does | centages. clearly open a new door to settlement,| This difficulty Mr. Hoover has seen provided there is an equal desire for all along. He has, therefore, as Mr. settlement on both sides of the Atlantic, | Gibson's speech indicated, insisted that it just as clearly provides a practically inexhaustible supply of opportunities to prevent agreement by employing tech nical arguments. Put quite simply the Hoover proposi- tion is double: In the first place, it envisages not limitation of armaments but actual reduction. Mere limitation would amount to an agreement to accept & maximum total of tonnage which | might or might not be in existence. | And. in the second place, Hoover's proposition meets squarely the diffi- culties which wrecked the Geneva con- ference by a common-sense proposal of compromise. At Geneva in 1927 we said that we would build only 10.000-ton cruisers, since they alone would satisfy our requirements. We proposed, there- | fore. a solution of the problem of equality by the allotment to each nation | of a fixed tonnage of cruisers. The two | countries could build the sort and size boats they desired, within the standard 10.000-ton limit fixed at Washington. | And we suggested totals ranging from | 250,600 to 350,000 as the maximum. British Need Many Boats, The British, on their side, declared | that they needed many boats, e of their problem of communications, | but that they also required as mnny{ 10.000-ton boats as we should have, be- cause otherwise we should have a fight- | ing advantage if all of our boats were | 10.000 tonners and most of theirs much | smaller. If. for example, the limit were | fixed at 300,000 tons and we had 30 | 10,000-ton bogts armed with 8e-inch | ns, while the British had 20 10,000~ boats and 20 5,000 tonners, the lat- ter unable to carry guns about 6-inch galider, our fighting supremacy, if the feets met, would be undeniable, | In the debate which followed the | British proposed that we should agree Wwith them to fix upon a certain,num- ber of 10,000-ton boats, armed with 8-inch guns, that we should that all other boats should carry only 6-inch guns, but they were prepared | to agree that the size of the balance of our quota should be as we might decide. We rejected this proposal because our experts argued that this would give the | British an enormous actual superiority | in tonnage, since for war they had | hany merchant steamers available and | equipped to carry 6-inch guns, which | could be employed in cruiser warfare, | Why Geneva Broke Down. ‘The real breakdown of the Geneva conference was thus due primarily to the fact that the two countries, because | of their peculiar problems, required dif- ferent kinds of navies, and no balance could be struck between the two re- quirements, Now the Hoover proposition amounts to the suggestion that some system of adjustment be struck between the two | national standards. It is clear, for ex- | the first step must be moral {ment. In his judgment the great ques- tion turns upon whether Great Britain sees and will continue to see our naval policy as identical with the German: that is, whether the British people will see in our course the disclosure of a repetition of the familiar circumstances of traditional imperialism. Obviously if the British people see our fleet as a prospective foe and our policy as a po- litical challenge, agreement is going to be out of the question. On the other hand. if the notion of conflict between the two nations is dis- missed, then technical details lose their larger value and a give and take adjust- ment becomes possible. Actual me- chanical parity in every direction is im- possible. One party will have more ships, the other bigger boats, one will have more bases ana more auxiliaries, the other will have greater inherent se- curity. A balance must be struck be- tween not the same, buu different, cir- cumstances. Here, of course, lies the real danger in the Hoover plan. If the Tory govern- ment should succeed at the polls this month, if the admiralty group in the ‘Tory party which has hitherto domi- nated should retain its hold, then the discussion of technical details might be prolonged indefinitely and the actual difference in views and in necessities might be empolyed to infiame public opi . on both sides of the ntic. e might. hear again the familiar charge that Muulr_ each side was seek- ing supremacy whilé talking of partiy. 16’8 & Gamble. Mr. Hoover has chosen to gamble on the possibility that despite the admir- alty and the “Die-Hard” wing of the Tory party, the majority of the British people desire both a reduction in the costs of naval programs and the abok- tion of the existing dispute with the United States. And he believes that it is reduction, not limitation, which ap- peals to all peoples, as it certainly does to the American. But while the American gesture at Geneva certainly opers ‘& new phase in the discussion, it is certain to be a long phase. And success must turn first upon the character of the naval | issue, as it is shaped by the British election, and secondly on the practical response that the new British govern- ment makes to the American proposal. What is most important and most hopeful in_the Hoover gesture is the fact that it represents an appeal for a new deal all-around, it asks for a new spirit in the discussion and it dis- familiar hypotheses of bad faith. In effect, it invites the British government to come forward with a proposal set- ting forth its conception of parity in the condary categories, since the Ameri- ample, that if we have 30 10,000-ton boats. while the British have only 20, | together with 20 5.000-ton boats, we | shall have an advantage. On the other | hand, there might be some rough and | posal of Geneva proved inaccep- table. It indicates American readiness to include other factors than those of tonnage and, in fact, to join in any square deal based upon the principle of rma- | | Upper or of the Lower closes a complete rejection of all thei SENATOR ( | BY SENATOR JAMES COUZENS | time. For, while we have just made the of Michigan. announcement, we have been working at the idea for a very long time. ARSTORNY Somne O, It was about the Summer of 1912 that CHOOSE this particular moment for | my secretary fook me to call upon Miss announcing the establishment of | Van Luven Browne, to see her nhtde the Children's Fund of Michigan | school for crippled children. because it seemed an appropriate | Miss Browne was herself a cripple. time in connection with President | She could remember how she had lain Hoover'’s proclamation naming May 1|in bed two years in the Presbyterian as Child Health day. | Hospital in Chicago, where. longing to One sentence of his especially per- | be able to read, she had asked that a sists in my mind: “The future of our | cord be strung across her bed, on which country marches on the feet of our | books and magazines could be hung. As children.” | nurses passed she would ask them to That sentence expresses my own views | turn the pages for her. views I have held for a very long ! — BY WILLIAM HARD, 1 Auther of “Who's Hoover?" | AWRENCE RICHEY is, in a way, the “mystery man’ of this ad- ministration. He is one of the President’s three co-equal sec- retaries. The unaided eye can see what the other two are doing. Mr. Akerson deals jovially and triumphantly with the press, and imperturbably and effectively with ladies and gentlemen who wish to see the President, and do, or don't. Mr. Newton deals with the boards and bureaus and commissions which are not represented and man- aged by cabinet members, and he also deals with congressmen, whether of the House. ~Mr Akerson is journalistic and political. Mr. Newton is executive and iegislative and political. Where is Mr. Richey? Mr. Richey is in the very core and marrow of Mr. Hoover's activities. and has been for 12 years. He is also in a very quiet and extremely orderly and altogether businesslike room in the front of the executive wing of the White House. The atmosphere of this room seems wholly one of business management. Mr. Richey’s desk is flecklessly devoid of all arrears of any sort. Things seem to go off it as fast as they come on. Mr. Richey himself, robust, rosy, exuding energy, seems al- ways not so much to be struggling with JOUZENS. | keen idea of (he value to the crippled | child of an interest in books, and she gave her life to that wosk. When T asked her why her institu- tion did not. grow, she said it was be- ause of lack of funds. And my con- versation with her, and the sight of the crippled children about her, set me to thinking. Emotions are all right, but they don't mean much unless we can control them into doing something in a concrete way. So when I found I could not go along with Miss Browne in her work, we ac- | quired some land near Plymouth, Mich., From that experience she gained a ' and established the Michigan Crippled | something as to have just finished How Senator Couzens Came to Establish $10,000,000 Foundation to Aid America’s Youngsters Hospital School. Then came the next step. One Gay a card was brought in to me from the wife of a friend. She wanted to interest me in the financial status of the Children’s Free Hospital. I looked it up and began working at the idea of consolidating it with the Michigan Crip- pled Hospital School so that the two institutions could supplement each other | in_different lines of work. We hated the word “Free” in the title of the Children’s Hospital. It seemed to indicate class distinction. It seemed likely, too, that many a self-respecting | 2 3 (Continued on Fourth Page.) President’s “Mystery Man” Lawrence Richey, One of Three Secretaries, Has Had Interesting Career—Long With “the Chief” |séé sharply, hear quickly, walk warily, | report accurately and—above all—be | faithful to a friendship. | That last requirement would have in- dicated Larry Richey as a quick choice, and as second to none, in anybody’s ac- |uaintance. Mr. Requa sald: “Larry Richey.” Mr. Hoover sent for him. | The two men, total strangers to each | other, talked together, in that first in- terview. for not more than 15 minutes. | There has not been a minute since then, | now for 12 years, that has not seen each |in the total and unreserved trust of the other. | Mr. Richey became assistant office | manager to Mr. Hoover in the food ad- | ministration. He spent much of his time upon investigations of the trade | practices which the food administration | was empowered and enjoined by law to | | control. He investigated and analyzed, | for instance, the operations of the Chi- cago Board of Trade in its buying and | selling of grains. | His experience had fitted him to con- | duct investigations and to arrive at con- clusions and judgments in almost any |feld and among almost any sort of people. In 1909 he had joined the staff of Everybody's Magazine when | that periodical was at the height of its | verve gired and revealed in co-operative com- | pany with those masters of “The Liter- ature of Exposure”—Mr. Harvey O'Hig- nd vogue as an organ of inquiry | | and revelation. For several years he in- | 'GREAT WATERWAYS ERA NOW DAWNING IN THE U. S. 'Hundreds o f Millions Wi]i WBe pent in ! Developing Greatest of Inland Systems. BY JOHN SNURE. EVELOPMENT of the world's greatest inland waterway sys- tem is about to be undertaken by Congress with the backing ! and co-operation of President | Hoover. i Completion of the vast system of in- land waterways in this country is one | of the great constructive projects on which President Hoover has set his mind and for which there is constantly growing support in Congress and an increasing demand on the part of the public. The President has emphasized repeatedly the importance of the im- provement of the waterways and the development of their traffic. his message to Congress at the outset of the present extra session that ‘‘some of the forces working to the detriment | of agriculture can be greatly mitigated by improving our waterway transporia- tion, ‘Will Benefit Agriculture. “The Government.” he continued, “has a special mandate from the recent ! election, not only to further develop our waterways and revise the agricul- tural tariff. but also to extend syste- matic relief in other directions.” The administration regards the im- | provement of the waterways as the next | great step to be taken in the interest of agriculture, after the enactment of a farm relief bill and tariff revision. Such | improvement would not be in the in- | terest of agriculture alone, but on be- | half of industry and commerce as a | whole. However, because of depressed conditions in agriculture and the need for lower transportation rates there are special reasons, from the standpoint of farm relief, for pressing the improve- ment of waterways at this time. It is generally believed that in order | to rehabilitate agriculture, not one but | numerous remedies are needed. It is also the opinion of many authorities that the transportation needs of the | United States, with a population which is moving swiftly toward the 200.000. 000, have outgrown present facilities. The old notion that in order for the railroads to live water transportation had to be throttled is beginning to be abandoned. ‘Transportation Major Problem. And so, for many reasons, it will develop that in the coming regular session of Congress the question of in- land waterways improvement is going to be one of the chief problems. The present session, no doubt, might well take up the waterway question, but it | will have all it can do to take care of the farm relief bill. Signs are not lacking that transpor- tation in a variety of phases will be considered in the regular session which | meets in December. The controverted problem of railroad consolidation likely to be threshed out. Regulation of motor bus and motor truck traffic | will be up. And a great national water- | way program. calling for the com- | pletion and improvement of the lead- ing water routes in a period of from fl'l.l'dee whflhtlre ;:I.l"be will ‘be demanded Al prol ly mapped out and Authorised. In certain cases the fi‘v - year period may be found too limited and will have to be considerably ex- tended, but as to projects already un- der way, from three to five years would be adequate. Nicaragua Canal Possible. A new interoceanic canal, by the Nicaragua route, seems inevitable be- | fore many years. These are great projects, whether viewed from the engi- neering or the transportation and com- mercial standpoint. But they are not as great as the | inland waterway system of the United | States, including the projected outlet | from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic | by either the St. Lawrence route or the route across New York State. or by both of these routes, which in time may be constructed. The magnitude of the proposition of developing the inland waterways can to some extent be grasped by consider- ing a few basic figures. There are nearly 25.000 miles of navigable water- ways in this country. This means navi- gable rivers and canals and does not include the Great Lakes. | The Government has already ex- pended about $1,250.000,000 in its in- land waterways. On these routes, including harbors, there is carried every year a gross total of a billion tons of He said in | pleted, but long stretches of 1t are fin- ished so that trafic iz carried on it from port to port. Some day there may be a canal across Florida to make the intracoastal route one _ waterway. reaching from Boston to Texas. All along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts are | rivers feeding into the intracoastal waterway. Many of them are navi- gable and add much to the eventu commercial possibilities of this route. |~ Then there is the Mississippi River: system. This is the greatest river sys- tem of the country. In fact when all things are considered, including the character of the population, commercial possibilities, climate and other factors. it is. next to the Great Lakes, entitled to be termed the foremost internal water system of the world. It includes | the Mississippi River as far north as Minneapolis_and St. Paul and all of the leading branches of the Mississippi, | such as the Missouri and the Ohio. The* Mississippi_system connects with the intracoastal system which reaches from Corpus Christi to the Mobile region and which is linked with the Warrior River system reaching to the great iron | regions of Birmingham. To get an accurate picture of the vastness of the Mississippi system. one has to remember that it not only in- cludes all the important tributaries of the Mississippi, but that there are im- portant feeders in the form of navi- gable streams emptying into some of these tributaries. For instance, the Kanawha and the Allegheny, the Ten- nessee and the Cumberland. and also the Monongahels, are feeders into the Ohio. | Traffic on Monongahela. The Monongahela, centering in & great coal and iron region, transports year by year larger commerce than any | other river in the world except. the St. | Mary's. It illustrates the importance | of the feeders of the Mississippi sys- tem and of their possibilities. | The Mississippi system which, when | eompleted, is expected to have a nine- | foot channel throughout all of the | main_streams, is not only linked with the intracoastal waterway along the | Gulf, but it will be tied up with the | Great Lakes by the proposed Lakes-to- the-Gulf waterway, partly completed. and connecting the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. In other words, if the national system | of waterways were completed, it would | be possible for a resident of New York | to start out with a light draft steamer, |drawing the amount of an ordinary | barge or a towboat, go along the At- i lantic Coast via the intracoastal chan- | nel, rounding Florida or crossing it by the proposed canal, proceed along the | Gulf to the Mississippi, up the Miss- issippi and the Lakes-to-the-Gulf | waterway to Chicago. then via the | Great Lakes and the New York canal to |the Hudson and back to New York, | Should the proposed all-American canal | across New York ever be built, the trip would be improved upon. ‘This serves to show the close re- { lationship of the proposed system of | water routes in this country, '.hgafh | for practical purposes cArgoes, as & rule, [lr! transported either from port to port: from &n interior center to an ocean for Gulf port, or the reverse; or from centers of agricultural or raw material production to market or some point of | consumption. ! 3,500 Miles of Main Lines. | Magnitude of the Mississippi system indicated by the fact that there are bout 3,500 miles of main trunk river +lines. The Government has under im- provement about 7.000 miles of tribu- taries to those trunk lines, and an addi- | tional 4,000 miles of the system are | navigable more or less freely in their natural state. This means that the Mississippi system has, according to Maj. Dan I. Sultan, resident member of the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors. about 3.500 miles trunk lines and 11,500 miles of navigable | tributaries either navigable under favor- able conditions or reasonably capable:af being made navigable by improvement. | Going westward to the Pacific region, there is the Sacramento and San Jos~ quin system. This is practically com- pleted and is carrying a large com- merce. ‘The Columbia system in the North- west is another important one. It will | come in for improvement. While the mileage is not extensive as compared with the Mississippi. it promises to have commerce, which is growing rapidly. |a large commerce from the wheat area ready method of measuring the thing | equality. And from whatever angle, by which the British could have, say, | domestic or international, the Hoover 25 or 30 of the smaller boats, and thus | gesture is viewed, it must be perceived have an offset to ours. that it is at once good diplomacy, good ‘Technically the problem turns on the | faith and good sense. question of the purpose of the fleet. (Copyright. 1029.) Imperative Need for Old-Age Pensions To Care for Workers in U. S. Cited! The growing interest in the States have made the problem of old age most for establishment of old-age pension\nnuk in this country at the present systems is emphasized by Representa-|time, as follows: tive William I. Sirovich of New York, (1) The number of persons engaged o physician of wide experience, in ad- | in industrial occupations, or those work- vocating a Federal old-age pension law, |ing for a wage, As against those en- As long as ‘this country was pre- gaged in businesses of their own or in dominantly agricultural. with wide | agriculture, has been rapidly increasing. spaces of free and fertile lands, when |The drift from the farm to the indus- | every physically normal person could ' trial centers continues. and this means %0 out and become independent, Repre- | that more and more are depending upon sentative Sirovich said, there might a wage for livelihoods. have been some ground for the belief| (2) The lengthened period of life has that §f a man had not been thriftysimply created a longer period of old enough to secure independence in his age. As against an average span of life old age society owed him but little in|in the United States of 40 years in 1855, his_declining years. {the present span of life is 58 years. But conditions have changed. From Under conditions of 1901, out of an_ overwhelmingly agricultural nation a total of 100,000 persons born about only a generation ago we have devel-|41,000 would reach the age of 85. Under oped into one of the most highly or-|present conditions more than 52,000 out ganized industrial countries in the|of the 100,000 will live to reach the age world, he points out. People no longer of 65. Investigations have shown that work for themselves as they used to do, | at least one out of every three persons but are more and more coming to_de- | reaching the age of 65 falls dependent something. He then turns a bland and friendly face upon the world, and is delighted to talk with the correspond- ents about fishing or hunting or any manly sport. The question naturally remains: What was he doing before he began talking about manly sports? | He Is a Human Dynamo, One answer—and a true one—is that Mr. Richey is doing things which. if he talked about them, he would not be do- |ing. Mr. Richey has two outstanding qualities. One is that he is a dynamo. The other is that he is a well. Mr. Hoover comes along and tosses gs into the well. He can then go LAWREN( thi s-Ewing Photo. way and forget them. He can forget them twice. He can forget them be- cause he knows that the dynamo will | attend to them, and he can forget them because he knows that there is no buck- et in the world that can draw tnem up out of Larry Richey. | Xt took Mr. Hoover 15 minutes to know that Mr. Richey was the man that he wanted most closely, confidentially, be- side him in Washington It was in 1917. Mr. Hoover had just jreturned to this country from his man- {had just begun his labors as United | States food administrator. Mr. Richey ishown, according to Dr. Sirovich, that|was in the insurance business. He was underlying dependency in old age are representing 93 insurance companies in the following forces over which the in- |17 States in a determined scientific dividual has little or no control: In-[effort to get better municipal legislation dustrial or economic superannuation, :and better municipal police action inadequate wages, physical incapacity against thefts of automobiles. He was and lack of family connections. very familiar with municipal govern- | that. dependency in old age due to im-. cago, which was his home. | providence. intemperance, thriftlessness Kt |or vice is the exception rather than the | Made Police Survey. (gl!l. ld?resen}:-dny old age poverty st, In 1912 he had been the manager of 1 A to the demands of our dr: 2| ry by the Civil Servic 0! - !industry, which necessitates the bl e oo oo s {agement of the relief of Belgium. He | Oficial studies of the problem show |mental conditions. especially in Chi- ' | spot within the area committed to his | charge. |~ “Very good, captain. | down.” Then Mr. Richey would summon his detectives. “Will you state what you saw in the captain’s district? The detectives would then exhibit, as | it were, a red map of vice and crime. | The captain would be summoned | back. “Captain, how do you explain the conditions which in your district in fact exist?” The explanations, the lame and im- potent explanations, were such that police heads tumbled into the guillotine basket in profusion. Mr. Richey's in- | quiries through his detectives had been | S0 competently and exactly done that | there was no laughing them off and You may step end upon their jobs for their daily Pread. "The possibility of going back to the farm is not considered any more. Even the heads of the largest industrial concerns and railroad corporations no longer work for themselves, but are paid | employes of their respective corpora- tions. More and more the corner grocer and cobbler are losing the ownership of their stores and are merely operat- ing them for some chain company. Old age. which in earlier stages of society Wi looked forward to with a certain feeling of satisfaction and accomplish- ment, has become a menacing specter under our modern wage system, Repre- sentative Sirovich points out. Machine Age Is Factor. Contrary to conditions in the profes- sions, in business or in politics, where men often do their best work at about the age of 60, and where experience and long standing count for a great deal the industrial worker finds himself not sfrequently eliminated from productive dustry after passing his fiftieth birth- day. With introduction of new machin- ert and new processes of work, age and experience are of little value. Representative Sirovich declares that umber of recently developed fagtors 2 ni upon others for his support, either in part or entirely. Approximately 2,- 000,000 aged American men and women are so dependent today. Working Age Shortened. (3) While life has been lengthened, it has not been matched by a propor- | tionate increase in the working period. On the contrary, the workman today {is unable to support himself by the | work of his hands or brain for as long |a period as either his father or his tlrnndhth?r did. Older workers find it increasingly more difficult to find em- ployment. ~ Most of our large industrial concerns today will not employ a new worker after 40 or 45 years of age, and some corporations limit this age to 35 years. (4) All modern tendencies, even those presumably initiated for his own wel- | fare. work against the older employe. The increasing standards of officiency, specialized industry, the elimination of "1 and experience, the higher output man, workmen’s compensation laws, | group insurance plans and private in- | dustrial pension systems all tend to dis- courage the hiring of older workers. Various State investigations 8 i |ping of ‘the worker at an earlier Tabq ! sion of Chicago into Chicago Police De- | ' gins, Mr. C. P. Connolly, Senator Can- nondof Utah and Judge Lindsey of Col- | orado. Made Survey of Prisons. Subsequently, on behall of another publication, he made a survey of pris- ons and other public institutions from the standpoint of the spread of the use of habit-forming drugs. He maintained for some years a gen: eral investigation agency of his own. He varied investigating for a short time by going out into the Far West and managing a gold mine. People ‘were always asking Larry Richey to manage their gold mines, to { manage their magazine efforts, to man | age their insurance endeavors, to man- age anything else they . I can {soenk as an eyewitness of it and a par- ticipant in it. Once, being on the staff of a Chicago newspaper, I was assigned by the editor in chief to an enterprise which was highly difficult and also highly perilous, even in Chicago. What | was my first thought? was to phone Larry and entice him into walkirg right in front of me. Larry had a million friends, ranging (in the most intimate inward part of | the vast circle) from Lew Dockstader, ( the eminent minstrel, to Carl Akeley, the eminent explorer, and almost all of them seemed to think that they were engaged in something, from the man- | ment of explorations, that Larry ought { to take a hand in. Most men who have !a million friends earn from the friends | the title of “good fellow” and the op- portunity to be left reveling. Larry My first thought | | agement of minstrelsy to the manage- | Most of the waterways projects are in- | completed. The great need, from the | standpoint of those who believe in in- land water transportation, is to com- | plete these projects. and that is the | | task to which Congress and the admin- | | istration are expected soon to address | | themselves. | | Would Require $200,000,000. | To complete the waterway projects already begun would require from $200 /000,000 to $250,000,000. This does not | | include the St. Lawrence project or the |all-American _canal from the Great | Lakes to the Hudson and thence to the | |sea. While the cost of the St. Law- | ence project. varies, it would probably be in the neighborhood of $200,000,000. ; ! The cost of the all-American route | {would be $500,000,000, it is estimated. | { from Oswego to the Hudson, with about | $150,000,000 more if the Welland Canal ! { were not used for the route from Lake | { Erie to Lake Ontario and an American ! | oute were constructed for this part of | the Great Lakes outlet. : ! Rounding out of the waterway sys- item of this country, it is apparent, is | | therefore something which will cost the | | Government hundreds of millions of ! i dollars. Canalization and improvement {of some of the rivers call for the solu- | tion of engineering difficulties even | greater than at Panama. i | The difficulties of converting some of | i the mightly streams of America, with | | their thousands of miles of unruly cur- | {rents, and their annual floods, into obe- idient and reliable channels of com- i ! merce are greater than any faced in | tributary to it and the rich agricultural, Jumber and other resources of the Co- lumbia alley. System Eclipses Europe's. A chapter could be written on what has been achieved with respect to the ‘water routes of the United States. Few people realize what these achievements have been, to say nothing of the vast possibilities of the waterway system when completed. Few understand that America already has eclipsed Europe in waterway development and yet the de- velopment here is merely well begun. The locks at the Soo, for instance, are the busiest in the world and handle more annual commerce than any simi- lar water route, despite the fact that they are closed four months in the year. ‘The Ohio River system, being a part of the vast Mississippi system, is a re- markable waterway in itself. It has cost about $10,000,000 to canalize the Ohio. The work is practically com- pleted. Army engineers declare that no ver improvement anywhere can touch this work in magnitude, and that it is far ahead of any river improvement in Europe. ‘The commerce now carried on the Ohio is tremendous and, with the com- pletion of canalization, is certain to expand in view of the great mining, in- dustrial and agricultural resources of the domain into which it reaches, and of which Pittsburgh may be considered the center. Traffic on Ohio Increases. Maj. Gen. Edgar Jadwin, Chief of 1 the development of the European water- bave same person in @ county Jeatlier age. Dr. Sirovich insist | partment methods and results. He had | The State commissions that have been | hjt upon an unerring device for detect- studying the subject are unanimous|inc and proving police corruption or in- that our poorhouses are inadequate, | competency. This device was so in- antiquated and exceedingly costly. OnlY | genious and at the same timg so direct jin_rare instances do the almshouses|gng simple that it deserves recounting provide real care for the sick. A great | 20 WURE 1 C o e Richey's majority of the keepers in charge are | o & B0 ot ors jutterly unfit for their positions. it : Seven States already have given rec-| ognition to the principle of old-age pen- sions by legislative enactment. ~ Since 1920 old-age pension bilis have been in- | troduced into most State Legislatures. Three bills providing for old-age pen- sions are now pending in Congress. In |10 States and one Territory the Legis-| latures actually have passed old-age | | pension bills. At present laws providing | |for old-age pensions are on the statute | {books of the States of Massachusetts, | Montana, Nevada, Wisconsin, Kentucky, | POl 5 . | Colorado, Maryland and the Territory Captain, \‘*h«l are the conditions in {of Alaska. “In Montana and Wisconsin | your district?> Any prosii‘uiion? ~Any these pensions have been paid for ajgambling? Any ali-night saloons? Any | number of years. It has been found | caves of bandits? ” that the cost of supporting a person on| That would be the question. a pension amounts to only one-nalf or| The captain, in answer, would almost one-third of the cost of supporting the | invariably state that no such deplorable use, doings were permitted by him at any A or the start is in trying to catch some police officials taking tainted money. Mr. Richey did not make that start at all. His first move was to send detectives of his own into each suspected police district to make a scientific survey there of disorderly houses and of gambling re- sorts, and of other abodes and centers of lawbreaking. When this survey had been completed he began summoning police captains to the witness stand: | behavi | i In the usual investigation of police | | no crying them off. Chicago might be | a bit different now if Mr. Richey then and there had been made Chicago chief of police. He then, however, was only 27 years old. He had been doing ardu- ous and dangerous work, fit for a grown-up man, and causing a boy to grow up to manhood very fast, for 14 years—ever since he had turned 13 He still, nevertheless, was by strict count a youth, and his large oppor- tunity was to come to him not in Chi- cago, but in Washington. Attracted by Requa. | His Chicago police exposures and suc- cesses attracted the notice and the in- terest of Mark L. Requa, a citizen |of California and an intimate friend of | an engineer then engaged in bringing | his career to a quiet and reposeful end | in retirement at Palo Alto—Mr. Herbert Hoover. This engineer, five years later, s Unifed States food administrator, re- cd to Mr. Requa that he needed a | man who could be his eyes and ears in |the new scene which he was facing. There doubtless were serpents and other perils in the jungle which he was to traverse, He wanted » man who could | way stystems. {_The inland waterway system of the | United States, including the route jwas a “good fellow” who was always wanted as a business associate. Engineers of the Army. in an a some months ago, declared the traffic on the Ohio had increased nearly 300 Mistake of Meeting Hoover. | When Mr. Richey made. the mistake of meeting Mr. Hoover he was on his way to being a business man on hi {own account on a large scale. Since | then he has been wholly unable to listen ito the private business opportunities | which used to take him so rapidly from cne employment to another and whic) call to him. Mr. Hoover has an excep- {tional gift of exciting loyalty. Larry has an exceptional gift of exhibiting it. He adopted Mr. Hoover, his senior by 11 years, as a “chief” who deserved all | knowing Larry's exactingness, was thereby first impressed with the notion that Mr. Hoover, besides having com- ling character. men had helped to make him one of the country's great investigators. His .(c‘anzimudumm L) | waterways. still incessantly, though unavailingly. | | _In considering the system, one of the | important parts of it to be taken into { account is the intracoastal waterway | reaching along the Atlantic Coast from [ the’ Toyalty that was in him, and I |qon | Guif from the west coast of Florida to | Corpus Christi. a distance of about 700 miles. This intracoastal route affords pelling efficiency, perhaps had compel- | an interior waterway for practically the Character was Larry's main study. | His acuteness in detecting the evil in | l from the Great Lakes to the sea, may {be visualized as one great system, and in many respects it is such. This is especially true of the different parts of {the system from the Atlantic Coast | westward to the Dakotas and southwest to Texas. On the Pacific slopes also {are important parts of national inland i Intracoastal System. ton to Miami. a distance of about | miles. It also reaches along the entire distance named—that is, it is usable for barges, which do not have to g0 out into the open sea either on the Atlantic rt of the route or the Guif part of it. This system per _cent since 1919. He said the gross traffic in 1926 was 55,000,000 tons. “With the completion of the canal- ization project.” he said, “the traffie will undoubtedly make further im- portant gains. The large steel com- panies, tne oil companies, the puble service corporations and common cai- riers are all planning to use the river more intensively.” As an illustration of the possibilities of waterways in saving transportation costs, he sald: “During the last 27 years the Monon- gahela River improvement has paid for itself and earned a surplus of about $100,000,000. returned to the general wealth of the Nation through reduced transportation costs.” Year by year the Ohin River system. though it has not yet been completer. and will be finished this season. brought about a saving in trans-orta- ton costs for same vears nf about $25.000.000 a ve: Clor s less than half com- ~