Evening Star Newspaper, August 17, 1929, Page 8

* THE EVENING “ STAR With Sunday Morning Edition. "WASHINGTON, D. C. SATURDAY.....August 17, 1920 THEODORE W. NOYES. .. .Editor The Evening Star Newspaper Company ‘Business Office: 11th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. New York Office: 110 East 42nd ‘St. Chicago Office: Lake Michigan Building. Eurcpean Office; 14 Resent St.. London, England. Rate by Carrier Within the City. ‘The Eveninc Star.. 45¢c per month ‘The Even:ng and Sund: (when 4 Sunaays) 60c per month ‘The Evening and Sul (when 5 Sundays). ‘The Sunday Star . Colles tion made Orders may be sent in NAtional 5000. Rate by Mail—Payable In Advance. Maryland and Virginia. 1 $10.00; 1 mo., 85¢ £6.00; 1 mo, 50c $4.00; 1 mo.. 40c All Other States and Canada. ! Daily and Sunday..l yr.$12.00: 1 mo., $1.00 Daily only 151, $8.00; 1 mo., sunday only 21 yry $5.00; 1 mo., 80 Member of the Associated Press. The Associated Press 1s exclusively entitled o the use for republication of el news dis- patches credited to it or not otherwise cred- fted in this paper and also the jocal news published herein. All rights of publication of special dispatches herein are also reserved. ool dlioidivi lhaddbantthieiiie, The Bigger Stake. In such a crisis as has arisen in the Young plan conference at The Hague, delay is worth its weight in gold. On the eve of definitely foreshadowed breakdown the council meeting of the conference financial committee, sched- uled for today, has been postponed. Time is to be granted to permit Great / Britain an opportunity to examine con- crete proposals submitted by the other creditor nations whereby the British share of German reparations would be increased. The compromise figures offer some, but not all, of the advance over the Young plan percentage, for which Chancellor Snowden is so valiant- ly contending. jod By next week the MacDonald gov- ernment will have made up its mind whether or not to accept the proposi- tion projected by France, Italy, Belgium and Japan as an eleventh-hour counsel of desperation. The current week end is therefore not unlike one of those “cool- ing-off periods” contemplated by the Bryan arbitration treaties, amid which quarreling governments are allotted time to let discretion temper valor and com= | mon sense supplant passion. Some London dispatches of the past 24 hours hint that Premier MacDonald has already signaled that Britain is ready to climb down. That may be a premature forecast of coming events, but it is nevertheless absorbingly in- teresting, especially to Americans, to learn of the reputed cause of Labor's reported readiness to apply the soft pedal to Mr, Snowden's fulminations at The Hague. % It is asserted by prophets of John Bull's impending conciliation on the Young plan that the MacDonald cab- inet is not inspired by the fear that persistence in its Hague reparations program—if successfully maintained— would jeopardize the prospects of naval limitation. In this connection a strong word of caution comes from Mr. Snow- den’s own camp. H. H. Braiisford, one of the leaders of the Independent Labor party, after pointing out the dconomic consequences of failure at The Hague, goes on to say: “But that is not the worst. What prospect would there be for our larger purposes of reconciliation and disarmament in this atmosphere of anger and disappoiniment? Who, after this, would accept the Labor govern- ment as a leader on the road to peace? Mr. Snowden has taken a risk which may endanger zll the larger purposes of the government which has so ligntly allowed him to stake its greater ambi- tions for a few millions.” We have been a little too prone, in this country, to look upon naval limita- tion as a purely Anglo-American family affair. It is far from that. From the British standpoint it is very much of a European affair. It is in particular an Anglo-Franco-Italian affair. It con- cerns, in other words, those two conti- nental powers which are at this moment opposing British reparation demands. France and Italy it was, at the Washington Conference in 1921-22, that frustrated all attempts to limit cruisers, destroyers and submarines because these auxiliary types of war- craft were held to be the only weapons of defense against a British fleet otherwise supreme in Europe. The motives here seven years ago—their respective positions and requirements as Mediterranean powers with vital colonial interests in Northern Africa— are as well founded today as they were then. The Paris and Rome govern- ments have not renounced the claims on which their case at Washington rested. Britain must have the French and Italian navies in mind when she | negotiates with the United States Zfor curtailment of cruisers. It is obviously the duty of British statesmen, at ‘a crucial hour like this, to count well the future cost of engendering fresh resentments and suspicions among sis- ter Mediterranean powers, already in- sistent, as they are, upon a full place in the naval sun, as far as so-called auxiliary ships of war are concerned. Mr. Brailsford, in the passage above quoted, hints ot the bigger stake which the MacDonald government, ere many mote hours are past, may decide to play for. : —————————— There is no use in trying to remind a confirmed stock speculator of the value of wise Ben Franklin'’s advice against going into debt. - Justice. There is too much democracy in | rough weather it makes for Arctic re- ney is a political officer, usually de- pendent for his job on the vagaries of public opinfon. If prosecutions are what the public wants he will give it prosecutions without too much regard for the actual guilt or innocence of the accused. If ihe public wants leniency, as is the case with prohibition cases in some communities, it is in a posi- tion to get leniency. - Prof. Moley would end all thss by greatly curbing the powers®which the district attorney has taken over from the jury, and greatly augmenting the powers of the judge, appointed without any regard to political opinion. He points to one outstanding case of the difference between the judge and the Demos, which may be accepted as symbolic of many similar cases throughout the ages—the contrast be- tween the opinion of Pilate and the opinion of the mob. Practically, the plan which Prof. Moley advocates now actually is in operation—in the Juvenile Courts. It has been tested there and proved worthy. The time has come, says the learned criminologist, to apply it in the treatment of adult criminals. oo Every true citizen of the Pacific slope sympathizes with diplomats who have to remain in Europe when they might be reveling in the glorious climate of Cali- fornia. T — ‘When a Zeppelin wishes to avoid gions. The dirigible has completely revolutionized ideas as to climate chasing. - Prohibition—For the Other Fellow. Mrs. Mabel Walker Willebrandt, in her series of articles on the “Inside of Prohibition,” has come at last to the drinking “dry” member of Congress; to the man who votes dry and drinks wet. “I think,” said Mrs. Willebrandt, “that probebly nothing has done more | to disgust and aliemate honest men and women who originally favored the pro- hibition amendment and its strict en- forcement than the hypocrisy of the wet-drinking, dry-voting Congressmen.” It seems incredible that any member of Congress should set himself above the law, which is made by Congress. But it is even more incredible that a member of Congress who has favored openly and voted for a given law should proceed to violate that law and hold it lightly. Yet Mrs. Willebrandt has this to say: “I have not lived in Washington all these years without becoming well ac- quainted with the fact that many Rep- resentatives and Senators who vote for bills designed to aid prohibition en- forcement are persistent violators of the Volstead law.” She might have added that many Representatives and Senators who oppose and vote against dry laws violate the Volstead act also. While because of their official positions the latter group might be expected to live up to the law, still their violation of the law does not, at least, bear the stamp of hypocrisy which rests upon the drinking “dry.” It will be recalled that during the last session of Congress former Senator “Jim” Reed of Missourl, a wet and an abominator of the Volstead act, an- nounced on the floor of the Senate he could name a long list of dry-voting, wet-drinking Senators. There was con- sternation until Mr. Reed later de- clared that he had no intention of tell- ing names. ‘The fact that Members of Congress who vote for prohibition laws violate the Jaws themselves has been a trench- ant weapon in the hands of the wets and reproach in the eyes of the pro- hibitionists themselves. It is impossible to expect a people to respect a law which the makers of the law disre- spect. Yet the Federal Government is called upon to make the people re- spect the law. The situation is one which ‘has led President Hoover to make strong appeals to all citizens— including Congressmen—to live up to | the laws of the land. It is the “re- spectable” violator of the prohibition law who makes enforcement doubly hard. This question was recently pro- pounded: Could a majority be mus- tered in either house of Congress for a dry enforcement measure .if the votes were confined to those members who never take a drink? The very fact that such a question could be put in- dicates the general impression which prevails with regard to drinking by members of Congress, an impression which will merely gain strength from the statements made by Mrs. Wille- brandt, former Assistant Attorney Gen- eral in charge of the prosecution of dry law violations. ‘The support of certain dry organiza- tions, it has been said, has been thrown to candidates for Congress because they would vote “dry,” even though they violated the dry laws by their personal habits. To this extent and by winking at law violations, these organizations have been responsible in part for the situation which has arisen. ——o—s Trade by Air. ‘The transportation of merchandise by aircraft, now becoming more and more frequent, may raise a new and difficult problem for customs officials. With a tremendous coast line and thou- sands of inlets, not mention the international boundarie$ between the United States and Canada and the United States and Mexico, stretching | the air route may be difficult to pre- vent. The recent decision of the Re- publican members of the Senate finance committee to place diamonds on the free list in the pending tariff, one of justice. Prof. Raymond Moley, noted Columbia criminologist, insists that radical changes are essential in the present machirery of court trials in the United States if the crime problem is to be dealt with sanely and intelli- gently. In the first place, he says, the jury must go. There is much popular preju- dice in favor of “trial by a jury of one’s peers” due to the tradition that it is a fundamental Anglo-Saxon in- stitution. 'This, he says, is due to mis- information. Actually it originated as a device of tyrants. It was not the creation of the people, but of Frankish kings. The passing of the jury, he points out, is progressing rapidly, if somewhat insidiously. Presecuting attorneys are kecping cases away from it by the familiar devices of .nol-prossing them or accepiing compromise pleas of guilty to lesser offenses, Wnicrtunately, the plvs!}illln[ attor- the reasons for which ‘was the ease with which such gems are smuggled into the country, may have taken the air route into consideration. An air- plane could carry millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds without the slightest difficulty. An interesting report regarding the merchandise imported into and ex- ported from France by air through Le Bourget, the great flying field near Paris, has just been made public by the Department of Commerce. It is based on information obtained by the department’s assistant trade commis- sioner in Paris, During 1928 the value of the imports and exports passing through this flying field totaled almost $24,000,000. It appears that the value of this import and export trade via the air was almost double in 1928 what it was in 1927 and approximately thirty- three times as great as in 1921, All of which indicates the trcmendous development in air transportation. At for thousands of miles, smuggling via | you THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1929. first it was confined largely to pas- sengers; then the airplanes were used more and more to carry the mails, and now they are entering the fleld of mer- chandise and freight. In this country the air mail has become so well estab- lished that millions of people depend upon it for the transportation of per- sonal and business letters. It has made communication between the coasts and intermediate cities a matter of hours, where formerly it was a matter of days. The regularity of these mails has been remarkable, notwithstanding the uncer- tainty of weather conditions. ‘The coming of fast freight by air has been forecast many times. Perhaps it could more properly be termed “‘express service” than freight. But, at all events, aircraft are transporting more and more merchandise, as indicated not only in the reports from France, but also in the business of air transportation in this country. [Eventually rates for such transportation may require regulation, just as the rates charged by railroads are regulated by the Interstate Com- merce Commission. ——— vt ‘The Brooklyn man, Sidney Franklin, in his bullfighting demonstrations, shows an American sense of fair play by conceding, now and then, that the bull has a shade the better of the argument. Concerning the Fruit™ Fly. ‘There is nothing poisonous to human beings in the presence of the Mediter- ranean fruit fly in fruits. Dr. C. L. Marlatt, chief of Plant Quarantine and Control Administration of the United States Department of Agriculture, has so assured the public in stating that all consumers of grape- fruit or oranges may be sure that there is no harm in eating fruit that has been attacked by this fly, which in the past several months has wrought consider- able damage in Florida and other Southern States. He says that naturally, badly decayed fruit would be inedible, but when the larvae are small or the infestation is Just beginning, no harm can come from its consumption. Press dispatches from Dayton, Ky., stating that a physiejan of that place had declared a boy was dying because he ate citrus fruits that had been at- tacked by the Mediterranean fruit fly, were declared by the® Government of- ficial to be without foundation. In- vestigations by experts showed that there was no record, following experi- ments, of humans being poisoned by this method. Which lays at rest one more “hot weather” worry. —————————_ Russians and Chinese engage in bat- tles in entire neglect of usual formali- ties. Neither side wastes much time in arguments seeking to convince the world at large that the other side is entirely | { in the wrong. — o eeee Great canal projects are in contem- plation. Any picturesque hopes, how- ever, of the revival of the old mule and the towpath are denied even to the most ardent sentimentalist who dreams of the “dear old days.” e The G. O. P. is preparing for another historic demonstration of abllity to secure complete harmony at the precise juncture in affairs when it is most needed. = A few more tourists enjoying a gen- uine welcome to our city will make a D. C. license plate look like a compara- tive rarity. et A “non-stop” flight is an exhilarating adventure when it remains true to its title. The tragedy takes place when the designation becomes a misnomer. ——— New Orleans continues to have more serious traction problems than those pertaining only to valuations and ear fare, — et Labor day is now celebrated by even more golf than usual. e SHOOTING STARS. BY PHILANDER JOHNSON. Small-Time Adventure. Why risk our lives in a canoe When there are clouds above so fair, Like islands in the upper air, Which airplanes call us all to view? Why paddle lazy waters through? Yonder a dirigible new, From which a traveler up there May see the tropic foliage rare, And next a polar route pursue— ‘Why risk our lives in a canoe? Other Folks' Business. “So you advise a young man always to mind his own business?” “I won't be so positive about that,” sald Senator Sorghum. “A first-rate politician has the art of convincing 'most everybody that he is attending to thelr business better than they could do it for themselves.” Jud Tunkins says one of the advan- tages of a vacation is the way it makes you enjoy home cooking when you get back to work. Making a Landing. The aviator, here and there, Occasions grief profound. He's very graceful in the air, But awkward on the ground. Eloquent Expression. “What did the traffic officer say to o “I did not mind what he said,” re- plied Mr. Chuggins, “so much as what his facial expression indicated that he thought.” “Almost every man thinks he could conduct a government,” said Hi Ho, the sage of Chinatown, “in spite of the his- toric fact that all who rise to power sooner or later fall in the attempt.” Unheeded Advice. The old philosophers we read And vow their reascning was right, Their peaceful rules we long to heed— Yet some one always starts a fight! “De fust song ‘bout farm reliet,” said Uncle Eben, “come out when I was a boy, startin’ ‘Down in de cornfield, hear dat mournful sound.’” ——a——————— An Added Symbol. Prom the Arkansas Democrat. ‘The four essentials of modern prohibi- tion enforcement are faith, hope, char- ity and & six-shooter. No Place in Prison.. ‘THI ‘Why some biographies succeed bet- ter than others is an interest ques- tion, now that this form of ting is giving the novel a tussle for first place. It is a separate question from why the “new biography” should be so hugely successful in the first place. ‘The delight of cultured readers in biography is no new thing, there sim- ply are’ more cultured readers wdlir, with the spread of better living condi- tions and more leisure. Newer blographical works, taking ad- vantage of this human interest in other human beings, feed up lives sym- pathetically treated. ‘These historians (for such the new biographers are) stand not so much outside a subject as did the old writ- ers. Rather they attempt to take a place ‘inside his personal life, and to bring the reader there, . All of them attempting to do the same thing, to achieve the same pur- pose, ‘it is surprising how much more successful some of them have been than others, Ludwig’s “Napoleon,” for instance, has run away from Josephson's “Zola and His Times.” Hackett's “Henry VIII” has taken precedence over many a splendid blography. ‘Why? * ok ok ok It .would seem that those works which'.get down to affairs which also arise in the lives of average men and women take the prizes of ular favor. Such a book as “Napoleon,” for in- stance, wins universal acclaim because every one is interested in ambition. Josephson's splendid book on Zola falls to win the same plaudits largely, we think, because the average reader is not so much interested in the writing business. The success of Napoleon is the same success, with variations, which most ambitious men hope for themselves. ‘While many might hesitate at govern- mental reins, all want to “get ahead.” t was because Napoleon represented the ambition-wishes of most men that the world is so interested in reading about him. H.°'G. Wells explains this very well in his “Outline of History,” but admirers of the great Emperor will continue to think that his portrait is overdrawn and essentially unfair, smacking too much of the traditional | English “viewpoint, which saw Napo- leon I as a demon, rather than a man. * ‘The mass of readers are not partic- ularly interested.in the writing game, as such. They will swallow easily some details as’to the color of paper upon which the great Alexandre Dumas wrote, but the inrier life of the business interests them about on a par with their interest in the way soap is made. So “Zola and His Time,” although of surpassing interest to any one peculiar- ly interested in the writing business, made no such ‘popular appeal as did Ludwig’s “Napoleon.” Zola’s Dreyfus affair, famous in its generation, catches the attention of the modern reader to no such extent as an account of Henry VIII's wives. ‘The affairs of the French army sev- | eral generations ago are not to be compared, in the popular mind, with the positive interest of the relations of men and women as depicted in Hack- | ett’s sparkling “Henry VIIL"” | S AND THAT BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL. Few men have had Dreyfus affairs, but most of them have wives, or ho) to have, and no doubt many ve ?eun-md on the possession of half a lozen wives. ‘Well, Henry had ’em. Mr. Hackett’s brilliant presentation of Henry as a “dynast” interests but leaves many readers wondering. They feel (and the pictures of him aid them) that Henry liked the ladies and took advantage of his position. * ok ok K Biography, whether new or old, must be a kind of glorified gossip. It deals with the lives of human beings, with the accent on the human side of the subject. Even a writer who deals with battles and the like can outdo, in some instances, the author who makes too bold an attempt to de- pict the “inner life” of his subject. We would not trade Plutarch for some of the imitators who have fol- lowed on the heels of Lytton Strachey, but who have failed to take to heart the real secrets of the difference be- tween the old and new style biographies. ‘Too many of the modernists scem to imagine that the packing of as much anecdotal matter as possible between two covers entitles them to a high place in the modern movement. Nothing could be farther from the truth, The real “newness” in biography comes from the writer, not from the subject, and consists almost entirely of already grasp of the fundamental humanities. He will be the most popular biogra- pher, if not the most worthy, who makes a good selection of a subject to begin with. But this one would not mean the selection of a man or woman whose life resounded with the affairs of 82X to the exclusion of others, or which encompassed only battles, or mental victories, or whatnot. * ok kX The subjects of the most popular biographies of the present day will be found in almost all cases to be men and women who were of surpassing humanity, in the broadest aspects. ‘Those who have gone out of their way to draw forth from archives the lewd actions, motives and thoughts of men of the past, as if there were noth- ing more to their lives, have been astonished to find that these records have not charmed so much as they had imagined they would. ‘The eager search for the strange, the outlandish, the bizarre has not met with the public approval accorded the biographies of those men who com- bined in their lives the normal am- bitions, emotions and yearnings of the |3s majority of men. ‘The sympathetic study of such men, although it abounds not in “red-hot stuff,” will make its appeal where more sensational matter fails. This, how- ever, is but one aspect of the matter. Josephson's “Zola” is free from sen- sationalism, yet it has made no such popular appeal as Strachey's “Vic- toria,” because it does not get down so well to the bedrock of human nature. ‘The general grasp by the reading public of what sometimes are called funda- mental verities is sound and whole- some. Biographers who select ~well their subjects have the battle half won before they begin to write. An older generation has paused in its busy round to bow its head at the pass- ing of an old friend as the Youth's Companion ends its long career, merged | with the American Boy. | “So the Youth’s Companion passes.” says the Albany Evening News: “it follows the trend of the times and is merged with the American Boy. This announcement brings back a wealth of happy memories to men of middle age, and men, too, who are old and in the chimney corner of life,” continued this paper, reminiscently. “For more than 100 years it has been, what its name implies, the companion of the youth of the land. Some of the stories still linger in the memory of those who have left their boyhood far behind.” ‘The Springfield Illinois State Regis- ter considers the news “almost like hearing of the death of an old friend” and thinks “the passing of this maga- zine will be sincerely regretted by its friends and admirers, old and new, in all parts of the country. However, its memory will long live, and under the capable management of the American | Boy it is to be expected that much of its spirit and many of its traditions will be perpetuated.” predicts this paper. “attuned, as they necessarily would have had to be, to the changing needs of the juvenile population, present and future.” * K K X “The passing of the Youth's Com- panion recalls the fact that it was es- tablished by Nathanlel P. Willls, a friend of Poe,” remarks the Richmond News Leader, which thinks “this fact may have had something to do with its popularity in Virginia.” The Flint Daily Journal, recalling boyhood at- tachment to the magazine, declares, “Fortunate are those persons who pos- sess bound files of the Companion, not because they are particularly valuable to collectors, but because of the many pleasant memories they reawaken.” Noting how “many newspapers, both great and small, commented editorially on the passing of that century-old landmark of the juvenile world,” the Lansing _ State Journal _concludes, “Seemingly about nine-tenths of the editorial wl:itum of nlhe country had been brought up on it.” ‘That th% magazine had qualities that endeared it to its readers to an unusual degree is brought out in many of the editorials on the subject. “Men and women whose memories of youth are colored by such events as the Centen- nial and Columbian Expositions will re- call the miscellaneous delights conveyed to them by its pages, the absorbing serials, the stirring or touching or laughter-provoking short stories, the columns ‘of anecdotes neatly pointed with morals, the instructions and dia- grams for making everything from col- ored wax flowers to electric bells"— such is the description of the weekly given by the Little Rock Arkansas Gazette. “The Youth's Companion furnished recreation and diversion and contributed its full share to character building,” is the tribute of the Roanoke Times, which considers that “it played a useful and creditable part in guiding and molding the future.manhood of America in the late 90s and in the earlier years of the nt eedntur&." Although ;hulh Jjour- nal concedes the m: e hands in intrusting its destinies to those who prepare and publish = the Ameflrlnpzog." 'l{!ll! it _says, “Just the same, its ng from nile publications is noted with genuine regret by those of us who read it and loved it and were helped by it.” * Kk * ttractive pictures are drawn of the we?wme the pmnnine received in the home of & generation or more ago. Says the New York Herald Tribune: “By cmdlell,ht. in the pleasant, ?rospemus days_before the Civil War, father en- joyed the Youth’s Companion with the children after tea. By oil lamps, in the sterner years afterward, its stories, jokes and poems and, unrelentingly, its edu- cational articles were read aloud after suprer by ts who were not sure that so much excitement and entertain- ment were wise. A Youth’s Companion then amused & family for a full week (without change of program),” the fam- ily gathered about in a “homelike living room on one of those ‘long Winter eve- * such as they used to have: a cen- ‘the field of juve- | B ni ter table with a light, a work basket and s dish of apples on it, and some one reading aloud to entranced children till :.d:imfllgmmmmrynluvm 'me"ximonymammm Laud Old Youth’s Companion As Famous Weekly Is Merged magazine as “an institution in the old days. Its weekly coming was an event.” Referring to the “premium list in a brown cover that took the place of one of the regular issues in October,” this paper says, “Who could look without a ang on the alluring picture of the foot athe, the scroll saw, the printing pre: the magic lantern, the steam engine * Xk ¥ X ‘The welcome it received was based on the fact that “by intention, the Com- panion was something more than a magazine for youthful readers,” as the Manchester Union points out, saying: “It aimed to interest all the members of the households of its subscribers. * * * Its contributors included many well known writers, and their produc- tions covered a wide range of subjects. Its clientage was more than national in extent.” “At a time when New England’s com- mercial efficiency is being much dis- cussed, the success of the Youth's Com- panion is not without lessons,” says the Springfield Republican, which regards the magazine as having been “skillfully conducted.” However, as the Columbia Record remarks: “Times change and competition always bobs up to plague a successful individual cr business, and sometimes the more modern opponent wins. This appears to be the case in the passing of this once popular publi- cation,” concludes the Record. “The merger of two fine magazines for the youth will combine the best of Eastern and Western traditions” is the way the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel sees it, while the Des Moines Tribune- Capital remarks, “It is perhaps simply sad fate that the younger magazine should be the stronger, but all gener- ations before this last one will hope that the merged publication will retain the name of the old favorite.” .. New Canadian Nickel Confused With Quarter | From the Montreal Standard. People who are used to dealing in small change—and most of us are— cannot fail to have noticed that for some time now the Canadian silver quarter has been getting smaller and the 5-cent nickel has been getting larger. We understand that the secret iIs_“‘seignorage”—the government rake- off which bridges the difference between the face value of the coin and its real w:_}l‘fin. as bullion. excuse is as far as it S. 1t expiting the Sier quatier—the ‘sov: ernment gives us less for our'money than it used to do. But it does not al- together explain the nickel which to the casual eye looks as if it might be over- weight. Certainly it quite puts out of countenance the old-fashioned silver 5- cent piece whose modegt worth may have been—and no don ‘was—slightly more than this big base-born brother’s, but we make no question that the gov- ernment makes something by the change, and that the big nickel is no real bargain. Personally, we part from: the little old-fashioned silver 5-cent piece with genuine regret. It had quality. It rang true and it made no pretense of being other than it was. We under- stand that it is to be allowed to fade away and gradually die, and that when the last one has passed out of existence through sheer wear and tear there will no more shy little silver 5-cent pleces, but" only big bulging nickels which have so much conceit of them- selves that they are sometimes mis- taken for quarters, so covering us with shame and confusion, as, for instance, when we tender one for a shave to transfixed by the col glittering eye of the barber who thinks, of course, that we are trying to hold out on him. The little old reliable silver 5-cent :hle‘c: never set any traps for us like What's more, we believe that the big nickel is inherently wicked. It leads us into temptation. The complaint of an Ottawa clergyman that the big nickel is finding its way into the collection plates in place of the quarter sounds a real note of alarm. One nickel on the plate might look Yke an accident, two might be a coineidence, but three up to @ dozen at the same offertory can be nothing but a bad habit and the work of the devil. What, we ask, will the heathen think of us when this Ananias nickel begins to get in its work? The little old honest 5-cent piece always kept faith with the f ‘missions and never asked one coin to do the work of be | “I have myself discovered many addi- ' THE LIBRARY TABLE ’ By the Booklover In “Zola and His Time” Matthew Josephson the development of the French naturalist, follower of Bal- zac, from his childhood spent at Aix, where, in spite of poverty, he was happy rambling about the hills and vales of Provence with his two friends, tute, Bohemian young manhood to suc- cess in middle life and his “stupid” death at 62. His literary achlevement was the Rougon-Macquart series of novels, probably suggested by s “Comedie Humaine,” which follows the history of a very unlovely family during five generations, There are 20 volumes, of this “Natural and Social History of a Family.” Some of the more im- portant are “La_ Fortune des Rougon” (the first), “Le Ventre de Paris,” story of the famous Halles or market of Paris; “La Faute de I'Abbe Mouret,” “L'Assommoir,” a story of the effects of drink on various human beings; “Nana,” “Germinal,” a story of class struggle exhibited in a’ strike of miners; “L’'Oeuvre,” whic] “is filled lushing confidences” about his ‘La Terre,” a brutal novel of “La Debacle,” & story of the Franco-Prussian War; “L’Argent,” a story of ‘“frenzied finance and stock gambiing,” and “Docteur Pascal” (the last), largely autobiographical of a liaison in his later life. All are docu- mentary novels, with theses, often read- ing like notebooks. In preparation for the serles Zola read much on the sub- ject of heredity and prepared a genea- logical tree of the Rougon-Macquart family. “Heredity, implacable, prede- termined, would be for his modern epic what Nemesis was for the Greek drama. Far from becoming slave to a theory, which would turn his books into a mass of clinical observations, he saw with a flash of intuition that the long chain of episodes he visioned, the descent of a vast family, of ‘a world in agitation’ would be completely unified by the force of heredity. Instead of being the victims of the gods’ vengeance, his characters, all members of one vast family, would be victims of heredity. It was simply more ‘modern,’ more ‘sclentific’; it was no different.” So he started his fictional family ' with Adelaide Fouque, a deranged girl who | becomes the mother of the legitimate Rougons and the illegitimate Macquarts. | * ok ok K | The death of Zola was due to his neurotic habits, among them his fear of night air. Mme. Charpentier, a friend, exclaimed when she heard of it, “How stupid!” Mr. Josephson de- scribes it briefly and dramatically. On a September night of 1902 the Zolas retired as usual, “he locking the doors was his wont, and all the windows, hermetically, while counting to him- self those habitual numbers and mo- tions. . . . A small fire is dying out in the fireplace. . . . There seems to be a great weight upon his chest; a malaise; he chokes for air. He thinks: ‘Ah! and what if I should never awake! . . I dare not fall asleep.’ . . . So familiar is this agony (Zola was subject to just such nightmares habitually) that® he hesitates to waken his wife. Decades, ages pass. The clock sounds three times. ! i | become unbearable. . . . He arises soft- ly and leaves the bed chamber, for the dressing room. The motion has ! awakened his wife, She stares with wide eyes through the darkness. He returns and remains standing beside | the bed. ‘I feel sick. .My head is split- ting.’ ‘I, too, feel upset. Shall we call the servants, perhaps?’ ‘No, don’t you see the dog Is sick, too? We are both ill; it must be something we have eaten. It will pass away. Let us not bother them.’ . . . His voice terminates in pain. She rises, t00 ... and re- turns. (It seems to have occurred to neither one of them to open a window, which would have saved Zola's life.) It may have been a few moments later, she awakes again, feeling a terrible sensation through her drowsiness. And there he is, standing beside the bed in the darkness. ‘Emile, Emile, go to sleep!’ He has approached to lie down again, then drunkenly, reeling, without a sound falls to the floor face down beside the dais of the great Louis XIIT bed. And then, as her confused visions recall, she struggles to sit up, to crawl out of bed, to pull the cord that will bring the sleeping servants. But the deadly carbon monoxide gas has af-| fected her, too! Everything turns; round and round. Her voice seems to be strangled in her throat by a great soft hand. She falls back upon her pillow in a swoon. All is silent. The mute, heavy tapestries of the princely | bed chamber hang motionless. . . . And | 5o they were found in the morning. . . . | The servants, disquieted at not hearing | a sound, no murmur of the daily ablu- | tions behind the locked door, first call, then pound the door, then hurtle against it and burst it in. Their mas- ter, with livid face, is stretched on the | floor near the bed, and their mistress, deadly pale, is lying upon her pillow. She responds feebly to their first aid; | but in the man’s purpled face there is death. He, placed some four feet lo er than she, had succumbed complete- ly in the dense zone of heavier-than- air coal gas, emitted all night by the blocked chimney. His body is still warm; they try rhythmic tractions of the tongue, swift massaging of the limbs, - the body.” Mme. Zola survived | g:r husband many years and lived to | * ok Kk K John Erskine satirizes Homer and Co.. or, “those poets, Homer,” in, “Penelope’s Man,” a book in the style | of “The Private Life of Helen of Troy,” but far less clever. He holds that Ulysses, or Odysseus, was no great hero but just an ordinary man and that his exploits were largely the work of his good advertisers, the poets, and his own inventive genius. He was in reality, says Mr. Erskine, not at all a hard worker, but was on the contrary a time- waster and lover of pleasure. He could Wave arrived at his Ithacan home and joined his waiting wife much sooner if he had not spent seven yedrs in the thrall of Calypso and lingered again in the land of the Lotus Eaters. Mr. Erskine’s satire is most trenchant when he relates the expurgated account which Ulysses gives of his wanderings to Penelope on his return to Ithaca. * kK ok Sir Hugh Clifford, governor and high commissioner of Malaya, has written a book, “Bushwhacking. nd Other Asiatic Tales and Memories,” which is based on nearly half a century of ex- rience. He has bzen & British official in the Far East under three sovereigns. The ten tales in the book give glimpses of the relations of white and brown races and of different brown races to each other in the East. He calls the Malay Peninsula “the jumping-off place of Southern Asia.” * K k% A revision of an old work on evolu- tion, by a scientist of note, is “From the Greeks to Darwin,” by Henry Fair- field Osborn.g It is an account of the development ~of the evolution idea through 24 centuries. In his preface, . _Osborn says that in study- ing the whole subject over again from the beginning to the present time he has discovered new lines of thought. tional proofs that the evolution idea is in itself a product of 24 centuries of evolution, a process of ascent, of am- plification and of clarification of great ideas and principles at first-only dimly perceived.” * Kk One of the new Lincoln stories un- earthed by Lloyd Lewis for his book, “Myths After Lincoln,” is the anecdote of ‘the Civil War President and the newspaper reporter. “How does your wife's family spell its name?” asked the reporter. “Oh, with two ‘ds’ always,” said Lin- coln. “One ‘d’ was enough for God but, not enough for the Todds.” o " Just Gives It More Steam. From the Lansing State Journal. Cussing is a silly waste of effort. Note how little effect it has on the Cezanne and Baille, through his desti- | in And now the pains in his head have | —S. | rests e thoughts so far from the daily dem- ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN. Stop & minute and think about this fact. You can ask our information buredu any question of fact and get the answer back in a personal letter. It is a great ecucational idea introduced into the lives of the most intelligent people the world—American newspaper readers. It is a part of that best pur- pose of a newspaper—service. There s no charge except 2 cents in coin or stamps for return postage. Get the habit of asking questions. Address your letter to The Evening Star Information Bureau, Frederic J, Haskin, director, ‘Washington, D. C. Q. How large population must a city have in order to have a police de- partment?—T. E. A. There is no arbitrary number of population required before a city may have a regular police department. In fact, many incorporated towns have police departments which vie with many city forces. - Q. What is meant by relative humid- ity?—A. A. A. The Weather Bureau says that relative humidity is the ratio of the amount of invisible water vapor in a given volume of air to the amount that would make this air saturated at the same temperature. In short, it is the ratio between the amount of invisible vapor present to the maximum amount that could be present at the same tem- perature. In measuring humidity, only the invisible water vapor is considered, n;n} not the drops of rain or droplets of fog. Q. Are there any other lakes as large as Crater Lake which occupy the basins of volcanoes?—N. P. C. A. While there are other crater lakes, there is none which compares in size with Crater Lake, which fills the great caldera where once Mount Mazama raised its peak. Q. What is the yleld of cacao trees end how much do the pods welgh? —N. D. A The average yield of a cacao tree is 30 pods, weighing about one pound each. Q. Name two or three of Friml's comic operas which were first produced in the United States—M. B. R. A. The frst ones produced in this country include Jinks” and “Katinka.” Q. What is the temperature of the water in the springs at Hot Springs, Ark.?—M. M. P. A. The waters range in temperature from 102 degrees Fahrenheit to 147 degrees Fahrenheit, most of them hav- ing a temperature of 135 degrees to 145 degrees Fahrenheit. Q. In what field did the chain store first appear?—C. C. A. It was in the grocery fleld that chain distribution first made its ap- pearance. Chain groceries now do about one-third of the grocery business. Next in size are the 5-and-10-cent store chains. Q. Is Konrad Bercovici & gypsy? O. A. Bercovici was born in Rumania, but_has no gypsy blood. However, he is the adopted son of Murdo, a great gypsy chief. He has assoclated with gypsles through many years of his life, “The Firefly,” “High | speaks their language and understands their habits of thought. Bercovicl is not only a writer, but a musician. He i3 also-a 1 guages fluently and many Q. Do radio stations their up~ keep by selling time?—] p")L > A. Very few of them do. Q. Where is Cochin-China?—F. W. A. 1t is the southernmost state of French Indo-China. It has an area of about 20,600 square miles. Q Flease describe & Scotch dirk. A. The Highland Scotch dirk is & g:gg;r usually without chape and Q. What is a farthingale?—D. R. A. It is a contrivance, resembling a | hoop ‘skirt or erinoline. It was worn | by women of the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries to extend their skirts, Q. What is the word that means the putting to an easy and painless death bables that are hopelessly defective and |incurable diseases?—A. G. A. The term is “enthanasia.” Q. How important is meat in the American diet>—W. D. A. The Department of Agriculture has estimated that meat and poultry constitute 16 per cent of the tatal food material and supplies, 30 per cent of the protein and 59 per cent of the fat in the average American dietary. Q. What kind of engines do sub- marines use?—C. B. A. Submarines use Diesel while on the surface and engines when submerged. Q. Has Chicago passed an ordinance permitting jay walking?—W. M. A. Chicago had an ordinance pro- hibiting jay walking. After ten days of rigid enforcement the city council went back to the old plan of permit- ting pedestrians to cross streets when- ever opportunity offered. Q. Do m: engines electric | any Americans travel by air- | planes while abroad?—A. L. | _A. It is estimated that Americans | comstitute one-fifth of the passengers using foreign air service. Q. What part of Africa has been the least explored?—J. D. A. One section that has recently | been discovered, but still requires more exploration, is e mountain region Iying between thé Lakes Albert Edward and Albert Nyanza. This is said to be the least known mountain region in | Atfrica. It was popularly called “Moun- | tains of the Moon” and is now known by the name “Ruwenzori.” Q. Has any American discovered a chemical element?—N. S. A. Prof. B. S. Hopkins of the Uni- versity of Illinois is said to be the first | American to accomplish this. He dis- covered illinfum. Q. Where was Edna Ferber born? ‘Was she ever a mnewspaper reporter? —F.R. R. A. She was born in Kalamazoo, Mich., August 15, 1887. She worked on the Appleton Daily Crescent, the Milwaukee Journal and the Chicago Tribune. BACKGROUND OF EVENTS BY PAUL V. COLLINS. New York City has longebeen noted | for its sculpture typifying “Civic Vir- tue,” which, like Truth, is a naked female. There is more or less fitness in the fable of Truth, who, being mod- | est and naked—not merely nude, but | Taked, “if you know what I mean"— | remained more or less private in the | bottom of & well. Civic Virtue stood openly upon a pedestal in front of City Hall, like in- | nocent Eve without a fig, where she | might look sweetly upon public officials | and inspire them to noble deeds by her | loveliness. Folks who are not art-cul- | tured scoffed at Civic_Virtue, because in New York she is the most misun- derstood damsel of the city. She was as pure as a Cincinnati soap, and when she turned her great won dering eyes upon one—‘mal soit qui mal y pense.” She was what all Christians are ad- jured to be—“in the world, but not of it.” She was forced to live in New York, but never seemed quite acclimated —-fashioned so slenderly, young and so fair.” Poor Civic Virtue! Dear little girl! Park with her, then, if you can. There were mean gossips and Mother Grundys who were scandalized by the fact that her “dress” showed her knees, and everything. They wanted her to be more comme il faut with drygoods. Somewhat similar comments were made when a statue of George i | Washington in a Roman bathing suit or toga, or something which showed all his ribs, stood before the National Capitol. So we put him down cellar | in the National Museum—the nearest imitation of a well remaining after | waterworks were put in. But the offi- cials of New York are not so squeamish —they like to look at Civic Virtue. She their eyes and carries their nition grind! Change is rest. e 1t is not good for man to live alone. | The same is true of fair maidens, like | She hadn't a chaperon | Civic Virtue. to protect her spotless name in that corrupt_city. the wickedness of New Yorkers, for she was so guileless and gentle and pure in all her thoughts and dreams. Her maiden heart had never flopped in the resence of any male. Her limpid eyes Fad not drooped their eyelids in bash- ful diffidence, betraying consciousness of the approach of a—dare we say?— a lover. But human nature is human, whether in cold marble or warm palpitating flesh. There came a day when all Tam- many was present, and Tammany's hero looked upon Civic Virtue—just as Dante beheld a beautiful lady and then went to Purgatory and wrote a book. So Boss Charles F. Murphy, head of Tammany, got a glimpse of the beautiful, naked lady on the pedestal, in front of City Hall, and went all to pieces. She was a strange revelation to him; he had not imagined such a being in existence. From that moment, the world was different for Murphy. He could never again revert to Tammany trickery. He would give picnics to the poor children of the slums, whose fathers had votes He would not afflict the poor, but only the rich, whose pelf was worth while, or the general taxpayer, and for every robbery of the rich he would give a molety to the slum folks who netied it and whose support would perpetuate Tammany. Would he not emulate Robin Hood of old in spite of his Irish hatred of everything English? So he leered back at Civic Virtue, and —now for the happy ending! For didn't they live happily forever and ever after? * x x X ‘Today, Greater New York is in a ferment—which has nothing to do with the Volstead law, though it seems to have gone to the head. “O Judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason!” In Union Square —that best known center of the greatest metropolis of America—there have long stood certain marble and bronze sculptures repre- ‘senting familiar, old characters, outside of Tammany Hall—such as one George ‘Washington and another Abraham Lin- coln, and some sort of furriner whose name is Lafayette or something like that—Dago or Greek or Frog. Every- body has seen these old statues, so why not improve Union Square while it is by subway construction and other great contracts of direct interest to Tammany Hall? Give it something new and big! We want statues bigger and better. There- was a. time, when these old She could not conceive | figures of sculpture in Union Square were further accompanied by carvings in wood, showing Injuns with leaves of tobacco, or perhaps Pocahontas saving the neck of Capt. Smith, a World ‘War veteran. But wooden Indians which even reminded one of Tammany chiefs are now gone—they are out of style. So are figures of Washington, Lincoln and the Frog or Dago or Greek. It is not intended to gay rid entirely of these old antiques, but New York will shove them over, out of the way and sort o' hide them with cedar trees and bushes, while in the very center of Union Square they propose to_erect & glorjous monument to Charles Murphy, | to prove what any Irishman may be- | come, here in frec America, whether on i X};m‘ “force” or in City Hall or Tammany | Hall. | Now does not that make a beautiful | pair—Mrs. Civic Virtue, still unclothed and in her right mind before City Hall, | and Mr. Murphy himself looming like | Liberty Enlightening Tammany in | Union Square! | * K % x It's going to be the greatest show on earth—show of bad taste and blasphemy of patriotic sentiment. Of course, according to modern art ideals—of the ‘“‘modernists"—Art con- veys nothing t8 the mind or imagina- tion or emotions; it lives for its own sake until it will die of inanition. It must tell no story, adorn no tale, inspire no sentiment. In that view it makes no difference what Mr. Murphy's record is. His elevation to a 12-foot pedestal, with a bronze frieze illustrating the spirit of liverty, and the 13 coats of arms of the original _colonies—coats now in a marked-down bargain sale, as the Sum- mer is closing—will not conflict with any canons of modern aesthetics. Maybe the whole Declaration of Inde- pendence will be printed on the pedestal, in big letters, that he who reads may run, but that is not wholly decided, for the question of whether it should be in Hebrew or Gaelic disturbs the commit- | tze. A compromise may be necessary by substituting, “To the victor belong the spoils,” which is short enough to repeat in several dialects comprehensible to Tammany's constituency. A fine bronze tablet telling about Mr. Murphy will decorate the pedestal. Out of the ped- estal will rise a stalk like a Mexican cactus—90 feet high. It's all going to cost $50,000, which Tammany will pro- vide. * ok k Yet one thing is lacking—and it may start a scandal if not remembered. It is too far from Union Square to City Hall, and some fool gossip will be sure to start a tale that there is a rift be- iween Mr. and Mrs. Civic Virtue, unless they get together. It would be awful if the story got out that there might be a divorce, on the ground of incom- patibility of temper, or desertion, or worse. As head of the home, it is Murphy's legal right to dictate where the domicile shall be. It is up to Civic Virtue to hasten up there to her hus- band's new home. That is right in front of Tammany Hall; she will find | herself among strangers, up there, but | “politics make strange bed-fellows.” T It was old Aristotle, who defined beauty—“Beauty is the splendor of truth.” Even if Truth remains down a deep, deep hole where Tammany pre- fers distantly to peer at her, as it might look at an aquarium”monster, her splendor may shine in her partners, Civic_Virtue and consort Charles F. Murphy. * The message of Art is the perpetua- tion of such qualities of beauty as the artist desires to express. The pushing aside of effigies of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Gen. Lafayette to make room for a glorified Murphy, whose towering shaft will overtop them all, speaks eloquently of the modern ideals of New York and the message of Americanism which is to be presented to the incoming immigrant, as well as to the mililons of natives of the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.” No longer “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his country- men”—no longer the hero of human freedom in “a government of the people, for the people and by the people,” no longer the personification of self-sacri- fice on behalf of humanity—none of these virtues shall be hereafter conspicu- ous ideals of America. Tammany steps upon the pedestal. The boy who would emulate the glorious, “Toils much to earn a monumental pile. ‘That fldlly record the mischiefs he hath one.” (Copyright, 1929, Sy Paul V. Colling) ] t, speaking eight lan- - Alalects. people who are suffering_intensely with*