Evening Star Newspaper, October 6, 1929, Page 51

EDITORIAL SECTION he Sunday Star, Part 2—12 Pages WASHINGTO B, ., SUNDAY MORNING, M’DONALD’S VISIT HOLDS KEY TO FUTURE RELATIONS Success or Failure of Mission Will Wield Great Influence on Anglo-U. S. Problems for Many Years. ° BY FRANK H. SIMONDS. HILE at any time a visit of a British prime minister to ‘Washington would be an event of much more than passing interest, both the moment and the man make the coming of Ramsey MacDonald an almost un- precedented episode. Within a relatively recent, time the political party that calls itself Labor and is described by its op- ponents as Socialist has won an as- tounding victory, which has made it the largest single group in the House of Commons and expanded its representa~ tion from 160 to 289 in that body. This political landsilGe was the re- £ult of many things, but on the side of foreign relations there were two very clear facts: The British people were dis- satisfied with Tory handling of British relations with France, which they held to be too weak and subordinate; and with their dealings with America, which they jud%(’d to be too clumsy and provocative. y its foreign policy Labor was expectad to change the situ- ation in the case of both France and the United States. French Detail Attended To. Already at The Hague conference the French detail has been attended to and one has only to read French or other continental newspapers to perceive that Anglo-Prench relations have changed, have indeed reverted to the old acrim nious stage that marked the later post- war period when Lloyd George Was quarreling with Poincare. Now Mac- Donald has come to America to carry out the second portion of the Labor mandate and abolish Anglo-American bickerings. It is no exaggeration to say that upon the success or failure of the MacDonald mission will depend the character of Anglo-American _relations for a long time to come. No one would be silly enough to forecast that even a com- plete failure would prove a prelude to war. At worst it could only fore- shadow an indefinite prolongation of the period of disagreement that has de- veloped since the Washington confer- ence and as a consequence of the un- settled naval issue. British Public Behind Him. But what must be perceived in this country is that the great majority of the British public, without regard to party, desire an end to this dispute, wish to see Anglo-American relations established upon a basis of friendship and have heartily indorsed the Mac- Donald decision to visit the American Capital. Nevertheless, even as an ambassador of good will, MacDonald is restricted. He does not speak for a majority in the House of Commons, and he cannot ad- vocate any naval concessions on the part of his country that go beyond the limits judged by naval authorities the irre- ducible minimum of security. But, de- spite all the clamor which has been raised in certain American quarters, he has wrung enormous concessions from the naval group and is offering a more reasonable bargain than any one could have believed in the weeks immediately following the Geneva conference of two years ago. Europe Taken by Surprise. However suspicious Americans may be of the present British proposal, it is obvious that it has taken the Eu- ropean observers by surprise and gone eyond any expected limits. Still un- lder the shadow of the events of the pre-war period, when Britain steadily insisted upon something close to & two-to-one advantage over Germany, continental commentators are astound- ed to see Britain proposing what they hold to be substantial parity. In fact, they see Britain peacefully surrender- ing in the case of the United States a supremacy which she has defended against many challengers in many wars. In this situation the European ob- servers are led to conclude that there must be more to the thing than ap- pears: that what the British prime minister is after is an_Anglo-American alliance. And from this conclusion it is but a step to the conviction that agreements have already been made and that the world is confronted by the peril of Anglo-Saxon hegemony. Must Remove Friction Cause. Nevertheless nothing is less likely than that Ramsay MacDonald cherishes any such illusion. It is true that ever since the war the British people have favored and urged some sort of ar- rangement between the En?l\!h-!pelk- ing peoples which would free Britain from any necessity to mix in conti- nental European strife and would in- sure common action in case of any new world crisis. But MacDonald knows, none better, that no such alliance is a political pos- sibility today or in any discoverable future. Nor is he less well informed on the matter of the British debt. He sees clearly that what must be done in the matter of Anglo-American relations is rather to change the atmosphere by removing the present cause of friction. ‘We have fallen to suspecting each oth- er's good faith, and this suspicion has poisoned all relations. MacDonald comes, then, at the mo- ment when his country desires a liqui- dation of the naval dispute, even at the price of concessions which have hither- to seemed impossible. But if the mo- ment is favorable it is at least equally true that MacDonald himself is the man who, by his personality and by his whole life history, should command in- stant and - complete confidence. Few men, even in an age when passion has been general, have suffered more for their “convictions or remained more steadfast under every sort of persecu- | tion. MacDonald Is Democratic. President Hoover used to say when Labor was in power before that there were_more “white collar” ministers in the British than the American Cabinet. But MacDonald certainly is a demo- cratic product as unmistakably as Hoover. He comes from the people, his origin is humble, his early circum- stances were those of poverty, all his early manhood was spent in struggle against privation. Henry W. Nevinson, who, I believe, accompanies the British prime minister on this visit, once sald: “For some years MacDonald and I be- longed to the same club in London. The two requirements of membership were to lead the perfect life and pay a shilling a week dues, and for both of ;ls n’ 1wns much easier to lead the per- eet life.” His Character Made Him. In his political career, too, Mac- Donald’s success has been almost uniquely based upon character rather than upon any pre-eminence in the skill or arts of the politician. He is a sound and able speaker, but he has neither the adroitness of Lloyd George nor the eloquence of Briand. He has written much, but, again, no one would claim for his writings first rank. “Jim” ‘Thomas and “Uncle Arthur” Hender- son, his lieutenants, are far abler poli- ticians than “Ramsay.” Snowden cer- tainly has a keener mind, the Webbs have been leaders and MacDonald a follower in political thinking for British Fadicalism. - | That such a man should come on sich Yet MacDonald is the recognized i leader because he has had the courage, the steadfastness and the strength to hold fast to his faith, which is that of Labor. During the war he was & paci- fist. After the war he steadily opposed the peace treaties, denounced the moral as well as the political and economic isolation of Germany. He recognized, while the mass of the British people were still under the empire of war psychology, the necessity for interna- tional reconciliation. He’s Like Wilson. It was thanks to MacDonald that the | Dawes plan was adopted, that the Ger- mans were received as equals at Lon- don and that the way to Locarno was cleared. It was due to him that the occupation of the Ruhr, which scemed | to forecast the collective ruin of Eu- rope, proved the prelude to a peaceful | adjustment that has recently culmi- nated in the Young plan and the agreement to a speedy and complete evacuation of German territory by allied armies. About MacDonald there is much that must suggest Woodrow Wilson; he 1s, in fact, a Wilsonian, as his recent speech at Geneva indicated. Some of ‘Wilson's limitations are his. He is over- vain, tends to be autocratic in his ac- tions, does not give his complete confi- dence to his associates, is intellectually isolated. Yet along with these defects go a great simplicity, directness and sincerity, which do much to counteract the impatience and irritability that he frequently displays. In appearance MacDonald is at once handsome and distinguished; he would attract attention and enlist interest in | any group. Seen in the House of Com- | mons his mass of gray hair, now rap- idly whitening, seems almost like a battle flag. Intellectually he is an aris- tocrat, in manner he has nothing to suggest Labor or Socialism. His speech, in which the Scotch burr lingers slight- | ly, is that of a scholar. In personal conversation he gives a rather surpris- ing sense of sadness, heightened doubt- | less by the fact that he is not physically | overvigorous and is always working be- yond his strength. Difference Made by Eleven Years. Eleven years ago MacDenald was hardly safe from physical violence in any British city. In his own native village of Lossiemouth the local golf club expelled him as a traitor (they have just rescinded the action). H> had been defeated in the elections of 1918 and was the discredited leader of a political party almost without repre- ‘senunves in the House of Commons. Even acquaintances and friends of the pre-war period avoided him. The fact.that he is prime minister today, that he is now greeted with cheers when he is recognized in the street or even at a theater, is equally an evidence of the tremendous psycho- logical change that has taken place in Britain and the ultimate appreciaticn of the sincerity and honesty of the man, In Europe only Briand may be countcd a rival in the noble cause of pacification, and in Britain itself he has no rival. a mission is perhaps the most striking 'li'lmwell as the most hopeful sign of the e. It is true of Ramsay MacDonald that he is profoundly British and, despite the obvious paradox, at heart an imperial- ist, although not in the conventional sense; but he is also an internationalist and, better than any Briton of his time who has held* important political office, he knows the Dominions, the European countries and the United States as wcll. And his whole career, like the character | the OCTOBER 6, 1929. Noise—A New Menace Can Peace and Quiet Be Restored? Science May Find a Way 8 the world grows older it grows noisier. Especial- ly is this true in a modern Ameri- can city, such as Washington, with a large part of its population clus- tered together in apartment houses where they hardly can escape the constant combina- tion of loud speak- ers, telephone bells, automobile horns, riveting machines, street cars, air- planes, policemen’s whistles and or- chestras. ‘The city roars— night and day, sea- son after season. Even the sup- posedly quiet sub- urbs are invaded by the tide of noise. It foams over into the near- by countryside. ‘There has been a profound change which has come about gradually during the past half century so that its progress has not caused alarm until quite recently. But this increase of noise may bs one of the most far-reaching and fundamental changes which have come upon human en- vironment. Consider the con- dition of the work- er in a Washing- ton office where, piling up on the constant clatter of typewriters and jangling of tele- e Al phone bells, comes the tide of noise from the | streets outside—the insane mediey of ambulance sirens, fire apparatus, auto horns, the radio loud speaker in front of the store across the way. Ragged Nerves the Result. Is it any wonder that nerves are ragged? Various cities have made more or less spas- modic efforts to remedy the situation by legisla- tion or by the interpretation of existin to cover new conditions. In Washing! goes unstemmed. But the causes of noise probably are too funda- mental in the life of the city to be affected greatly by enforcing police regulations, although that The ultimate remedy must be looked for in another direction. Noise, it seems likely, finally will be overcome not by the legislator but by the scientists. Statutes and police regulations dikes. Ehe permanent would help, may serve as temporary tide walls must be built of stronger stuff. Just what the effects will be nobody knows. 1t is likely that in the end they will be significant. So science is turning its attention to means of bringing about noiseproof cities. The noise it- self probably cannot be reduced to any great ex- of the British statesman, must give the lle to any charge that he comes seeking unfair advantage or for any other pur- pose than to restore Anglo-American relations to a sound basis. ————— Italy Backs Aviation By Pushing Progress Ttaly is going to all limits in an ef- fort to strengthen its air forces and to keep the public aware of the im- portance which aviation holds in the country's future. Two leaders in these ! endeavors are Il Duce himself, whose enthusiasm has not been dampened by his past crashes, and his old friend and supporter, Gen. Italo Balbo, now secretary of state for aviation. Several days ago Mussolini thrilled the public by taking a 1,200-mile trip from Rome to Rimini, by way of Mes- sina, doing the entire distance in 10 hours and 50 minutes. On the same day several dozen of the country's crack aces staged an air carnival at Ostia, near Rome, going through a series of mock air battles and races for the benefit of a giant crowd. Such national heroes as Gen. de Pinedo, Capt. Chiesi and Mario di Ber- nardi, who formerly held the world's hydroplane speed record, assisted. Night flights over Rome during the course of veich the sky is filled with the roar of motors and spectacular flights, such as that of 36 hydroplanes to Odessa, Rus- sia, recently, aid in keeping the people enthused. At the same time improvements are being made in the commercial field. Gen. Balbo recently announced the completion of an agreement between the government and the Italian Air Service company for the opening of a new line between Trieste and Marseille, with stops at Venice, Milan and Genoa. ‘The government has promised a subsidy of $2,000.000 for this line, to be made over a 10-year period. {Essen Women Healers Battle With Officials ‘The wild women of Essen are the terror of their to they assert, pi possessed by the spirit of a dead prophet, something like Herr Weissen- berg, Berlin soothsayer, whose proph- ecies, however, never come true. ‘These wild women, calling themselves the “Nameless Community,” go about the town with arms linked, singing pious songs, general nuisance. been forbidden by the police to annoy the public of Essen as they are deing, they stormed the entrance of a hospital, shrieking their religious songs and “healing” patients. They got a few weeks in prison for resisting the police, but scarcely out again they started acting according to the inspiration of their dead prophet. When they again began to sing before a hospital a man rushed from the crowd and started beating one of the singers most unmercifully with an umbrella. It was the irate husband of one of the “healers,” who not having seen his wife for some time, and furious at her neglect of home and children, administered what he emmdmg.x O n prac- tically nothing has been done—the tide of noise By Thomas 4 tent at present. may be silent airplan and riveters. statutes rooms. It apparently is a necessary evil of the mechanical age, although eventually there Meanwhile, efforts are being directed toward the production of noiseproof buildings where folks may rest and sleep without disturbance from the constant disharmony of sounds—barriers of safety against the rising, roaring tide. tention is being devoted to this end at the Bureau of Standards, where a sound laboratory with underground chambers has been erected. Although no means have been found for shutting out noises altogether, considerable progress has been made in designs for apartment houses and private homes which will insure far more quiet than is known at present. There are two ways of accomplishing this, says V. L. Chrisler, in charge of the sound laboratory. One is to build walls so thick that noise cannot et through them. Eighteen-inch brick walls, g or example, would insure practically sound-proof These would be very expensive and, for such a structure as an apartment house or office building, impossible because of the weight factor. ‘The second way is to build each room with an inner shell so that a blanket of air is left between R. Henry. to _have street cars, automobiles a long way ahead. Much at- be expected in this way. living quarters in the past. tested through the various pitches and intensi- ties, from 150 cycles, which is lower than a man's voice in ordinary conversation, through 1,000 | cycles, the highest reached by a woman's voice, to 3.000 cycles, which represents approximately ! the highest note on & piano, the masonry and the actual lining i HEN & recent flare up about ofiineiromal Ve prohibition enforcement was caused by a thoughtless mis- good results arc promised by this method. Any kind of ma- sonry, says Mr. Chrisler, conducts sound better than air itself. The end sought, therefore, is an finner shell which is practical- ly unattuchzd to the masonry walls. ‘There must al- ways be some at- tachment. but sev- eral devices have been worked out and tested at the bureau _laboratory where this is re- duced to a mini- mum. Ry this means it has been found pessible to 50 reduce the sound conducting capacity of the room walls that a loud speaker, turned on as loud as it is possible to get it, can barely be heard in the next room. In this particular experi- ment persons - in the “sound-proof” room were barely aware that some noise-making ap- paratus was in ac- tion in the next room. They could not distinguish the type of sound. The interior shell device, so long as the air blanket is thick enough and the attachment to the masonry reduced to & minimum, ap- pears to work very well and most of the improvements in the line of si-! lent dwellings may Little attention seems eliminating noise from Such devices are been devoted Measurement of Noise. One of the great difficulties has been to meas- | ure “noise,” always bearing in mind that what ! may be a disagreeable mixture of sounds to one person may be inoccuous, or even agreeable, to somebody else. This factor of individual differ- ence cannot be discounted or altogether elimi- nated. At the Bureau of Standards laboratory a device has been constructed to measure sound in terms of a new physical unit—the decibel— named in honor of Alexander Graham Bell, in- ventor of the telephone. The decibel is based on the sensation unit. | the smallest chahge in the intensity of sound | which the average human ear can detect. BHE (Continued on Sixth Page.) An Italian Diplomat in Exile Count Carlo Sforza Has Not Allowed, Even Fascism, to Bias Views. BY JAMES T. SHOTWELL, Professor of History at Columbia Uni- ger‘:{ty and Authority on International olicy. NE day not so very long after the conclusion of the treaties of peace I found myself in the Austrian foreign office—in the very room where Berchtold and | Metternich had directed the policies of the Hapsburg Empire—talking to one of the chief officials of the new foreign | office of the Austrian Republic. He had been trained in the old regime and had not only witnessed, but had participated Jargely in the dimplomatic history of the period of the overthrow of the | Austro-Hungarian. state. Upon my remarking that, seen from this central point, the catastrophe must have seemed almost unendurable, he repiied that, on the contrary, he had found the event, in spite of all its tra- gedy, so absorbingly interesting that he had had little time for any stirring of the emotions. Intellectual curiosity completely dominated any emotxlo:\;l‘ of the | it was | reaction. This was not a pose blase and over-sophisticated; merely an unusual combination of in- tellectual curiosity and sincerity. My friend was determined not to allow even the fall of an empire to blind him to the realities of the new regime. Speech Free of Bitterness. ‘This incident came back to my mind when I heard Count Carlo Sforza speak on the fate of liberalism and parliamentary government in Europe. It was at the Council of Foreign Rela- tions in New York City about two years ago. The audience knew that the speaker had been the outstanding op- ponent of Mussolini, that he had bess offered high office in the service of the Fascist government, but had chosen in- stead the path that led to practical, if not formal exile. One might have ex- pected denunciation and bitterness of -r‘mc. such as other opponents of Fas- cism had voiced in protests here. But there was nothing of this in Count Sforza's speech. It was a mar- vel of self-restrained and intellectual ise, In a whole evening’s discussion never once mentioned Italian Fas- cism or even Italian politics; and yet no one present could the point of his philosophical defense -of political liber- alism nor his illustrations drawn from the history of other countries. The policies of Bismarck instead of those of Mussolini furnished him with his- torical examples, the application to Fascism was evident, although it was never made. Count Sforza’s judgment upon the Pascist government of Italy is stated with the confidence that comes x# e it is rather the expression of an aris- tocratic disdain of any form of dema- Viewpoint Not Conservative. ! | states of COUNT CARLO SFORZA—A PHILOSOPHER OF WORLD POL]TICS. capacities of democracy. It takes the buffetings of trying experience to weld these different attitudes into a consist- ent political philosophy, and from this standpoint adverse fortune has been kind to the former foreign minister of Italy, for few outstanding personalities of foday have seen as much as he of the ebb and flow of political fortunes. The family of Count Sforza descends from one of the natural sons of Fran- cesco Sforza, the celebrated *‘condot- tiero” of the early Renaissance who conquered, arms in hand, the duchy of Milan and made of it one of the first . To his son, Sforza Secondo, the duke gave the title of Count de Borgonuovo. The Sforzas of uovo became in the sixteenth century feudataires of Farnese, the ukes of Parma and Piacenza. They saldiers of fortune f Europe, and it is in Flanders sepulchral of the Sforzas of Borgo- nuovo. The seat of the family was finally established in the castle of Mon- tignoso, in Lunigiana, the little and pic- turesque territory that lies between ria, Emilia and Tuscany, and re- flects its mountains of marble in the deep blue of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Led Mountaineers Against French. In this mountain nest 130 years ago an ancestor of Count Carlo led his mountaineers against the French in- vaders of Napoleon's day. His descend- ants throughout the nineteenth century were liberals, almost “‘carbonari.” Count Carlo's grandfather was denounced for high treason by the Duke of Modena and had to flee and lose his estate. His son, Giovanni, the father of Count Carlo, did not follow the career of poli- tics, but gave himself up to the study of the history of his native terri of Lunigiana_and of the life of Pope Nicholas V and spent {flll in re- searches on the history of the Risorgi- mento. If Count Sforza's inheritance was not large in material things, his father at least left him the taste for scholarship and an appreciation of the value of an unflinching character. When Glovanni Sforza was dying he re- | fused to allow his son to know of his | condition because it was a critical mo- | ment in European politics and he did not want the son, then ambassador to France, to leave his post of duty. Count Sforza, although he is known |today as the outstanding defender of | the Italian Parliament, was not himself {a parliamentarian. For over 30 years | he had followed the career of diplom- beginning in the Egypt of the old days, when France was still asserting its claims in Cairo. He was in Paris at the time of the second Dreyfus trial and it was this event which first open | his eyes to the sinister nature of na- tionalism and militarism. After some years came the conference of Algeciras in 1906, to which he was sent by Signor Visconti-Venosta, the nestor of Italian diplomacy, as chief of the Italian secretariat. After Algeciras he went to Constantinople as counselor of the embassy and saw_there the Young Turk revolution. In 1911 he was sent as minister plenipotentiary to Peking, and during the five years which followed he studied with genuine and almost passionate interest the problems of the Far East. It was in these years that he Jaid the basis for that almost uncanny penetration of Chinese prob- lems which is evident in his recent work, “The Chinese Enigma.” Served During World War. During the World War in 1916 Count Sforza was sent first to Belgrade and then to Corfu as the Italian minister to the Serbian government, and during the next two years, in daily contact with the hardships of the exiled Serbs, he learned to recognize their capacities, and at a time when the mere word “Fijume” was almost like a war cry in Italy he stood out against accepting either the imperialism of Sonnino or exploiting the follies of D’Annunzio. During his long career as a diplomat Count Sforza never ceased to study the art of diplomacy. It was, of course, necessary in the old regime to keep any such serious purpose well hidden or dis- guised; an attache had first to estab- lish a reputation as a social success and hold his own in the society of the capital to which he was accredited. But courtly etiquette and silk-hatted diplomacy never blinded Sforza even in his younger days of the underlying fandamentals. T recall discussing with him an inter- American conference in which the Secretary of State had apparently won a great personal triumph demolish- ing in public session the arguments of a Central American delegate. The headlines in the American papers read: “A great American diplomatic tri- umph.” Count Sforza’s quiet comment on_this was that one should recall the aphorism of Metternich; that in truly great diplomacy there are no great triumphs. If one humiliates the op- ponent by brow beating him or out- arguing him in the negotiations, there (Continued on Sixth Page.) { i | | | | 'SPECTACULAR IS AVOIDED IN DRY LAW ENFORCEMENT Policy of Hoover Administration Is to . Administer Prohibition Statute With Steady Energy. DY MARK SULLIVAN. statement by Senator Howell of Nebraska, and when Pres- | ident Hoover made a spirited reply, it occurred to some one to reflect upon just what has happened with respect to enforcement during the nearly seven months of the Hoover administration. What has happened about prohibition enforcement under Attorney General Mitchell is what would necessarily hap- pen under a very able and very dili- gent lawyer who is by temperament un- spectacular snd at the same time ex- ceptionally conscientious. To describe the evolution of enforcement under Mr. Hoover's Attorney General would take many words. To summarize it briefly is difficult, because the subject lies I in the world of figures than in tl spirit in which things are done. Also, the very essence of the new regime is avoidance of the spectacular. Anu obvi- ous trait of President Hoover is a Quake: distaste for pretentiousness. Attorney General Mitchell does not happen to be a Quaker, but he shares this quality with his chief. If one is to summarize at all, one might infer from the atmosphere of the Department of Justice that under tie new regime prohibition enforcement i.as less occasion to become the subject of flaring newspaper headlines. It has less occasion to get into the newspapers through defects of enforce- | ment, because the law is enforced with | steady energy. It has less occasion to get into the newspapers through over- spectacular methods of enforcement, because such methods are not prac- ticed. Burden Is Divided. Prohibition, enforcement. _speaking broadly, lies partly with prohibition en- forcement officials throughout the coun- district attorneys attached to the various { district courts in various parts of the country. Any change in the spirit of enforcement, going out from Washing- ton. would express itself in two wayo— in the kind of men appointed to be the local officials to feel the steady pres- sure of a high morale at Washington. A district attorney, if he is that sort of person, and especially if he is in politics, could take one of two atti- tudes about prohibition enforcement. He could play up to either of two ele- ments in his city. If he wanted to play up to the wets he could throw up his hands and say that enforcement is impossible. As a part of this attitude, he could reduce enforcement to the status of a petty, | neglected and perfunctory part of work of his office. On the other hand, a different sort of district attorney, wishing to play up | to the drys or having an itch for pub-_ licity, could be very spectacular with raids and the like. He could, among other things, stretch other laws, do vi- olence to the whole machinery of law, imperil even such laws as the habeas corpus one, in order to achieve spec- tacular convictions of violators of the prohibition law. Both these types of Federal district attorney have existed—one kind in some citles, the other kind in other cities. Neither of the two types re- flects the spirit of the new regime Unthinkable to Ignore Law. In the new regime a first article is | that prohibition is in the Constitution and in the law. therefore it is unthink- able to ignore it or slight it. A second principle is that the en- forcement of prohibition shall be in due | proportion to the orderly enforcement of other laws—no less and no more. A third characteristic is that every other law and every other article of the Constitution is equally sacred with the prohibition one, no more and no less; that punishment of violators of the prohibition law shall be carried on as it ought to be carried on. without the violation of other laws, without the vio- lation of constitutional guaranties, without warping the machinery of all law. Another principle is that prohibition, being in the Constitution and in the law, is entitled to respect and dignity. A district attorney who says publicly, or even by his attitude, that there is no use trying enforce prohibition, would find himself fatally out of sym- pathy with the present order. A judge who permits his courtroom to become jocular about prohibition would hardly be chosen by the Hoover administration for promotion to the Federal bench. Neither would a judge who tries to make political capital by being spectac- ular in the enforcement of prohibition. The keynote of the whole thing is respect for all law, including the pro- hibition law, and regard for the dignity of the agents of the administration of all laws, including the prohibition law. It was on the latter point that Sen- ator Howell of Nebraska made his mis- step. Senator Howell would not delib- erately say that the men responsible for administering the laws in Wash- ington lack the will to6 enforce. would not say it because it is not true. But Senator Howell fell into an atti- tude of mind that is common among men in public life, and also among newspapers, not to omit clergymen. Senator Howell was making a speech about something quite different, about the tariff bill and an item of the bill that deals with the admission of nar- cotics. Off-hand and irrelevantly, he said, in effect, that the prohibition law is not being enforced in Washington, and that the will to enforce is lacking. He was called to account by President Hoover, and he retreated from what he had said. The public has little opportunity to know about prohibition. Public men, even ordinarily careful ones like Sen- | ator Howell, fall into grotesque mis- statements. Newspapers do the same thing. With a certain class of news- pepers it is not exactly misstatement merely. Yet as respects all newspapers there is a prevailing attitude which accepts and prints the most grotesque stories about prohibition, MANY ¢ eees e utterly baseless. Misstatement by Papers. Nearly three months ago the news- papers blazed” with headlines saying that Mr. Lowman and Mr. Doran, the two_heads of prohibition enforcement at Washington, were about to be “fired” by Mr. Hoover. There was absol.: no truth in the story. Promptly the White House denied it—although the White House ought not to be called upon to deny grotesque misstatements, ?;c-uu newspapers ought not to print em. whose department these two officials are, denied the story. ‘The newspapers generally printed the denials. Some newspapers gave due credit to the denials. A large number, however, while printing the denials, continued to say by their actions and in some cases in so many words that the denials were n?; m ?nne x;'(g th? ‘wet newspapers sal “in spite of denials from the White House and from Mr. Mellon,” nevertheless, etc. The stories blazed for a week. He | Promptly Secretary Mellon, in | <aild, making use of current slang, “It | won’t be long now.” | In the course of the commotion such ‘m’igln as there was for the misstate- | ment_was revealed. Undersecretary of the Treasury Mills, being concerned by the reflection on esteemed public offi- |cials in his department, undertook to {find out how the stories could have started. He found out and gave the true story to the newspapers, not all |of which printed it. | Source of Story. | 1t appeared that Mr. Lowman, the head of prohibition enforcement, was about to deimand the resignation of a negligent enforcement official in a Mid- | dle Western city. Having this purpose, Mr. Lowman procured the customary | blank form of dismissal and took it to the White House to get the Presi- dent’s signature. While Mr. Lowman was in the executive offices carrying | the blank form of dismissal in his | hand, he was observed by a reporter | who was familiar with the blank form. | The reporter jumped to the conclusion | that Mr. Lowman himself had received from the President a notice of dis- missal. With only such facts—which were no | facts at all—this particular story about | prohibition enforcement blazed from | ocean to ocean. | One could parallel this story over |and over. | It goes without saying that such stories are unsettling to prohibition ! morale. Equally it goes without saying that when the newspapers have printed such a story they fall, by a familiar psychological process to which all of us are subject. into a disposition of hoping to make the story true. In short, the continued tenure of these two highest prohibition enforcement officials was made difficult by the mere fact of the widespread printing of a | wholly untrue story that they had al- {try. but ultimately with the Federal ready been dismissed. | There was a similar case a little over two months ago. About the middle of July at a public conference Gov. Roose- velt of New York State read to several other governors a letter from George W. Wickersham. Mr. Wickersham's !local district attorneys and in causing |letter suggested that the governors at | their conference might profitably dis- | cuss relations between the State and | Federal governments with respect to prohibition enforcement. Mr. Wicker- sham was and remains the head of President Hoover's Commission on Law Enforcement. Because of this associa- tion the newspapers picked up his let- ter, made it the basis of inferences and then piled further inferences upon the first one. “Wickersham Seen Acting for Hoover” was a characteristic headline |of a type that blazed from coast to |coast. It was sald and reiterated and insisted, first, that Mr. Hoover intended to make a change in the method of prohibition enforcement: second, that he had instructed Mr. Wickersham to | write this letter so that the subject | matter might come before the gov- | ernors. Wickersham's Views Personal. After about a week of this Mr. David ! Lawrence printed what many of us in | Washington knew to be the true story. Gov. Roosevelt, being about to preside at a conference of governors, asked Mr. | Wickersham for ideas to place before the governors—ideas about anything. | Mr. Wickersham, in a friendly spirit. scrawled a long hand letter in which he mentioned some ideas. Mr. Wicker- sham supposed the letter was personal: he did not suppose that Gov. Roosevelt would read the letter: he supposed that Gov. Roosevelt merely wanted the ideas as suggestions which he, Gov. Roose- velt, could elaborate upon in his own | speech. p}: is not too much to say that this sort of aberration from fact—more ac- | curately, this type of story having no foundation in fact—is characteristic of the news that is printed about prohibi- tion. Not all the aberration is on the side of the wets. Similar absurdities appear from time to time in stories put out from over-zealous dry sources: Sen- sational stories of a sort that do dam- age to prohibition and to enforcement | and to the dignity of the Government | appear most often, no doubt, in wet newspapers. But no newspaper, under the difficult circumstances under which they labor, can always guard itself against printing such siories. The two typical stories recited al must have been printed in literally every newspaper in the country. Prob- ably every reader of this article will recall the stories. Probably a good many readers must have reflected al- readw as respects the frst story about Mr. Lowman and Mr. Doran. that some | three months have gone by and that | these two men are still in office. Since { the original stories said that the two | men had been “fired,” or that their | resignations were in Mr. Hoover's hands, any newspaper reader must have in- ferred from the mere lapse of time that | the stories could not have been true. | One admits the difficulty under which | newspapers distant from Washington {labor. Once such a story blazes out, hardly any daily newspaper can have time and opportunity to make its own inquiry before the tyrannical deadline of publication hour. Nevertheless, | speaking broadly and admitting many qualifications. there is room for greater zest for accuracy on the part of news- papers. Newspaper work aspires to be a profession, such as law or medicine. If any lawyer had made a mistake com- parable to that of the newspaper men who drew an untrue inference from seeing a blank in Mr. Lowman's hands, that mistake, in the world of law, might have meant hundreds of thousands of dollars. If an analogous mistake had been made by a physician, it might have meant death. ‘The superior of Mr. Lowman and Mr. Doran is Secretary Mellon. He alone can “fire” them. One wonders just what the austere banking mind of Mr. Mellon thinks about the standards of accuracy in news to the standards 3;’.2'”:"1? m‘ SO e ok Koad Phones to Aid German Travelers Many . motorists on German roads complain about lack of emergency help. It is true that service on the roads in Germany is not yet very developed, but lately great progress has been made. Automobile firms in growing numbers have instituted a service of cars which cruise along in order to help stranded motorists, and last year the I auto company instituted a mo ’ service, A new company has now been formed ‘The last in- | these boot! lhllmafltolthlmwtllplfltvm Leipzig. ¥ 3