Evening Star Newspaper, April 20, 1930, Page 23

Special Articles ILLINOIS BATTLE TAKES NATIONAL SPOT LIGHT 'Picturesque Lewis and Widow of Old Foe Have Many Whims of Politics to Encounter in Senate Campaign. BY MARK SULLIVAN. CCORDING to present appear- ances, we are going to see straight fight between dry and wet in the third most will be before the Illinois voters in November, Ruth McCormick as & James Hamilton Lewis running as a wet. I have used the word “superficially’ with intention. It is most shor hted to assume that every adult in o ‘who is dry will vote for Mrs. McCor- mick, and every wet for Lewis. That s not what will happen. Politics is not that simple. It might be desirable to have it happen. It might be clarifying to know e: how the electorate of Ilinois stands on prohibition. But we will not know. The voting will not be done solely along those lines. There will be many q cations to the sim- ple ugaum. “dry versus wet.” The qual tions may make the picture in November so complex that it will be difficult to interpret the outcome as having any convincing bearing on pro- ‘Aibition. One most potent qualification is that Mrs. Mc€ormick is a Republican while Mr. Lewis is a Democrat. Consequent- mumdzym{uun.m- g as lus Repul - P fewis runding as wet plus upon that picture, does any e that every Republican who dissatisfied with prohibition will de- in order to vote for a wet? the ‘was carried by the Re; egainst the Democrat to 534,395, Strict Partyism Favors G. O. P. All of which :1""“"» that as a straight question Republican versus Democrat, no Democrat can reasonably to himself elected to the Sen- publican Harding Cox by 1,420,480 any will work for and vote for is jon in their office —in which economic purpose they will allow victions about prohibition to in- is another qualification, a b Everybody is away with anything so easy. e in politics a science of argumenta- tion, the best exponent of it who ever lived in America was a fellow- eitizen of Mrs. McCormick’s Illinols, mamed Abraham Lincoln. Llncoh; w:n rgely by means of his forcing the latter to take ane concrete position on slavery. Lin- coln maneuvered Douglass into reveal- ing just what the latter would do abou if he had the power and the ility. Lincoin was too shrewd able and skilled in argumentation lass “‘get away wit merely said tha Mr. | year or two later it was y | factors was a vogue, , in & po- 1 ye who is, vote for the election | In any event and all events, the Tlli- mois race between Ruth McCormick and . “Ham" Lewis promises now to be the readily arouse as much interest nation- ally as a presidential election. This can happen because of the issue. It can happen likewise because of the natural interest attending the two contenders. Of Mrs. McCormick, much has been written lately. Of her will be written shortly, for he is es- sentially a picturesque person with an arresting personality. To many older persons, the most ailuring aspect of the Illinois fight is the remergence into place in American public life of a char- acter extraordinarily vivid, engaging and colorful. Especially colorful, for it is the color of “Ham” Lewis’ whiskers and raiment that leaped m&: tip of every newspaper paragrapher’s n when, after being 12 years out of rlu Senate and out of the public eye, he leaped with characteristic grace into the biggest headlines on the first page. ‘Twelve years is a long time, as the pace of American interest in its public men now goes. There must be near 10,000,000 voters in America—all those below, say, the age of 30, who never heard of Lewis and must have been puzzied by the outburst of newspaper paragraphers which dealt with the chromatic aspect of him, using words like “o1 e” and “iridescent” about the color of his whiskers and the beauty of his raiment. But all the older voters must have EDITORIAL SECTION he Sunday Star. WASHINGTON, D. C, e AL Lastertide cultivated Greek might have managed do. | oy Athenian assembly. He put his heart gave turn to Reed of Mal voters under 40 years of age can toda identify those characters who were r.h: contemporaries of Lewis in his early ap- pearance in public life? Choices of His Youth. It was an era of individualism, when men were more willing to be “differ- ent,” were less in bondage to the crowd !;umstm- of manners, dress and fa- forestation—the day when an im- portant Army officer was called “Hell- gfln‘ .Y:k:' Smith,” B. mvernnor of Waite, when a Senator from ladl::l known every into it, made an event of it. The dis- tinction of his diction, the formality of his manner, had a perceptible effect on the Senate, made it, for the duration ?rmuwu' presiding, a more elevated ly. He lost out in 1918 to Medill McCor- | mick. Now he is trying to get back, with McCormick’s widow as his opponent, It's & picturesque episode. This Illi- nois contest will bring vivacity to the political year. Pseudo Carabinieri Rob Italian Jeweler A daring daylight robbery in the heart of Rome, which for originality and nonchalance may stand on a level with any of the Chicago headliners, has | aroused great astonishment in this land of law and order. At 10 o'clock in the morning of a sunny Roman day two men dressed as a caplain and corporal of the “cara- binieri” marched into a jeweler’s shop, closed the door, and while one of them ced & search warrant the other vlolet E:amlmnup all the jewelry in the place ig g B é B H i d lay his hands on, including several valuable stones which the ex- King of Afghanistan, Amanullah, had lllxflnngd in Rome. the two bogus policemen, , together with their bag of spoils, to the palace of justice for questioning by & King's prosecutor. At the palace the party was told that all the prose- cuting attorneys were busy, and the two “carabinieri” were advised to deliver their prey at Regina Coeli, Rome's cele- rison. Passersby _naturally lice had got hold of a thief, especially when the taxi driver ‘was told to head for the pi . ‘The farce was so perfect that the bogus captain and corporal actually handed over the irate jeweler and a warrant of arrest to the prison officials and then drove away with the booty. It took Menichini all night to explain his situation, and he was only believed when the warrant was found to be a fake. ‘The jeweler was released, and a search was started, resulting in the arrest of the self-styled captain and another suspect in whose apartment de- h 8 | tectives found a jar of toothpaste con- preservative, not to say regenerative, care. or even that largess of care which would gild the lily. To talk about this is not too personal. James Hamilton Lewis has as shrewd an insight into other people’s thoughts as any other human being now upon the surface of g&m'uu%hmyfi sure that he wa) he chuckied over & bz Man of Dozen Careers. Lewis has had a dozen careers and & hundred interests. All of them he did with facile success, but never for ! enough to give him the permanent ni in the world that his, talent de- served. He was always able o take the trick, but he never cared enough to go on and win the game. His frequent changing of his interests did injustice to the decidedly considerable qualities of his mind, for he was and is an able man. He was a criminal lawyer; he became a_ Representative from the State of Washington, denouncing West Pointers, in true Populist style, as “gilded mili- tary satraps, tasseled society sapheads.” ‘Then he was a business man, and you t | heard of him as president of a Selt'g: manufacturing company. Spanish War he was a mldur.ml.mmt the! ornate and refulgent colonel of the ‘Washington State National Guard. In 1900 it was politics again, and he was “mentioned for the Vice Presidency.” A corporation law, and you met him on his way to Paris as counsel for the Transalaskan-Si- berian Railroad, which was golng to dig a tunnel under Bering Strait and run through trains from New York to Paris. When exposure of wealthy male- BE et e i o or the people, pursuing X - ers in Chicago. He tried authorship, and I think he wrote a novel or two. anonymously. He wrote books on inter- national law. He did it all with a fin- ished air, liked it all, but he always liked & new thing better. His interest never lasted long enough either for him or the thing to When he was in the Senate, from 1913 to 1919, he did a dozen th:?nwegl‘ Tmade an tmprompGs speech, well; When an improm well; he debated, he raised in a visible degree the vivacity and interest of the pro- ceedings To see him preside over the Senate was to witness a finished per- h spot of the political year. It may formance. He managed the Sgnate as a 4 taining six diamonds belonging to Meni- chinl. The jewelry stolen was valued at $132,000. Japanese Children Favor U. S. Customs Customs of ancient Japan clashing with those of modern America are per- plexing the elder Japanese in Hawaii, who see their children growing up largely apart from traditional family influence. This is a subject which is getting more and more discussion in Japanese civic, social and even business organizations, and particularly in the “vernacular” Japanese press of Hawaii. One Japanese editor frequently de- votes leading editorials to comment on the problem of this “second generation.” A particular instance of the perplexity is in the relationship between a young married couple and the elder “in-laws” with whom they live. In Japan young- sters are obedient and submissive to the father and mother or the father-in-law or mother-in-law, but in Hawaii the young folk, thinking and acting as Americans, wish to enjoy freedom of thought and action. One obvious result of the changing envlmnmenf is vg)e :endency‘ of &h‘z young people to break away from the family home and set up homes of their own as soon asepossible. And in recent years it is noticeable that the “first generation” immigrants are coming more and more to accept Hawall as ir permanent home and now wish their children to gain an economic foot- hold in island industry. e diguiot High Morale Is Noted In Italian Soldiers Although the period of obligatory mil- itary training recently hes been short- ened in Italy, there is no need of preoc- cupation for the Italian army. ‘The report on military estimates re- cently presented to the chamber in- cludes many a buoyant note relative to the “high morale” of troopers and the flattering effects of the ven by the Balilla organization for juveniles—already observable in new re- cruits. Grounds of reassurance, the report says are to be found in “the spirit of Fascist Italy and of the youth called Vs e wictorious gray-green.” - These wear us gray-green.” g:mmhry nrnnlng:m are furnishing regular army with “young men trained on Fascist lines,” who already are initiated into the elements of phy- sical and military exercises. BRANCH BANK SCHEME NOT A NEW ONE IN U. S. Relative Merits of Present Trends and Contentions Discussed—Present Problem to Congress. BY BENJAMIN HAGGOTT BECKHAR' Assistant Professor of Bauking st Columbia [3ition, & national asso § University. S abhorrent as the thought of bunf‘%bmnn' is to many Tloat n depatt m’f.“mg D cal a de) lure as o thnmm,tmlmhm y | Provi lost sight of that at the time of the establishment of the Union, branch banking was sponsored by the “fathers” of the country. The first bank of the United States, incorporated by an act approved by the “fathers,” had as many as eight branches, radiating from the head office in Philadelphia. Even those who later opposed the act on the ground that it was unconstit tional did not oppose the branch bank- ing provisions per se or claim that these were “un-American”— a statement fre- quently used by opponents of branch banking at the present time. Presum- ably the “fathers” would know what and what was not an “un-Ameri- can” concept. ‘The second bank of the United States, organized in 1816, with its head office also in Philadelphia, had at one time or another as many as 27 branches, located in such commercially important but remote centers as New Orleans and Portland, Me. In point of traveling time these were farther apart then than New York and Tokio are at the present time. Not only did these two banks estab- lished by Federal law have a Nation- wide network of branches, but many of the banks chartered by special State enactment, such as the Bank of State of Indiana and the Bank of Mis- souri, had branches within their re-|California, spective States. The tendency before the Civil War was quite definif in the direction of branch banking. National Bank Act Quoted. The national bank act, as passed originally in 1863, the so-called “Sher- man act,” provided that the business of the banks should be transacted at banking offices located at the places specified in the certificate of association. The plural was used, and it was the evi- dent intent of the framers of the act that national banks should be possessed of inches. with the new system the controller of the currency, Hugh McCulloch, who had been head of the Bank of the State of Indiana, a branch system, sug- gested & number of alterations, with the result that the act was completely rewritten and repassed. In the revised act singular of the word “office” was used. This was probably an inad- vertence, since no mention or advocacy of such a change is to be found in the debates in Congress on the measure or in the recommendations set forth by Mr. McCulloch. The tendency toward branch banking which was s0 evident before the Civil War was thereby checked. Owing to the heavy tax imposed on their note issue privileges the State branch bank- ing systems found it more profitable to surrender their State charters and the various branches entered the national banking system as unit banks. The arresting of branch banking and the consequent establishment of the inde- pendent unit type of banking system impeded the free flow of funds from section to section and occasioned the necessity for the Federal Reserve Banks, which are themselves allowed to estab- lish branches and have as many as 25 through the United States. Law Is Liberalized. On many occasions, by amendments to the act and by administrative rul- ings, the national bank act has been liberalized in the national banks greater freedom in the matter of establishing branches. The first of the amendments was adopted in 1865 and the latest were incorporated in the McFadden act in 1927. As the law stands now a State bank entering the national banking system, or a State bank merging with & national bank, may retain such bl’lnc),l!l as were in lawful operation at the time of the passage of the McFadden act. In ad- tion, iding parti State where the national bank is located per- mits State todo s0, may establish branches within the limits of the city n ':ela:h mflcm office is located, ity possesses a pop- ulation of 100,000 or more and provided that the permission of the controller of the currency has been secured. No branches, however, may be established beyond the coroprate limits of the city, even though the State law might grant State banks such permission. Such are the provisions relative to the establishment of domestic branches by national banks. In the foreign field & national bank, with a capital and surplus of $1,000,000 or more, may establish branches wherever the for- eign law permits and with the assent of the Federal Reserve Board. However restricted they may be at home, na- tional banks are given the entire foreign fleld in which to ply their trade, un- restricted so far as the laws of the United States are concerned. That the McFadden act did not settle the prob- lem of branch banking is evidenced by the hearings now in progress before the House of Representatives committee on banking and currency and by the wide- spread discussion in the public press. State-Wide Policy Adopted. In nine States and the District of Columbia State-wide branch banking is permitted, but only in California have extensive or significant State-wide m, the | branch systems developed. On the 30th of June, 1929, there were 54 banks in , with 361 branches, of which 531 were located outside of the city in which the head office was located. In 11 other States branch banking is per- mitted within restricted areas, within the home city of the parent bank or within contiguous territory. Included among this group is the State of New York, with 106 of its banks possessing 682 branches. Twenty States and the District of Columbia, then, comprise the branch banking area, while in the re- maining 28 States branch banking is not permitted either explicitly by law or by court decisions or by administrative ‘After a year's experiment | rulings. Diverse as are M&I and State laws, | the manifold as are limitations on branch banking, the fact remains that branch banking does exist in the United States and that public interest is more generally aroused on this subject than ever before. On June 30, 1929, there were 25,115 banks in the ; these 818 operated a branches. At least half of the ing resources of the country were in- cluded in the branch systems. There is a very definite geographic concentra- tion of the branch systems. More than half of the branch offices are located in three States—California, New York and Michigan. With the exception of California, State-wide branch banking has made little headway, and about two-thirds of the branches in operation in the United States were located in the home city of the parent bank. Branch Banks and Chain Banking. ‘The legal prohibitions and restric- respecting the establishment of branches have been a most important the development of terized types of chains. There are those owned directly by banks or indirectly by affli- ated sccurity corporations; there art controlled by individuals, )y groups of individuals, by holding - panies and, in a f invest- stocks. A very exhaustive study of the Federal Reserve Board revealed that on 330 “cains, operating & tota) of 1561 ol 3 a 1, units. Tmmmrllh particularly in those States in which branch is hibited or is restricted to a lim- 1 area, which apparently is proof of the economic l:mrlomy of branch banking, which take the form of SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 20, 1930. Of | larger citles, chain banking when not permitted directl; ctly. Only eight of the chains listed by the Reserve Board, with a total of 49 units, existed in States allowing State- wide branch . The most ex- tensive developments were reported for agricultural States, such as Minnesota, North ota, Iowa, Kansas and Ne- braska. Assuming that a chain of banks was properly administered, from the point of view of the community, many of the desirable results of branch banking could be achieved. Much could be accomplished by way of lower- ing banking costs, transferring funds to communities in need of them, diversify- ing the risk, strengthening local units and adopting sound investment policies. In fact, in many sections depositors would rather patronize a unit of a strong chain than an independent in- stitution. Friction in Distribution Noted. There are limitations to the ability of a chain to prove a good substitute for a branch system. There is necessarily some friction in the transference of funds between the different units and a very definite legal limitation on the amount, which is not present in a branch system. From a public point of view very real dangers exist in the sur- reptitious character of the organization and in the difficulty of ‘:lxlunrclu & uate supervision, especially over ghnlnl that include both national and State banks and that extend beyond State. boundaries. ‘The corrective to this evil lies not in more prohibitory imeflllltbn. but in the liberalization of branch banking provisions of the law, so that the economic forces bring- ing about the establishment of such gndn systems may operate in a safe If economic forces are so strongly working in this one direction it must be because of the inherent economic superfority of a branch system over & unit independent type of system. The contributions of the one type, as compared with the other, to the economic development of a country are impossible to measure quantitatively. They may be set forth by contrasting the nation-wide branch bgnking system of Canada with the unit i.n'g:rndefl! type of the United States. com- parison is a valid one by reason of the similarity in the economic life, re- sources and people of the two countries. There are many tests of the superi- ority or soundness of a banking system. ‘The first that may be applied is that of safety. In this the American bank- ing system falls lamentably short. From 1921 through 1929 there have been 5,600 bank failures in the United States, with total deposit liabilities of 1.7 bil- lions of dollars, involving about 7,300,- 000 depositors. It is the itu! Federal Reserve districts that have been most affected by this epidemic. In some of the farming States half of the banks failed; in certain counties not & single bank survived. Record Without Parallel. This is a record of which no other country could—or would—boast. There seems to be no cessation in the tragedy. In 1929 639 banks failed, with deposits of $256,000,000, a record which sur- passes that of the panic of 1907, when the Federal Reserve act which was to give staying power to the banking sys- tem and provide the control necessary was as yet unborn in the minds of the|ain legislators. The explanation of this failure record is largely economic and is to be found in the agricultural de- pression, the lack of diversification in portfolios of the small banks and in the revolution occurring in methods of transportation and communication in the rural sections, Local communities are closer to the larger centers and their business is becom! more and more ancillary to the b making it increasingly difficult for the country bank to secure a diversified portfolio. The failed banks have been the smaller institutions—71 per cent pos- sessed a capital of less than $50,000, and 92 per cent of the failures have taken place in towns with less than 10,000 population. In those States particularly affected by bank failures the average resources of the failed bank amounted to $342,000 and of the others to $675,000. In other words, the small bank is about twice as likely to fail as the institution of average size. Not a single bank with a capital of more than $2,000,000 has failed through this period. Banking Costs Become Prohibitive. While there are many well managed small d it takes a superior type of banker to manage such an institution—the majority are operated at costs which soon become prohibitive. If this does not result in receivership mainy e | the lack of opportunities for diversifica- tion may. To about some diversifi- their of “storm and stress” have been obliged to send a larger of their assets mt"w New York money mll‘ult’ money market, to an extent unknown in those countries with a branch type of banking system. When the bank failure .ecord is com- PARITY DEMAND OF U. S. SHAPED PARLEY RESULT Three-Power Naval Pact With Five- Power Trimmings Believed to Mean Senate Row. BY FRANK H. SIMONDS. PFTER four months of confusion and contradiction hardly par- alleled even in the bewlldering post-war array of international | conferences, the world is at last presented with something like the com- pleted product of the Naval Conference. The best way of estimating the real achievement of the London Conference is to weight the results against the ex- pectations, which,” particularly on this side of the Atlantic, had their origin in official quarters. What were the American people in- vited by their Government to expect from London. Briefly this: A five- power treaty which should bind the great naval powers, Britain, France, Japan, Italy and the United States, to covering the next few years, of naval construction which Reduction, limitation and parity as be- tween the United States and Great Britain along with the preservation of the Washington ratios as between Brit- | ain, the United States and Japan. Told of Peril to Peace. All people, beginning with the Ameri- can, were told that the size of existing armament and the dimensions of pend- ing naval construction programs consti- tuted a peril to world peace, produced & condition of competitions as between various powers and amounted to an in- tolerable burden for the peoples of all the countries concerned. These peo- ples, therefore, were led to believe that navies would be cut down, further ax- n limited and the burdens of taxation greatly lightened. Now, what emerged from London? A with certain five- in in regarded as important for con- temporary combat—that is, enormous increases over the existing strength. As to limitation, since only three of the five powers present at the confer- ence joined in the full treaty, the other two are free to build as they choose, while the signatory powers are bound, as & result of the future decisions of the free powers, to increase still further their naval tonnage and combat Question of Parity. Pinally, as to parity and ratio as betwesn the United States on the one hand and Japan and Britain on the other, the judgment of our naval au- thorities is that we have not gained parity with Britain, while the language of the treaty shows we have consented to a relatively sweeping modification of the Washington ratio to the advantage of Japan. Taking these things up in detail, what of the question of reduction? At of current year the British naval authorities estimated the tonnage of the fleet as 1,005,- 000 tons. The American naval estimate was 1,125,000, and the difference is ex- pl by the inclusion in the latter figures of three 10,000-ton cruisers the buud:n.tot m;hmh was suspended by Preaident ver penaing conference decisions. In the post-conference fleet the United States will have 1,125,000 tons, or almost the same total. But during the next years it will, it it car- ries out the provisions of the treaty, spend hundreds of millions of dollars a construction and re'nphcement. Pro- will include the building 5, tons of new cruisers and 3 ns of fresh destroyers. This 'normous increase will be balanced by a small submarine reduction, a vast re- striction in destroyer tonnage, which is big because of World War circum- stances, and the scrapping without re- ;mphmenz of three obsolescent capital Resulls Are Analyzed. ‘Two things are to be said at once of this program. It is not & result of the London Conference, but of the American demand for parity with Great Britain. Just as clearly, it is not the realization of the jpectus of reduc- tion which was boldly sketched at the blmed_en‘ when the conference assem- In indorsing the results of the Lon- don Conference the President recently affirmed that vast financial savings and tor reductions had been achieved it one compared the results of London with the proposals made at the abor- of the | the (Contingjd o Fourth Page) tive conference of Geneva in 1927. But the savings were really due to the fact that President at that time ral | bade his delegates reject the Geneva proposals and later signed the bills passed by Congress of the American fleet, notably the 15-cruiser bill. British at Geneva had believeci the United States would not pay the price, and had put the tonnage incred- ibly high. But when Congress and the President accepted the challenge and undertook the 15-cruiser bill there was a swift change in British temper. This change was revealed at the Rapidan, when Macdonald, long in advance of the London Conference, proposed the figures which were later adopted there. As a result of the naval treaty, Brit- will 0st _completely, Japan measurably, stand still, while the United States undertakes a very far-reaching program of new construction and re- placement that will, without changing the gross tonnage of the American fleet, make it three or four times more effec- tive as a fighting machine than before. | But no T consequence was to be| looked for in any conference where parity was the main desideratum. All confusion in the American mind has arisen from the mistaken assertions in official quarters that parity and reduc- tion were both to be had at London. T of limitation—the sec- | ond objective—it is the fact that Brit-| ain, the United States and Japan have | set limits to_their tonnage for the next | six years. But this limitation is only conditional. Great Britain has in the| notorious “oscalator,” or “slippery.” clause reserved the right to continue| expansion if France continues to carry out her naval law of 1924¢. And Amer- ica and Japan are, of course, free to| follow suit. Manifestly then, just as there is to be no reduction of the various fleets below there is to be no parity America also will have to embark on further construction. Gains Seen for Japan. There remains the question of t; and ratio. As to J:p-n.m the Ml‘ case , in the clear. At Wi Japanese, return for our consent to abandon right to fortify further in the Philipp} the ves. They have at London run this ratio in all auxiliary craft up to 70 per cent, have attained rrltylnlubmaflnu. and for the life o the treaty wjil have 72 { obtained parity at London. insuring the ex-! per cent of our strength in the offensive arm, which is the big 8-inch cruiser. In respect of the British the case is less clear. But the chairmen of our naval committees in the Senate and House, Hale and Britten; Admiral Hilary Jones, who was our naval adviser at London, and all the members of the general board of the Navy without known exception agree that we have not On_the contrary, they assert that we have aban- doned the 8-inch gunned cruiser for the 6-inch craft for a very large fraction of our tonnage and thus in permitting the British to persuade us to use the ship their experts desire us to have, our dele- gates, while getting the semblance of parity in tonnage, have sacrificed the reality in actual fighting force. Senate Struggle Foreseen. In the face of this situation it is clear that the treaty will pass the Sen- ate, if at all, only after a fight which may well recall in length and fierceness the struggle over the treaty of Vers sailles. Against it are arrayed the best of the fighters, Borah and Hiram Johnson; the head of the Senate naval commit= tee, Hale; the Progressives, led by young La Follette, and many Democrats, in= cluding Pat Harrison. It will be ate tacked by the Progressives because it is not reduction, by the Navy champions because it is not parity and by many others because it is not limitation but an involvement of our naval policy in European complications. Since adjournment is at hand, it will be next Winter before the treaty can come up, and an election will have intervened. - If the election results in & Democratic victory, the fate of the treaty seems assured, but even if the Republicans hold the House, the ngx: in the Senate promises to be one of bitterest in recent years. The victory of Mrs. McCormick in Illinois has heartened all the opponents of the na- val treaty. In reading the proof of this article it occurs to me that I have paid too scant attention to the battleship detail. ‘The decision to scrap five ships for the British, three for ourselves and one for the Japanese, although all three will retain a ship for training purposes, does represent: a_reduction, but only in ob- solescent ships, which would in any event disappear long before 1936. As the battleship holiday, this repre- sents nh:n!\‘nnw t{‘t’ Lhe mwraqetd udn url":.( sums which woul expan the next six years for replacement, less the added costs of maintaining old ships. This has been variously esti- mated, and perhaps might amount to $50,000,000. But, as the New York Herald Tribune pointed out the other day, no claim of saving of the cost of replacement can be advanced until the conference of 1936 determines whether capital ships are to be abandoned or the existing ships replaced by a new type. What has been done is no more than deferring payment on the note. Real saving in costs of replacement would have been assured only if we had decided to abolish the type. Then the $350,000,000 mentioned in some reporta, instead of the problematical $60,000,000, would be the measure of economy. (Copyright, 1930.) Chain Letters “Idiotic,” Sigrid Undset Asserts Chain letters are a real pest in Nor- way. Most of the letters originate from England and America, and several people have complained recently in the These complaints have Undset, Nobel prize winner in literature, has voiced her opinion. Mrs, Undset says: “I should like to console the nervous victims by saying that I have broken at least 20 chains and experienced no misfortunes—if the award of the literary Nobel prize is not regarded as a misfortune—because I remember well that on the morning of the day when the prize was awarded to me I put a chain letter in my waste paper basket after having torn it to a mmdred h."&”.'?u 'h.?,fi" feel more ppy r g destroyed & chain letter, but I admit thlttgurt of the happiness is derived from the fact that I know I should have sworn the most bloody curses in old days, while I now have overcome this bad habit. “I feel a certain amount of sympathy with superstition if there is only a frac- tion of sound reason in it, but it an- noys me that people waste time and money on a thing so utterly idiotic as chain letters. Such letters may be dan- gerous for feeble minds and it would be a good idea to make all who send out chain letters pay a heavy fine to main- tain asylums for those whose brains E:n-ll;ne disturbed by receiving the let- 263,006 Passports Given to Italians For those who are wont to have their enthusiasm override veracity in dealing with matters pertaining to Facist Italy, it hu"tfen made k?:wn that 263,006 passports were granted the police to Italians during the yerry 1929, ¥ Of this number 130,633 were re- leased to those in possession of labor contracts, while the remainder includ- ed that fortunate strata of society which temporarily absents itself from Rome to swim at Taormina and gamble at Monte Carlo. Furthermore, another sub- stantial figure was reached in visas stamped on Italian passports belonging to officials of the ministry of foreign affairs, who are called to serve in for- eign lands. aurn"lue ofl'lcl:'|‘a :ntul rrftr"lh; from is- g _passpo: political suspects, several prominent people who formerly were forced to remain in Italy have been allowed to take brief trips to France during the last two months, it is learned. De Rivera’s “Fatal 13” Career Is Outlived ‘The late Primo de Rivera had to lose. Any Spanish gypsy could have told him so right off. His name was composed of 13 letters, the kingdom he set out to save was that of Alfonso Thirteenth and he began his task on a tawteenta day of September! Therefore Primo’s fall before his recent death came when he had been 76 months at the helm— 7 plus 6 are 13; or, it you will, sfter 6 years, 4 months and 13 da; Or, lus are 13. ear 1930—1 nlulelluSpluloml!.’ Primo appointed 13 ministers. Put it doomed. His iperstitious Andalu- sians, Primo’s countrymen who crnesed :};fi; yefls‘:::nmmy l“ the sight of a - or a lizard voke Saint Maria to protect them. e