Evening Star Newspaper, June 21, 1930, Page 6

THE EVENING STAR With Sundsy Morning Edition. WASHINGTON, D. C. BATURDAY.......June 21, 1830 THEODORE W. NOYES. .. .Editor The Evening Star Newspaper Company Business Office 11tn St. and Pennsy'vania Ave. New York Office: 110 42nd 8t. icago Office: Lake Michigan Buildine. ropean Offices, 14 Refent St.. London, land Rate by Carrier Within the City. ine Sta . .45c per month F .60¢ per month 3 .~...65¢ per month B OBERE .y o s 225 DO TOTIOONY llection made at the end of exch month. Orders may be sent in by mali or ielephone NAtional £000. Rate by Mail—Payable in Advance. Maryland and Virginia. ally and Sunday 31..$10.00: 1 £6.00: 1 mo.. 50¢ ally only . E Sunday only 34.00; 1 mo! 40¢ All Other States and Canada. Dafly and Sunday 1 yr. $12.00. 1 mo.. §1.00 ily only 1yr. 8800 1mol i8¢ unday only ..1yr. $5.00i 1mo.. 50c Member of the Associated Press. The Associated Press is exclusively entitled o the use for republication Of ail news dis- Jatches credited to it or not otherwise cred. ited in this pever ana aiso the local rews published herein. All rights of publication of special dispatches herein are 1lso ieserved. Mr. Mellon on the Tariff. Becretary Mellon has not ranked as an ardent advocate of the kind of tariff enacted by the Hawley-Smoot law. But, the tariff law having been enacted, the ‘Treasury chief now leaves no doubt of his opinion that it is a boon, because 1t substitutes certainty for uncertainty in the business world. The dean of the administration and of all Secre- taries of the Treasury, in a statement characterized by his accustomed cau- tion, today expresses the belief that the *gloomy prophecies” which emanate from enemies of the law are, like the “fears and criticisms” directed against 1t, “greatly exaggerated.” The unmistakable purpose of Mr. mo.. 88¢ | It is another see the group, giving three THE EVENING advanced for an exchange After some delay the boxing com- mission, which has jurisdiction, declared Schmeling the champion, by a vote of two to three, the veteran William Mul- doon voting “nay.” Thus for the first STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, SATURDAY, THIS AND THAT BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL. hearty cheers as the ship cut her moor- | time & virtually beaten man was given| This is the season when Rhus toxi- ings and plowed away through the pack. Epics of adventure have been written before, and they have kept more | match. He offered concessions in the | don't know, and we hope the crown on a foul. Immediately came Sharkey with a challenge for a return codendron of the natural order Ana-|has cardiaceae gets in its dirty work. Poison ivy is the culprit, in case you you do not— than one good man awake and reading | matter of the division of the purse, (®n acquaintance with the word is bad through the night. Here is an epic that transports the stald man-in-the-street to the position of a fur-bundled eye- pound. perseverance—all these be hanged! The Byrd expedition has brought back a real movie! well as the explorers, certainly knew their stuff! R The Record of Congress. The second session of the Seventy- first Congress is drawing to a close. July 1 is the date now advanced as the time of adjournment by the Republican lead- ers of both Senate and House. The pas- sage of the river and harbor bill yes- terday, coupled with an agreement which looks to an early vote on the World War veterans' pension bill, now pending in the Senate, has given hope to the jaded legislators that they will be able to wind up the business of the session and get away. ‘The members of the House and on2- third of the membership of the Senate must stand for re-election in November. Many of the sitting members have still to run the gantlet of the primary, with aspiring opponents ready to snatch the nominations for congressiona) office if they can. The contestants for renomi- nation and re-election must stand be- fore the voters on the record which they Mellon’s manifesto is to calm the nerves of that section of the American financial community which pivots on ‘Wall Street. There, ever since the new tarifi’s passage became assured a week 8go, fear, rather than faith, has ruled the street, with a disastrous bear mar- ket in securities as the consequence. The Secretary of the Treasury makes plain that any Stock Exchange alarms and anxieties based on possible effects of the Hawley-Smoot act are unjusti- fled. He rightly reminds us that dire forebodings of the sort have been con- comitants of all new tariff legislation and that, as regularly, they have turned out to be foundationless and foolish. Echoing the President's admission that the new law is not “perfect,” Sec~ retary Mellon aligns himself unreserve edly with Mr. Hoover's view that its flexible tariff is a “highly important” apparatus. The chancellor of the Amer- ican exchequer holds that the flexible provisions are entirely capable of eradi- cating those inequalities which are in- separable from tariff revisions, under- taken amid “the pull of sectional and political interests.” Reduced to its essence, Secretary Mellon's counsel to the country and to its business element is to buckle down to the realities they must now face in an act of Congress become the law of the land. He assures us, speaking with the full authority of his responsible position, that, far from retarding busi- ness recovery, the new tariff, because it is now an accomplished fact, can only promote a return of normal economic conditions. No American speaks with greater in- fluence or conviction than the veteran financler who is in the midst of his tenth successive year at the Treasury. ‘What Mellon says should be & steady~ ing factor in an unbalanced situation. . —.———— Hope for the Pay Bill. ‘The proposed compromise on the police and firemen’s pay bill is gratify- ing, not only to the men of these serv- ices who will become the direct benefi- claries of the legislation, but to the tax- payers who have supported the prin- ciple of higher pay and are willing to furnish the money for it. It is also satisfying to know that the spirit of compromise is not wholly dead and its revivification at this late date is a hope- ful sign, not only for the bill directly concerned, but for another and more important measure now languishing for want of it. ° ‘The only real obstacle that ever has threatened the smooth passage of the Pay measure was a “take-it-or-leave-it” attitude assumed by some of the men possessed of a strategic advantage in the parliamentary routes that had to be followed. The merits of the amend- ments themselves have never been put to the test of open discussion and de- bate, but one is willing to give their efficacy the benefit of the doubt. It is to be hoped that the promise shown now for the passage of this measure will be fulfilled. ———— ‘There may be an element of farm Tellef in the fact that very few bona fide agriculturists of late have had enough spare cash to enable them to trifle with any stock market tips. An Epic Motion Picture. Members and guests of the National Geographic Society privileged to hold priceless seats in the Washington Audi- torium last night may have left their homes looking forward to the cere- monies incident to the return of a con- quering band of heroes. But they left the Auditorium a band of rabid movie fans. They had the honor of witness- ing the preview of what is proLably the greatest movie ever made. And if there were any regrets, they were based on disappointment that the whole thirty miles of film that recorded the amazing exploits. of the Byrd party had been triramed and cut to mere tens of thou- have made in the special session called last April and in the regular session now about to close. The Seventy-first Congress up to date has had a stormy career, with conflicts between the two houses, and more especially with conflicts between the Senate and the Prestdent. In the main, the House has backed the President, and together they have overridden the Senate. This was true in the case of the farm relief bill, now a law, and it was true also in connection with the tariff bill, although many of the Sen- ate amendments to that measure were acceptable to the Chief Executive. Whether the Seventy-first Congress will reassemble next December in more chastened mood or more ready to defy the lead of the Hoover administration will depend to a great extent upon the outcome of the elections in November. Dire predictions have been made by the opponents of the administration. They claim that the voters will register their emphatic displeasure with the ad- ministration, with legislation it has sponsored and with conditions generally when they go to the polls next Novem- ber. The campaign, however, has still to be waged. The people have still to assay the legislation enacted by Congress. They have still to weigh the acts of the Hoover administration. If the Demo- cratic opponents and the Republican insurgents who have attacked the ad- ministration are to be credited, the judgment of the voters will be adverse. But that is largely campaign talk, speeches that may be used in the coming political contest and sent through the mails free of charge under the member’s frank. The voters will wish to know whether the new tariff bill has actually increased the cost of living or whether it has aided Ameri- can farmers and American industry. They will in all probability decide for themselves. Much will depend upon whether conditions improve economical- 1y during the next three months in this country. Another matter the people may help to determine when they go to the polls is whether the Congress or the Presi- dent is the more popular or unpopular. It would be more correct to limit the decision to the President and the Sén- ate, for the House has followed the lead of the administration consistently. The opposition to the President among members of his own party in the Sen- ate has been the cause of most of the trouble. Some of these Republican in- surgents were opponents of Mr. Hoover long before he was nominated and elected. Others turned upon him during the special session of Congress and have grown more bitter because of the split that arose between themselves and the White House. ‘The record is largely written. Upon that record the members of the Congress must stand or fall. The President has not yet completed half his term of of- fice and the judgment of his party and of the voters generally upon his admin- istration will not be registered for an- other two years. It is quite true, how- ever, that the course of the administra- tion will be aided or made more rough by the result of the congressional elec- | tions. A swing to the opposition, which would put the Democrats in power in cither house of Congress, would have the effect of making it impossible for the administration to obtain favorable action on many of its projects. ——————— In estimating wage scales and pen- | sions any good business dactor knows | that small economies do not necessarily i represent big economics. e Schmeling-Sharkey Again. On the night of the twelfth of this| month two men met in the ring in New York in a fistic bout that was supposed to settle the question of the heavy- weight world champlonship. Max Schmeling, & German, and the Lithuan- ian-American known in sports circles as sands of feet. One easily could have witnessed miles and miles more of it. But the film as shown is one of the most wonderful results of this wonder- ful expedition. It brings down to the plane of common, ordinary under- standing and realization some of the things that heretofore have had to be taken for granted. It is one thing to read the printed word description of whales that gamboled in the “back yard” of the community settlement at Little America, but it is an altogether different thing to see—and by clever, if artificial synchronization, to “hear”— the whales as they poked their glisten- ing and pointed “prows” through the eracks in the ice, attempt a mind's-eye visualization of tis little band of heroes, stranded at in part becauss Schmeling was on tip- would It is one thing to Jack Sharkey were to go fifteen rounds —or less—for the title and a generous share of the “gate evenly divided. Sharkey was evidently the better man, being slightly heavier snd with longer | reach. His victory by a knockout was the general expectation, which seemed likely to be met as the fight developed. In the third round Sharkey was within & narrow margin of success. In the fourth round he actually knocked his man out, with a savage blow. Imme- diately a foul was claimed, and this claim was granted and the German was declared the winner in consequence, & decision in which Sharkey acquiesced, though he denied any intention of de- glving the title holder all the better of - most any terms, but with the stipula. tion that the German drop his former witness of feats that make his heart | manager, who seems to have aroused | places, and perha the Lithuanian - American’s ire. And Rediscovery of the South Pole, ac-|NOW comes Schmeling with his prompt |} cumulation of scientific data, wonders |acceptance of the challenge, with agree- | tion which its oil sets up, on contact, is of aeronautics and radio and human | ment to the condition about the mana- | due to the hurry ger, but with some stipulations of his own, mnotably that the fight be radio- brated Graham McNamee, whom he accuses of undue favoritism toward Sharkey in the bout of June 12. There 1is little likelihood of serious hitches occurring. The situation, in- deed, demands another bout. The Ger- man cannot rest upon his laurels, or hold the title on the two-to-one deci- sion of the boxing commission which gives him the champlonship on the strength of a foul blow that knocked him out. So there will be another period of training, a lot of maneuvering about time and place and officials and the like, and soon the two men will be again in the ring and this time, it is to be hoped, the fight will be fought to a clean conclusion, without question or doubt or shadow on the title when it is finally awarded. Both men have shown good sportsmanship in their ac- ceptance of the situation and their de- sire to bring about another meeting for the sake of a decision that is beyond cavil. . e ‘The American bullfighter who is making a hit in Spain is another as- surance that this country knows how to adjust itself to foreign taste and requirement—a faculty of incalculable value in mercantile interchange as well Plans for ever greater air exploits are being made by Lindbergh. The adage, “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink,” has a modern variation—“You can lead an aviator to an office chair, but you can- not make him sit in it.” ———s His assurances to Italy that he can lead to victory over the whole world cannot fail to leave Mussolini's con- servative countrymen hoping that he will attempt nothing of the kind. — e Road building calls for heavy taxa- tion. Henry Ford may yet be rich enough to relieve the public pursc by providing the highways as well as the automobiles. ——eea Personal credit is not due the weather man, but members of Congress can scarcely avold the feeling that he has been more or less on their side this Summer. — e Ovations are no novelty to Admiral Byrd. However agreeable, they afford no such surprises as a man may ex- perience in a day's -journey in the Antarctic regions. R ‘The gentleman who advises people not to gamble in stocks has had more than the usual opportunities of the sage to say, “I told you so!” —— Census-takers report hard working conditions. In addition to their official duties, they have been obliged to listen to an enormous amount of family gossip. SHOOTING STARS. BY PHILANDER JOHNSON. Einsteiniana. A great philosopher once more Has raised a mighty clatter, Declaring with a fearful roar ‘That space is swallowing matter, Good Sir Philosopher, I look On pages of the chatter Which comes to tell us in your book How space is swallowing matter, A big idea, I am sure, Is there amid the patter That demonstrates in literature How space is swallowing matter, Far From the Madding Crowd. “If you had your life to live over what would you do?” “I think I'd become a Polar explorer, answered Senator Sorghum. “It must be a pleasure to be sure of your ap- plause, and concentrate your interest on a part of the world that leaves you no cause to worry about how it is go- ing to vote.” Jud Tunkins said he once promised his wife not to smoke, but forgot to get her to promise the same. Genuine Values. ‘The speculator’s money lust Makes values hard to tame. A stock certificate is just A white chip in the game. Although the ticker may relate A story fraught with care, Men live and work through changes great. True value's always there. Human Perversity. “Did you succeed in getting your dear little girl to practice her music?” “Yes. I let her understand that the neighbors wished she would stop and she immediately became positively en- thusiastic.” “To give unwelcome advice,” said Hi Ho, the sage of Chinatown,” shows at once that you are so unwise as to be undeserving of confidence.” Luck and Fish. I dream of fish that I could land. I wish the fish might understand How very lucky they must be That I permit them to go free. “De old banjo,” said Uncle Eben, “is hangin’ on de wall. It has got so popu- lar dat de boys dat used to play it has gone on strike foh bigger pa o Radio Music Pleases Cows. From the Toronto Dally Star. livering a foul blow. In this denial he was sustained. It was clearly an accidentsl blow, which landed low, Cows, it has been found, like radio music and give more milk u’e‘h” listen to it“ And some of the m: one s now! ays ought to be about what cows thousan e n ugh. Poison ivy is the glossy green fellow by daring and beautiful photography |the bargain. He agreed to fight on al- | that lurks on banks, around trees, along fence rails, almost any place where he can catch the unwary. It crops up in the most frequented is unrecognized by 999 persons out of 1,000 who see it. The fact that often every one of the ousand escapes the typical inflamma- moderns. * * On a prominent avenue there is a beautiful batch of Poison ivy, growing of us And the movie men, as|broadcast by another than the cele- |along a bank or terrace. It is bright, green, attractive—green with the peculiarly glossy character distinctive of this plant and its cousins, the Poison oak and the Poison sumac. ‘There is another beautiful street in & suburb where Poison ivy grows along the hedges by the sidewalk, mingling ] with the leaves of privet. The peculiarly sly nature of this plant—and one must attribute such a characteristic to it—is shown by the fact that its leaves, although different enough, are not so much o as to at- lljlct the attention of those not plant- wise. ok A Now most persons are not plant-wise. ance with the daisy, and be friendly with the rose, which they know mostly as it grows by the dozen in the florist's box, but when it comes to knowing plants by leaf, stem and habits of growth they are ignorant, indeed. It is amazing how many persons, even, who grow flowers and vegetables, never stop to look at their plants, at least with that clear vision which the botanist must possess. Those who have “taken Botany” in high school or college know that not every one is gifted along this line. Many of us merely “took” the subject— we gave back nothing to it. One must have a certain ability to recognize plant characteristics, even though he have Gray's Manual in his hands at the time. ETE ‘We will never forget our own experi- ence as an amateur botanist. Our copy of Gray's was bound in leather, too—it was not the book’s fault that we could not recognize a three- lobed leaf from a five-lobed, and so on. ‘The task was to collect 12 different wild flowers, ‘We spend all day in the woods at it, and when sunset came had but half of our flowers. Meeting a flower-wise classmate, we prevailed upon him to make us the gift of the remainder of the plants de- sired. Our “mark,” of course, was 100 per cent, perfect, of course, but still we didn’t know one plant from another. How much “education”'is of a simi- lar nature? * K x x Many persons will have to look at Poison ivy many, many times before they will be able 'to tell the difference between it and the innoxuous Virginia creeper, and yet the two are not so very much alike, after all. NOITE, Rio de Janeiro.—One of the most ancient and tradi- LA S tional Chinese diversions is the ance on stilts” or wooden legs. These dances have been prohibited by the national government, in public at least, for they were gen- erally presented in the streets and highways of the city and country. Actors, grotesquely clad, and mounted on these sticks, would give little Chi- nese dramas and farces, whole rep- ertories, in fact, of ancient Chinese folk lore, Due to the fact that these “artists” have in recent years departed somewhat from classic productions and tended more to depictions—made very ludi- crev, when on stilts—of current events, or contemporary developments, of too easy comprehension and hilarious ap- preciation by the populace, the govern- ment has determined to put an end to these too critical allusions and mim- icries. * K X % Row in China, Constitutional and Chronic. North China Standard, Peiping.—Al- though tourists in China spend most of their waking hours in the delights of sightseeing and shopping, they still find time for considerable interest in the political and economic life of the coun- try, which is a somewhat formal way of saying that they want to know what is going on. What is all this row in China and who started {t? When is the country going to settle down? These questions are readily answered. The row in China is constitutional and chronic and the Chinese started it. The Chinese people are a vigorous, sharp and lively race, and whoever says they are spongy and downtrodden has the wrong idea. They have been rowing among themselves from time immemorial were conquered from time to time by Mongols and Manchus, but usually managed to as- sert themselves in the long run by the employment of a strong political sense The Chinese Empire, until the coming of the Westerner, had very definite ideas as to who owned the world, and to do them justice the Chinese really did control a very large part of it at one time. But even at the height of its several periods of power the country was really a series of semi-independent states acknowledging a central hegem- ony, so long as that leadership suited them. The most dominant trait of Chinese character s the desire for free- dom—that is, to be free of any kind af restraint, to work out his own destiny in trade, in labor, or in the arts. There is s large and well developed class. however, with whom exploitation of their own people is & dominant passion. Hence, with a deep-rooted desire for freedom to work in f“ce alongside a feudal characteristic, it is easy to com- prehend why there has always been trouble in China, A population of 430,- 000,000 gecplt cannot be perfectly coi trolled by its present hegemony Nanking. * K ¥ X Striking Back From the Beyond. Panama-America, Panama.—A curi- ous case of posthumous retribution is recounted by an old settler in Panama, James F. Marshall, who came to the Isthmus in the early eighties upon the lure of the French canal activities. In 1889 one of the numerous revolutions, which finally led to separation from Co- lombla, burst out in Panama and lasted three years. Troops sent from Bogota to suppress the revolt had a hard time, and barely 20 of them lived to get back, says Mr., Marshall. The revolutionary troops of Panama, in a few instances, had personal as well as military resent- ment against the invading soldiers, whom they had met in business ways, possibly in the days before the uprising of 1889-92. After one of the skirmishes Mr. Marshall saw a Panaman soldier kick vindictively the body of one of the oppulnr troopers, upon the memory of some old dispute. The man's rancour was intense, He kicked his fallen op- ponent several times and regretted that he did not revive so he could kill him again, However, shortly afterward, in dis- posing of the bodies by fire, a perform- ance which the unforgiving Panaman went to see, a cartridge belt on the body of his defunct enemy caught fire and cxvmxn'{ bullets hurtled in all direc- tions. 'hough there were perhaps a d many soldiers party, the person ‘They may have a nodding acquaint- | Highlights on the Wide World Excerpts From Newspapers of Other Lands Poison oak, first cousin to Poison ivy, thicker and smaller leaves, less sharply lobed. Poison ivy leaves come in ll};‘eels. Lns':ld of flvlel. and l?“ fled: peculiarly dark green, glossy as if waxt and of good size. The amateur may better recognize it by its attractiveness. He may sure that the bright green leaves which ap- peal to him are Poison ivy. This may not be a scientific way of detection, but it is a practical one, It works. 1f you want to avoid coming in con- tact with this plainly pestiferous plant, do not touch any leaves, in strange places, which you do not know about. x ok k% Many persons, especially children, boast of being immune to Poison ivy. They will seize its leaves in their hands, and some foolish persons have been known to chew them. But there is a legend in this town to the effext that a prominent man, when a boy, did this once, to his greal sorrow, his tongue, mouth and lips being swollen for many weeks with the poison. The oil of the leaves (and later the berries) causes a severe inflammation, accompanied by intolerable itching. It is said that washing with a strong soap and hot water, immediately after contact, will help prevent the trouble. Sugar of lead is the old standard rem- edy. Experts of the Department of Agriculture have perfected a wash which may be applied before going where the plant may be encountered. The trouble with this is that one would never have a bottle of it handy when needed. L, o, Poison ivy is & good thing to let alone at all times. Even in the Fall, after the leaves dry up to an attractive color, and the smooth greenish berries arrive, one should leave it strictly alone. Even then the oil in its composition is fully able to cause trouble to those who are sensitive to it. We have heard it said that these may “catch” the poison merely by unlacini their shoes, after they have walke through a bed of it. The seeds of the plant are trans- mitted by the birds, which eat the ber- ries; the seeds may spring up into a full-fledged Poison ivy plant almost anywhere. * % % The ofl, which causes the trouble, is particularly virulent when the incon- spicuous greenish flowers are on the plant. and cats seem to be immune, and many lie on the leaves without get- ting poisoned. Whether a human being might “catch” it from stroking the ani- mal we do not know. It may be sus- pected that an animal which had been shaved for the hot season would be in danger of catching the affliction. The average person, who does not pretend to be a plant expert, had better be cautious than run the risk of com= ing in contact with Polson ivy. The things he may do are these: He may tread cautiously, when in the Woods, and even along streets keep his hands off nice shiny green leaves. When on outings he by all means should not put his hands up to his face, es- pecially not rub his eyes. An ounce of sensible caution, with Poison ivy, is worth a gallon of lotion later. struck by a bullet was the man who had | kicked and insulted the helpless foe. One_bullet from the belt of the man on the pyre killed the unrelenting one that had kicked him twice. It well ap- pears that the man struck back from the beyond. * ® ¥ % Spain Prohibits Importation of Parrots. El Sol, Madrid—In view of the alarming diffusion of psittacosis in other countries—that affliction of par- rots and allied species communicable to humans and already the cause of many deaths—the importation of parrots and of any birds related to them and sus- ceptible to the same disease has been prohibited by the hygiene and sanita- tion inspectors of the royal customs. * ok ok Renaming of Street Seen as Political Gesture. Neues Wiener Abendblatt, Vienna.— ‘The press of Berlin has unanimously expressed its satisfaction over the renaming of “Koniggratzerstrasse,” the new appellation being “Stresemann- strasse.” The old name of this thor~ oughfare, because of a certain historical allusion, has always had poignant and humiliating memories for the Austrians, who now accept as a friendly gesture from an old foe the erasing of the de- feat of Koniggratz from such perpetual publicity in the city of Berlin. It is another political recognition of the brotherhood of Germany with Austria. ‘The reference is to the battle of Sadowa in 1866, where Austria was decisively defeated by combination of Itallan and Prussian troops. *Ew . Author Must Deliver Play Regardless of Mood. Le Matin, Paris—In Court No. 3 of the Civil Tribunal, M. Munsch presid- ing, an interesting decision was handed down in a literary matter. The tribunal decided that a dramatic author who promises to supply a play for a director of a theater is not at liberty to delay the delivery of his manuscript indefi- nitely on the pretext that he is not in the humor for developing his subject, or that he did not know it was so over- due. As a result of the suit the court assessed the dramatist one franc dam- ages for the plaintiff and the costs of the process as well. é x o % % Probably Dressed for Part. Daily Mail, London.—A woman was stopped in South Kensington, S, W., recently by two girls, who said they had come to London to a situa- tion, but that this had been filled by the time they arrived. They were “starving hungry” and had no money to get back to their homes. The woman told a Daily Mall reporter: “I gave them 2 shillings. About an hour later I saw them talking to another woman who, like myself, appeared touched by their story, and gave them money. When they saw me coming they took to their heels, laughing loudly. They were about 19 years of age, dark and | badly spoken, wearing shabby tweed coats trimmed with fur, with black felt hats and solled fawn shoes.” Whether or not these tricksters dressed for the part is not known. e Plutonians or Plutocrats? Prom the Pittsburgh Poat-Gazett: Pluto, the ninth planet, is now rated at about the size of Mars, and the imaginative may debate whether to call the possible inhabitants Plutonians or Plutocrats. iy No Time for Knitting. From the Oakland Tribune. 5 ‘The girl who made 980 consecutive JUNE 21, 1930. Charlemsgne as the father of modern education is an aspect of the great me- dieval conqueror and first Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire which espe- clally interests Charles Edward Russel in his book, “Charlemagne, First of the Moderns.” In intervals of his expedi- tions against the Lombards, the Saxons, the Saracens, the Frisians, the Avars, the Serbs and many of his other neigh- bors, Charlemagne found time to es- tablish a court school which became famous in history and which Mr. Rus- sell calls “the first genuine public school in France, in Europe, or in the modern world.” Eager for learning for himself and for his subjects, Charle- magne imported scholars from parts of the civilized world where aristocratic culture had already gained a foothold. Foremost of them was Alcuin, a native t lu?lllNorzh\u'flberllnd, England, who had | el to make famous the center of learning at the York Cathedral School. There came also Paulus Diaconus, his- torian and poet; Paulus of Aquileia, Arno of Salzburg and Amalar of Treves. Peter of Pisa, the grammarian, had been brought to the court earlier by Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. “With the coming of Alcuin the Aachen school reached its best development. It was no longer a filling station for the youths in and around the court, but expanded into a national establishment of scope and efficiency. King and monk, working w;xther. made it model and example. om this partnership and these discreet labors are to be dated some of the most famous seats of learn- ing in Europe. The University of ), which a few years ago all the world thought of with a tender solicitude, is one of them. * k% % ‘The difference between this school of Charlemagne and earlier palace and cathedral schools was in its democracy. Candidates for the priesthood were the chiet students in most of these other schools, and sons of royalty spent a short time in them. “To the people in the mass and to the less fortunate was accessible not one agency of education.” To Charlemagne's school, boys of all classes were not only admitted, but urged to come. “The King expressly stipulated that the children of the poor- est_should have equal rights with the children of the most fortunate.” He sent his own children to it, ordered his courtiers to send theirs, and himself en- tered the school as a pupil, “sat book in hand, and * * * drank from the stream of knowledge.” Similar schools were established elsewhere throughout his realm, with the same rule of the open door. “Self-appointed secretary of education, head superintendent, or what else, he went about the country looking narrowly after these institutions he had founded and tautening them to his own ideas of order, seemliness and efficiency. For this reason they lived and died not, and we see that this was really an un- usual person.” * ok k% Other cultural affairs received the at- tention of Charlemagne—art, architec- ture, music and the growth of the vine. He had on his visits to Rome observed and studied Roman architecture and determined to introduce its types into his kingdom. “He brought down from Frankland a native architect and or- dered him to take lessons from a Roman master. He carried away with him models of pillars, capitals, friezes, f cades, plans for buildings. * * * The architecture he brought from Italy he used in a new palace (at Aachen) des- tined to & ar place in history.” He prized the classical texts and sagas ex- tant in his kingdom and had them du- plicated by copyists. The library begun by his father, Pepin, became under his fostering care the most valuable one on the Continent. His interest in choral music was somewhat dictatorial. When he visited the churches and found the choir singing off key, he administered a public rebuke and showed the correct method. All this he did while his main reoccupation was the establishment of Eu domain and government. “While he was establishing schools, gathering scholars, collecting manuscripts, and changing the music of his day, he was often planning, directing, and occasion- ally leading the wars that kept a circle of foes from strangling him and his empire. And at all times he must be administering the affairs of a composite state made up of so many incongruous peoples of so many different origins that the mind wearies to keep track of them.” The story of how Charlemagne intro- duced to medieval civilization the in- dustry and the luxury of Rhine wine gives another view of versatile char- acter. “The Rhine wine laurel wreath he added by virtue of two sharp eyes, a habit of observation and an inquiring mind. One of his palaces stood at In- gelheim, about 11 miles below Mainz. From his windows there he noticed that in the Spring the snow melted first on the tops of the hills along the river. This led him to believe that as the ch- mate was plainly milder on the hillsides than elsewhere, grapes might be grown upon them. He sent to Tirol for the vines, had them planted, and launched an industry that for all these centuries has clothed with vineyards that long succession of sunny slopes whereon the traveler looks with wonder and pleas- ure.” * ok K ¥ “Death Valley,” by Bourke Lee, is a study of the sinister personality of that hottest of desert stretches, in California, on the Nevada border, where the tem- perature often goes to 130 degrees, with something of its tragic and romantic history. Death Valley, once part of the sea, then bed of a lake, is geologically between seven and eleven million years old. In some of its parts the extreme heat prevents all vegetation, but others there are many varieties of plant life. The scenery of valley and moun- tains is shown in the book by many photographs. The warning name of the valley was given because of the experi- ences of some parties of adventurers who tried to enter California through it in 1849. Before this time the valley had been known by the Indians for many years and they had had better success than the white men in finding sources of water and food. * ok ok x “The Women of Cairo” is the title under which “Voyages en Orient,” by Gerard de Nerval, is translated. It is a two-volume book of travel of unusual interest and information. The scenes described are not those of today, for the book was originally written about 1843, as a result of a visit of the author to Egypt in order to divert his mind from grief over the death of a young actress with whom he was in love. He was devoted to the East and wrote romantically of its veiled women, its bazaars, its muezzins, its dancers, its slave markets, its palaces and gardens, the dahabeahs on the Nile and its bearded sheiks. De Nerval imitated the sheiks and grew a beard, wore na- tive costume, bought a girl slave and settled down to live in Cairo. There is about the book a quality which sug- gests “The Ar-bh: k:llhu." * * A British Museum official wins the Calcutta Sweepstakes and immediately all his relatives, friends, acquaintances and many total strangers besiege him to advise him how to spend the fortune. E. V. Lucas, with extravagant, cynical humor, tells of the bedevilment of poor, newly rich Richard in the story “Wind- fall's Fall.” Richard did not take the loops was not knitting; she was fyin a plane. — e Flame Still Gas Detector. From the Louisville Courler-Journal. Despite the improvements of science, the open flame continues to be an in- fallible means for detecting the pres- ence of escaping gas. ———os Naturally Follows. Prom the Lowell Evening Leader. ‘The supposition riage on the. dia zz.ud.a by diamond ring. D of & the mar- | 8 | him advice of the old aunt who wrote to : “No money can carry a blessing unless earned by the sweat of the brow, Do the right thing, my dear Richard, and return it to the poor fore it does you harm. R In his book “Briand: Man of Peace, Valentine Thomson quotes what is al most Briand’s creed: “Peace is an e: acting mistress, still more exacting than war. You are carried to war by events | that overpower you, that drag people into it without leaving them time for reflection, but peace demands a more tinued and tenacious ; ahe s -n‘aum ffort and she doesn’t. any nllu'fl doubt,” in | species. Caleutta to whom it rlghuy belongs, be- | cl ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS BY FREDERIC Many readers send in questions signed only with initials, asking that the answers appear in the newspaper. The space is limited and would not ac- commodate a fraction of such requests. ‘The answers published are ones that may interest many readers, rather than the one who asks the question only. All questions should be accompanied by the writer's name and address and, 2 cents in coin or stamps for reply. Send your question to The Evening Star Information Bureau, Frederic J. Haskin, director, Washington, D. C. Q. During Clemenceau's last years was his private secretary a man or woman?—H. §. C. A. Marcelle Perrenoud was Clemen- ceau's private secretary during the last three years of his life. She is the only member of her sex who ever worked in close collaboration with him, Q. What is meant by the Romantic School of Music?>—R. B. A. Dz Bekker's “Music and Musi- " says: “Romantic: A term lke ‘classic;’ borrowed from literature and used as its antithesis. It seems to have been adopted generally about the time of Von Weber's supremacy. Thus Beethoven and Schubert are alleged to have been Romanticists although they are undeniably classic and Schumann considered himself the apostle of Romanticism.” Q. Is Basil Rathbone married?—T. F. A. The popular stage and screen star married Ouida Bergere, a writer. Q. Is Capt. Dollar, president of the steamship line, a self-made/ man?— . B. A. Capt. Robert Dollar was born in Scotland, March 20, 1844, the son of parents in moderate circumstances. At 11 he left school and went to work in a machine shop in Scotland, where he received a half crown (60 cents) a week as wages. At 13 he went to work in a machine shop in Ottawa, Canada. Subsequently he took a place as chore boy at a lumber camp 100 miles from civilization. In six months he learned to speak French fluently. So proficient was he in his work that he remained at the camp for many years. When only 20 he was boss of 50 loggers. In 1880 Capt. Dollar migrated to Mich- igan, where he entered upon his first private venture in the lumber trade. From this early start the Dollar lumber and shipping interests grew to their present proportions. Q. What can be done for cracks be- tween the toes?—R. M. . A. Cracks or abrasions between the toes should be carefully cleansed with soap and water, then dried with ab- sorbent cotton, and covered with zinc ointment. Absorbent cotton should be used to keep the raw surfaces apart. Q. Why are automobiles prohibited in Bermuda?—J. M. A. Automobiles are prohibited in Bermuda because the people do not de- sire to have the noise and confusion which arise from automobile traffic. qL: sv)ut is the game called “Doug”?— A. This new sport is a combination of ‘the English game badminton and tennis. The game is played on a court one-third as large as a tennis court and with the net raised in the air well above the players’ heads. Rackets much lighter and with smaller grips than the tennis rackets are used. cork with feathers in one end is sub- J. HASKIN. stituted for & ball. This light floaf object can be hit with force and % not sent far. The rallies are much faster and longer than in tennis be- cause the court is smaller and the points harder to make. It is a very strenuous game and was invented by: and named for Douglas Fairbanks. Q. How may enamel woodwork be washed so the gloss will not be re- | moved?—G. D. T. A. Enamel paint (that is, paint mixed with varnish, which gives a hard smooth surface and does not catch or hold dust so easily) is dulled by soap. Such paint may be cleaned by rubbing first with a woolen or cotton flannel cloth wrung out of hot water, and then with & clean, dry cloth. Spots, stains and dirt that will not yield to hot water alone may be removed with a fine scourer, but it must be applied lightly in order not to scratch the surface. Q. Is Mary E. Wilkins Preeman liv- ing?—R. P, A. ary E. Wilkins Freeman died on March 15, 1930. Q. Is there an association interested in the use of radio in education?—W. B. * A. There is a National Advisory Council on Radio in Education of which Dr. Levering Tyson of Columbia University is director. The council , | has only recently been organized and will maintain headquarters in New York. The work will be carried out through a series of local and regional councils and through an advisory and information, service to be supplied to the chain, Andependent, and university and coll broadcasting stations. The formatioh of the new council has been made possible through financlal sup- port for the first year accorded by Mr John D. Rockefeller, jr., and the Car- negie Corporation of New York. Q. Where is the home for retired ministers and their wives established by J. C. Penney?—R. M. A. The Memorial Home Community. built by Mr, Penney in memory of his minister father and his mother, is at Penney Farms, Fla. It provides com- fortable and attractive homes for 98 retired ministers and their wives, Q. Is the Negro immune to ivy poi- soning?—S8. 8. A. Dr. Henry H. Hazen in his book “Diseases of the Skin" says: “It is usually stated that the full-blooded Negro is almost immune to ivy poison- ing. In my experience, based upon the observance of several thousand cases of skin disease in that race, the Negro suffers just as often and just as severely as does the white.” Q. When were the words of “Amer- ica” written?—B. D. B. written by Dr. S. F. Smith, at Andover, while he was a student there in the Winter of 1831-32. Q. How many_members are -there now in the G. A. R.?—C. B. B. A. The actual number of members in good standing of the Grand Army of the Republic in the annual report of December 31, 1929, was 21,080, Q. Are the grounds surrounding the | Washington Monument to be changed? A. Congress has approved the prep- aration of plans and studies for im- proving the base of the Washington Monument so as to conform to the land- A | scape treatment of the Mall and the Lincoln Memorial. There is more than the thought of the flowers that have given beauty to Death Valley, desert place of Cali- fornia, in the reports of new vegetation in that region, after years of barren wastes. Americans are speculating as to the source of the sesds that pro- duced the flowers, and as to the pos- sibilities of making other waste places contribute to the country's agricultural output. “For 19 days in May,"” says the Omaha World-Herald, “showers fell on this forlorn stretch of country known the world over for {its barren, bleak, menacing mien. One of those miracles of nature which many of us are given to talk about has been startlingly dem- onstrated there. Seeds from ancient flowers, perhaps ages old, buried in this lava, mineral, dried-out - soil of have been quickened into 1 * The seeds of life seem unquenchable, all-powerful and all-pre- serving under circumstances that afford all sorts of speculations and parallels for the philosophic mind. Our under- standing is, we often think, quite won- derful in this progressive day. We tele- phone, we motor, we fly, we radio around the world and wonder what else there is for the inventive mind to dis- cover that really amounts to anything. But here are little seeds of life, dor- mant perhaps for centuries, bursting into growing plants and varied bloom. The thought makes us humble, We are not sure we know very much after i Those seeds go there in some way,” remarks the Akron Beacon-Journal, “and 1t will be a most interesting story when the men of sclence tell us just how it happened. One may also spec- ulate on_whether a resurrection also awaits Death Valley. Mutation is always going on in nature. As strange as it may seem, the deserts of Gobi were once a land of tropical luxuriance and beauty. Figs once grew in abun- dance in Labrador. Nearly all of Europe once lay under an ice pack thousands of feet deep. A goodly part of Ohio was also once covered with a sheet of ice which may have been over 2,000 feet thick. Just why the ice has several times slipped down from the North, converting beautiful and com- fortable places into a long death of thousands of years, we do not know for ocertain. But we do know there has always been l:l end to that death.” ¥ HE “The phenomenon shows what may be done in reclaiming deserts,” accord- ng to the Miami Daily News. “In less torrid deserts of the West irrigation has accomplished a great deal. A Frenchman who hopes to make the Sahara bloom is in this country to study such projects. The resurrection of Death Valley will interest him. Ii engineers can find water under the sands the same may be done with Sahara.” Quoting & report from the San An- tonio News on the subject, the New Castle News discusses the scientific question presented. This report states: “It took & botanist only 30 minutes to pick 100 varieties, and he covered a radius of only 50 yards. His collection included asters, flowering grasses, wood sorrel, columbine, larkspur, lilies, blue- bells, geraniums, daisies, buttercups, popples, paintbrush, purple sage, cac- tus, dandelions, hedge mustard and other species less common and famil- iar.” The New Castle paper comments on the report: “How came all those seeds there and how long had they lain Al there a half century or longer. The vital spark is remarkably persistent. Mother Nature is a prodigal sower, yet in another sense she is economical. She overlooks no opportunity to ite seeds the desert on the ice that perhaps in 100 years or so it will rain.” * ok k% “Death Valley’s wastes of burning sand,” records the St. Louis Globe- Democrat, “have become blankets of thick purple”™ It appears to be one of | Nature's wasteful gestures, for we must believe that the millions of plants of all description have been made to hlos- som only tjat they may die under the suffocating . heat that is probably al- dormant waiting for the water's life- |situation is that C! giving touch? Probably some had been | aroused and is determined to take steps carried many miles by the wind; others | Death Valley as New Garden Gives Hope for Barren Areas even before they can reproduce theun kind, for May showers in Death Valley may be easily forgotten in June The remarkable factor in this blooming of Death Valley is where the seed that & few days of rain brought into life came from—myriad varieties of seeds that apparently had lain dormant for many years. Every sand dune and every bare butte must have held their secrets for unestimable seasons.” “No blossoms are expected,” com- ments the Toledo Blade, “amid the sands of that floor of desolation in awful basin. It is a place of life. It was named 80 years annual rainfall. Its bl even routs the lizards. * * * are thousands of acres now heavy fruit and flowers in the Western seo~ tions which were once arid wastes. Water brought in by great engineerin; feats has changed desert to mrylnfl! Flowers in the desert should inspire America to reclaim all such wasts spaces for glorious beauty and substan- tial usefulness.” Asserting that “Nature broke prece- dent,” the Youngstown Vindicator de- scribes the valley as “150 miles long by 15 to 35 miles wide and more than 100 feet below sea level,” and holds that “it was well named, for nothing could grow or live there save lizards and horned toads, which disappeared for several months in the heat of the year.” The Vindicator sees a “fine opportunity for su:giv‘ by botanists and irrigation advo- cates.” et A War on Crime. From the Roanoke Times. “We did the best we could,” pro- tests the retiring captain of detectives of the Chicago police department, who, with his chief, has been forced to re- sign as a result of pressure brought o bear on the authorities by influential business men who had become dis- gusted with the department's inability to cope with the crime wave. But evi- dently the Chicago business men are not convinced of that fact. At any rate, the “best” of Commissioner Wil- llam F. Russell and his right-hand man, Capt. John Stege, was not good enough to get results, and results are what Chicago demands. The murder last week of Alfred (Jack) Lingle, Chicago Tribune police reporter, was the climax to a series of assassinations, not one of which has been solved by the police. Under the circumstances there was nothing for it but for Mayor Willlam Hale Thompson to yield to the growing clamor for a new deal, and Russell and Stege had to go. Both officials blam: prohibition for the conditions which have brought about the existing situ | tlon in Chicago. Commissioner Russell says that impoverished city treasury necessitate: an inadequate police force and he sayt that he was up against “insurmount- able obstacles.” The phrase seems to hint at confirmation of a growing be- lief that there is a secret understand- ing, if not actual collusion, betw=en the politicians and the Tu“ chieftains, re- sulting in tying the hands of the police and making them powerless to proceed effectively against the criminal element. The situation has become intolerable and calls imperatively for a -new dc,[}_‘ e The most Shotray | ing feature of the icago is thoroughly to break up the arrogant and danger- ous rule of the gangsters. Organized soclety is fighting for its existence against organized crime in Chicago to- di ‘To such a struggle there can be but one outcome. Gang rule can and must be overthrown. Court Not Needed Here. Prom the Indianapolis Star. The Supreme Court may declare the bootleg patron safe, but it can't pre- vent his being sor r——— Pennsylvania Takes “Back Seat,” Prom the Topeka Daily Cavital. We su e Joe Grundy resdy uj them. It is reasonable to expect Dast they wili wither and. die I Nania, has Row Ioiaed e Vi no' O “backward States.” "My Country. "is of Thee” was N that nat 880 . a party of pioneers died there of It is a place of a_fraction of an