Evening Star Newspaper, July 6, 1930, Page 19

Special Articles EDITORIAL SECTION he Sunday Star, Part 2—10 Pages THREAT TO PEACE SEEN IN PLAN TO CROWN OTTO Hungary’s Desire for Hapsburg King Injects Factor of Grave Import to Eu BY FRANK H. SIMONDS. EPORTS, mainly originating in Paris, that the restoration of Carol to the Rumanian throne is shortly to be followed by the return of a Hapsburg to the Hungarian throne have obtained a| certain amount of credence throughout | Europe and have set in motion all sorts of speculation. And. at the least, they have silenced the rumor that the | Magyar and Latin states were to be united under the rule of the Rumanian Pprodigal. In all the many dramatic and pa thetic chapters in the closing period of | the great conflict and the immediate | post-war days, none is sadder than | that of the Emperor Charles, called to | the throne by the death of Francis| Joseph at the precise moment when | the ancient Hapsburg monarchy was beginning to crumble and the approach of complete disaster was coming into plain sight. Charles was one of the best inten- | tioned and weakest of men ever called to shoulder an impossible burden at a critical hour. He wanted to make peace with the allies, and his German | partner made it impossible. He wanted 1o save his own kingdom by some form | of liberalization which would satisfy | the clamorous demands of the subject | races, and he was stopped by the in-| transigeant nationalism of the Magyars. | Road Clear for Otto. | When all collapsed and he disap- | peared into exile, there began that| series of tragic wanderings which ended | in his death. Behind him he left a| brave and determined wife, and in his son Otto, & mere baby, the final hope ©of the Hemuix dynasty. For no one would ta the claims of the e last of whom | igned his claim | for Otto. 5 of fate that the Ppresent heir of the Hapsburg dynasty | should be at the moment the very possible successor to the Hungarian throne, because since the brutal re- ression of the great Hungarian revo- ution in the far-off days of Kossuth, Magyar resentment has endured. More- | over. in Austria, the ancient domain | of the Hapsburgs, the chances of any| Eestoration are utterly remote. Hungary, however, beyond any ques- tion, desires a King. It has existed under a regency, nominally ruled by | Admiral Horthy 'and actually domi- | ated by Count Bethlen, the prime min- ter, ever since the evil days of Bela | un were ended by the White Reac- | tion. But no one has ever regarded the regime as more than pjrovisional | or discovered any widespread demand | for a republican form of government. A King to wear the ancient crown of St. Stephen, a leader to make possible | the restoration of the ancient frontiers, these are the two aspirations of the great mass of the Magyars living in the mutilated fragment of a kingdom which | was once larger than Italy and num-| bered nearly 25,000,000 of inhabitants | instead of 8,000,000, as today, living on | territory hardly larger than that of | Portugal. ] Restoration Not Easy. A restoration in Hungary, however, | fs not the easy matter which it has proved in Rumania, for the simple rea- son that Hungary's three neighbors, all of which shared in the division of the territories of the old Magyar monarchy and are united in alliance to retain their spoils, are openily opposed to the coming of a King, who would be a symbol of lost glory. Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Jugo- slavia have no desire to see a Haps- burg reigning at Budapest. Each holds La\x;ge Magyar minorities within its new ntiers, each has every reason to @xcad the revival of Magyar aspirations, | = Which would be bound to accompany | e coming of Otto. Thus an attempt- | ed restoration might easily prove a sig- mal for new trouble in all the Danubian | Tegion, Nor is the immediate complication arising from the opposition of neigh- bors the sole obstacle. Behind the lit- tle entente stands France and sympa- thetic with the Magyar aspirations is Italy. For Mussolini the chief objec- tive during all of his still brief period of power has been the breaking down of the French control of European af- ‘fairs, which rests primarily upon the | system of alllances binding Prague, Bucharest, Belgrade and Warsaw to Paris, Goal of Italians. Now and again Italian efforts to de- tach Rumania from the French group have seemed to have a measure of suc- cess, but in the end the Magyar men- ace and the still greater peril growing out of Soviet claims upon Bessarabia have served to bring Rumania back into close relations with the most pow- erful military nation on the continent. It has been reported that the Carolian restoration was more popular in Rome than in Paris, but at least up to the Ppresent moment there has been nothing %o suggest any break with the estab- lished policy of the immediate past. ‘Willy nilly, Mussolini has been driven to base all his combinations upon Hun- gary, which is frankly resolved never to accept the existing territorial conditions created by th etreaty of Trianon and thus stands firmly against the whole system of status quo in Europe, a per- petual foe of the nations of the little entente which are allies of France. The Hungarian situation is, however, one of very great and patent dangers. Any open and overt act would certainly bring down upon Budapest the armies of all three of the powers of the little entente, each much more powerful than the Magyar army. Nor can Hungary hope for the financial support in and out of the League of Nations which is | necessary to her existence if she openly antagonizes France. Avoids Actual Pledges. Count Bethlen, the veteran Magyar remier, has in the difficult situation e has now occupied for nearly a dec- ade played a shrewd and cautious game. He has met all the many Ital- ian overtures with every sign of wel- come. He has gone to Rome, he has glven his sanciion to any number of official courtesies. But he has at all times avoided any actual commitment. His purpose has seemed to be to make clear to Paris and London that the existing situation cannot endure forever. If the victorious powers, which still more or less control Europe, refuse to permit a revision of the treaties so that a restoration of the ancient great- ness of Hungary might be accom- lished, the Magyar government will driven by the very force of national sentiment to throw its lot in with the nations which challenge the existing order, particularly either with Italy, the active protestant of the moment, or ‘Germany, which seems the eventual opponent of all that was created at ris. Unmistakably Hungarian grievances have won a sympathetic hearing in idon and the powerful Rothermere rope. | least in upper classes, the bond of sym- | pathy is considerable. Britain would almost certainly give her support to any practicable and peaceful revision of the treaty of Trianon. French Stand Defined. France, on the other hand, despite a certain measure of sympathy for the Hungarians, is condemned by her own vital interests to stand with her allies against any disturbance of the status quo. Once the question of the revision of the treaties of 1919 was opened | formally the integrity of Poland, as well as that of Rumania, Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia, would inevitably come up. If France failed to stand squarely with her allies the whole system which she has created in Europe since the war would crumble, her present allies would be reduced in 'size and population and forced to make new arrangements with their neighbors. On the other hand, while France stands with her allies, they in turn are bound to support her in the face of her present opponent, Mussolini. More- over, immediate and vital interests bind Jugoslavia to France, for Itallan and Serb interests are in collision from the Isonzo to the southern frontier of Al- bania. Jugoslavia alone of the states in the little entente probably could make terms with Hungary with very little territorial sacrifice, and Rumania would instantly be weakened by the loss of that ally with the best fighting army of its size in Europe. All French policy is directed at estab. lishing permanently the settlement of 1919." And the key of this problem must be found in Budapest. Were Hungary to accept her present status and settle down to live within her ex isting frontiers the whole political sit- uation in the Danube basin would rap- idly clear up. But the price would be borne uniquely by the Magyars, who would have to assent to remaining a negligible nation for all time, aban- doning upward of three millions of fellow Magyars now beyond their fron- tiers forever. Center of Intrigues. Such renunciation being impossible, | Hungary remains the center of all ma- neuvers and intrigues. It offers an obvious basis for Italian operations. In this beautiful capital city beside the Danube French and Italian policies are always in shock. Bethlen, teadily confronts France and the rest WASHINGTON, D. C, BY FRANCE Former Prem R without the state, nothing agains all this is for the good of the prol MUSSOLINI Existence. SCO NITTI, ler of Italy. USSIAN Bolshevism represents a state organization whereln the governing power pretends to hold sway and dominion over all things. Fascist slogan is much the same—nothing outside the state, nothing ‘The Italian t the state. Bolshevism maintains that letariat, peasants and workers; Fascismo too, | holds that it is for the good of the nation represented by the armed minority. In Italy everything is goverred by the Fascists ‘The Parliament is practi- of Europe with the calm but deadly | cally abolished: there is no iiberty of the press; individual contracts are sup- threat. provocative, he will evade even Italian invitation to risky adventure, but he will always make clear that Hungary steadfastly refuses any voluntary ad- herence to the existing ordor. In this clash of high politics and | international rivalries, the fortunes of | the boy Otto are obviously but a pawn. 1taly would gladly see him crowned on the hill of Buda, because such an event would appear a victory for Italian policy and a new cvidence of the weak- ness of the French system. But just as manifestly the French government, as the Parisian press discloses, vetoes such a restoration in advance and would certainly support its allies of the little entente 'in vigorous protest and probably in drastic action. Peace on Uneasy Basis. One hears a great deal about a new and peaceful Europe But the fact is that once the traveler passes Vienna, he enters a new Balkan region which reproduces on a vastly enlarged stage most of the evil circumstances of the old On the sixteenth anniversary of the shot of Serajevo which shook the world, a new tragedy or crime might as easlly and as rapidly as that shot bring Europe to the very edge of a gen- eral conflict, if not push it over the ge ‘Today the old phrases of the Kaiser come anew from the lips of the Duce. Italy and France are as manifestly in collision in the new Balkans as Russia and Austria were in the old. Hungary is precisely as determined to re-estab- lish the Crown of St Stephen as Serbia was to reconstitute the Kingdom cf Stephan Dushan. All of which makes interesting if nof. reassuring reflections on the anniversary of the onset of the great catastrophe (Copyright, 1930.) Regrets Time of Tourists In Manila Is Limited Gov. Dwight F. Davis is pondering the problem of how to enable Ameri- cans to see the Philippines and to in- duce them to do so. He finds from the Winter's experience that getting on a boat that is advertised to visit the Philippines is not enough. The boats put into Manila right enough, but they put right out again and pas- sengers are hardly ashore until they are being hastened back to ship. This has been the case with all the world- tour ships, save one, which stayed overnight in port; the Resolute in port remained here 10 hours, and the Fran- conia arrived and departed between suns. Numbers of prominent Resolute passengers called upon Gov. Davis, many of them with letters of introduc- tion. All expressed their regret of their brief stay in Manila. They planned making their protests heard with the management. It is the passengers themselves who can really assist Gov. Davis most -in this matter, since they are the ones who must be satisfied Manila's objections carry little weight, but the objections of "the American globe-trotters are heeded. Cites Physical Make-U Of the Japanese Race Dr. Buntaro Adachi of the Kyoto Im- perial University has just completed what Japanese sclentists declare is a monumental piece of medical writing and one which will prove of great serv- ice to students of medicine in this coun- try. The thesis of his work is that the arterial distribution of Japanese is dif- ferent in many respects from that of the westerners. Dr. Adachi explains in the recently published report, which comprises two large volumes, one spe- cific instance which he has found of difference in arteries and is now busy trying to carry this line of research fur- ther. The doctor started his work more than 30 years ago, while a young u- ate student. He was convinc that Japanese medical science should be based on research done country. Everything Japanese doctors know, he pointed out, has been learned from pro- fessors or which were on studies in foreign countries, Most of the two volumes contain Dr. Adachi’s results of studies in Japan which corre- spond to those in other countries. The possibility that h. may come across even more startling differences in the make- up of Japanese and westerners had at- 3 tracted attention to whi the doctor 15 at doing ¥ He will do nothing rash or | pressed. Adversaries, even monarchists or conservatives, driven into exile. to be imprisoned or legal proceedings, without defense. cial courts always condemn Communists. to say that all adversaries of the government are stigmatized are persecuted and In the past they were even assassinated. The law allows supposed enemles of the Fascist government transported out of the country without It is said that the spe- But th as Communists, even the rich, even general even conserva- tive journalists. there are many Libe: Cost. toreign propaganda. ernment. Even the regarded as a crime, to a foreigner. Nor the press in Italy. i middie classes, as we workers. BY WILLIAM LEON SMYSER. ESS than a year after the World | ‘War Albert Einstein received | from England a photograph of the solar eclipse which on May 29, 1919, confirmed all the revo- Iutionary things that he had had to say about relativity and curved space. He took up the photographic plate, turned it this way and that in the thin North German light, squinted through its maze of starry splotches and then uttered a birdlike series of delighted chirpings. The photograph charmed him. His ner- vous hands shook with pleasure as he held it up again. He lost his habitually dreamy expression and his eyes sparkled. “Aren't you glad it's over at last?” exclaimed the friend who had been awaiting this proof for months and months. “Your major thesis is vindi- cated!” “Poof!” retorted 'Einstein, not taking his eyes from the plate. “As if there had ever begn any doubt!” Never Questions His Theories. Einstein, who is the shyest and most retiring of mortals, never questions the truth of his theories after he has mulled them over for several years and finally consented to publish them. He already knew—long before the photograph came into his hands—that it would prove how a star’s rays may be pulled frofh their path by solar influence, and thus how light, instead of traveling in a straight line, as had been believed since the earliest times and immortalized in Leonardo's linea radiosa, actually trav- els in a great sweeping bow. He was seeking no confirmation. Indeed, the photograph, betraying only to the finest instruments his prophesied light devia- tion of one and one-seventh seconds, could hardly have revealed its secret to an unaided eye. Why was he puzzling over the plate so happily? “Impressive, isn’t it? . . the way the Royal Society sent out expeditions to Prince and to Sobral in order to prove your theory, just as if there had been no war and as if allied armies weren't at this minute occupying the Rhineland.” “Among scientists in search of truth wars don't count,” sald Einstein. He had expected nothing less of the British than they, with a magnificent and sporting gesture, had given him. Yet he continued to turn the photo- graph in his hands. The pretty stars and the flashing light rays fascinated him. And gradually the truth dawned upon his friends—Einstein was simply chortling over the admirable photogra- phy of the thing, reveling in the way that high heaven had sat for its por- trait and applauding the rare success of these British scientists who had gone off with their tons of apparatus star gazing to Brazil and to the Gulf of Guinea, Not one thought of personal vindication or vanity spoiled his naive pleasure. At 40 Albert Einstein had preserved intact his childlike capacity for wonder. Einstein is that rarest of individuals, give littla or no information. ‘Were it possible to vote in freedom there would be at lcast votes against Fascism and probably less than 200,000 or 300,000 in its favor.| timento, the results achieved have been little less than miraculous. Previous to (Continued on Fourth Page.) Among those who have been thus convicted rals, Democrats and even Conservatives. of Foreign Propaganda. Like the Soviets, the Fascists pay enormous sums for Throughout_continental Europe and America there are newspapers in the pay of the Fascist gov- correspondents of the other newspapers No person in Italy dare tell the truth is there any such thing as freedom of Correspondents in general merely give news about the government. Fascism is oposed by nearly all the men of intellect, the 11 as by the united army of peasants and 000,000 SUNDAY GREETED BY HIS FAS forget | ! of terrible reaction. All criticism of Fascism is| Man Who Remade the Theories of the Universe Today MORNING, JULY TI ADHERENTS. 6, 1930. Mussolini’s Regime Has Disorganized Fascism Has Kept Italy From Bolshe- ; Italy’s Entire Economic vism and Made Her Into a Great Power. BY COUNT VOLPI, Former Minist SIMPLE statement of the progr A It is now more than a ter of Finance. ess achieved by Fascist Italy during the last 10 years speaks far more eloquently than any orator could of the debt that Italy owes to Benito Mussolini. ade since the Victory Bulletin, in which King Victor Emmanuel announced the end of the war and the fall of our traditional enemy. At that time our hopes were high, for we had wit- nessed the fulfillment of the prophecy made by our King at Peschiera in October, 1917, when he had affirmed that Italy, with her 5,000,000 fighting men, unaided by any other power, was capable of overthrowing the vast Austrian Army, by this conviction, we had carried the close and had reason to feel proud. But this momentary triumph was During the years that immes Fortified War to a successful followed by a period iately followed the war we saw the fruits of our troops’ victory gradually fritted away by the Everything was in disorder—the stroyed, ol intrigues of politicians. ld hierarchies de- energy and capacity discouraged and our most sacred traditions held up to scorn. It was at this period that Italy became infected by those Bolshevist doctrines which already had shown their perniclous rest largest nation in Europe to a condition ults by reducing the of chaos and misery. With the specter of Russian disintegration before us, it was impossible for the valiant youth of our nation to look on id while the condition of Italy grew worse every day so the time was ripe for the advent of the man who Testore to our country the prestige whi clined since the great days of Italian s ich had so sadly de- upremacy. Sr. Volot, In the few years since Benito Mussolini, with a tiny band of followers, founded the organi: (Continued on Remains a Puzz ALBERT EINSTEIN-THE GREATEST INNOVATOR OF CONTEMPO- RARY THOUGHT. powers and in the midst of great dis- coveries, he remains a psychological study, a mixing of genius and child. His original interest in music, his taste for improvisation and his zest for prob- lems still persist. His whole life, in- deed, has been a continuation of play impulses which his elders, acting more wisely than they knew, set in motion. Even today, 11 years after the con- firmation of the Prince and Sobral photographs, Albert Einstein refuses to don the airs of the patriarch. When Henri Poincare, the famous French mathematician, first heralded him as the renovator of modern science, he spoke of him as “extraordinarily young.” That was way back in 1910, yet 20 years have done little to change Ein- stein’s essential expression. His eyes seem smaller, because his face has grown fuller, yet they still see visions. They are dark and deeply shadowed under brows which crease and curve. in youthtul and unordered pro- fusion all over his head. It stands up and waves. Its natural curliness makes it the more unruly. A maternal in- stinct pushes one toward it, itching for a comb. At such a moment, when one sees Einstein in a deck chair sunning him- self at his retreat on Luebeck Bay, one is struck first of all by this lion-like mane, these bushy eyebrows and the black mustache. One thinks instinc- tively of David Lloyd in tkhe North se‘ln‘:{:en !llchlm makes prime m! TS, presarios and remu!wmr! physicists look akin. Einstein’s fleeting resemblance to the Welchman is emphasized, also, by & slight tendency toward stoutness. With his hair combed back, however, and his gawdy beach robe and sweater ex- chan, for more conservative garb, Einstein’s aallow skin, his flabby hands and the softened contours of his face betray the man who takes no exercise . Tossed a coiffure zation known as the Fasci di Combat- Fourth Page.) Einstein “X” of Science le to Scientific World. * ¢ * the thoughtful Jew rather than the turbulent Celt. If Einstein has retained many of the characteristics of youth it is apparent | that his is a pensive, introspective, sen- sitive youth, neither strenuous nor ath- letic. ~Placing no especial value upon himself or his powers Einstein has gone through life easily. demanding little, aiming low rather than high, and in- spired to his extraordinary discoveries more by his interest in solving & prob- lem and in playing a game than by any desire for fame and fortune. In his personal life Einstein has al- ways been self-depreciating and his greatest efforts have been due to a passionate curiosity rather than to am- bition. He was introduced to the mys- tery of physics and mathematics as most little boys are introduced to lead soldiers and firecrackers. He tells a story of having been impressed and interested for hours by a compass which, when he was not yet 6 years old, his father brought to his bed. turned the instrument round and fol- lowed the gyrations of its needle with a delight as naive and whole-hearted as that with which, later, he was to ex- amine the Royal Society’s photographic plate. Undoubtedly this episode of the compass had a tremendous effect upon him, although his natural boyish pleas- ure in the shiny thing does not neses- sarily imply either precocity or genius. His first serious interest in mathematics came about when one of his uncles began to bait him with equations. “Uncle Jake” was an engineer in Munich. Only fairly successful, he ap- pealed to the boy beyond any of his relatives, in spite of the fact that some of them were far more notable. In America there were several cousins well established in finance. In France Rob- ert Koch, the discoverer of tuberculin, and Alfred Dreyfus, the army officer of the celebrated “Dreyfus Case,” were re- lated. But finance, medicine and the military did not appeal to the boy. “Uncle Jake,” on the other hand, spoke his language. He touched his play instinct! Algebra Played as Game. When he hinted at a game called “Algebra” where, if you wanted to find what anything was, you called it “X" and then went right ahead and talked about it as if you knew it all already, the boy took fire. en “Uncle Jake” spoke of an ancient philosopher, who had given magic properties to numbers and to shapes and had discovered amazing relations between the legs and the tenuse of the right-angled triangle, it took his protege only three weeks to bring out his own individual recreation of ' law. For a lad not yet in his teens this was no small bit of creative thought. ‘The youthful Albert Einstein's games of “Algebra” and “Numbers” so en- grossed him that he soon was making u&pmblems for himself. He had found his first passion—the passion which still keeps him young—the passion for puzzles in an enigmatic world Happily for Albert Einstein, his chw% was so_interrupted that he « wued on Fourth Page. Antiques Made BY MARK SULLIVAN. HAT Henry Ford, coupled wlth, his works, is one of the most | interesting men of his genera- tion goes without saying. Of | many aspects of him, one that | provokes the writer of this article to frequent thought is Ford's relation to history—history in the sense of evo- lution of his own times, which he has profoundly affected, and history in the | ordinary sense of dealing with the past.| Those aspects of Mr. Ford provide | some reflections appropriate to Fourth of July—Fourth of July in 1930—when the day has lost much of the associa-| ton it used to have with familiar | American institutions now passed a including the drill of the local militia on the village green, at a time when nearly every community had its local corps of ‘“ploneers” or “fencibles"— sometimes they were called by names that included the distinctive color of their uniforms, such as the still exist- ing “Richmond (Virginia) Blues.” How many other examples remain in this changed America of local organizations of militia that have distinctive names and uniforms and a continuous history runnings back for several decades? And do_they drill and parade on Fourth of | July? "Many Americans can remember | when that was the outstanding feature of Pourth of July celebrations. Called History “Bunk.” Mr. Ford thinks, or at least used to | think he thinks, lightly of history. It was_about 1915 that in an offhand re- mark he sald, “history is bunk,” and for saying that was subjected to almost | as much publicity as had attended his | manufacture of automobiles or his ad- venture with the Ford peace ship. Almost universally he was derided. An American way of thinking, more com- mon then than now, seemed to assume that the anly kind of educated man is the on: educated in books and schools. A carefully taken census of the United States might reveal the pres- ence of & majority of “educated” men— “educated” in the sense of having highly trained, thoroughly disciplined and acutely refined minds—among workers in factories without much ex- perience in schools, workers of the type Henry Ford himself was about 35 years ago, before he became an automobile magnate, Among those who jeered at Mr. Ford for saying that “history is bunk” there was probably a higher ratio of decriers among newspaper editors than among professional historians. The latter would be likely to admit there is a certain amount of truth in what Mr. Ford said. Greatest Living Historian. A paradoxical fact about Mr. Ford in this connection is that, in a sense, he is the greatest living American historian. If we admit there is truth in the saying of a famous French scholar that “history should be resurrection,” then Mr. Ford is without doubt America's most emi- nent historian. What he is doing, the avocation he has taken for himself, the pursuit that he follows for his | tion of that portion of America’s history that lies, let us say, from about 1910 going back to about 1860. Mr. Ford has dedicated himself to making at Dearborn, Mich.,, what amounts to a vast museum of the familiar institu- tions of American life during that period—a museum that will cover hun- dreds of acres and that includes, among other things, the reproduction of an American village of about the 70s. Curious in this connection is the dual role of Mr, Ford. As a business man, as a manufacturer of automobiles, he is more responsible, probably, than any other one man for rendering obsolete the buggies, the stage coaches, the ox- yokes, the old-time country inns, even the old-time country villages. At the same time, as a historian, he is doing more than any other one man to pre- | tions by seeking out, collecting and | setting up examples of them, Henry Ford, from about 1905 until about 1915, was bringing about a rev- amusement, his hobby, is the resurrec- | serve the history of these old institu- | FORD, BEMEANING HISTORY, BECOMES ITS CUSTODIAN Car Which Most Famous Collector of Has Led Pro- cession of Change. pot on a crane in an old-time fireplace and boiling water on an electric stove. ‘Whether that particular revolution i ahead of us or not, it can be taken per- fectly for granted that analogous revo=- lutions are under way—and very rapidly under way, because such innovations move much faster now than they did when Mr. Ford was introducing his automobile. When these revolutions now going’ on about us shall have been completed, what objects familiar to us today will have become antique. and as such will be in process of collection, let us say, about the year 1950, by some future Henry Ford? Covered Bridge Already Doomed. Among institutions or objects already clearly doomed, one that has happened to_interest the writer recently is the old-fashioned covered bridge—wooden highway bridge with a roof on it. Has Mr. Ford yet secured one of these for his reproduction of an old-time village? If not he had best be prompt, for they are rapidly succumbing to broad, two- way concrete bridges, built according to the standardized specifications of highway engineers, the one in Oregon made on the same pattern and of iden- tical materials with the one in New York State. As the new bridges supplant old ones, the latter, as a rule, are ruthlessly torn down, their venerable timbers scattered, often burned on the spot as rubbish, | Has any American community had sen- timent enough about its local covered bridge to take pains to preserve it? Un- less they are preserved by conscious de- liberation they will disappear from the surface of America more completely than the buffalo, as devastatingly as the passenger pigeon. A covered bridge, as a rule, is the property of a town or county or State: consequently no one person has control of its destiny or power to save it for sentiment’s sake. Also, a covered brid is rather too big an object to be stowed away in the attic with the spinnirg wheel; too big, also, to be bought by | collectors of the type who seek out | Windsor chairs and candle molds. Henry Ford is about the only man in the world likely to buy a wooden bridee and perserve it, as he is preserving other objects as large, such as the ancient Postville court house he bought in Il- linois and moved to his old-time vil- lage in Dearborn. | Suggests Co-operation by Communities. | One feels like disavowing any notion | that the saving of specimens of the cov= | ered bricges should be left wholly to Mr. Ford. One would rather see many communities—as many communities as still have one—undertake the work of preserving them and keeping them, and keeping them where they now are, in the daily sight of the children or grand- children of those who used the bridge in the days when it was a marvel, & proudly possessed improvement upon the ford that could only be crossed | in times of favorable weather. if Mr. Ford should set out to get a venerable covered bridge for his c lection, he should get the oldest. And | where in America is the oldest covered bridge? One feels it should be found somewhere in New England or New York State or Eastern Pennsylvania. The prize for Mr. Ford's collection should have a certain size. One less | than 30 or 40 feet long would hardly do, | for that was not enough to create the atmospkere the old-time covered bridge had, the sense of soothing shade 1t provided in Summer, of shelter in Win- ter; the aroma that went with it, com- bined of the pleasant odor of old wood and of the scent that came from the water and the swampy, rich water-side vegetation below. ‘The writer of this article undertook recently to get an old-time object—not so very old-time; it must have lasted as a living institution as late as 1910— an object more portable than a wooden bridge. What I sought was a dance program, feature of a time when dances had programs. Nowadays dances seem to be continuous performances: one tune and one dance merging into the other. In the statelier, more decorous vears of the early part of this century, or of the 90s, the custom was to have from 16 to 20, or more, formal num- | bers, each separate, with rests between. The airs to be played were planned in olution in America. Many of us lived through that period—but very few of us knew we were in the midst of a reve lution. If there is in America any per- son who in that period went on record with a prediction that the day would come when there would be on ecity streets practically no horses, and in a State like Kansas, even hundreds of farms without horses—if there is any person who made that prediction he should now come forward, for if he exists he is a unique and champion pre- dictor, and we ought to get his services for the work of making a new predic- tion, telling us what is now some 15 years ahead of us. Without doubt we are again in the midst, not only of one other revolution, but of several. But who is able to recognize revolutions when they are under way? Who is able to tell us what familiar institutions and objects, as common today as the buggy was in 1905, are going to be ob- solete by, let us say, 1950? Dwellings Soon to Be Obsolete. One thoughful person of the writer's acquaintance makes an assertion that startles. He says that practically ever dwelling house in America today wiil be recognized by about 1940 or 1950 as utterly obsolete. Indeed, what he really says is that already, today, practically every dwelling house in America is ob- solete, and by 1940 or 1950 will have been torn down and will have been sup- planted by others so novel that if we could visualize them today we should be startled. He says they will be torn down, rather than remodeled, because the changes ahead are so fundamental as to involve new construction on ut- terly new plans, based upon a changed conception of what a home should be. Among several details, this prophet says that by 20 years from now any dwelling house will be regarded as o relic of barbaric ways of life if it does not ccntain a simple and inexpensive method of keeping the house cool in Summer. The device, he says, will be at once less expensive and less cum- bersome than our present method cf keeping houses warm in Winter. The cooling, he says, will come by way of electric wires, and will be turned off and on as simply as an electric light. Indeed, the process may be even more simple, for most of the modern refrig- erators, now becoming familiar in many kitcaens, are automatic. The owner ard user of one need not touch it from one year’s end to the other. The seer who makes this prediction says that the innovations in living con- ditions will go very much further. He thinks that some genius like Henry Ford—possibly, indeed, Mr. Ford him- self—may turn an original mind upon the whole subject of housing; may wipe the slate of his thought as clear of present existing notions as if there were no dwelling house in existence, and may approach the whole problem of now advance. The names of the tunes or |of the dances—two-step, waltz, schot= | tische, polka, lancers, with an occa- | sional reel or hornpipe—were listed in | formal order, and the list was printed |upon _alluring folders, which _subse- | quently became souvenirs. Opposite the | naine of each dance was a blank. upon | which the name of the lady's partner |for that number was written with a tiny pencil attached to the program by a silk_cord. There must be in Ameri- | can attics thousands of such old pro- | grams, and they compose a not-to-be- ignored record of the ways in which America amused itself (and conducted its wooing) some 25 to 40 years ago. Impressive Railroad Pass Gone. Another old-time object that eluded search was the railroad pass—the rail- road pass in its impressive dignity of used-to-be, not in its attenuated and demeaned estate of today. There are still railroad passes, but they are cone fined to railroad employes, and in printing and format they are about as glamorous as an income tax form. The railroad pass—what everybody 25 years ago meant by a “pass” or an “annual’— was substantial, ornately printed in | colors, often decorated with a careering railroad engine, or a buffalo head, or | some such insignia of speed and power. It was substantial, not only in its physi~ cal self, but in what it symbolized. To have a pass was to be a person of some consequence in the community, and the rallroads were careful to see that every person of much consequence in any community had one. Members of the Legislatures had them. Newspaper edi- tors, without exception, had them. Members of Congress and Governors had them. To a considerable degree members of town councils, officials of party organizations—everybody whose position gave him possible influence upon railroad legislation or upon the fortunes of rallroads with respect to suits for accidents on the road or to immunity from what the railroads re- garded as excessive taxation. It was this aspect of the railroad pass that brought about its doom. Ordinary folks who paid their fare came to fecl that passes were used as a seductive bribe for political influence. And, in truth, that is what they were. The railroad gm made much history in America, istory in the most serious sense. Pos- session of passes influenced, often de- termined, not merely legislation about railroads, but legislation and public ac- tion on every sort of subject. The rail- roads, or a high individual official of a railroad, who had the giving of passes set himself up as a political boss. or as the man behind the boss. The railroad pass accounted more than any other cause for the wave of anti-railroad feel- ing and the broader scope of that feel- ing which was called the “progressive movement.” As part of the anti-rail- road movement the pass as an institu- man should house himself from a new standpoint, which takes account of the changed conditions ht the dis- tance between, for le, hanging & tion was killed, was forbidden by law in the Hepburn railroad act, passed by Congress in_June, 1906. There is not ~ (Continued on Third Page.)