Evening Star Newspaper, August 17, 1930, Page 23

EDITORIAL SECTION he Sunday Star, Editorial Page Part 2—8 Paiu DAY ‘ ¥ MQRNIN( 17, ' 1930, WASHINGTON, D. ( , AUGUST BELGI Unity Preserved and Throughot BL FRANK H. SIMONDS. HILE all along the Eastern seaboard States there is this year a flood of tercentenary cele- brations Europe is having ts own centennial observances. A hun- dred years ago last monta the July revolution in Paris opened the first breach in the structure of the Congress of Berlin and started the hegira of Kings, which ended only in 1918, when | the Kaiser and the Emperor, the Haps- | burg and the Hohenzollern, took the road which the last of the Bourbon :{lngs to reign in France followed in | 830. | This European anniversary is inter- esting from many aspects in contem- porary Europe—first, perhaps, because one of the immedint> consequences was the formation of th~ Belgian kingdom, which played' so considerable a role in the World War. Nor is it less interest- 83g as an evidence of how short-lived, arter all, are the decisions based upon victory and imposed upon reluctant | Peoples by the force of bayonets. | The Congress of Vienna seated Louis XVIII upon the throne of France; it flung low the Low Countries, which had been Spanish, Austrian, and during the | revolutionary and Napoleonic periods ' French, to Holland, setting up a state| which was foredoomed to_disintegrate, given the racial and religious differ- ences between Belgian and Dutchman. Fifteen years later the successor of the last Louis fled before the Paris mob and | French troops marched across the bat- tlefields of Waterloo to besiege Ant- werp and complete the liberation of Belglum. Faced by New War. For a moment Europe was faced by | & new war, for the Belgians offered | themselves to Prance, but Louis Phil-| ippe, newly come to the throne, had | no stomach for Napoleonic adventure, | and in due course of time Belgium was | established as a separate kingdom,| guaranteed by Prussia and by Britain— | guaranteed in that famous document | which was the fatal “scrap of paper” in 1914 Contrary to European fears, too, Bel- glum did not become a mere satellite of France, although Brussels more and more took on_ the appearance of a little Paris. Belgium evolved as a political unit, conscious of its own nationality and prepared to defend its independence, as was disclosed in the opening days of the World War. Yet it would be inexact to say that the domestic history of Belgium has been uniformly happy. The national motto, “Union Makes Force,” has been Tarely lived up to in the internal strug- file between the two major races of the | ttle state—the Flemish, who are Teu-| tonic, and the Walloons, who are French, And it is this circumstance which gives particular point of Belgian example now. In 1830 the Walloons were “top dogs.” For centuries they had been the more influential race. Hatred of the Dutch, ‘who as the oppressors, had naturally weakened the situation of the Flemings, who spoke a German dialect hardly different from the Low German | of Holland. Through the first half century of Belgian history the Wal-| loons were dominant. In more recent years, however, there | has been a striking renaissance of the | Flemings. More numerous, they have increasingly exploited their majority at| the polls, and parallel with the political has #one the cultural development. French World Language. The difficulty, of course, is that| French is a world language. Flemish, | and even Dutch, to which it is- closely related, is spoken by relatively few.| Necessarily, therefore, Prench has pre- | vailed as the language of commerce| and of business, as it is the tongue of the industrial areas of Belgium. Yet Flemish had made its way at home,| and even flowered into a considerable literary development. | AN PROGRESS PROVES “U. S. OF EUROPE” FEASIBLE Prosperity Achieved‘ Despite Walloon and Flemish Strife } has served to bedevil all Belgian politi- | cal life ever since. ! certainly do not wish to join Holland,! it Century. For a generation at least this battlc between the two tongues had been in- creasingly bitter. When the Germans came they strove to exploit the diverg- ence by dividing Belgium into a Flem- ish and Walloon faction. But Fleming and Walloon stood firmly against the| invader, and, oddly enough, it was the| Flemings who suffered the most from devastation, for Ypres is a Flemish town. - No sooner had the last German In-‘ vader disappeared, however, than the battle began againi with new vigor, and Yet it is impossible to see any partition. The Flemings and the Walloons have never yet pro-; posed absorption by France Moreover, the bilingual tangle has bsen compli-. cated anew by the addition of some 60,000 Germans of Eupen and Mal- medy, handed over to Belgium by the| treaty of Versailles—a change which almost doubled the German-speaking population and cursed Belgium with a | Teal minority issue, Meantime the prosperity of Belgium has been astonishing. ~ Two clever Kings, predecessors of the present. mon- arch, served to preserve the integrity and security of the little state through all storms between 1848 and 1871, while the second Leopold obtained for his countrymen possession of the Kongo Free State, which has made it a con- siderable colonial power, a rival to the neighboring and still disliked Dutch. Expositions and Fairs. For the period of the centennial, moreover, the battle of the races has been suspended, and Flemish and Wal- loon cities, Antwerp and Liege notably, have sought to outdo each other in ex- ositions and fairs, which have served emphasize, at least for Europe, the| extent of Belgian recovery and the ex| tent to which the little country has| distanced Germany, Britain and Italy in repairing the physical injuries of the war. This example of Belgium inspires two different calculations. The refusal of the allies to countenance the union of Ausiria with Germany in 1919 was Justified by the argument that in the end, as with the Belgians, although seeking union with Germany, Austria would evolve into a nation. But after a little more than a decade one must admit the calculation remains far from seeming well founded. ‘The second conception grows out of the fact that two races, while never renouncing their domestic grudges and rivalries, have found means of living within the same frontiers and sharing 2 national patriotism. May not some such solution arrive for some of the new states which are equally divided in their national element, Czechoslo- vakia notably? In fact, is not Belgium, like Switzerland, a sample copy of that United States of Europe 5o much dis- cussed in recent months? At _all events, after a hundred years | there is Belgium going strong, havin lived through more than four years o occupation by.a conquering nation, hav- ing displayed incredible tenacity and ingenuity in resisting alike at the front' and behind the front. Sixteen years| 2go, in these very days of August, Bel- gian courage and suffering fill all the press of the world, outside of the cen- tral powers. If today Belgium is per- haps less in the headlines, the prac- | tical character the people have given to| their first centennial and the evidence of prosperity which they have sub-! mitted to the world is proof of their solid virtues. And just as statesmen and press men | a century ago shook their heads over| the idea_ that Belgium could long re-| tain its independence, only to be con- futed by the evidence of a century, 80, not impossibly wiseacres of the same trades of today may be refuted through the survival of not one but several of the states born of the World War and | the result of the process now described as the Balkanization of Europe. (Copyright, 1930.) Shortage of Schools Creates Crisis as Students Scorn Trades MANILA —With the opening of the| “Autumn” school term in the Philip- pines insular education faces a new crisis. There is an oversupply of teach ers, an oversupply of students and an acute shortage of school facilities. Ten thousand students, chiefly in primary grades, have been turned away from | the schools this year, while 3,000 teach- | ers are asking vainly for appointments. The prect&uauon of the crisis in | Midsummer is due to the seasonal vari- | ation in the Philippines. The “Sum- | mer” holidays take place from March to June, during the hot season, while | the “Fall term” opens with the be- | ginning of the rainy season in Mid- summer. Varlous types of expenditure, many of them purely political in character, | have limited the amount of money | which can be spent upon the expansion | of educational facilities, while the nor- | mal schools have been turning out prospective teachers at an excessive | Tate. The mayor of Manila recently refused to authorize the expenditure | of 180,000 pesos ordered by the city superintendent of schools for primary construction on the ground that no funds were available, | Filipinos Seek Class Prestige, The rush for the teaching profes- sion on the part of normal school and college graduates is the result of class consclousness. The largest part of the | masculine student body turns fo law, | since it is the stepping stone to poli- tics: while practically all the woman | graduales elect teaching, because of its | prestige in the small communities. As | a result skilled labor in various fields | is being imported from Japan. China | controls the Philippine retail trade and the Filipinos are joining the ranks | of the trained unemployed in law and teaching. The Philipines are “education con- scious” to a remarkably nigh degree. | The power and wealth of the Ameri- | cans are attributed universally to their educational system, and the Filipinos have sei about the assiduous imitation. | The quality of work done in the schools | and colleges is not uniformly high, as judged by American standards, but its quantity is prodigious. The University | of the Philippines this year has 7,000 | students. Other colleges have reported record enroliments, while the district schools are all overcrowded. Trade Schools Recommended. Dr. Charles Prosser, American voca- tional expert, bas just completed a survey of educational conditions in the Philippines, and his first recommenda- | tion was the immediate limitation of enrollment in normal schols and “col- leges of education,” coupled with the establishment _of trade and agricul- tural schools to swing the emphasis of education into productive fields. The | these recommendations they shelved in Philippines shortly after the Prosser report was | completed, but Instead of taking up the entire report on the ground that | “it was too long for the superintend. ents to read within a short time.” Astute American observers in the Philippines agree that the eventual | hope for the development of the coun- | try lies in the value which is placed upon education. The enthusiasm for schooling has made possible the uni- versal dissemination of the English language throughout the islands and | has given the Filipinos in English what BY WILLIAM HARD. DECADE of woman's suffrage has not, it is true, changed the basic nature of man or the basic nature of woman or the basic nature of the relations be- tween the sexes. Men continue to sup- ply the overwhelming bulk of outward political origination and of outward po- litical- leadership. Those who expected & constitutional amendment to produce a biological revolution may experience a_certain degree of disappointment. ‘Those, on the other hand, who regarded the nineteenth amendment as only one more means whereby women within their nature may more amply co-oper- ate with men within theirs, and whereby the limits of both may be jointly trans- cended toward a more vigorous and more effective society, have much rea- son for satisfaction and for encourage- ment, tional women, They are not to be dem- onstra’ or roved by a count of woman celebrities. BY COL. GEORGE FLETCHER CHANDLER, Former Superintendent State Police, criminal country in the world if we may judge by the number of crimes commitied. Of course, what is criminal in one country may not be criminal in another, Our legislators have made s0 many laws that what was not a crime 40 years ago is now cited as one, and on the other hand, certain acts once listed as crimes are no longer so. For in- stance, it is on the statutes that if a man rides a bicycle more than 12 miles an hour he is committing a crime, but, of course, a man might ride a bicycle at any speed and nobody would pay any attention to him. So, while our country seems to be more criminal than others, perhaps it is not so bad as it appears to be on account of the muiti- plicity of our laws. As civilization became more intricate, ws to regulate people for their own benefit became necessary and such are our sumptuary laws, Some can be en- forced only under certain conditions because of necessity, as, for instance, the food laws during the Great War. Taxes can be collected because every one knows that they are for the main- tenance of the government and are necessary so that the people may live in comfort. Progress Multiplies Laws. they lacked previously—a common tongue. But before the fruits of en- ' lightenment can be reaped, it is de- | clared, there must be an adjustment | of the economic state to the educa-| tional program, whereby even the edu- cated contribute to the feld of pro- duction. At the present time this con- | dition does not obtain. | Bureaus Overstaffed. All the Filipinos who get through high school want “white collar” jobs, and there are not enough of them to go around in spite of the overstaffing of every government bureau in the | islands. ‘The printing trade in Manila, which . is very well paid, is obliged to recruit | its members from soldiers who have been trained in the Army print shops, since no ecivilian high school or college | graduate will take it up. An Ameriican 1 newspaper in Manila is using an ex- school teacher an American girl and an old journeyman printer as proof- readers because it cannot obtain a single Filipino student for the position. E Pt New Belgian Canal Indicates Progress' | King Albert of Belgium recently dug out the first spadeful of earth for the new canal which will unite Liege and Antwerp A canal is already there, but it 1s too small for industrious Belgiun of today. One hundred years ago the 450-ton barges, for which the canal was constructed, were considered huge. To- day they are not large enough 10 CArry Belgium's raw materials and products. The new canal will be named the King Albert Water Highway. It will be 26 miles long, including the distance covered in nine locks, and will be deep and broad enough to bear 1350-ton sarges. The distance between Liege and Antwerp will be shortened by about 10 miles. It will connect the industrial and | mining area of Liege with the seaport | of Antwerp, fcllowing a slightly diffe ent route than the present waterway. | The King Albert Canal will be entirely within Belgium territory, and will con- Traffic laws were made necessary by the invention of motor cars. Mari- time laws grew up with the shipping and tenement laws with our big build- ing. So with fish and game laws. merchandise displayed on sidewalks, licensing of pushcarts and peddlers, and the numberless laws regarding our great railroads—all these are sump- tuary laws and have grown with the country. Now if there are too many such laws and they are too drastic, the people rebel either individually or in a body. If individually, we have mostly - misdemeanors. 1f the people rebel in a body, we have revolution such as spring up in this country after the tea was thrown overboard in Boston Harbor, A felony is a crime_punishable by one year or more in a State prison. A misdemeanor is a crime not punishable by a term in a State prison. It is the punishment then which classifies the offense 1s a felony or a misdemeanor. The first great cause of so many in- fractions of the law in this country is our fluid, unstable population. Peo- ple in_this country are forever mov- ing. They move from one location to another in the same city. They move from city to city. ‘They live in_one place and work in another. They travel incessantly. Neighbors Strangers in City. According to the latest report of the ‘Tronsit Commission, the total number of trayelers moving in and out of New York City by railroad and ferry during 192) was 427 285, an increase o\ r 1928 of more than 10,000,000. This does not cover any travel by automobile. In lar- ~ crities no one knows his ~ighbor, and even in the smaller citfes there is the constant change of location. Chil- dren do not stay at home. As they row older they leave home for various reasons. Our population problem, therefore, differs greatly from that of the foreign countries. In England, France, Ger- many and most of the other European countries families settle on a plece of property and remain there for many generations. nearby, succeed to the business or liveli~ nect the Meuse and Moselle Rivers with &wular school superintendents met | 4 the ses, through Belgian vaterways, & munities. The 1oL, the New York | HE United States is the most| The children grow up, live| The benefits of woman suffrage are go beneath the surface. not to be sought in the deeds of excep- whelming bulk of the designing and of hood and continue in the same com- | the call of this country, with ita(and so we are overburde: ous that letting women play on the | nevertheless, with the architscts and plano has not yet produced a woman the ergineers before they enibark on Beethoven, and that letting them go | their endeavors. In the superiority of into business has not yet produced a|the American average residence to the woman Ford, and that letting them read and write has not yet produced a woman Shakespeare. Those facts would not justify the lunacy of con- cluding that women who are proficient in music and women who can support themselves and women who can read a letter and Wwrite one back have worked no change in the amenities and in the stabilities of life. Similarly, the fact that letting_women vote has not yet produced a Disraeli or a Roosevelt pro- vides no ground whatsoever for the idea that the consequences of woman suf- frage are either nil or negligible, Says Search Must Continue. For the search for most of the in- fluence of women must still continue, in politics as even in home-bullding, to | ‘The over- the constructing of homes®is done by men. The literate, accomplished, ex- It is fairly notori- | acting American woman talks much, COL. GEORGE FLETCHER CHANDLER, FORMER SUPER N Greatest Criminality One Reason for Tremendons Record of L average residenice elsewhere in the world there is as much the demand by the women as the execution by the men, and the intelligence of that de- mand could not exist except through the willingness of American society to concede to the American woman every amplitude of individual, independent personality. allowance for multitudinous exceptional instances, woman basically is demand and man basically is supply. That eternal and irrepealable rule is as oper- ative in politics as in any other branch of human activity. An Example Cited. ‘The other night in a city long familiar to me I attended a meeting of the county committee of a major national political party. By a common contemporary custom the membership of the committee was half of men and half of women. This custom, which To put it at its extreme and with no | Decade of Votes for Women What Has Been Accomplished Is But an Indication of Greater Influence, It Is Claimed. now is widely followed all the way | from the lowest local committees of parties to the topmost national ones, from a certain point of view is wholly unreasonable. If we were considering political merit and skill entirely in and for themselves, we surely would not say that at the national conventions of our parties each State delegation must elect one man and one woman to the party’s national committee, irrespective of the fact that the party's two most expert party politicians in the State might be both male—or, for that mat- ter, both female. Nevertheless, the general equal division of party com- | mittees today between male and female, |and the arbitrary transformation of | them thus into so many political Noah's arks for the saving and diffusing of American political life, is practically soundly conceived and is beyond all | doubt the most important feature of | American woman suffrage in actual | technical method. The purpose of it, superficially con- sidered, was unscrupulous flattery of the women. deeper_instinctive purpose (Continued on Fourth Page.) in U.S. Breaking Is Multiplicity of Needless Laws. W YORK STATE POLICE. great wealth, attracts some, and as soon as they arrive here they become unsettled as the rest and are swept into the moving stream of our popu- | lation. I do not mean that European people do not travel. They travel long dis- tances, but they always seem to return to their homes, and, furthermore, their goings and_comings are known to the police—in fact, to all their neighbors. This is not so in America. The goings and comings of people here are not even noticed and it is difficult to locate them when wanted. We also have a great foreign-born population, but it is not the foreign- born who are our most frequent crimi- nals. While superintendent of the New York State police I was surprised to find the lowest form of crime in our | rural districts was committed generally by the Smiths, the Browns, the Joneses, very few foreign names falling into the criminal category. 1 followed this very carefully and I am convinced that it is not our foreign- born population that is the main cause of our crimes, although this is the pop- ular belief. Let me repeat, then, that the first reason is the instability of our resi- dents, whici makes it easy for criminals to lose themselves in this floating mass of humanity. Politics Influence Judiciary, The second reason is the slowness of the judiciary. The majority of our legislators are lawyers and they make e laws. Thousands of laws result, hich lawyers are prone to advocate, \but is "t w0 W ned with 8 | country ! great volume of unnecessary regula- tions which confuse justice. Our judges are_intelligent men and generally of a high type, but the fact that they get | their position through election influ- | ences them somewhat. In England a judge receives a big salary and is ap- pointed for life. It seems to be the | better plan, for it is working out better than our elective method. The fundamental difference between our courts and the courts of England is this: When one commits a crime in England it is considered a crime against the government. The entire govern- | ment is against the criminal, whether |the man ‘against whom the crime is committed be rich or poor, and whether the criminal himself be rich or poor. makes no difference. The criminal has to fight the entire power of the govern- should. Trials Made Show Here. Now here in the United States we stage a bgttle. We furnish the ring, the judge, the timekeeper, the lights and °the 'ringside seats. We allow moving pictures to be taken, reporters to be present, statements to be made by the contestants. We sit on either side and allow the criminal and the one against whom the crime is com- mitted (or his relatives) to fight it out together. In other words, we stage a |show. We even take sides and the game is discussed at clubs and at bridge parties. The difference is fundamental. In England the entire nation is interested, t the criminal. In NTENDENT OF ment, and he usually loses out, as he battle. Consequently, if there is much ballyhoo it will drag along, take an endless amount of time, getting more and more space in the newspapers and drawing larger and larger crowds to the court room. I cannot forget seeing recently in a newsreel a close-up picture of a woman already convicted and sentenced, yet allowed to speak in her own behalf to the thousands of people who comprise a “movie” audience, reciting with gulp- ing sobs the unfairness of her sentence, although admitting her guilt. Such an exhibition would not be tolerated in any other country. Police Changes Harmful. ‘The third reason is politics as affects our police forces. cal party is in power a police commis- sioner is appoint:d who may be an intelligent man of excellent character, but who has had no police experience whatever. The work he undertakes re- quires years of study and training and by the time this commissioner is begin- ning to grasp it another party comes into power and he goes out. Then a new commissioner is appointed, who must begin all over again Civil service, which is an {llegitimate child of politics, is a great curse to police, for it makes lo¢al politicians the arbiters of the force. If police work were a profession, as it is in England, and a commissioner of police had to work his way up through vears of service; if he were allowed to decide what men should constitute his force, then our police organizations would be more effective. If the head of a city force were not the right type he could be removed, and if the right man were in power he could hold his position, whatever his policies, and the men un- der him would have confidence and would know they were getting a square deal. it Force Termed Too Small. The police are the first line of de- fense against the criminal and the crux of the entire criminal situation lies in having enough police well trained and able to do their work in an honest way. In comparison with other countries we are one-third underpoliced, and, with the tremendous traffic problem and other duties that our policemen are necessarily expected to assume, they have little time to look after the pre- vention of crime, which should be their biggest job. Our policemen today are not well paid. A little more salary would put them above the temptation of bribery. They are not properly educated and too much work is piled upon them. How they function as they do and how they accomplish so much is more than I can understand, for I am convinced that they are the most heroic and poorest paid body of men in the United States today. Our public does not half appreciate them. It is costing our country approxi- mately $11,000,000,000 a year for crime. ‘This amount includes the money spent for prisons, reformatories, jails, courts, stenographers, police, as well as loss in stolen goods. A prodigious sum-—more than half as much as the bonded in- debtedness of the United States. Better Education for Police. ‘Would it not be better, if this amount of money must be spent, to spend more of it on police and less on courts and prisons? ~ More policemen and better educated ones would diminsh crime in this country and make it a more pleas- expended would be reduced. Our civilization depends upon the po- liceman. This fact was perfectly ex- If one politi- | ant place to live and the total amount | obligaf inst this | emplified by what happened in Boston | that thef ‘lfle Nation sits and watches the tut {(Continued on Fourth Page.) 1 NEW YORK RATE CUT SEEN OF POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE Electric Power Reduction Held as Herald to Agitation for Public Owner- ship of Utilities. BY MARK SULLIVAN. WO weeks ago the New York Edi- son Co., the local electric public utility in the metropolis, an- nounced a reduction in rate from 7 cents to 5 cents, the aggregate reduction being $5,396,000. About the reduction in electric rates some controversy arose, because for cer- tain classes of consumers it was accom- panied by announcement of a ‘“meter charge,” and there arose discussion about the relative benefit to the public as between large consumers and small consumers. About that New York controversy this article does not aim to say anything, because the writer knows nothing. The aim of the present article is confined to discussing the bearing of this action on national politics. What the New York Edison Co. has done locally in the metropolis, other companies all over the country will do shortly. I do not know whether the reductions in other communities will be greater or less than the reduction in New York City. I do not know whether the reductions will be made voluntarily as the New York Edison Co. has made it or whether they will come about through action by the local public utility commissions or other action in the courts. I do know that everywhere, almost without exception, the reductions will take place. If there are exceptions to the general reduction of rates, the exceptions are likely to be cities having municipal ownership. Also, in some cities rates may be fixed in the charter or by con- tract. Also, a few public utilities may have made reductions already in the recent past. Yet again, street railways, due to competition from automobiles, are not, as a rule, in any condition to | reduce rates. Dollar Change Brings Price Changes. My knowledge that rate reductions similar to the New York one will take place generally throughout the coun- try is not based on any acquaintance with the plans of public utilities. It is based merely on certainty that' a change in the purchasing value of the dollar always results in or is accom- pan! by a roughly corresponding change in the prices of commodities, including the price of electric service. It works as infallibly as water seeking its own level. With equal certainty I know that a change in the rurchu\ng value of the dollar has certain political consequences. ‘The most general question in national politics is rates charged by public utili- ties. The question is national only par tially in the sense that it has anything to do with the politics that centers at Washington or with the Federal Gov- ernment. Rates charged by public utili- ties is the most general question in national politics in the sense that it is acute in the largest number of States. ‘The aggregate of these State and local political discussions of public utilities amounts to a larger quantity of poiiti- cal controversy than is provided by any other one question—tariff, farm relief, or what not. Oregon ~:ample Cited. Because the question is localized in the States and communities, each with its separate phase, the country as a whole fails to know the extent of it. To cite but one example, they little know, outside the State in which it hap- pened, it is startling to learn that in Oregon last May 16 the Republican nomination for Governor was won by a man, George W. Joseph (he died soon after the primary), whose platform was for “government, State or municipal de- velopment of our water power resources” and “abolition of the Public Service Commission, thereby relieving the peo- ple of any obligation guaranteeing any return to the utilities.” In similar form, or in other forms, frequently in the shape of proposals for public ownership and operation, the public utility question is to the front in State after State—Nebraska, New York State, Maine; in Pennsylvania Gov. Pinchot as a candidate for re- election is agitating it; Nevada, New Hampshire, several Southern States. ‘The writer of this article, starting re- cently to make a survey of the con- gressional and senatorial elections throughout the country, found that in State after State the election of these national officials is complicated with— sometimes obscured by—Ilocal political situations having to do with the elec- tion of governors or other local officials in which the issue was public utilities. ‘The purpose of the present article is to propose an inquiry whether these agitations about public utilities as an issue affecting elections are not about 10 years too late; to suggest that all these controversies are being settled right now by a force with which poll- tics has nothing to do. The force is the increased purchasing power of the dollar. “Increased purchasing power of the dollar” means the same thing as “re- duced price of commodities.” In the latter form, “reduced price of commodities,” the phenomenon is fa- millar and is universally understood. Everybody knows that everything—lit- erally everything, on the average—i lower in price—excepting, of course, gold. Wheat is lower, copper is lower, cotton, silk, coffee; land is lower. In that form, reduction in values of goods, everybody knows about it. But the equivalent form, “increased })un:hulnc power of the dollar,” very few people understood. Few Understand Political Effect. As for the effect wrought on political questions by the increased value of the dollar, almost the only persons under- standing it are a comparatively few professors of political economy and a comparatively small number of espe- cially able bankers and business men. The writer of this article has studied much history and written a little. It is his conviction that a larger number of political excitements can be traced back to changes in the purchasing value of the dollar than to any other one source. For example, I know nothing about the present excitzment in India over a man named Gandhi and over the salt tax. Knowing nothing about it, I should be inclined' to follow a “hunch” that the real, fundamental cause is the sensationally diminished value of the silver that composes part of India's currency. In the United States the increased value of the dollar is working (as re- spects public utilitfes). not for commo- tion, but for, so to speak, the demotion of commotion. It is working to settle all the controversies about public utili- ties here described. The politicians who strive to keep the public utllity questions alive and make capital out of them are, as is usual with politics, about five to ten years behind the fundamental economic de- velopment. If the politiclans shouid | succeed just now in sweeping their com- | munities into public ownership, they :;ould be doing it at precisely the wrong me. | Al these public utility questions are right now in process of belnauuuud | by economic law, not by polif 3 The purpose of the present article is to show how the public utility eontro- versies are being settled by the in. creasing value of the dollar, or, to put it in the equivalent form, the decreased value of things, all things—including public utility properties. Courts Evaluate Utilities. Public utility properties are given & valuation, speaking roughly, by the courts, especially the Supreme Court of the United States. The same courts say, in effect, that the rates public utilities shall be, again speaking roughly, enough to yield 7 per cent on the valuations given by the courts. Consequently the whole public utility question, wherever it . comes back to valuation. The public utilities in the past, con- tending before the courts, have ingisted that their valuation should be what it would cost to reproduce them. The courts have accepted their viaw. (It was for accepting this view that some Senator made all the cutqy against the Supreme Court last Spring (Continued on Fourth Page.. Culture of Germans Is Blotted Out by BOLZANO, Italy—Italy’s unrelent- ing campaign for the denationalization | of ‘the German minority in the Upper Adige is now approaching an end. Be- cause they have been unhampered by any treaty regulations such as those which control the actions of other smaller countries in regard to their minorities and because they have been willing to forget the solemn assurances given by Italian statesmen after the treaty of St. Germain gave the South- ern Tyrol to Ttaly, the government has been able to give the inhabitants thorough bath in Itallanism. “Kultur” may still exist in the minds of the German population, but exiernal signs of it are gone, Today, after less than eight years of strenuous effort on the part of the Fascist government, this district has neither German schools nor German daily newspapers, signs and inscriptions e all written in Italian and Italian alone is recognized as the official language. And this country, it must be remembered, was under the domina- tion of the Hapsburgs from 1363 until the end of the war, with a single in- terruption of four years between 1810 and 1814, when Napoleon I annexed it to his Italian kingdom. Defense of Minorities. ‘The position taken by the Germans is much the same as that taken by any other minority anywhere else in Europe. Italy, they contend, has had no license to suppress their daily pa- pers, to discontinue all classes in Ger- man in the public grammar schools and to force people who speak only German to seek justice in courts where their own language is not allowed. They point to the assurances given by various Italian statesmen dur! the period immediately following the war, Signor Niiti, then premier, declared in Parliament on August 6, 1920: “The assurances which I have given guaran- ‘ee that these people of allen race will pe treated in accordance with liberty, equality and true sympathy. They must feel that Italy does not desire denationalization.” More Assurances Given. Six weeks later Foreign Minister Tittoni strengthened these assurances with the following declaration to Par- liament: “Although Italy has not bound herself by treaty with to the treatment of her minorities, yet, in my opinion, she is under a strong moral tion. The people of foreign race who are joined to us must know that the thought of oppression or denation- in Southern Tvyrol Fascisti Nationalism administrative employes will enjoy all the rights of our liberal and democratic system. We can give the population of South Tyrol the assurance that they will never be subjected to a police re- gime or be exposed to persecutions and caprice, as were Austria's subjects in Istria and in the Trentino for so many years.” King Victor Emmanuel also made a binding declaration to Parliament on December 1, 1920, ‘the Germans recall. “The newly annexed districts confront us with certain problems,” he declared. “Our liberal tradition will show us the way to solve them with the fullest con- sideration for I autonomous institu- tions and usages. Breaking Pledges Admitted. All of these declarations have been ignored since the advent of Fascism, the Germans charge, and their charges, it must added, are admitted freely by Pascists. The Fascist attitude is a typically nationalistic and practical one, which cannot comprehend that any part of Italy's population should owe allegiance, either politically or cultu- vally, to another country. Bolzano itself, lying in a shelter of the Dolomites, is as German as even the German population itself contends. Most of its inhabitants still bear Ger- man names, despite the fact that many have been forced to adopt Italian names by the government. Passing along Via dei Grappoli and walking upon the municipal square the follow- ing names are seen on shops: Ober- rauch, _Seebacher, Moncher, Modler, Engel, Dandler, Kremmell, Hofer, Vici- der and Heufler. In the Piazza Victor Emmanuel III, the main square, the life is typically that of a German town, only the ap- 108 | pearance of Italian officers and a few Black Shirts, together with the Italian signs on store fron:s, spoiling the illu- sion that one is somewhere in Bavaria. In the local veyard they are no longer putting rman inscriptions on the tombstones. (Copyright. 1930.) Germans to Adopt “Canned’ Messages “Say it on the gramophone” will soon be the motto of German lovers. Within & few weeks the Berlin department stores will offer to any one little gramo- mm records upon which the sender spoken whatever message his or her heart dictates. The cost will be about 30 cents apiece. It is expected that in- sults will also be alization is utterly far from our minds, t! tural ir las nd cul e muvm&‘“m‘“. that their pular, the recipient’s fosity 1 K&. to hear: the record cur: leading y