Evening Star Newspaper, December 14, 1930, Page 47

ORDERLY SCULPTURE PLAN URGED TO DIGNIFY CAPITAL Spiritual Vision of Nations, From A cient Egypt and Greece to Modern Times, Expressed in Monuments, NOTE.—The following interesting comment on the sculpture of the National Capital is reprinted through the courtesy of Washin, ton’s newest magazine, the Nation’s Capital Magazine, which is devoting itself to promotion of the city'’s best interests. - PY H. K. BUSH-BROWN. VERY President has dwelt upon making the National Capital worthy of a great people and ex- pressive of national ideals and asplrl'.lonx.hlnd no: welll‘ex::‘:- ing the result of these series of e - tive suggestions being carried out in the new build'ngs to house the administra- tion of the Government and the mu- aucipality aiso. B Rafersing o these buildings, President Woover has said: “This is more than merely making & beautiful city. Wash- ington is not only the Nation's Capital it is the symbol of America. By its dignity and architectural inspiration stimulate pride in our country, we el courage that elevation of thought and character which comes from architec- ture. In architecture it is the spiritual impulse that counts; these buildings should express the ideals and standards of our times; they will be the measurec of our skill and taste by which we wi be judged by our children’s children. am confident we have within the Nation the taste, skill and artistic sense to per- form our task, for our architects have already given America the leading place in_their art.” ‘What the President has said of archi- tects is equally true of the sculptors of the Nation, and yet no general plan has been officially suggested, much less adopted, for the sculptural beautification of the Nation’s Capital. It is natural and most commendable to provide first streets, parks, and buildings; they are essential for our physical needs. We must have buildings to shelter us, streets to travel on and parks to give us air to breathe. However, it is largely means of monuments that we give ex- ression to our spiritual vision and long- Ings. Dignity in Seulpture. It was sculpture that gave dignity tc the art of Egypt, Greece, Rome, Italy FPrance and other modern countries, and it is upon sculpture that we must de- pend to add, the required dignity to our National Capital. The convention of the American In. stitute of Architects, held in Washing- ton in 1900, the one hundredth anniver- sary of the establishment of the Dis- trict of Columbia, reviewed what had been done in the hundred years and made suggestions for the future. These addresses resulted in the appointment of the McMillan Commission, whose ?flf;‘,‘,“fh"”"" h;:m!:ieen the gulde by ese new lings are now be- NrEe v 3t occasion I was asked tc Speak for the future of sculpture ir Washington. What I sald was true then, and is none the less true now nt;'x: 'r.heretore it seems suitable to make 'nllowin: extracts from that ad- “We erect monuments to ki in the mind of the eommu;ei?y“t‘!‘:: ideals that have moved the souls of men in the past, lest in the enjoyment of the present blessings we forget the valor and self sacrifice, which alone made their attainment possible.” Public monuments, then, are intended to have & sacred .moral influence, which, if properly expressed, will endure so long as bronze or stone may last, and the soul of man remains responsive to eternal love. In other words, the value of a work of art is measured by its moral effect. art is a means of educational elevation, and its influence s dependent on the conception of the and manner in which the artist expresses his thought. This leads us to call attention to the Telation that monuments should bear to history. Since, as we have said, the use of monuments is to educate the le, it must follow that in the selec- ion of subjects for public monuments Wwe should choose the important and inspiring events to be commemorated, ;nd also arrange them in groups to l:m a co-ordinate and complete whole. other words, they should illustrate ':‘by?b::(':ou::?m de";lnu of our history an iring e spiring creations of Selecting and Grouping Lack. Commendable as are the monuments n Wi n, do we find that any g::‘ox selecting subjects or grouping - has been adopted? No, quite contrary, both of these fundamen- tally important things have been left entirely to chance. The result is be- fore us; the important things of our history have been neglected and the unimportant made prominent, while the distribution has been so free as &pparently to have no other object thgwp to fill the vacant spaces. as| n, more than any ol city in the world, is a city olyhnn?:sr. Commerce and manufacturing never have had, and probably never will have, much of a footing here. For this reason it has greater opportunities for embellishment than any other city. However picturesque some features of industrial equipment may be, factory chimneys and their surroundings do not generally contribute to beautify the modern world. In this respect, then, Washington is uhique, and has pos- sibilitles that are quite her own. Let us look about a little and see what use been made of these possibilities. Aside from the decorative groups on the Capitol, and some of the other buildings, our monuments are mostly military. Although it may well be said that in military prowess we have proven ourselves second to no other Nation, yet it is in the arts of peace that we excel all other peoples. Our experiment of government has proven the most successful of any yet tried, and has modified man's social relations in all civilized countries. The city itself, with its Capitol, is the monu- ment to those ideals. But where are the monuments to those American crea- tions that have revolutionized the world —the railroad, the telegraph, the cotton gin, the reaper, the sewing machine, z;mrme cable and the telephone, Relation of Monuments. Now, we should have a word for the relation that one monument should bear to another. The mind receives a more lasting impression if ideas are presented to it in some consecutive order. The best artistic effects of pub- lic monuments and buildings have geen produced by proper grouping, so that one thing enhances the value of another by its proximity. It is evident, however, that some plan of a very definite character should be 80 that ultimately a better ar- rangement may be developed. Any such plan must aim at either chronological order or grouping as to subject, and perhaps both of these. * x % x As the United States leads the na- tions in all other things, it is natural to suppose that she will ultimately lead the world in the realms of art, also. It much on the attitude of the of | Doors were with the following list of epochal in the history of the United States. Epochal Events in the History of the United States. 1. 1492—Columbus. 6. 1787—Federal Convention. 7. 1789—Federal Government estab- lished under the Constitution and ‘Washington inaugurated. 8. 1803—Louisiana purchase, 9. 1807—Fulton’s steamboat. (Note: John Fitch and James Rumsey are con- testants for the distinction of first ap- plying steam to navigation. Their ex- periments date back to the 1780's.) 10. 1823—Monroe Doctrine. 11. 1826—First railroad in the United States. 12. 1837—Emerson’s Phi Beta Kappa oration on the “American Scholar.” (Note: Lowell said “The Puritan revolt had made us ecclesiastically, and the Revolution politically, independent, but we were still soclally and intellectually moored to English thought, till Emerson cut the cable.” Holmes said “This grand oration was our intellectual Dec- laratien of Independence.” 13. 1844—First telegraph line. 14. 1850—California admitted to the Union. (Note: This event may perhaps be taken as standing for the whole Western movement.) 15. 1861—Lincoln inaugurated. 16. 1863—Emancipation proclamation. 17. 1865—Appomattox. 18. 1879—Incandescent light. 19. 1898—Peace of Paris. (America a world power.) 20. 1903—Wright brothers conduct their successful - experiment at Kitty Hawk, N. C, with a motor-driven air- plane. (Note: Langley is to be recalled for his work in the same fleld of ex- perimentation.) 21. 1913—Federal Reserve act. 22. 1917—United States entered the World War. 23. 1920—Woman suffrage. Transatlantic Steamer. P.S.—Among the omissions, “epochal” both of them, are the first steamboat to cross the Atlantic and the Atlantic ca- ble. The automobile and the radio also might have been included, and the 1 ternal-combustion engine as well. P troleum was thought of, and the ques- tion arose immediately, Then why not coal? The cotton gin undoubtedly played a tremendous part in American higtory. And (to make s wide and suaden leap) so did Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. In another field the year 1893 (the year of the Chicago exposition) has sometimes been pointed out as marking the fact that art had definitely come to its own in the United States. Obviously, then, if the above list is to be numerous, it would be only too easy to pass from the “epoch” to the “non-epochal” in the country’s history. Mr. Burnham and his commission placed the Columbus monument in front of the Union Station. - ‘This, therefore, suggests an orderly el e of the monuments of the city. Sculpture, to have its proper effect, is much dependent on the treatment of its surroundings; therefore, we should pay great attention to this phase of the subject and provide an architectural setting that will bring harmony to the composition. Let us assume, as an ex- ample, that the new park area between the Union Station and the Capitol is to be devoted to monuments to the great events between the time of Columbus and the building of the Capitol: The treatment authorized by Congress is a splendid preparation, but the plans do not take advantage of all its possibili- ties. For Additional Dignity. It would add to the dignity of the Capitol if this area would be enclosed by arcades and hedges connecting the Union Station with the Senate Office Building on the one side and the Capi- tol on the other, similar to the ap- proach to the capitol hill in Rome or the approach of St. Peter's. This would THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, Dy 0 DECEMBER 14, 1930—PART TWO. Can the Dictators Last? European Epidemic Since the War and Resulting Mental Prostration of Peoples Discussed BY COUNT CARLO SFORZA. Former Italian Minister for Forelgn Affairs. HY has there been a_dicta- torial epidemic in Europe since the war? Is it a lasting trend or simply a passing phenome- non of political neurasthenia? ‘What are the features that the va- rious dictatorships have in common? I know quite well that it is easier to put down such and other analogous questions than to pretend one can answer them. But one thing one can do. And that is to study the common laws and com- mon relations of the various Eu- ropean dictatorships and European dic- tatorial tendencies; why the dictatorial experiments have failed or are bound to fail—except one, the Turkish dic- tatorship; why this unique exception; why public opinion seemed, for a while, rather favorable to dictatorial experi- ments. First it is necessary to dispose of the BY HENRY W. BUNN. HE following is a brief summary of the most important news of the world for the seven days ended December 18,.1930: BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS—I spoke last week of the strike in the Scotch coal mines and the threat of its spread to embrace the en- furnish a protected walk from the Union Station to the Capitol and it would add great dignity to the Capitol and to the city. My preliminary study of this sub- Ject convinces me that it is -possible and it seems to me necessary if the Capital s to express the best that is in us. It means only a modification of the plans already provided for by Congress. Such a secluded area would give a sense of peace and quiet in the midst of our rushing life and make a fitting background for such sculpture as might appropriately be assigned to this space. ‘The location of the Grant and Meade monuments at the foot of the Capitol and designating that part of the Mall as Union Square is a commendable be- ginning of orderly arrangement and is an ernest for the future, The proposed avenue of State build- ings would give an opportunity for| placing in connection with them the statues presented by the several States and temporarily placed in the old Hall of Representatives. These are merely suggestions that naturally come to mind for a proper grouping which seems to me should be planned for, just as streets, parks and bulldings have been planned for, in order that sculpture may fulfill its pur- pose. To bring this down to a practi basis I would suggest that gonxr::: make an annual appropriation of at least $100,000 to be expended. by the Park and Planning Board and the Art Commission and so administered that each noted sculptor may have at least one example of his art in the decora- :\‘ffi :l the Nlfi)r&::‘ Capital. With n appropriation an order) will have the right of exuten:e. oMy Chinese Charged Twice In New Passport Order Chinese in the Philippines are pro- vigorously Nanking's passport regulations requiring Chinese Tevisiting China to provide themselves with passports other than those issued by the governments under which they lrgnl‘lving abroad. e order, it seems, has partic application to Chinese in thpe Phl‘i‘};s pines under this peculiar branch of the American Government. It is also double-edf‘ed. collection being made both in the Philippines and in China. Having obtained regular passports to enable them to return to the Philip- pines, Chinese must go to their consul and get one of the special “tribute™ variety, paying a stiff fee for it. Upon landing in China they pay | again, $3 apiece if they are merchants and $1.50 aplece if they are students or workmen. Chinese newspapers in Manila bristle with protests over what they term a “hijacking revenue scheme’ of their new government. ltalian Farmers Fight Snakes in Haystack urdy old farmers of Udine watch out where they do their promenading these days following the dispersion of & snake jamboree, which was held in the courtyard of a farmhouse beneath the protective cloak of & huge haystack, Beveral women were mmmnf the ha; ;i;m hundreds of vipers—Italy's enL isonous snake—began to ooze their way out from underneath the tire coal industry of Great Britain. New arrangements respecting pay and hours had been necessitated by the going into effect on December 1 of the new mines act, the which substitutes a seven-and-one-half-hour day for the old eight-hour day. However, passage of the bill was facilitated and pe!’hlpl. made possible.by the understanding that the owners’ advocacy of & “spread- over” system (le., a 45-hour week or a 90-hour fortnight with the distribution of hours adapted to the owners’ wishes) would receive full consideration. As December 1 approached, the owners de- clared uncompromisingly for the spread- over system. Moreover, they demanded (or many did) wage reductions to cor- respond to working hours reduction. ‘The Scotch miners struck, the min- ers of England and Wales temporarily accepted the spread-over system (but with no wage reductions) pending ne- gotiations. A conference of Miners’ Federation delegates in London on De- cember 4 accepted the spread-over prin- ciple, provided there should be no wage reductions. It would seem, indeed, that wage reductjon was merely a “talking point” for the owners. On December 8 | the Bcotch miners went back to work. A frightful menace had been dissi- ted. pated. Land poor, the Duke of Montrose had sold Ben Lomond, so famous in song and story. George Francis Hill, keeper of the Department of Coins and Medals in the British Museum, has been appointed the director and principal librarian of the museum, in succession to Sir Frederic Kenyon, who retires on December 31. Mr. Hill has been in the service of the museum over 37 years and is one of the world’s great authorities on coins and medals. - Imports into Canada in October showed a remarkable falling off in com- parison with the figures for October, 1929; $78,358,000 against $116,271,000. Imports from Great Britain totaled $13,355,000 in value, against $17,816,000 for October, 1929; ports from the United States $48,327,000, against $77,- 355,000 for October, 1929. * kK K FRANCE—On December 6 President Doumergue invited Louis Barthou to form a cabinet. M. Barthou has had a distinguished career. He is 68 years old, son of a tinsmith, graduate of the University of Bordeaux, & lawyer self-made, virtuoso extraordinary, and a writer of some note. He entered public life at 27, as Deputy from the Basses-Pyrenees, He first took cabinet office in 1894 as min- ister of public works. In 1913 he be- came premier under President Poin- are, and it was under his guidance the epochal measure was passed increasing the term of service with the colors from two to three years. During the war he served importantly as a minister and a member of the War Council. He was for some years presi- dent of the Reparations mission, which difficult function he exercised most admirably; indeed, a recommen- dation of his contained the germ of the Dawes plan. . In 1922 he re) nted France with at distinction in the Conference of enoa. In 1928 he became vice-presi- dent of the Council and minister of justice in the Poincare cabinet, but he declined a portfolio in the succeeding Tardleu cabinet because of the illness of his wife. M. Barthou tried hard, but abouf midnight of the 7th was compelled to e B e to secure Radical Socialists. But '.K: latter would have nothing to do with a government which should include a member of the Republican Democratic Union (Louls Marin’s Right group) ; and to make that concession would mean loss: of Tar: pile. | been its ‘s support, & loss neither nm'o:: hep:flm, pessimistic opinion that somef critical and relentless is taking place in the world’s history, No; nothing ex- traordinary is happening; we are merely confronted with a more or less short cyclic phase to which analogies exist in European history. After the Napoleonic wars we had a similar phenomenon: Nations that had got drunk with political adventures and liberty—or, to be more exact, with the slogan of “liberty” — welcomed the peaceful, quiet atmosphere of the resto- rations imposed by the Holy Alliance. After the World War, after the disil- lusions of the gospel of the Fourteen Points, after the excess of hopes raised the peace, more and more men in urope, especially among the middle classes, began to think that politics had ceased to be true to their theoretical purpose of safeguarding the common interests. Hence a certain liking for the Mussolinis and Pilsudskis who have suppressed party politics in their coun- tries. The example and the fear of Bolshevism helped to strengthen such a 80 that his party label is not made clear by the dispatches. He is & close friend of Briand, under whom as premier he has served as minister of Jjustice and vice president of the Coun- cil; a good friend of Tardieu, in whose late cabinet he was minister of labor. He proposed to form a cabinet of much the same complexion as Barthou’s con- ception, and encountered the sam: dif- ficulties. The Radical Socialists per- sisted in refusing participation in a cabinet which should include a mem- ber of that Right group headed by Marin which advocates restoration of religious teaching to the public schools. M. Laval is 56 years old. On the evening of the 10th Senator Laval announced failure, The intransi- gence of the Radical Soclalists had stiffened. Not only would they not participate in a cabinet that should include a member of the Marin follow- ing, but they would not participate in a cabinet that should include Tardieu. M. Laval offered them four portfolios and several undersecretaryships. In vain; they could not stomach Tardieu. The members of the Marin group in the Chamber number, I believe, 85. ‘Who next? The answer is—Senator Theodore Steeg, one-time resident general of Morocco. Latest reports indicate prob- ability of his success. But comment is best ostponed. A Chamber commission which has been investigating the alleged relations between Albert Oustric, the promoter, SUNKEN BY BRUCE BARTON WENT to a function where a brilliant young man re- ceived a distinguished honor. Fine speeches about- him were made, and the mayor of the city pre- sented a gold medal. Back near the door sat a demure old couple who seemed il at ease. Their faces were lined; their hands showed the marks of hard labor. They alone of all the guests did not wear evening clothes. But when the young man came down from the platform he strode quickly across the room and, reaching the old couple, put his arms around them. The audience cheered. I thought of Thomas Carlyle, who, when fame came to him, looked back from the fashionable society of London to the rugged farm where he had grown up_and the hum- ble parents whose self-sacri- fice had made his career pos- sible. Said he: “I feel to my father, so great though so neglected, so generous always toward me, a strange tenderness peculiar to the case, infinitely soft and near my heart. Was he not a sacrifice to me?” And he added: “I can see his life in some measure as the sunken pillar on which mine was to be built. Had I stood in his place, could he not have stood in mine and more?” I thought of the father of Robert Burns and “the pains he took to get proper school- ing for his boys, and when that was no longer possible, the sense and resolution with which he set himself to sup- rly the deficiency by his own influence. For many years he was their chief companion; e spoke t6 them seriously on all subjects as if they were grown men; at night, when work was over, he taught them arithmetic; he borrowed books for them on histos science and theology thing | feeling ~—Drawn adding to it the terror of the Russian vision and the hope that a so-called strong government might help against the Russian hydra. Problem of Parliament. A certain dissatisfaction with the parliamentary institutions in Europe did the rest. Leaving out of the question the I and Polish parllaments, which have been left a formal existence simply as decoys for foreigners, there is no doubt that even in France and Great Britain parliamentary institu- tions are no longer surrounded with the veneration and love which was their mainstay with our grandfathers. But it is /wrong to identify parliamentary Institutions with democracy. That the identificatien has been possible in the troubled years of the post-war period is one of the reasons why even sensible people and good citizens felt a tender spot for dictators and their buoyant gestures. Even those—especially those, I should like to say—who, like myself, have and certain public men has just pub- lished a first report. * kX GERMANY.—On December 6, after a three-day debate, the Reichstag, 292 to 254, definitely accepted the decree promulgating (under authority of arti- cle 48), the famous “enabling clause"” of the constitution, Chancellor Bruen- ing’s program of fiscal and financial re- forms. The government’s majority was less by 44 votes than that of October 17 last, the defection of the economic party representatives accounting for 23. Hitler's Fascists, Hugenberg’s National- ists and the Communists voted solidly against the government, whose chief support came from the Socialists, the Centrists, the People’s Party, the Be- varian People's Party and the Staats- partel. Of glorious note is the subor- dination by the Socialists of party in- terests to the salvation of the constitu- tion and the overpowering national economic exigencies. The reforms bite deep, involving, as they do, heavy sal- ary cuts for government employes, sub- stitution of rye for wheat in bread, higher tobacco prices, increase of the income tax rate, a special levy on bachelors, etc. But the reforms are seen to be just, and, analyzed, not really harsh. Acceptance of the fait accompli averts no end of legislative rowing. 'Tis a new chapter in dictatorship; let us hope it will justfy itself in the event. More than 40 persons were injured, including one probably fatally, in PILLARS would go to his daughter as she stayed afield herding cat- tle. to teach her the names of the grasses and wild flow- ers, or to sit by her side when it thundered.” I thought of the father of John Stuart Mill, neglecting his own interests in order to work patiently at the educa- tlon of his boy; of Thomas Lincoln, urufigl g to keep his poverty-stricken family to- Ee'.her——ot all the uncounted osts of hidden fathers . . . “sunken pillars” . . . who suf- fered oblivion cheerfully in order that their sons might e. It would be fairer if every life could be measured by a double standard—first, by its own achievement; ncom{ by the careers of its children. On this many obscure lives become glorious. And many a medal, placed in the strong, achieving hands of brilliant youth, should be passed back to the gnarled hands of the Itttle old couple sitting shyly by the door. 1830.) for The Sunday Star by Stockton Mulford. kept entire faith in demorcacy, and who, like myself, felt from the very first hour how inadequate, childish and dangerous the dictatorial remedy was, must be ready to admit that a problem concerning parliaments does exist—or, to be more precise, a problem of how to_rationalize parliaments. In the days of horses we could leave the roads to common sense. The traffic of a modern street imposed the semi- dictatorial lights at the corners of the American cities, and these were soon imitated in Europe, An analogous change is occurring in every department of soclal life. Gov- ernments and parliaments are forced to concern themselves with a whole fi'stem of econimic as well as political WS, What eve: sees in parliaments I experienced, for my part, in cabinets. According to & vemerable custom, each minister had to bring to the cabinet meetings certain bills for our common (Continued on Fourth Page.) The Story the Week Has Told Fascist-Communist clashes throughout Germany on Sunday, the Tth. Such ?uhu are becoming a regular Sunday eature. On December 12 the Reichstag ad- journed to February 3. Chancellor Bruening has a deserved breathing spells L EGYPT.—Egypt is terribly perturbed over cotton. The export price is al- most the lowest in _the history of the export trade. But Premier Sidky is an optimist. With Egyptian cotton so cheap, he sees the European manufac- turers changing from American to the superior long-staple Egyptian product. ‘They gre, in fact, says he, already on a considerable scale altering their ma- chinery to that end. The United States will regret its high tariff on cotton, practicably exclusive of Egyptian cot- ton, temporarily so disastrous to Egypt. Isis and Osirls be thanked, though their benevolence was not at once ap- parent. In former days, says M. Sidky, when the price of cotton fell, we re- stricted the sown area. This time we shall increase it. Strange business, economics, * kK % UNITED STATES.—On December 3 the President transmitted to Congress, with the usual message, the budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1932. The total of estimated expenditure (namely, $4,667,845,468) is the largest such total in our history. Of this total, about $735,000,000 is to be cov- ered by postal revenues and the rest by Treasury receipts, the latter exceed- corresponding of the previous budget by about $211,354,000. The President states that existing conditions do ‘not justify continuation of the 1 per cent income tax reduction of last year. Items of particular interest are the following: $946,289,000 is asked for veterans’ administration, above the last budget's corresponding figure by $110,- 000,000, A total of about $689,000,000 is asked for national defense, below the last budget's corresponding figure by $33, 697,000 and including $29,638,000 for aviation; 787 new airplanes are con- templated. Provision is made for com- pletion of one rigid airship and com- mencement of construction of another. Estimates of the Department of Commerce and the Weather Bureau of the Department of Agriculture call for over $12,000,000, to be applied to lighting and equipping of airways, to inspection and licensing of commer- cial planes and pilots and to furnish- ing of weather reports for aerial navi- gation. It is estimated that by the end of the fiscal year 1932 there will be about 19,500 miles of airways lighted and equipped. ‘The estimates include $100,000,000 for the revolving fund of the Federal Farm Board, $51,000,000 for the road program and an additional $35,000,000 for the Shipping Board, to be used as a loan fund for new construction. A budget surplus of $30,600,700 on June 30, 1932, is estimated. Referring to the present estimate of a deficit of $180,000,000 on the budget operations of the current fiscal year, the President says “this development, of course, is primarily due to the de- pressed condition not only in this country but in the whole world, accen- tuated by the drought and, on the other hand, to the necessary measures of the Government to increase employ- ment and the increases of allowances to various services to veterans.” Statutory redemption of the blic debt now amounts to_about $440,000,- handsome surpluses enabling us to con- tinue the great debt retirements of the past 11 years. ‘The President had nothing to gay in his address to Congress on its opening respecting lame ducks or the debenture. Some are sure that Congress will have much to say. On December 10, Miss Ruth Nichols landed at Roosevelt Fleld, Island, Los Angeles in 13 , beat- cords, whether of women or men, for the Eastward supra-continental flight, except that of Capt. Hawks. Her time was over an hour better than that of Col. Lindbergh last April, and only | |*&% about an_ hour slower of Capt. lek: the record * Kk NOTES.—A military revolt at Jaca, We await further itic. . FINDING NATURE OF CELL IS FIRST CANCER WAR AIM Medical Science: Is Waging Slow but Determined Fight to Rid Hu- manity of Menace. BY DR. FRANCIS CARTER WOOD. Director of the Institute of Cancer Research at Columbia University. 'OT so very long ago & famous surgeon said that the experi- mental study of cancer had con- tributed no facts of practical value to the subject. The next morning he entered his operating room and put on & gown Tubber gloves, the methods of sterilization of which had been checked by a bacteriologist. He approached the patient, whose skin had n sterilized by a chemical de- vised by a laboratory man. He picked up a knife of stainless steel, the pro- duction of which represented years of laboratory research on the nature of al- loys of steel with some of the rare metals. He'cut out a piece of the tu- mor which he had been unable to diag- | nose by clinical methods, and asked the pathologist standing by to tell him its nature. He did this because it had been shown by a laboratory worker that cut- ting into. animal tumors was a safe procedure under certain conditions, and therefore was possible in human beini under similar restrictions. The pathol- ogist, using a microscope whose per- fection was due to the calculations of a mathematiclan who never saw a hu- man patient, told the surgeon that the tumor was a cancer, and assured him that the patient was already beyond surgical cure because some of the tu- mor had invgded a blood vessel and spread to parfs of the body which were inaccessible to surgery. ‘The surgeon stopped his operation. after removing the tumor itself, and referred the patient to a radiologist for prophylactic treatment in order to delay the return of the growth as long as possible. During all this time he was careful not to handle the tumor, be- cause of the laboratory demonstration that such handling of a malignant growth may massage the cells around the body and immediately render the patient incurable. AMed by X-Ray Tube. ‘The radiologist began the treatment of the patient with an X-ray tube ih- vented by a laboratory man who also had never seen a human patient. He was able to give the correct dose of X-ray and avold burning the patient because of a measuring apparatus also invented in the laboratory, and this measuring apparatus had been stand- ardized by a zoologist using the eggs of a small fly as a suitable measuring ob- Ject to test with extreme accuracy the ou'tlx:;n of this particular X-ray appa- ratus, 8o, in spite of this surgeon’s attitude, the scientific study of cancer is going on in laboratories and hospitals all over the civilized world. The very mystery of the disease has an extraor- dinary attraction for scientists, To spread information concerning the most recent discoveries, which have immediate importance in the treatment and diagnosis of cancer, active organi- zations have been formed in all the America. Such societies have assumed, as one of their important duties, popu- lar education in the early symptoms of the disease, so that people may go promptly to & physician—for only early cancer is curable at present. The methods which are now used to cure cancer are crude and ineffective com- pared with those used to cure malaria, syphilis, diphtheria or meningitis. They have nearly reached their limit of ef- fectiveness on advanded cancer. All future hope for aiding advanced can- cer—and a majority are “advanced” when seen at present, despite educa- tion—is by the laboratory discovery of some different means of treatment. ‘The fundamental basis for such treat- ment is the fullest knowledge of the nature of the cancer cell. ‘This last Summer a few scientists met in Amsterdam, calling themselves a Cell Congress. The members came from all over Europe and America. They read complicated papers to each other in’ various languages about their studies of living cells. Many of these papers touched upon the boundaries of our kmowledge as related to the ne- ture of cancer. As an illustration of how such cell studies touch cancer, we may consider a cancer, which is made up of innumerable cell, as & great city of millions of inhabitants which we can survey only from an airplane because it is populated largely by dangerous criminals, We see the huge buildings, new ones going up, little black specks walking in the streets, a fire, trains moving, carrying specks away from the city to suburban places, but we can never learn anything about the indi- v}?uxl specks who build and live in this city. Now, a cancer is just like such a city. It is composed of millions of cells. It has streets, which are the blood vessels, It has s telephone system composed of nerves. It has a mixed population com- posed of criminals and harmless folk. Sometimes the criminals take a train and go to the country and there found a new city of bootleggers and gunmen who do great property damage and de- stroy the peaceful people living in the vicinity. Few Always Make Escape. ‘The streets of our city occasionally are blocked by the actions of some of the gunmen, and the buildings fall down and the inhabitants die—but they never all die. There are always a few who escape and keep on carrying on their ‘warfare against the useful popula- tion in the region of the city. Now, it is important to learn how to destroy this great city in order to save the country roundabout from the action of these brigands. How shall we find out what sort of poison gas is destruc- tive to the criminals of the city, yet will leave honest inhabitants undam- aged? Certainly not from our airplane. In some way we must capture samples of the good and bad and study them so that we can find out how they live, what they eat, and to what poisons they are susceptible, before the evil can be destroyed and the good protected. ‘The surgery of cancer is like ping an enormous quantity of dynamite on the city, destroying it and all its inhabitants and leaving nothing but a huge, useless hole. X-ray and radium also are destructive agents setting free their energy, which destroys both the healthy and unhealthy at the same time, only too often leaving behind a group of criminals from which the city may be repopulated. The work of the Cell Congress was to capture a few of the city's inhabitants and put them un- der observation. In other words, there is no use look- ing at & r&nt\mt with a large tumor in order to find out its nature. A piece may be cut out and examined under the microscope. But the thin stained slices of tumor which the scientist studies un- der his microscope are made up of dead cells. A useful diagnosis of the kind of tumor may be made from such slices, but nothing can be learned of the life habits of living cells from looking at dead ones. How can a few cells be kept alive and watched so as to learn their habits? It was found long ago by a Yale pro- fessor named Harrison that if & nerve from a ffi were placed in a culture ‘would grow, inat cord | the spi make con- ey grow; ew nerve nerv nt. ause hence, if the nerve is cut a must. .fi,‘" out from the origingl cell; otherwise paralysis is perm Frog cells are easy to grow | important countries of Europe and |t ly after this, Carrel of the Rockefeller Institute tried to see what he could do with tisques from warm-blooded animals. So he k a small plece of an un- hatched chick and put it into eulture medium made from chicken's blood, kept it warm and noted that it grew and that even the muscle of the chick- en's heart would beat. From the orig- inal fragment cells would grow out, and leucocytes, or the white cells of the blood, would wander around in these new formed tissues. Thus it was possible to study all these different cells under the microscope and ndte their behavior. ‘There was great excitement in the scientific world when Carrel blished his results, and extension of work was taken up in many laboratories. It was soon found that if one tried to grow adult tissues or highl: ised tissues, a whole crop of difficulties ap- peared. Such tissues did not grow well. Some would not grow at all. Human cancer tissue, for instance, would not grow under any condition. Even trans- planted animal cancers, which had been kept in laboratories, F"’ with difficulty and the cultures would die out soon, and it was evident that the growth was not healthy. Nevertheless, interesting investiga- tions were made, even at that time, some 15 years ago. It was found, for nstance, in the Crocker Laboratory that if beating chicken heart muscle was exposcd to radium, the beating cells were much more resistant to the radiation than the cells which were rapidly dividing and growing. Evidently a cell like the heart muscle, which did not have to divide, but simply worked, was resistant to radiation, and huge S the repidl srowing. cals . But the rapidly cel the supporting tissues of the heart were quickly kifled. Cells when dividing are more sensitive to radium or X-ray than those which do not have to u&\l}t up and grow. This is the basis the . treatment of cancer: Kill the sensitive Some Types More Sensitive. It was found in the same laboratory that the growing normal tissues and some of the animal cancer tissues re- quire just about as much exposure to kill the normal as to kill the abnormal, but that some types of tumor cells are more sensitive than the normal ocells growing in the same culture, and there- fore explanation of the effect of radium in the cure of cancer was made. That is, in certain types of cancer the malig- nant cells, being more sensitive to radia- tion, jare destroyed and the healthy cells left.” The effect of heat on the two types was also studied, and some of the cancer cells were .found to be more sensitive to heat than the normal cells. highly specialized groups are very sensi- tive to heating. Hence the heat used to treat cancer must be mm% and the rest of the body a rise in temperature, ‘When the difficulties in were encountered and wers worked out the subject was ped for 10 years, except in the tories of a few patient 3 carefully inv the reasons whis lay behind the refusal of cells to 3 It was finally found that when, certain fluids were added to the culture fluid . and cells grew much better. th di renewed interest. grow not only the chick embryo cells, but -dtu'le h:elh.buc-noen nlom mice ::g a ve been grown for years retain all of their malignant properties. Even human cancer under favorable conditions may be kept alive for a considerable time. is very important, as we can determine with the greatest accuracy the necessary dose of radium or X-rays to use to kill these cells, and this ean be applied practically in the treatment of cancer by radiation. When the time comes that human cancer can be grown easily, it will be possible to cut out a plece of a tumor, grow it and determine its degree of sensitivity to radiation. Thus the necessary dose will be known which is required to kill all the tumor cells in the body. More Complex Tissues Grown. As the technique has improved it has been possible to grow more complex tis- sues—for instance, a piece of liver or a plece of kidney or a piece of gland from an animal will develop for a certain length of time and make a little patch of tissue which will repro- duce somewhat the original structure of the gland from which it came. Under the microscope we can see the b;s'lnmn‘ of the development of the chick from the smallest, earliest em- bryo. We can study the formation of the heart and watch the first corpuscles g0 out through the blood vessels when the heart begins to beat. One can take the ovum of a rabbit and see it glvlde again and again for four or five ays. These things sound simple, but the technique itself is one of the most dif- ficult in science. All this work has to be done with the most painstaking sur- gical asepsis. A few germs in the cul- ture fluid, a few moulds from the air, and the culture is ruined. ‘working here look like surgeons in an operating room—white gowns, gloves, everything sterilized; in some a special room is built, into which filtered air is blown so that no germs ever enter; but it is well ventilated, and at blood temperature so that the cul- tures never become chilled. With the perfection of the “movie” camers, pictures of the movements and 'owth of these tissue cultures have 'n made a matter of popular demon- stration. One of the first of these films of cancer cells was at the Rocke- feller Institute under Dr. Carrel’s direc~ tion. In it cells may be seen dividing, moving about under the microscope, or the scavenger cells may be seen devour- ing fragments of the others—all of which is a striking demonstration of the activities of the living cell. Dr. Canti of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London has also photographed such g are from a cold-blooded much less cells under various conditions, incls cells after exposure to large doses radium. Little Details Brought Out, The growth of the heart of the chick was one of the most interesting things shown in Amsterdam. The first bea: could be seen, and the blood —all in a small animal grown in a cul. ture tube. Of course, such moving tures do not show anything that not be seen by patient observation der the microscope, but they do mzetaer mflg:uamwhlch ‘fiw 80 ini b; quently ey would scarcely observed; for these pictures are taken at intervals of, say, five minutes, for & period of many hours. When rua speed they, therefc