Evening Star Newspaper, December 14, 1930, Page 48

LIGHT IS SHED UPON - AGE OF 'AMERICAN MAN Discoveries Reveal Existed Tens of Years Ago. (Continued From First Page.) antiquity have come through difcoveries made in an area which may be loosely termed “Southwestern.” Gypsum Cave is st the western end of the territory. Thus, at Folsom, N. Mex., there were found the beautitully made jasper ar- rowheads or dart points shot into now extinct bison in a great communal hunt ‘which Barnum Brown, of the American um of Natural History is con- vinced occurred from 15,000 to 20.000 years ago. In the same State lies Bish- op's Cap Mountain, where was found, in association with the remains of the little ground sloth, the bone of a man who, Director Br: Museum, thinks, was walking this earth ‘haps ‘as much as 50,000 years ago. Oklahoma is the gravel bed in which were found arrowheads which Geolo- t Harold Cook thinks have been rest- in that bed for untold ages. Antiquity Severely Questioned. However, the alleged antiquity of these last finds has been severely ques- tioned by many scientists, and there is always the need to be alert for the possibility that an isolated bone or ar- tifact of comparatively recent age may ave found its way—by erosion or other accidental ' force—into a much older logical stratum. One reason we can 258 certain about the antiquity of Neanderthal man is that remains of en- | tire camp sites, rather than merely one or two bones or artifacts, have been recovered at le under conditions ‘which leave virtually no doubt of their original deposition there. ‘The strength of Mr. Harrington's dis- coveries in Gypsum Cave is that not 1 but 800 articles made by man were found in that cavern under the re-| mains of the extinct sloth (Nothro-| therium Shastense Sinclair) and, last but not least, under a layer of fossil- ized sloth manure, the ashes of what Mr. Harrington and other experts of the museum are convinced was a campfire of the human hunters. An archeologist is, after all. a sort | of detective, a detective specializing on | very cold trails,” writes Mr. Harrington, | summarizing his work in Gypsum Cave for the Southwest Museum. “His busi- | ness is to trace the footsteps of a man who lived two or three thousand years or more, and make a careful record | his life and habits—a job, by the ‘way, that requires the deductive power of a Sherlock Holmes if the story un- covered is to be at all lifelike! In Gypsum Cave, near Las ' Vegas, Nev., 7: have had a real detective problem, for in this case there was a | lulglcwn of murder. “Here we have the family of old Mr. Ground Sloth living peacefully & an ancient ancestral home. Suddenly their life in the cave came to an end, and we soon found enough of their bones to show that death, not removal, ‘was the cause. “Now, in the same cave we found & lot of things made by Mr. Man, about | hem 95 per cent of them weapons, and the suspicion was strong from the - ning that man had something to do with the demise of the sloth family. It makes no difference that the alleged murderer was gathered to his fathers before mpt or .Babylonia, Qreece or Rome pipped the shell. It's our to er the evidence in the case, and to find out first of all whether man ever visited the cave in the days of the sloths, or whether he simply wandered in some thousands of years later. Killing Must Be Proved. “The next step, of course, would be ly to prove the killing; but if we can show that Mr. Man even met Mr. Sloth, little additional proof is neces- sary, for man has always had a very bad reputation for assisting his neigh- bors, human and otherwise, into the great hereafter. of the Los Angeles | the | tec of Mexico and the Ml;‘n of Cen- That He May Have of Thousands ing that the typical Pleistocene animals lived to a much later period in America than in Europe. But the burden of proof is now squarely upon their shoul- ders. Meanwhile research will be in- tensified throughout the vast area be- tween Gypsum Cave and the ancient bison hunting grounds at Folsom, and 1t will not be at all ml’prulng if other traces of Pleistocene man are discovered in_other caves to complete the picture. Contemporaneously with these paleon- tological discoveries which put back the dates for the occupancy of America by & crude and very primitive type of homo sapiens, there have been made archeological discoveries indicating that ‘Western Hemisphere was the scene of the activity of fairly cultured groups & good many more centuries ago than as heretofore been realized. And althotigh virtually all reputable scien- tists—disclaiming exact knowledge as to what particular part of the globe was the “cradle of the human race’—still believe that America was originally peopled by immigrants from the so- called Old World, an increasing ma- jority of them maintain that the more advanced phases of aboriginal culture in America were developed by the red men of our two continents without the | benefit of example or helpful sugges- |tion ~from Europeans, Africans or | Asiatics. Force to this claim is lent by |many factors, but particularly by the unique nature of American languages and agriculture, in neither of which is | there any evidence of d World in- fluences. 1 An original American agriculture, of | course, was built up around the use of maize, or corn, as we call it today. This |is supposed to have been developed thousands of years ago from a wild grass called teacintli somewhere be- tween the h&hlnndn of Mexico and the uplands of Peru. Settled by Succession. Until recently the oldest archeological remains beyond the horizon of the Az- tral America were those of & culture to which Dr. Herbert J. Spinden gave the name “Archaic,” the pottery re- mains of which he reported as coming to light all the way from Mexico down through Central America and even into Northern South America. But within the last few months Dr. George C. Vail- lant of the American Museum of Natu- ral History has found at successive depths in the environ: of Mexico City & succession of pottery and clay figurine types, each type different from the Astec “Archaic,” and each more strongly differentiated from the others ferentiated from the Aztec. In plain language, Dr. Vaillant seems to have proved that over a long period before the time of the wealthy and imperial- istic fimd Puritanical Aztecs (they had hibition and bootlegging like we ave) the Valley of Mexico was settled by & succession of peoples, none of t any means to be classed as barbarians’—for some of the early Eofl!ry is_quite well done and all of it above the uv.;;"n"." of culture. Moreover, the diwork of these .e‘uly potters seems to be distinctively ‘American” in character, just as are the vestiges of those later outstanding American nations—Aztecs, Toltecs, Ma- yas and Pueblos of our own Southwest and the Peruvians of the Incas. But, curiously enough, this scientific conclu- sion that ancient American culture was independently developed by Americans seems to be a conclusion which the average citizen of the United States is loath to accept. In fact, so deep seated is our pro-European, pro-Asiatié bias that the chief concern of many lay- men, oncé they have acquired a smat- tering of information about Mayas and Incas and Asztecs, is to decide to which particular part of the European-Asiatic world they shall attribute the seed that blossomed here. 2 Nor is it enough for them to choose among the Chinese, Sumerians, Pho- enicians or Egyptians. It has become Mr. Harrington found that the stones near the mouth of the cave had been | ‘worn as smooth as glass by generations upon genmerations of sioths dragging their huge hairy bodies over them. The sloth was a clumsy creature, nearly as big as an elophant. Rearing on his hind legs and powerful tail, he could ::c: the top foliage off a fair sized Gypsum Cave, 300 feet long by 120 feet wide, contains five divisions or “rooms,” and in each of these Mr. Harrington and his associates found evidence indicating the murder of the by hardy primitive man at least 10,000 years ago, and possibly much | further back than that, for the Pleis- | tocene era is supposed to have lasted about a million years. One of the most | interesting things about Gypsum Cave is that it seems to tell by what arche- ologists called “stratification,” a tale of other and later races than the peo- ple_which lived on the sioth. “In room 1 declares Mr. Harring- ton. “while we have traces of Pueblo Indians near the surface and of the Basket Makers, who are suppos>d to have lived about 1500 B.C. directly below them, one has to dig down through several layers more to a depth of more than eight fest to find any sign of the sloths. In one layer at that depth, however, we found not only a considerable amount of sloth manure, but also some charcoal and a piece of wood that had undoubtedly been lhl?ed by the hand of man. “In room 2 the evidence was even better, because here we found beneath & deeply buried layer of matted sticks containing sloth manure. and at a depth of from eight to ten feet from the surface, some fragments of painted dart shafts, such as were used by the earliest known human inhabitants of America in hunting and In war—a piece of evidence very hard indeed to e > oom 3 yielded some flint points for similar darts under the skull of a sloth And room 4, which contained more bones of the murdered parties than any other chamber of the cavern, also we up s flint dart point between two I‘A‘ym of sloth manure. In this room also were found the bones of a camel smailer and more delicate than any camel now roaming the earth. By the way, remains of another type of camel were found elsewhere in the cave, and Dr. Chester Stock, paleontologist of the California Institute of Technology, thinks that one of these camels of Gypsum Cave belonged to a Pleistocene species heretofore unrecorded. Remains of Torch Are Discovered. Room 5 disclosed two burned pieces qf arrow-cane ‘(remains of a torch used by man) in close association with the bones of & baby sloth whose flesh was doubtless dcularly succulent to the 0se grim cavemen of early America. ea. But it was the later discovery of the 1 and ashes of the campfire which seemed to clinch the case man. “Operative E. G. War wvered these in room 1, under an elgnt feet below the surtace of the ground. spec Operatives arles Amsden of the Southwest Museum and J. E. Thurston of the Caltech head- | staff, , agree with Chief TR~ M. R. Harrington that the ev%:nu 48 entirely conclusive,” sums up Naturally this evidence that man was nathens. the” coniention of s era stre: contention of sci- entists that the beautifully made jasper missiles found amid the bones of ex- d ! a favorite pastime with amateur arche ologists and even with pseudo-profes- | slonal archeologists to create lucubra- | tons ranging from an impoging 100, | 000-word volume down to a “two-stick” { letter to a newspaper “proving” that red-skinned humanity in America would never have got more than one | jump above the anthropoid stage but for the benison of light shed upon our | two fortunate continents by the lost | tribes of Israel, the lost continent of Atlantis or—an even lovelier concep- { tion—the lost continent of Mu (spelled | that way but pronounced as & cow would). All this sort of argument concerns a | matter called “diffusion” by the scies tists. The diffusionists’ opponents ad- here to what 18 known as the doctrine of independent evolution. Inasmuch as every layman in clubs or smoking | room who ever speculates upon the origin of culture in ancient America | falls—although he may not realize it —into either the diffusionist or the evolutionist school, it may not be amiss to: analyze these two tendencies. Believes Man Inventive Animal. Roughly speaking, the diffusionist believes that man is an imitative ani- mal; the evolutionist believes that man i* an inventive animal. The diffusion- ist thinks that any given trait of cul- | ture is invented only once, and spreads | through the world by imitation. The ! evolutionist contends that man is much the same creature wherever he is found, and that if he has the brains to create something in one part of the world, the chances are he may have the brains to; | creats it independently in another. Now, although evolutionists outnum- ber diffusionists in the ranks of scien- tists, among laymen the diffusionists | probably predominate. This is because | among the masses of human beings | comparatively few are able to think—i thought that would seem to bolster up the whole original conception of diffu- sion. But while admitting that the mass of human beings are unable to| think, the evolutionists still contend | | that there are leaders endowed with in- ventive mentality among all peoples. For example, given a hot climate and !given a Ylemllul supply of wild grass, is |1t greatly to be wondered at if two tribes—thousands of miles from each other—independently arrive at the in- vention of the straw hat? 1Is it neces- sary in such a case to insist, as the | extreme diffusionists do, that one of those tribes must have borrowed the idea from the other? The fact remains that it seems to | satisfy the average man to believe that culture had one origin, just as it sat- | isfies some to believe that there is only one true God and that Allah is his |prophet. Particularly does this seem | true of the average American, who has a sort of hemispheric inferiority com- plex in regard to the antiquities of his own continents. As soon as he notices | that both Egypt and Peru had pyra- |mids and sun worshipers he rushes ;lcnhtw aver that Peru was settled from Two Big Chances for Error. Now, there are two great chances for error in this line of reasoning. In the first place, if possession of some similar institutions proves ancient con- tact between Egypt and Peru, why must we assume that Peru got these institu- tions from Egypt, rather than vice ? The force of ocean currents is T, mntl nn.e. with this, observe th: fact at & Maya trading canoe cast loose the Gulf Stream would reach than Pacific than the “Archaic” of Spinden is dif- |1 | ping to dwell on the original nature of BY J.\P. GLASS, the general disaster. A. Edison, though glving it rlods of drastic. Susingss res tion when recurring, bec man could not get over ever_vthlnf he has to do. At a la said to me: “‘Our greatest llability in times is the unreasoning pessimist. of so many people.” If our psychol of chastening experience, will be a chology? Question Taken to Hill. and, with it, this other: from extremes, and, of the past? that in general I do not believe in It has been found to be a mistake, HEN we consider the period begin- ning with the stock-market collapse of 1928, and continuing through this year, we ask if any asset of future value is to be plucked from In the first interview of this series, Thomas his opinion that recession would grow ess froquent in the future, and of shorter dura- ause of better direction by the leaders of industry, scouted the idea that depressions would cease to occur, He thought Jhis tendency “to overdo ter date, a financier of international fame, whose name I am not at liberty to divulge, “To prosperity is the excessively optimistic individual; and our greatest liability in periods of depression “Our present situation is not nearly so bad as it been made out to be, just as our situation before the debacle of November, 1920, Justify the blind confidence which had laid hold Granted the truth of these observations, the m{un arises: g our long months of trouble has been wrong, will we not now develop a new psychol- ov:f'—not new historically, but new in recent de- opments—which, growing out of the lessons ‘This is a question I took to George W. Hill, president of the American Tobacco Company, Will not this new psychology, swinging away for the times being, at least, cautious of “overdoing the things which we have to do,” usher in a new period of prog- ress which will exceed the great achievements “To begin with,” said Mr, Hill, “let me say for instance, to predict when the present period of recession would give way to better times, However, it is not prophecy to say that this country will be D. C, DECEMBER 14, 1930—PART TWO. prosperous experienced in the past. profit by what has n much worse if we nable banking system. m; Of extreme yith their attendin will force us to do this. did not before and . short, we have better psy- got all about service. " “Not _every one forgot, of course. In fact, & great many didn't forget. businesses—and big ally went ahead of it. supplies it. predictions. in. It is so rich in resources that it, cannot fail to come back—and probably on a basis of sounder understanding that will bring more wonderful results than anything we have “Speculation upon the time when this will take place 18 unnecessary. It is better to consider if we have learned anything ence and, if 50, what we are going to do about it. “I am not one to belleve that we will not happened to us. You know we had_many bitter experiences before we set up the Federal Reserve Bank system. Its exist- ence shows that the lessons of experience are not always lost on us. The effects of the de- ression were bad e“"“‘:hn‘dmt they would have mind we will market collapse and the slowing up of business, g ill effects. I believe we are ing to think a great deal more, for a time, at least, about that principle of business to which we have given the name of service. The tim Service Given Emphasis. “In this country we have been accustomed for a long time to emphasize service as an abso- lute essential of modern business. Wi ed about it, written about it, advertised it—in reached it. “At the height of the boom period, in the rush of the easy money, a good many of us for- ones, too—not only kept up with their progress in previous periods but actu- “Service made this possible—the kind of serv- ice that studies what the situation demands and “Now, of course, it would be foolish to say that service in business in itself means success. There are other factors. But it is not foolish to say that the business which doesn't give service in these days is bound for the rocks. “Service dcesn’t end with devotion to one’s particular business, although that, in itself, logi cally is also service to the public. which was able to maintain full employment this year turn althor 50? h it from our experi- hey d not had an impreg- fit from the stock- and at to its contribution to the “And what about profits in order to keep full employment? those that kept their expenses going at full tilt service. And these United States will be prosperous again. Impressed by Committees. “One thing that has impressed me forcibly the activities to raise money to lessen the bad effects of unemployment has been the make- up of the committees in charge of the work. On these committees were miany heads of great busi- nesses, men of wealth and influence. Perhaps they deserved praise haps they did not. That is immaterial. That ‘Wwhich is material is that they were time and money to this purpose. A few decades ago men in their position wouldn't have done Wheré Is America Going? George W. Hill Declares New Business Pu'ychology Will Develop as Result of Hard Times make a reasonable re- certainly gave a fine ublic. concerns that sacrificed And the same time stockholders immediately cost them money to do performed a great public they showed their confidence that for their efforts and per- ving their such & thing: it wouldn't have occurred to the men of “A lot of ‘e have talk- ‘That is why some $35 salary, as we keep ‘The business ern times which we can never give up. ‘way or another ideas of service are behind them, “Of course we can’t expect that the period of depression is going to awaken every one to high ideals of service. We've never had that condi- tion. But more than ever, portion of us will realize that you have to put service in whatever you are doing if you want your reward to take any “The $35-a-week clerk who got $25 & week out of the stock market while the boom was on ma be impressed, now, by the fact that while the $25 for which he gave no service has vanished, his give it—remains. If he d ice, perhaps he has lost that, too. ‘The same is true of those who speculated on a larger scale. “The net result should be that as conditions improve we will proceed with a thoughtful con- fidence that will produce great results. As y to do so. things have come to us in mod- In one fine 'haps, & great pro- t of permanence. y for which he flve service—if he did d not really give serv- ideas of service uppermost, well and good; we can't help but progress; and if an- other time of real we may put off that time service is instilled in more of us. is ever due, perha) if the principle of trun: (Copyright, 1930.) Americans might have g)roceeded along the coasts of France, Spain and Italy before striking across the Mediterran- ean to Egypt in a voyage which would have been mere child'’s play for men capable of running their sailing canoes between Yucatan and the mouth of the Mississippi—as there is a good deal of reason to think they di Rubbish? Of course. The same sort of rubbish which we hear from the small, but determined group of erudite but misguided men who maintain vocifer- ously that America and all the rest of the world tgo'. the flame of knowledge from 3 In short, the greater objection to the argument that Peru got sun worship and pyramids from Egypt lles in the basic contention of the anti-diffusion- ists or evolutionists that these institu- tions were mdegendem.ly invented. Sir Flinders Petrie, the distinguished British Egyptologist, Prof. J. L. Myers of Oxford, and Sir Arthur Evans, have only subdued, scornful chuckles for the suggestion that Egypt I8 the mother of all culture. “Are we to suppose,” asks that brill- fant anthropologist, Bronislaw Malinow- ski, “that the use of fire for warmth and cooking, of water for drinking and irrigation, or air for breathing is each a cultural invention once made in Egypt and thence diffused? The ques- tion might appear absurd had it not been seriously put forward that the use of water for irrigation, of large stones for building, of gold for practical and rative uses is due to one single in- fluence diffused all over the world.” ‘The same authority utters the last word on_this vention, exactly as every invention is & partial diffusion....No culture is a sim- ple copy of eny other. No historian of present day an culture would dare assign it to any one original source . Every cultural achievement is due to a process or growth in which diffusion and invention have equal shares. As independent entities, ither invention nor usion ever takes place in the sense that you could either spon- taneously generate an idea or pour it out from one hesd into another. “Diffusion and invention are always mixed, always inseparable . . . In the case of every modern invention, we know that it is invariably made and remade time after time in different places, by different men, along slight] different roads, independently of one another. Thus the invention of the wireless can be treated as a single and singular event and ascribed to one man or another only after its nature has been completely misconceived . . . The compass, the art of writing, chemistry, the calendar—all were independently invented, as is known to archeologists. Diffusion Always Readaptation. “Paper was made of papyrus in Egypt. of grass in China, of another material in Mexico. It is identical only in its function. The technique of pro- duction, the material or way of it, had to be independently invented . . . No culture is a simple copy of any. other. No historian of present day Eu- ropean culture would dare assign it to any one original source . . . Diffusion never takes place: It is always & re- adaptation, a truly creative process. Most of the leading scientists of the world now agree that our twin western continents built up their own culture without help from the other hemis- phere. This is indicated by what America did not have as well as by | what she did have. For example, the | cartwheel seems to have been unknown | in the West. If there had been a cul- ture contact with Asia or Europe be- fore Columbus, would not such a com- mon mechanical device of the Eastern Hemisphere as the wheel have been brought to America? On the positive side, without stop- American stone architecture, languages and agriculture, the testimony of Peru- vian weaving and Mayan astronomy alone is almost enough to persuade the man of common sense that America’s culture was independently developed. When Columbus the ocean the weaving of Peru was superior to any- thing of the sort which had ever been done in Europe or Asia. And the Mayes then were using a calendar far more accurate than the calendar in use in Europe, and which was based on the use of an original vigesimal system of counting—that is, counting by twenties instead of by tens in the European manner. ‘These Mayas, as far back as the birth of Christ, understood the uses of zero —that is, the uses of position value in numeration. Of course the Greeks and Romans had no such thing. The first use of zero in the Old World was by the Hidus, sometime between 600 and 900 AD. Unless we wish to argue that the Hindus got this mathematical device from the Mayas, we must credit the Hindus with its ine ndent inven- tion. This is generally done. Well it would seem that a race capable of developing such skill in mathematics and art as the Americans might have arrived independently at such simple performances as sun worship and pyra- mid building! But, alas, there has been “diffusion” with a ven, ce sineg Columbus land- ed in the Bahamas that October morn- ing nearly 440 years ago. The tragedy using | monials of ting | Modern IN LATIN AMERICA By GASTON NERVAL. LESS SHIPS, LESS DOLLARS. DECREASE of over $1,000,000 in the receipts of the Panama Canal for present year is reported by a cable dispatch from the Canal Zone. The report an- nounces that traffic through the canal has decreased during the last 12 months, estimating a reduction of 500 vessels in the total for 1930 as compared with that of last year. A difference of $144,000 in the sums collected for tran- into the artistic and scientific concep- tions of the dead Mayas and carried them forward to even greater glory? And would the Pueblos in their protect- ed villages of New Mexico and Arisona have evorked out a communistic and individualistic scheme of life more nearly resembling Utopia than any- thing man has yet achieved? We will never know the answer. American culture was paralyzed by the European conquest, even though the death blow was not finally given until the niards extinguished the last stronghold of the independent Maya rinces and priests at Tayasal on' Lake ten, Guatemala, 69’ Yet that phrase entirely accurate. The simile of paraly- sis is Dbetter. American culture was ralyzed by the conquest, not entirely nlei A little life is maintained in the body yet, but it is life which looks backward, which takes from the past, not the truly creative life of a vital people. American culture is like a great tree whose trunk is virtually dead, but whose branches still put out -a few feeble leayes. The botanist who in- spects these leaves can see what the whole structure was like in its prime, even though he cannot expect any further noteworthy growth. In South America there are still tribes of red men who keep up many of the cus- toms that were scattered far and wide by the imperialistic drive of the Inca Empire. In the inaccessible mountains of Northwestern Panama the uncon- quered Guaymis still maintain many of the cultural traits of the Aztecs, in- cluding the use of the spear thrower or atlatl much lke those found in the [ Cave, and which the Guaymis call natlatel. Hyatt Verrill, wh visited the has is Guaymis, says that “in their dialect, | the Guaymis are distinctly Astecan, and over 40 per cent of the words in their language are almost pure Nahuatl” (the language of ancient Mexico.) In the mountains of Guatemala Oliver LaFarge found the Jacaltecas maintaining many of the ancient cere- the Mayas for the ob- servance of rites which neither the Spaniards nor the modern Guate- malans have succeeded in stamping out. Every vear the Jacaltecas elect “prayer makers” or chaks whose functions are much similar to those of the rain priests of old. This tribe of red men elects captains of dancers, which have charge of the sacred wooden drum, the “nose of the village.” The Watch Winaq (good men), of whom there are eight at Jacalienango, are self-electing, hold office for life and “know a good deal of the secret, old knowledge,” Mr. LaFarge tells me. “In their prayers they called on the days, such as Eight Ahau, and particu- larly on Year Bearers. It is they who on the Year Bearer day sacrifice a turkey and burn its blood, the same ceremony that was described by Bishop Landa and that may be seen In the old Maya book called the Dresden. Codex. The Year Bearer is the day on which the year begins according to the old Maya calendar. This day changes, altogether there being four Year Bear- ers. Believe Days Were Gods. “It must be remembered that the Mayas believed that the days are really gods who once lived on earth, which,” says Mr. LaFarge, “helps to explain why the Old People worship them so much. The ordinary Indian, as in olden times, knows little of all this, but Lun does what the soothsayer tells him . At present the Year Bearer and New Year here come in March.” (This was in 1928.) What a thrill there is in finding that all the applied cruelty of the Spanish Conquest, all the regimentation and repression of mestizo government since the were driven out of America have not succeeded in killing the old customs, so that even the an- cient calendar of the best astronomers of the entire world in 1492 is secretly observed today by red men keeping their stores in villages tucked away in Guatemalan mountains! Similarly I have seen the modern Mayas of Vnu:a(.u;'s Quintana Roo and British Honduras burning copal to an- clent gods of the rain in their wayside shrines, have heard them tell how they still have “maize masses” to beseech both the white man's Christ and the red man's Kukulcan to bless the earth with the friendly showers which mean bountiful crops the good yellow maisze of the ancients. Columbus, of course, thought he was discove! not America, but India. logists s tribes in ch remote places as the hills of Gua- temals, modern archeologists recover- g |ing Peruvian tapestries from graves or Mays o | carihing inscriptions from crumbling modern paleontologists un- stone dart points from amid lized bones of creatures the fossl o :Il" 1697, ; death ‘blow”'1s not, sit tolls during November, 1920, and No- vember, 1930, is mentioned, as a result of a decrease of nearly 70 ships in the number of vessels :ol:sl through the canal in the same peri of time. This will be news—and suprising news—for those who have been spread- ing alarming comments on the inability of the Panama Canal to support much longer a traffic increase which was said to be extraordinary. This increase in traffic was, in fact, the chief con- tention of advocates of a mnew inter- oceanic canal through Nicaraguan territory. They argued not long ago, in seek- ing the support of Congress, that the Panama Canal would become inade- &nh within the next ten years, and at traffic and world commerce needs made imperative the construction by the United States of the proposed Nic- araguan Canal. Their insistence was such that they secured the approval by Congress of an appropriation bill for $150,000 for the exploration work on the Nicaraguan route. A special com- mission of American engineers and ex- perts is at present working on the pos- sibilities and advantages of the Nicara- guan canal. In the meantime, the traffic decrease recently reported by the Panama Canal authorities brings up again the question a8 to the canal's capacity for and future world traffic and visability of constructing a new canal acr Nicaragua. Is the Nicaraguan canal really necessary? Is the Panama Canal already inadequate for traffic, or will it become useless in time? OUT FOR A NEW COANAL. As all human problems do, this one has two sides, and it is interesting to note how equally emphatic their exponents are. One of the most enthusiastic par- tisans of a new canal, Senator Mc- Kellar of Tennessee, declared some time ago that the Panama Canal had not ficient capacity to take care of the needs of interoceanic traffic as it will be a few years hence. He said; “Four- | teen years ago the United States Gov- ernment completed the construction of the Panama Canal. Already there are signs that the canal is performing very nearly all the work of which it ble. If traffic through that canal increase during the next ten years as it has dul'h:: e past 14, busi- ness will be clogged and ships must be turned away within only a few years. It is absolutely necessary that there should be another canal dug, and I believe that it should be dug across Nicaragua.” Senator McKellar introduced some two years ago a bill authorizing the building of the Nicaraguan-canal and providing the funds for financing the work. The bill is still in the hands of the committee to which it was re- ferred, but & number of Congressmen and newspaper writers have since been lfll)l:klnl that Senator McKellar was right. According to the flgnu given out b the advocates of the Nicaraguan Canal, the steamer traffic in the Panama Canal has increased to an alarming de- gree. In the 14 years since it was opened the annual total of transits has increased from 1,075 to 6,456, about 500 per cent. This means, they contend, that in 10 years more the Panama Canal will be unable to keep pace with the progress of traffic and world trade. The day will eome, some one has said, when ships wil be packed in long lines at the gates of the Panama Canal, as people are at the doors of moving pic- ture houses, awaiting their turn. IS IT GOOD BUSINESS? The Panama press views the situa- tion differently. Congestion and excess of traffic in the Pumm'."l a Canal do not e lact, increasing, gradually that the increase’ will not have become a danger in even 50 years ‘The largest daily average has only reached 40 per cent of the total operating capacity of the canal, and this with only one set of locks in operation. Should “traffic become con- gested, they say, the proper thing to do would be to add a new set of locks to the canal. This would permit a daily average of 70 or 756 ships; that is, an approximate total of 27,300 ships a year, which they believe is far beyond the figure the canal will have reached in 10 years. Commenting on the unlikelihood of such tremendous increase in traffic, one of the Latin American papers wonders whence so many ships would come, and adds: “The question arises as where they would come from and where they would go and what they would momunly not even the' most pa of American shippers will bulld ships and send them to ama for the mere pleasure of paying tolls and hav- ing them pass through the canal.” THE POLITICAL VIEWPOINT. ‘This problem of interoceanic cangls is not only of economic to the United States but it is also mately connected with certain political aspects iting to the republics of Telat Latin America. Just as the construc- i waie e caen in the Caribbean region turns upon the Panama Canal. The canal was con- structed not only for commercial rea- sons but also for purposes of defense and of military strategy of prime im- portance to this country. Prom the moment of its opening, therefore, it be- came necessary for the United States to determine the best means of protect- ing this formidable work, so closely af- fecting its own national security, since in case of necessity it would permit the of the two squadrons of its grand and assure the success of defense operations in case of attack by & foreign . This instinct of self- defense and self-protection indicated to the United States the advisability of acquiring a certain d of influence over the region in which the canal is located. . LATIN SUSPICIONS. ‘This interest has been given an evil interpretation by many in Latin Amer- ica. The interest of the United States in maintaining order and aiding the progress of the Caribbean countries has been taken in Latin America as a sign of imperialism, as a desire to establish a hegomony over the republics of Latin origin, e United States has been accused of seeking the economic sub- Jection of these peoples, of undertaking financial conquest of them, of exercis- Ing political dominion over them. And of the Panama Canal as a pre- text for furthering its interests and its pretensions. It is not a mystery how much this accusation, no matter how unjustified it may be, has injured the cause of better understanding and closer relationship between the Latin | American nations and the United States. Even the mere announcement hat the Congress in Washington had voted an appropriation for the study of the Ni a Canal’s construction caused alarm last year in certain Latin cir- cles, where there is much disquiet as to Uncle Sam's policies in the Carib- bean. The Central and South Ameri- | can press began to discuss the “dan- gers” which a new United States canal would bring not only to Nicaragua, but to the Spanish-American countries in general, who fear the possibility of American political predominance, NOT A NEW IDEA. The idea of an interoceanic canal through Nicaragua is not new. Before | the United States undertook the con- | struction of the Panama Canal the Isthmian Canal Commission recom- mended that the canal be constructed by the Nicaragua route, as it seemed easier and less expensive, due to the fact that the Panama Canal Co. op- erating with French capital, asked too high a price for the cession of its rights and the work already started on that route. However, as this company re- duced its demands from $109,000,000 to $40,000,000, the commission changed its mind and proceeded to bulld the canal across Panama. In 1914 a treaty was signed by the United States and Nicaragua by which the latter country ceded to the former, for the sum of $3,000,000, the exclusive right to construct and maintain an in- teroceanic canal by way of the San Juan River and Lake Nicaragua or “by any other route through Nicaraguan territory.” Upon_ the provisions of this treaty, which has been duly ratified by the Congresses of both nations, the United States bases its expictations of con- struct A new canal in Central Amer- Ica. is. treaty was a triumph for American policies, for although the United States may not decide to build a new canal, there are reserved to this ich country the rights to the Nicara Canal, the exclusive possession of w] rights no one can dispute. (Copyright. 1930.) WHY DICTATORSHIP EPIDEMIC IN EUROPE Count Sforza Cites Many Reasons and Tells Evils That Have Come to Pass. (Continued from Third ) approval before submitting them to parliament. But so numerous were these bills that the cabinet usually ended by taking lively interest only in those having a political issue. same thing is still n-yrnin‘ in France and Great Britain, with the result that each minister of the cabinet is working only with his own officials, without the collaboration of the rest of the minis- ters. In a parliament the trouble is more evident; too many laws. The disorders of the parliamentary system are due not to bad personnel, but to conditions which would prevent the best conceiv- able personnel from acting as an ef- ficient legislature. Delusion Quick to Arrive. In certain countries the iddle classes have sought a remedy in ist regimes. The delusion has been quick to come. Dictators are obliged, for their own sake, to increase the centrali- zation of power still further—hence they have all of the inconveniences of the parliamentary regimes and none of their advantages. They have the same incompetence, the same decisions of anonymous administrations, but no longer do they have the criticism of wu:u: discussion, the only remedy ex- 1s against corruption, ‘The inconveniences of parliamentary life in the end probably will be checked by a remedy which will be just as ef- fective against the blind adventures of dictators; the remedy I am thinking of will consist of mccepting, or pushing, the principle of federalism (or reg- fonalism, as one might say for Italy and for France). Parliament—for in- stance, the House of Commons in Great Britain—ought to remain the su- reme legislature, while questions re- ting to health, agriculture, mines, iblic works, ete., should be dealt with y assemblies for England, for Scot- land, for Wales. The business of the House of Commons would be halyed. foreign military and imperial affairs would be done efficiently instead of in- efficiently, and the prestige of the House of Commons would rise again the heights of the great English parlia- mentary epochs. There is another slogan about dic- 'hwuhl which formerly found some avor. the able to the top. On the occasion of my first visit to New York this was the objection a great er ralsed to the skepticism about dictators which I had shown in an before the Council of Forelgn Relations. I an- swered that he would soon experience the competence and efficiency of dicta- tors’ servants. I think he has, by now . . . the truth is just the o the illusion of the New Y¢ 3 Dlfl.ltorlh? eliminates the cous us, the critical, the intelligent. As I am not myself concerned (having resigned on the very day a dictator appeared in my country and having maintained my resignation despite written request the contrary from the said dictator), imay add that the able have no chance at all under a dictatorship, except in 50 fag as they are servile, unscrupulous and er openly critical. It has been frequently asserted that democracy is a form mob rule and that dictatorship is the rule of the elite. Again the truth has proved to be just the’ contrary; a dictat organized dictators are: he would-be dictators, such as Herr Hitler, arch es. No prime minister in any European country has proved to have as teh at his disj 1 as the power in pe. Appeal to Bad Emotion. ‘When dictators appeal to the emo- tions of the mob it is most frequently to the bad emotions—if only because they try to provoke war feelings and paroxysms of boastful malignant jingo- ism. Dictators thrive only in & war- like atmosphere, and if their foreign policies remain eful it is only be- cause they are the prisoners of an in- ternational atmosphere which, luckily, they are not st enough to break. has appeared-to be, up, & the present as aj 0 be, up pr 3 at lqul. & success; and this exception proves the rule. It is worth while to explain briefly why-this unique excep- tion has succeeded. allude to Mustapha Kemal, the Turkish dictator. If Kemal's dictatorship still is, or still seems to Dbe, A success, We must not forget that the whole policy of this man was marked at the outset by two rare declsions which are the very ite of what all dictators have always done and still do. Dictators always end in dis- aster because mei are obliged to embark upon a policy of show And vain pres- tige; they have to supply “glory” to compensate for liberty. Kemal had the pluck and the originality to adopt a courageous line of renunciation at the beginning of his domination and—what is still more original—to stick to it, even cal Ictators now in ‘The Turkish Empire, with its caliph- ate, its threats of jihad (holy war), pre- tended to a world policy that had gm( been anachronistic. Mustapha Kemal (Continued From Pirst Page.) the country of another should be financed by the latter. That is to say, that if France puréhased supplies and services in England the British govern- ment would furnish the pounds with which to buy them—and vice-versa. The Story the Week Has Told (Continued from Third Page.) Rex and the Conte di Savole, are near-~ ing completion and are expected to be in commission next year. Each is of about 50,000 tons and a speed of 27 knots is specified for each, but it is rumored at they may outfoot the Bremen and Europa. On December 9 the Preparatory Dis- armament Commission, which for many ‘weeks had been sitting at Geneva, ended its labors. It bequeathed & draft treaf providing for limitation of the land, Sea and air armaments of the world. It did not recommend a date for the - t conference for which “‘t work was preparatory. The presen general tation is that the latter will take place in 1932. On December 11, fresh disorders caused President Machado to decree t guarantees It will be recelled how the President creed When Great Britain bought goods and services in France the French govern- ment would undertake to supply the cs. As to whether in the latter case the francs were furnished on credit or for cash we do not know, but in the British case the pounds were furnished on credit. When America ent war she accepted that sound principle on all business with her allies—that is to say, America d to supply the allies with the dollars with which all their purchases in the U. 8. A. should be consummated, and what was more, she agreed to lend them these dollars. That was the origin of war debts. Yet when America purchased supplies from France and Britain in hundreds of mil- lions of pounds they had to be paid for get these francs and pounds on credit— she paid cash for them. America paid cash for the goods and services which enabled her to make the contribution in the common cause, while the allies got the goods and services from America on credit, which they contributed to the common cause. This is the explanation why the war ended with all the nation: being in debb to America. 4 Now ‘America s called a ‘“shylock” because she won't cancel these debts and make the American taxpayers dis- been visit to Peru. t livia wnuhn.m rmn’bfu a little more o, perhaps. uu-h\nbewl.shedwnnm e merer, the “economic invited to pay a second The situation in Bol “m"‘”m‘fl“u?. Dave great Infu- amusements of royal families _and national jealousies and hatreds engendered by the Doubtless when the America in be con law to settle all internatf tive conflicts with automa e sl ed As a result, its functions of control of |© t dictatorships might bring. amid the intoxication of military success. | th Defends U. S the | watched thril was the first to insist, at Ankars, that new Turkey must renounce all claims to influence outside her raclal frontters. Determined to remain the master in Turkey, he boldly abdicated all claims outside it. From the very first months of 1919, when I was in Constantinople as high commissioner, T had proof that he felt from inning that there lay the only way to salvation for a really independent Turkey. Settlement Destroyed by Fascists. ‘The head of the powerful Moslem sect of the Senussis, whose head |in the southern part of the |ony of Cyrenaica, had escaped to Br in Asia Minor. Convinced as I was, A am, that only a policy of local autonomy and peace would give prosperity to our African colonies, I entered um\ x:uanl and lengthy parleys with nussi chief, offering to reinstate him in his possessions and to grant him a large share of autonomy if he would loyally and formally acknowledge the suser- ainty of Italy and would bind himself to further our political and economic interests in Bengasi and Tripoll. The conversations were successful and led to & settlement which worked out to our satisfaction until it ‘was destroyed by the Fascist government when they dis- covered in naica & fleld for cheap and deceptive military success. Anxious Flance of the Sensis, and earing ook nce of the and fear the Turks, whose defeat I knew to be apparent only, would influence them in the opposite direction, I gave some hint of my negotiations to Mustapha Kemal and his friends. They sent me the following answer: “The mainte- nance of Turkish domimation over the Arabs has been one of the causes of our decline. We do not want to hear any more about them. Let them settle mat- nnwl’t:hyouuthyplunudum Pplease.’ to 1| the ip 18 organ- | wipp fear there they inspire fear. When for years the contact between rulers and Tuled has been mainly spies and ea the s may easily be foreseen. The mental prostration under dogmas, formulas, men (exalted today by order, forgotten by _order, as it' happens all Russia and in Italy) is in run_morally degrading. Thesc sorts of psychological evils risk becom- ing habits of thought so deep rooted as to remain after the causes have gone. The old Thucidides used to say, “The strength of a city is not ships or wall, but men.” He who has traveled in the ancient East has seen races ed incurabi 1 erations of subjection to dic- Wi Seapons, ‘This i the mt‘x’unm why, even gran at a dic rship o 80 much good as to have “the wnn run on time” its effects will always be lethal to a nation. In spite of my interest in things American, I do not know whether American citizens still Temember Sam- uel Gompers. This much I know—that few phases have to me as rich in deep whole-hearted sincerity among e thousands declaimed at the Paris Peace Conference as the following one the American labor leader said one day at one of the sittings: ‘“‘Men do not know how safe a thing freedom i1s.” . War Effort never fight. They only make the work- ing mugs and suckers kill each other. ‘Think of the millions of workers killed, wounded, maimed and disabled never generated one progressive idea bene- ficial to the human race! keep squabbles. It is believed erica was too lad that the war was over and won before America spent all that money or 'fi any soldiers at the front. I was, others, in America di the mighty in francs ahd pounds. America did not | Britain, gorge huge sums annually to pay for|the under | th The commonwealth governinent spent ug.lo&m‘ on war waste, I&I: :: Cnasitale. citiaens, In in em“u.xu,m, MAH s or expen: of the war lord ml,umw no financier wi ”eom on the value of a Jmm.hruah half the money expended on war by the f had spent in Wpliftin