Evening Star Newspaper, December 28, 1930, Page 25

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EDITORIAL SECITION Che Sundiwy Star, Editorial Page Part 2—8 Pages WASHINGTON, D. C, SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 28 1930. DRAMATIC POLITICS LOOM IN NEW CONGRESS SESSION Evenly Matched Parties, on Eve of Ma- neuvers Over Presidency, Have Many Issues to Fight Out. BY MARK SULLIVAN. HE writer began this article in the spirit of composing one of those year-end annals—summa- ries of the old year and forecasts of the new—which many writers and other authorities will contribute to nearly all the newspapers and period- icals dur\ng the coming week. It oc- curred to me, as a partial preparation, to look back through old newspaper files for the similar summaries and forecasts in past periods of business depression— the depression of the early 1890s, the panic of 1907 and its sequel, the busi- ness phenomena that followed the be- ginning of the Great War in 1915, and ;..‘llel deflation depression of 1920 and 21. I knew what I should find, and I found it—a spirit of somber gloom on the New Year day when the depression was acute—followed (in most cases) by normal cheerfulness, or even elation, on the New Year day of a year later. For ek"lumple. x(n'l .hnulafiy:, ltl"lo. (fol- fowing panic year , the year- end commentators emitted clouds of . One New York newspaper said on January 1, 1908, that the year just ended was the worst for the railroads in all their history. The condition of business depression was accompanied (then as now, and always) by expres- sions of social and political unrest. An article in the New York Times of Jan- uary 6, 1908, gave a conspicuous he line to “The Country’s Wealth—Is 99 Per Cent of It in the Hands of 1 Per Cent of the People?” Possessors of Wealth. (This particular type of expression of discontent, or the condition that causes it, must have abated much during the 238 years that have elapsed; the current form of the same question has changed the ratio, and now asks: “Is 90 per cent of the country’s wealth in the hands of 10 per cent ofethe people?”) The only cheerfulness that appeared in the year-end summaries on January 1, 1908, and nearby days, was artificial, forced. There were, as now, attempts at artificial respirations for the sick pa. tient in the shape of reassuring plati- tudes from persons highly placed in the businl- and political world. The then of the Treasury, Leslie M. sh.w JTowa (he still lives, at the age of 82; one may see him any day at the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington), was solicited during the year by the newspapers of the day to cheer the coun- , “There s no occasion for alarm.” One of the utterances from distin- guished men that speckled the news- papers with synthetic cheerfulness at the end of 1907 came from an excep- tionally solid man, and he expressed a characteristically solid sentiment. Jacob H Schiff, a mighty man of finance in the first decade of this century, asso- ciated with the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., uttered fihl New York World for December. two months after the panic of that ydr, a sentence that ;mgm-my be duplicated as guidance for Strength In Experience. “With the period of quietness through which we afe to pass for some time,” said Mr. Schiff, “we shall emerge be- fore long suonler and better equipped then ever before. (Were Mr. Schiff alive today, 1 sus- t he might duplicate for 1931 his | de forecast for 1908, saying that we are about to pass through a period of quiet, tnm which “we shall emerge before ng stronger and better equipped than "ll' before.”) Just as Mr. Schiff foretold at the of 1907, so did it turn out. One| r later, January 1, 1909, the New | ‘ork Tribune welcomed the New Year | in the familiar figure of an infant, with & headline that said: Prosperity greets a shivering infant and recited that “the dining rooms of the big hotels indicated clearly the re- turn of prosperity. . . . In the fine year of 1908, recovery from lhe panic of 1907 made rapid progress . By a year later yet as New Year Av of 1910 approached, the country preoccupied not with depression m with the opposite of depression; high prices were so much in the public mind that the New York World pub: lished a symposium from eminent au- | thorities about the rising prices of | everything, and the causes thereof. { All of which two-year cycle of de- | pression followed by recovery, from | January 1, 1907, to January 1, 1909, can be summed up by a glance at the Bflu of the common stock of the nited States Steel Corporation on three successive year-beginnings. In the year of depression, 1907, the price was almost exactly cut in half; during | the succeeding year of recovtry. 1908, it more than doubled again January 1, 1909. Overmuch of Prophecy. Prom those records of 22 and 23 years 8go, the inference about today, about the year just closing and the one about to begin, seems very plain. That infer- ence, the application to todayr, can be safely. Nevertheless, I refrain from pmphecy I refrain, for one rea- | son among several, because there has | always been overmuch of it—and I an- | ticipate there will be more during the | coming week. I suspect the country is “fed up” with it. 'x‘gecbm qulp I hlve heard lately was passed to me by one who said it orl[tnnbed Wfih Albert Lasker, advertising agent and business man. Mr. Lasker is reputed to have said, “What the country is suffering from is overprediction.” (Will the typesetter please be very careful with that word.) I refrain from prediction for the fur- ther reason that prophecy is always risky. If the public men who are fre- quently quoted in the press, as well as the professional writers who contribute to the press (including the present one) were to be confronted by the numerous and various prophecies and predictions, expressed or implied, that they have uttered in past years, they would in most cases have an experience likely to diminish their self-confidence. For example: After there had been a year of panic and low prices in 1907 and after there had been two years of rising prices in 1908 and 1909, and as the end of 1909 approached ‘and the New York World printed its symposium from distinguished men about the causes of rising prices, one of those who con- tributed was William E. Borah, eminent then and eminent still. Senator Borah delivered a judgment: “We seem to be approaching a time when we shall be importing (foodstuffs). This is due to the failure to fertilize and keep up the producing power of our lands and the failure to utilize the 25,000,000 acres of arid land in the West.” Judgment of Today. ‘That was 21 years ago. Today the common judgment seems to be that America produces not too little food- stuffs but too much; that what we need is not more acres of production, but fewer—and the counsel given to farm- ers is that they should restrict their acreage. So much for all that. As to the po- litical aspects of the year j\ut oFen.Ing‘ some definite things can one sense it will be, 50 to l'pelk & non- political year; there will be no national election, no election of a President, no general election of Representatives to Congress or of Senators. ‘There will be, of course, sporadic spe- cial elections to fill vacancies arising through death in both chambers of Congress. As it happens, these special elections will be particularly exciting. ‘They will be importans because, with each death and its cheice of a succes- sor, the hair-line majority that exists in each of the two Houses will often pass back and forth from Republican to Democratic, or vice versa. We can say of the new Congress elected on November 4 last that in both its chambers the parties are almost ex- actly divided. It is an unusual condi- tion, certain to be productive of excit- ing politics. We may say loosely, for the present purpose, that the new Sen- Sear 15 Kepuplican by & majoriy of one year pul a one or two out of a total of 96, and that the new House is Republican or Democratic (depending upon how contests turn out) by one or two, If that is the con- dition as of today, it will be changed perhaps a dozen times during the com- ing year by the deaths of Senators and Representatives, depending upon wheth- er the deaths occur among Republicans or among Democrats, and depending also upon whether the successors chosen belong to the same parties as the men Possible G. O. P. Reverses. lnthhxhuun:ottheputymjoflw fortune is likely to run against the Dubllclm slightly. The reason, as re- pects the Senate, is that when a Senator dlea his successor is commonly chosen by the Governor of the State, and a good many Governors are Democrats. To il- lustrate by an example which we all hope ‘will not be real, if either of the two Republican Senators from Connecti- cut should die during 1931, his successor wiil be chosen by a Democratic Governor. Similarly. if the one Republican Senator from Ohio, or the one from Maryland, or the one from each of some other States should die, his successor would be chosen by a Democratic Governor. Consequently, as respects the Senate, the net result of changes due to death is likely to be adverse to the Republicans. To look at the coming pouual year from another pomnt of view: The Con- gress now in session (which is the old Congress) will function until March 4 | next and then will cease to exist. There- after, for nine quiet months, we shall | have no Congress whatever in Washing- ton. That is, we shall have no Congress unless there should be a special session of the new one, and it is now almost certain there will be no special session. Then, on December 7 next year, the new Congress will come into existence, the | Congress in which both Houses of which the parties are so evenly divided Because of that fact the politics of the new Congress will be dramatic. It will be important for another reason December of next year, when the new Congress meets, will be the eve of those maneuvers of politicians whereby one man is chosen to be the presidential cand'date of the Republican party and another of the Democratic party. And that brings us back where we started, for the outcome of the presiden- tial situation in 1932, as respects both the nominations and the election, will depend very largely upon the state of buflm&sdurlnx the year just ahead of us. World Is Pervaded by Calcium Cloud, Observations With Spectroscope Reveal whole universe appears to be ldefl by a cloud of calcium—ex- | ding through all space with a dens- | ity about one ten-billlonth that of the earth’s atmosphere. ‘This cloud, one of the latest mys- teries of astronomy, is revealed by observations with the spectroscope, according to Prof. E. A. M eole-l ford University. Calcium lines, he says. | are obtained in the spectra of the hul-f test stars, where, because of the intense heat, the calcium atoms would be so stripped of their electrons that such lines would not be produced. ‘The explanation that the calclum woduelu these lines must be some- between the observed star and the obmver on earth rather than in appear stronges e spectra o most distant stars. The lines of all the elunenu weaken with the dis- of the wuree of light. So the cannot be in the star. It must tra, Milne ex- mxmuly that of the sun through the gala: !Y words, it i not moving but this all-pervading robably is due to this pressure of light, but the force from a medium-hot star such as the sun is not sufficient to shove the atoms into outer space. This can happen only with the very hot stars. From the latter, Miine explains, there must be a constant “upward rain” of ‘These become diffused in space and make up the cosmic cloud. Japam.:se Labor P;rty Ousts Three Leaders ‘The Ronoto, or Labor-Farm party, one f »cnlcium atoms on an enormous scale. | hereon- . Stalwart, athletic, Bue-eyed, | Keeping Workers on the Job Employers Have Come to Realize Their Responsibility in Keeping Wheels of Progress Turning. BY ROBERT P. LAMONT, Secretary of Commerce of the United States. ECENTLY the head of one of the country’s great industrial cor- porations addressed a gathering of business men in New York. The speaker was a man who had conducted a vast business prosper- ously over a long period of years. He talked nearly an hour and throughout the time had the attention of practi- cally every man in the audience. After his address he was asked dozens of questions. Neither the, address nor the questions related to the making of profits. In- stead, they related to the aking of jobs! It was plainly apparent that every employer in the room was in- tensely interested in learning how to keep working forces intact. The industrial leader who made the address described the plan that his company had adopted several years be- fore. It was a plan not to maintain or increase profits, but to keep on the pay roll in times of poor business all the many thousands of men and women summas result of that effort by stating that m!y BY IRVING BACHELLER. ATT SLOAN, s0 he is called hy‘ his intimates, is, like Oweny Young, an epic figure in Amer- \ 1 ican life. In certain of the basic elements of his char- acter he reminds me of Young. Both were rooted in a like soil out of which came a deep and lasting respect for all | the great verities They are devoted | to the same ideal of public service. As a human product Sloan has lonfl engaged my interest. I knew him when he was finding his way to the eminent | position he now holds—captain of the | immense industry of giving light and | heat to the greatest municipality on this continent. He had come to an institu- | tion in Greater New York. He saw that | its first need was honesty. He began to | search his memory for honest men with whom to surround himself. He found | first one and then another, and called | them to his ald. His company began to grow in power, efficiency and public esteem. Born in Mobile, he has the courtesy | of the old South. It is in his greeting, his smile, his cheerful good nature, his | manner of disagreeing with one. A big industry is in some degree like a ship. The ship may look as hand- some as ever when her bottom is cov- ered with barnacles, but she has lost a part of her efficiency. Sloan will have | a clean ship above and below the line ‘o( visibility The pathway of a great | enterprise is probably as full of hidden enemies and perils as the salt sea. Man in Love With His Job. | Matt Sloan is one of the busiest men | 1 know. Yet I have never met a happier | nearly 6 feet tall, his happines§ bursts | into laughter on slight provocation. 'You look like a man in love with his job,” I said, as our talk began. 1 am,” he answered. The big thing in life is to find your job and fall in love with it. Then you must have the right kind of help. I am always looking for honest, healthy, keen-minded young men and women who want to work of the three outstanding proletarian po- litical groups, expelled three of its fore- most members recently. This summa action, taken against Dr. Hajime Kawi kami, Susumu Kamimura and Kanji expel only ai m heated discussion and after the three men had steadfastly refused to retract. Dr. Kawakami was one of the organizers of the Labor-Farm Pny Formerly he was a professor of political science at the Imperial University, | army but ), following ‘The best of them can look forward tc h)‘ salaries if they will only work hard.” is the great problem of Amer- fca?” I asked. ‘Without a moment's hesitation he an- swered: “Here are three great forces which are to continue the work of civilization. my are government, business, the host ? young. "Bunnau has grown to be immense Night and day it is moving. never ceases. It can accommu great v-rlety nt talents. It needs a vast It forces upon our 2 rnnent uulu!w of new prob- 'nnn structures , COWBOY!” 16 people had been dropped from the i:g;l)puny‘s pay roll since January 1, After the meeting was over, this em- ployer of thousands was approached by one of those who had listened to him— & man none too prosperous in appear- ance—who introduced himself as a builder. He said, “I just want to thank you for making me feel that maybe I'm Have You Right to Be Every One Should Prove His Right to Live, as Man Never Gets Above Work, Sloan’s Clatm; MATTHEW $. SLOAN. er that our great ouns who are able flu future. If our country r and be happy, some one ach uuvollnz how to get ?” 1 asked. tion of getting above work is exploded. A man never gets above work. The fact is work gets above him. Since the boouene‘r and the racketeer have been able amass fortunes, wealth has cnud to be impressive as a token of i b s B it one should Really, T not such a fool after all. I haven't fired a man myself in the last 12 months; been keeping them working most of the time on any kind of repair or construction job I could locaf whether there was any profit in it or not, and without making a nickel for myself. Just lately I've been wondering whether I wasn’t a fool and whether I oughtn't to just close down until things pick up. But I feel now, after listening to you, that I've been doing the right thing, after all.” And that’s the present attitude 0; an Department of Commerce at Washing- ton Col. Arthur Woods, chairman of the President’s Emergency Committee for Employment, is imm‘ reports from industries of every kind and size dem- onstrating conclusively that business men are readily assuming what they believe to be their responsibilities to- :urd their employes during the depres- jon. ‘Those reports contain nothing to in- —From a painting by Albertine Randall Wheelan dicate that these men consider thei: obligation to maintain employment or nze payments as one of charitable duty. Instead, their attitude is that (Continued on Fourth Page.) question if a healthy idler has any monl right to be alive.” “I can tell you one thing that the world wants to know,” I sald. “How are the young to be prepared to pass your examination in the three requi- sites of honesty, love of work and keen- mindedness?” Says Job Must Begin at Home. “Naturally, the great job must begin at home,” he sald. “It begins with the difficult problem of making boys and girls honest. That’s the first thing to be learned. If you don’t get it at home, you may have to live without it—the worst handicap known to man. How are we going to teach honesty? Well, we should begin before the student is born. We should be honest ourselves and give him a proper inheritance. If you were not honest before the child is born, get honest as soon as possible after his arrival, or you will find him hard to live with. There is no detec- tive in the world who will learn the truth about you so quickly as your chil- dren. They hear all the gossip of the neighborhood. You cannot fool them. Don’t allow yourself to think that you can make a slip and get away with it, or that any part of your reputation i unknown to them. The frank little bar- barians with whom they assoclate do not whisper. They yell. If you have the habit of cheating in business or playing with chorus girls, every kid in your neighborhood will know it. “Now, I suppose that the two people who have the greatest power in them or evil are the mother and Your child longs to honor you. The greatest tragedy of childhood comes when the idol is broken. Teaching of Honesty Stressed. [EUROPEAN LEADERS TURN [FROM POLITICS TO TRADE IStalesmen Hope for Improvement in International Affairs Through Bet- tering of Economic Factors. BY FRANK H. SIMONDS. ONDON.—The coming of the holi- day season and the approach of a new year must inevitably in- x\u certain speculations as to e pros] for the next 12 months in foreign affairs. The yeu- that is ending has patently been the worst since the termination of the World w-r, aroused C evitable lpprehenuam What, then, the outlook for a new year? in no small measure be sought in the economic rather than the political pros- pects. For in no small measure the explanation of current political trouble is to be discovered in business depres- sion. In the United States and Great Britain, which have known hard times, as in France, which has largely escaped them, the political regime cannot be endangered by hard times. The United States, for example, takes its grouch|my out upon the party in power, but no one In Europe, by contrast, the political institutions of many oountries—and among them several of the most impor- mm,—lnve as yef. sent down only very u.nhndly% end other than in eventusi The question in Europe today is between war or peace this year or m The problem 18 not. averting some new eonnm just around the corner. eal problem is o organize peace, to tablish a system of murmuoxul Te- m.lou which shall eliminate the sense of insecurity on the one hand and of 1y | intolerable inferiority on the other. And pessimism in and out of Europe in recent months has arisen, not beca: The answer to this interrogation must | 409 one could fail to perceive that the questions dividing the two sets of coun- :.Heb mi ng conditions. Coming Year Critical. The year which is coming will Jjudgment, more critical ouwr year since l'lg:. it is mani- fest, that once more, as in 1924, large groups of thoughtful men and women in every country are sufficiently dis- quieted to insure activity. This is the case in Germany, where the Hitler vic- its immediate In Germany and Italy |fest noubly the republic on the one hand and the Fascist state on the other repre- sent novel expenmznta—experl.mm which were entered upon contrary to the will or without the participation of majorities. Thus the permanence of these forms of government depends al- most uniquely upon their ability to produce prosperity at home and pres- tige abroad. And particularly in the case of Ger- many economic depression following the disaster of a lost war has made both achievements for the moment impossi- ble. More than a decade after fl;e close ts | throug] mismanagem Nnvumconlerence, along with total fail- handling domestic problems, insures ln early fall of the Labor government. It is true in France, where, so far, the nationalistic cam- paign against Briand has falled. Eu- rope has been for more than 12 months talking politics, because it has been unable to do business. Interminable conversation has inevitably served to exacerbate international issues, which are always difficult. But this discus- find | sion has ended by producing universal alarm. N there and glory are alike absent; hence the phenomenon of Hitler and the “Nazis.” And in Italy, where the economic de- pression is severe, the necessity to em- phasize international influence explains the worst of the Mussolini thunderings. ‘Yet at bottom nothing is clearer than that neither the Italian nor the Ger- war times, but there is one essentially different circumstance, namely, the fact that all peoples have now known war, while in 1914 it was something outside the experience not merely of the young but also of the mature. If there had been no far-reacl and inf to conclude that in the past two years we should have heard comparatively little of the super-nationalistic bom- hutolreummnnm l!uwreheve‘l: a slight recovery business, equ:lly reasonable m believe that next year will find international trade eir- cumstances flict possibilmes off the front page. One can support such statements by | glance at still recent Fol- the of peace from 1919 rizht down to the beginning of 1924 economic conditions in many countries | after & momentary recovery continued bad, and in the same period the inter- m.unml relations moved with ominous steadiness toward that supreme disas- ter that was the occupation of the Ruhr. At that moment the ruin of Europe flnt was forecast by many and escape from general misfortune seemed im- possible. Catastrophe Brought Locarno. Yet the very fact of having been brought face to face with a new and general catastrophe proved in the end a u.\vsfimx, for it opened the eyes 01 muumg ho knew what war meant to danl.nndnz necessity for cl And in one brief 12 months we had British and French elections and the arrival of who made the Dawes plan and after innumerable conversations in many capitals met snd made history at Locarno. And Locarno for four years peace, co-operation, and, above nll. Manifestly affairs have reached a similar crisis now. To go on in the direction of the past year for another already perulved every- tions of w must prevent u’eum co-openflon and pushing international con- | I evanescent as that of flourished following the French d!su ters of 1870 under circumstances quife like those which have given Hitler his vogue. : If Europe can only have better busi- ness and fewer conferences during the next year, the end of 1931 is bound to be more cheerful. One of the most hing intense economic crisis, it is fair | home. trying to ?:ru.fy his u.munury situation he found hlm- ul.l faced with an ever-growing Fran talian quarrel, which ended by Mfln Europe by the ears. ‘eary of Conferences. Peace h tgr:permy and with- out conferences—i was the recipe ol one of the wisest of the old-style Euro- pean statesmen whom I encountered during the London conference. Having med l.\l jmanner of wnlm in the year, Europe ‘manifestly vmy nl the prumt meumd. and for the nmmem even the politicians are beginning to see.that it does not solve their domestic riddles. Wherefore it is my own conviction that Europe will in 1931 talk a great deal more about busi- ness than about politics, that even hereditary enemies like France and Ger- change German f¢ : the whole Continental -mm.\m. should it not (Copyright. 1930. ) Gossip, Theft, Murder and Illness Unknown in Gumushane, Turke)f GUMUSHANE, Turkey.—Gossip, rob- bery and murder are unknown in the wly of Gumushane and its surrounding | The ages. Doors are never locked, not even at night, and the p owners meander to the coffee house in peace and leave their goods to the kind care of Allah on high. If any one drops his pocketbook in the streets he need not worry and rush to the police statlon; he will be sure that a passerby will run after him and hand him his purse with not a piaster missing. In he village of Mflk the inhabit- ants have not stepped into a law coun not even as witnesses, for a period of 40 years. The women of Gumushane do not wander to their next door neigh- bors to indulge in the indoor sport of Heads do not coma close to ities of busy e otion ot s o o apples, an mpec ket. y have neither the time and pears sell 20 cents per 10 pounds, and meat is about 10 eenu the pound. best butter is 30 cents a m\lng. are sold for 20 cents a pound in bul. This tremendous lnmueinwlce is due to the lack of tral rtation. fertile and fruits and abundant, these could not be out of the villages and cities in they grew. Hence the peasants onlx sowed or grew enough fruits to satisfy home consumption. If they produced. more, the goods remained on t.helr hands :l:l: rotted. ‘The republic has 1ty | nor the desire to tear people to pieces |oth ers scholarship and what is called good character. They may have all that and not have, nality, which includes a capacity leadership. The young long for lnd demand ludenmp ‘They want a captain—a hero. The, teacher should: have & loving Interest. in them with their tongues. Gumushane is the true mndlae of Turkey, where doctors and druggists cannot earn a lif It has been esti- mated that only $250 & year was spent medic e to the excellence of try to the other, America has succeeded in dntnl ton.| Ontario Road Earns

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