Evening Star Newspaper, July 19, 1931, Page 15

Editorial Page Part 2—8 Pages EDITORIAL SECTION - he Sunday Star, ASHIN TON, 'D.’ C., SUNDAY TORNING, JULY 19, 1931. ; S'pecial Art-icles PEACE EFFORTS INVOLVE U. S. IN EUROPEAN STRIFE Hoover Purpose of Pressing Disarma- ment Finds Nations Eager for Modi- fication of Reparation Terms. i BY FRANK H. SIMONDS. ANY public utterances of Presi- dent Hoover in the recent past, culminating in his final state- men after the agreement over the debt moratorium, have Pombined to indicate his clear purpose to press the issue of disarmament at the conference called for this object in Geneva next Winter. It is therefore essential for the American people to pereceive why this presidential purpose must involve us at once the very eenter of the present European political mituation, and in very sharp and_col $inuing controversy with various Euro- an peoples S osndtional anarchy which has prevailed in Europe ever since the close of the war has its immediate origin in the refusal of the pecple who lost the war to accept as final the terms of the various peace treaties. This refusal has ®t once threatened the territorial unity Bnd military security of other countries. JAnd in practice this has meant aligning the French, Polish, Czechoslovak, Ru- manian and Jugoslav peoples on one Ride and the German, Austrian, Hun- rrlln and Bulgarian on the other. #hus two groups, together counting 00,000,000 peoples and fairly equal in ize, has confronted each other. Peace Efforts Paralyzed. The deadlock which has resulted from this_shock of purposes has so far paralyzed all attempts at permanent organization of peace. and has been in no inconsiderable degree responsible for the economic prostration of Central Furope. It has, too, caused nations whose unity or security was menaced by the demand for treaty revision to make military alliances and _expand their military organizations, thus re- storing the perilous circumstances of pre-war Europe. By the treaties of peace the defeated powers were rigidly restricted in the matter of armaments to forces adequate to preserve domestic order. While this condition endures they are automati- cally stopped from any attempt by force to realize their aspirations for treaty revision. On the other hand, since their forces are now at that minimum con- sistent with the preservation of domestic order, they are removed from the effect of any disarmament operation. Thus, when Mr. Hoover confronts *Europe with a recommendation for a reduction in_ military forces, he is, in fact, asking the peoples whose unity or security is menaced by the revision pro- gram to reduce the single means which they possess to make impossible such yevision. And each reduction in num- bers or material lessens the gap betwec them and their neighbors whose pur- oses threaten them. Counter Proposals Likely. So it is cbvicus that the status quo Powers, who are also the armed powers, will counter Mr, Hoover's demands with certain proposals of their own. They will ask that in return for the reduction of their military insurance against te torial loss they be given other guar- 'Etm. ‘These guarantees can either ke the form of an American pledge to fend the status quo powers if they are attached following compliance with 'American request for armament reduc- tion. or they may ask the American President to cbtain in Berlin, Vienna and Budapest some satisfactory pledge of the German, Austrian and Hungarian purpose to respect the status quo. For it will be seen that to the minds of the status quo peoples mere reduc- tion in military forces will not promise peace but rather threaten war, as it 1¢ssens the odds against the people who now insist upon treaty changes. Thus, ular opinion would compel it to meet the American proposal for a reduction of the French army by the demand for precisely the same sort of guarantee Clemenceau obtained from Wilson under similar circumstances and the- United States Senate rejected. And the French people would be unable to understand how an American President could ask it to reduce its armaments precisely as long as the American Government was unprepared to undertake that such re- | duction should not be accompanied by any diminution in national security. The Polish people would similarly ask American assurances, both on the side of Russia and Germany, the Czech both in respect of Austria and Hungary. ‘The idea of a diminution of burdens upon the taxpayers incident to a reduc- tion of armies would be welcome In every country, but no people would con- sider the possibility of temporary relief |from a current expenditure which, if | onerous, was still tolerable at the risk |of a new war and a subscquent mutila- | tion of national frontiers. And Mr. Hoover would be unable to convince the French, Polish or Czech peoples of the | absence of any such danger precisely as | ‘long as he was unable to persuade the | German and Austrian peoples to aban- don their present purposes. | ¢ | Moreover, there has been no moment | less auspicious for any disarmament | conference than the present since the | time of the Ruhr occupation, because | | the adoption by the Bruening cabinet | | last Autumn of the revision demands of | the Nationalists and the later sweep of | the extreme Nationalists, followed this | Spring by the proposal for a tariff union between Austria and Germany, has aroused apprehension, and even fear, in all the countries immediately affected This state of mind was clearly disclosed in the lack of French enthusiasm over the debt moratorium. { Peril of Mussolini. On the naval sice American interven- | tion has also very clear consequences 1o | the Prench mind. France sess in the | present and frequently proclaimed pur- poses of Mussolini a peril to its Colo- nial empire, and in particular to its | | Mediterranean situation. As a_conse- | quence it refuses to agree to parity with |Italy. As TItaly is far poorer than Prance, she cannot permanently keep pace with France if French construction is considerable. By contrast each re- | duction of the French tonnage lessens | |the odds. It was this circumstance | which led the French at London to ask | some form of Mediterranean Locarno, | | involving a consultative pact on our | | part_as the condition of joining in a | | five-power pact. | In the case of the debt negotiations the American people had clear evidence | of the extent to which political consid- | erations interfere with financial and economic. Moreover, it is unmistakable | that while the French have in the end | assented to the Hoover debt program, | | they remain skeptical of German pur- | | poses and fearful less financial relief | may encourage German military prepa- rations and American interest in Ger- | | many strengthen German resistance to | the peace treaties. The result is bound | to be even more sustained resistance to arn-t disarmament program than in the past. After nearly a_decade and a half of | persistent effort Europe has finally im- | posed upon America recognition of the connection between war cebts and Ger- | man reparations and the interest of the | United States in European prosperity. This success spells to all European minds the eventual extinction of both |debt and reparation payments. That issue is already considered as good as | closed by Europe. where no one expects | to see a resurrection of the Young plan. | Walker Wiliebrandt) BY SANFORD BATES, Director, Bureau of Prisons of the | TUnited 5States. | HAT s to be done with | eriminals? That question | has_arisen time and time | again during the last few | years, when prison guards | have been knifed and clubbed to death; | convicts shot down with machine guns: | windows and meager furniture smashed | by revolting inmates: fire set to build- | ings, mattresses and anything that wouid burn. It is a question that has come down to us through the ages And through the centuries the an- swers, many and varied, have been a companied by the smell of burning hu- man flesh, the cries of tortured men FRONT VIEW OF THE ATLANTA FEDERAL PENITENTIARY, of men and women sentenced to remain | there an aggregate of millions of years. |Some few convicts have escaped.” But the vast majority are still confined: | safely segregated from scciety, which | suffered from their depradations when |at large. Yet society—and I mean by | that our millions of taxvayers big and |{lttle—is paving hundreds of millions |of dellars for prisen bills and for the | support of prisoners’ families | And it is safe to say that crime has | not diminished, despite longer sentences, | higher prison walls, more armed guards. | "One has but to look through the pages of Wine's history of “Punishment and Reformation” to acquire some doubts as to the entire efficacy of a policy of punishment only. One sees the English thief of a certain period, and women, | | his flesh seared by a Ted-hot iron with i | I pr : —and by that very ac in the days when, | the time had come to adopt a definite, ' problem in the short space of two years. | the letter an y nssl""rgit‘::kh:-lfi:?zewmes hu’pomted‘wknuflc Federal prison policy. Instead. I can and do report that|deprived of any possibility of ever out, the laws authorized the infiiction| That policy was one that combined | in those two vears substantial. hearten- | earning an honest livelihood: forced, of the death penalty for more than | one hundred distinct offenses. Then a French judge boasted that he had burned 800 persons in 16 vears. And in England, during the reign of one | monarch, 70,000 persons were put to | death in the name of the law! | way A little more than two years ago the Government actively attacked this problem_as it related to FedeTal pris- oners. President Hoover, Attorney Gen- | eral William D. Mitchell and the assist- ant attorney general in charge of the prisons divisions (then Mrs. Mabel two objects: protection of society and rehabilitation of the prisoner. Three-fold Purpose. ‘The Attorney General, Mr. Mitchell expressed that policy suceinctly in this “The prison of the future should be at once a disciplinary school for those who can be reformed, a place of per- manent_segregation for the incorrigible and a laboratory for the study of the causes of erime.” 1 wish I might be able to report that | there must ing progress has been made toward the effort, ‘To und and and judge the effort, t & comprehension of the problem. That problem is not one of build- ing bigger and “better” prisons. to hold more tightly and more surely those who have violated the criminal laws. ‘The fact is that practically all prisons of today are a success—in a sense. By that T mean that they have continued to hold within their high walls and iron determined that ' we had wholly solved the Federal prison bars nearly all the scores of thousands in fact, to continue as an outcast | goal to which the President directed our | thief with every honest man's hand | turned against him. | Modes of Punishment. One sees through the centuries all the other modes of punishment de- vised by the cruel ingenuity of rulers and the officers of the law; men and women burned at the stake; their ears and noses cut off, hot lead poured | down thelr throats: prisoners torn | limb from limb by horses; men cast (Continued on Fourth Page.) Yankee Invasion of Mexico Infiltration of Peopl es and Finances Working Strange Things South of the Rio Grande. 1932 ELECTION TO TURN _ ON STATE OF BUSINESS \Demand for Cheaper Money Stirs Old | BY MARK SULLIVAN. | N experienced and able politician, | Republican, in a private conver- | sation, dispossd of the 1932 pres- | idential year thus: | “'President Hoover will be re- | nominated, of course. He will be re- el:cted, barring two conditions. He can be beaten only if the business depres- sion continues at its present depth. Even with that condition continuing, Mr. Hoover can only be beaten by some | | one who comes forward with a plausible | remedy for depression.” | In that last sentence the significant | | phrase is “plausible remedy.” “Plaus- | ible” means something that promises or | tries to do what cannot be done in fact. A “plausible remedy” is one that sounds convincing, but in operation cannot | turn the trick. If there wers any genu- | ine, short-cut remedy for depression, it | goes without saying that President | Hoover would have discovered it some | time ago, and would have applied it | without wailing for the 1932 election, | And if not President Hoover, some one | | clse among the business and banking | | leaders who have explored every area in | “Whlf.:ll remedy for depression might be | found. 5 But before discussing the “plausible | remedy” that seems likely to emerge in | 1932, let us examine briefly the first two | conditions in this Republican pundit’s dictum, | Business Holds Answer. President Hoover's re-election or de- | feat, this Republican says, will turn primarily upon the condition of busi- ness. Maybe so. That is almost the universal view, shared by Republicans and Democrats alike. Very probably it is so. But one feels like cautiously pointing out that it is at least possible | for business to return to normal and | vet for President Hoover 0 be defeated on some other issue than business. One files this minute caveat only because | | of the speed with which things change | |in America. We have seen within the | |last few weeks how rapidly & new issue | and a new determining influence in | politics, namely, our relation to Europe, can push everything else, even probi- bition, off the boards. In the more than 15 months before the election the same sort of thing can happen again snd with th: same suddenness. Events | move fast in the modern world snd America has become an extremely vola- tile nation, capable of disconcertingly rapid alternation of praise and disap- proval for its public men. Let all this pass, however. The greater probability really is that next year's election Wwiil turn upon the state of business. ‘The next condition in the Republican | politician's dictum is more tangible | and more subject to rezl argument. To express it in the form of a question. Wil the present business depression still be underway when the presidential election comes in November, 1932, more than 15 months ahead of us? ‘To prophesy about the length of this depression comes under the head of dangerous occupations. By “end of the depression” most persons mean restora- tion of the condition they remember as of early 1929. In some future year this country without doubt will have & prosperity exceeding that of early 1929. | For political purposes, however, for the purpose of saving the party in power, prosperity doss not need to reach in 1 1932 the heights it had in 1929. When | Republican political leaders count upon |the “end of the depression” or the “return of prosperity” as ng them | {in 1932, all they ask for is the sensa- | tion of steady betterment. the feel of | rising sap in the tree of business. | That this condition, this much at| Silver Issue—¢‘“Plausible Remed, 4 for Depression Only Obstruction. » Journal the following, from a very careful observer and accurate-minded scholar: x “Recently this writér Woodlock, ~ recently interstate com- merce commissioner) referred to a cloud the size of a man's hand u) the horizon that seemed to portend a coming debate or question or problem or conflict (whatever gne chooses to call it) on the matter/ of the money unit or standard of prices. . Out of such situations (as the present de- pression) invariably arises a demand for relief of the debtor. which in these later days almost invariably takes the form of a demznd for ‘cheap mdney’ or of ‘inflation.” That such a demand will become more and more insistent as time goes on is most probable. , . Symptoms already sre apparent. . . . We already have heard mutterings g2inst ‘gold’ from both the extremes trat ccnstitute the debtor class (busi- ness borrowers) and the farmer. The agitation concerning silver—which 1= at present litt'e more than a local ‘po- litical’ affair, 50 far as this country im concerned—is rather likely to gain force #s time goes on. . . . A battle sooner or later seems to be looming.” The magic inherent in the idea of silver currency, making it a “plausible remedy” and giving it potency for ex- (Thomas T. | citing men’s imaginations, is that it increases the number of dollars in the country. And scarcity of dollars—not exactly that, for dollars are not really scarce—difficulty of getting hold of enough dollars to pay debts. is the principal aspect of this depression, Not one person in a thousand sees it that way or expresses it that way. The Kansas farmer says his troubie—and it is & very reil trouble—is the “low price of wheat.” But the “low price of wheat” is (for the Kansas farmer) exactly the same thing as the “high price of dollars.” Some two years ago a Kansas farmer in search of a dollzr could get one by paying (speaking roughly) one bushel of ‘wheat for it. Today a Kansas farm- er in search of a dollar must pay (speaking roughly) nearly three bushels of wheat for it. “The high price of dollars” is the true way to express the condition better than “the low price of wheat.” When debtors find dollars dearer thelr minds become fertile soil for any political leader who promises a “plausi- ble remed There are few examples of the sense of injustice so embittering as that which boils in the mind of a farmer who, let us say. borrowed $1.000 a few years ago when $1.000 was, roughly, the ssme as 1.000 bushels of wheat—and now is called upon to pay bac] for the interest on it) 2t & time when $1,000 means almost 3.000 bushels of wheat. From just that kind of sense of injustice a good many farmers are now asuffering. And not only farmers. Every other borrower, big or little, of any business whatever, who is in the debtor class. Copper mine owners who mortgaged their mines when six pounds of copper would buy $1. and now find themselves in & period when it takes twelve pounds of to buy & dollar. The ramifi- cations are endless and infinitely in- tricate. Cheap Money Demand. Oui of this kind of feeling, widely distributed, can come demand for “‘cheap money,” as it is called. for leg- islation which will increase the nu; ber of dollars and thereby make dollars easier to get. The other side of the picture is that the present condition may readily change within & year. Even if the country should not get all the way back to wheat at $1 a bushel and copper at 18 cents a pound. and other e ety e sldemal v |least of restored prosperity. will be with : |us much less than 15 months from | This strikes us as sound advertising. A | P "0 g1 o hazardous prediction. | gas stove and heater store. A PIUMDING | 5\ "oection time, November, 1932, this BY STUART CHASE. | HE village Indlan of Mexico has Tesisted the twentieth century commodities st the similarly higher prices of 1928 or thereabouts—even if we should only get par: way back. men’s minds would be cheered to the in point of fact, the very conception of . disarmament s a means to pmmoce! Modifications Are Expected. But along with the money question peace is non-existent in the minds of more than & hundred millions of peo- | Europe has always clung to the peace T isted the Spaniards, the | store, with the basic instruments in | e Wit bave, b a | POt e e L T t gles, for whom armaments are an un- | question, and continued to believe that Lo TUNe stare | depression w ave been underway | pof ere would not “fail for” & weicome burden, borne simply because | sooner or later, as we must modify our e e |pink, purple and baby blue. We Stare | pore “than three vears. It is simost | “plausible rem Diaz. He has taken only such aspects of the machine as do no vio- | lence to his basic pattern. The same | cannot be said for urban areas. Citles; | through the windows, enchan Imest | | lavenger tollet seat with cover of mother- | “fl‘m“‘“}:k that the e nh-»e’nor. | ‘ankee plumbing sales- | 2 depression should last so long he of-pear]. Thiese Yankee plumbing | writer of this article from time to time | in | talks with a good many men supposed Yet the postibility of the “free sil- | ver” issue coming back is at least grest enough to come back again and again to one’s mind. It !s hard to avoid they constitute the only present guar- | debt stand, we would also have to aban- mntee against aggression. | don our policy of isolation. Now, noth- In the existing situation the League | ing is more logical and therefore more ¥ Nations i obviously powerless, be- | likely than that the French should ask | men know their customers. cause it has no moral authority or physical resource on the one hand to compel the status suo powers to agree to revision, or on the other to coerce the revision states into & renunciation of their policies. Moreover, since neither group of pawers is prepared to submit its case to international adjudication, ! as the United States would refuse to permit an international adjudication of | its title to Southern California or New Mexico, action by the League in favor of either group would destroy its moral appeal to the other and simply lead to a secession of the powers which felt themselves wronged. Whatever government happened to be in power in France at the moment, pop- us, having abandcned our debt policy to save Germany, to change our isolation policy to secure France. That would | mean, in fact, entrance into the League of Nations, and by acceptance of the covenant of the League automatically | putting our moral and physical power behind the preservation of the status quo. But precisely as Europe clung to reparations as long as we stuck to debts | the armed powers will stick to their guns while we adhere to the traditional | policy of no foreign commitments. | American commitments. no European disarmament. That is the net of it, as Mark Sullivan would say. | (Copyright. 1931.) Hindenburg Is Official Godfather to 14,000 Children, BERLIN.—Like George Washington, President von Hindenburg is the Father of His Country in the public eye. Fur- thermore, it 15 now revealed, he is the godfather of 14,000 German children, ®&nd this manifold honor has cost him thus far $70,000. Not every little German, of course, fnay select the President as his god- father. The privilege is subject to strict conditions; otherwise Herr von Hindenburg might see himself too soon at the head of a whole army of god- children. ‘The main proviso is that the child be the seventh in the family. The custom 4s an old one. The Prussian kings were in the habit of standing as god- father for every seventh male child, and this was accompanied by a small donation. The idea was that parents providing the King with as many as seven future soldiers should receive honor and reward for the meritorious endeavors. Since the German nation ceased to be an armed camp the bars have been 3et down a little. Large issue is still considered worthy of recognition, but Papa Paul makes no distinction now between boys and girls. He requires, thowever, that the parents enjoy & good reputation and can be trusted to rear the child well. In addition, the baby smust have been born in wedlock. After @il this has been ascertained the par- ents are requested to sign a declaration whereby they agree never to put t! President under any obligation in the matter, financial or otherwise. Then the baby receives his christening pres- ent from the old marshal; it is in cash +—usually $5. In Prussia christening presents also are granted by the state treasury, but babies have to be pretty lucky to get them. They are only allowed to the #welfth child of a family, but the dona- «%ion is considerably higher than that given by the Reich President. The grant, moreover, is dependent upon the perents being in need, in which case they receive $50 to aid in the child’s wpbringing. For the baby iteelf the Prussian wet also has something in its < et, nAM ely, & cup from the state 1s also an old cus- he | Palace on Wilhelmstrasse, and some of Under Old Custom | tom and dates back to the founding of the Prussian State China Factory, about the middle of the last century. Frederick the Great had founded the | enterprise after seeing the splendid china manufactured at Meissen Baxony. Frederick was disappointed, however, | by the beginning of his venture. No one would buy the coarse, clumsy stuff turned out by the new factory. The King decided, therefore, that the ware should be given those of his subjects who were most active in providing him soldiers. As for the china not disposed of in this way the King ordered that it must be bought by the Jews when they married. Consent to wed had to be obtained from the King among the Jews in those days, and it was given only on condi- tior that they set in a large store of the misshapen cups, saucers and plates from the royal factory. Such speci- mens are still to be found as keepsakes in many of the old Prussian Jewish families. Meanwhile the product of the Prus- sian State China Factory has improved immeasurably, and the christening cups dealt out today to new-born citizens fit the occasion handsomely. | ‘The ian gift of honor, as well as President von Hindenburg’s stand- German parents who qualify. Plenty of applications reach Bla piuldmfill the applicants come in person, seeking to hurry things up a lm}:e In one or two cases men have sent President properly. The repeated appearance of cranks and unbalanced people at Herr von Hindenburg's residence, however, has privacy of the grounds. A detachment of soldiers is constantly on guard in- side the building. Additionally quar- tered in the house is a squad of police, four detectives and several police dogs. Since the installation, of this host there has been little trouble in hegln. cut inquisitive and insistent cal mf o seven. in | diamonds, and, ing as godfather, are much sought by |and last, their mothers-in-law to impress the | Pany brought about a closer watch on the |Vi® are made of softer stuff. Both the | physical structure of Mexican cities and | the people who live therein have been profoundly influenced, first by Spain, | then by France, now by the United | States. In such a town as Caxaca or sleepy little Acapulco on the Pacific the influence is at & minimum: in Mexico City it attains the maximum. It was in the capital that Aztec civili- zation received its most deadly stab, the Indian pattern being all but erased. Its inhabitants were butchered, its leaders hunted down and tortured, its gods ob- | literated, its temples and public build- ings razed. As a result it became a Spanish town, with colonial architecture throughout. The same red lava brick | was used, many a new foundation was | compounded of caried stone idols, but the whole aspect, physical and spiritual, of the city changed. Here the viceroys and the archbishops took up their head- quarters; here the hacendados and the | silver mine grandees built their noble palaces; here the treasure trains—long files of mules, guarded with sol- dier: e “mcfi.n-m from the mines and from the nt Philippines via galleon to Acapulco; here, as late as the 1840s Mme. Caldéron found a gay Creole society, the ladies covered with lnke A Amg Lowells, smoking long, cigars: an here the little boys of the military school, some of them not 15, died de- fending the Castle of Chapultepec | agaimit the invasion of Gen. Scott. | Anither invading army from the United States was in Mexico, during my | last visit. It came on horseback, but | carried polo sticks in place of sabers. | It was repulsed by the Mexican army | team in three straight games, and when | the engagement was over the defeated ! American officers made a gracious ges- | ture. They hung a wreath of flowers on | the monument where the little cadets | lie buried. ! As late as 1880 we find the United States ministers to Mexico letting the cat out of the bag with these words: “Certain gentlemen interested in the administration of President Hayes have conceived the idea that in view of the disturbance in the Southern States it would divert attention from pending issues and greatly consolidate the new administration if a war could be brought on with Mexico .ntdhe another slice more .or less at the for $15,000,000 in 1848. sum y would not buy & minor “movie” com- in one suburb of one California city. In the Gadsden purchase in 1853 we lifted another 30,000 square miles of border territory, while the vast northern area west of the Mississippi fell to us international transfer involving France and England. 400 Years Well Filled. Mexico City has seen revolution, earthquake, bombarcment; resplendent viceroy, emperor, dictator, president and ® deal of history in 400 years. But the real spirit of Mexico it has seldom seen. 1t is a hybrid, as shifting as the salt lake bed upon which it stands. It has denied it own inheritance and -beld ‘;olnt ‘xnv.he of This ~Drawn for The Sunday Star by E. H. Suydam. out its arms to Madrid, to Paris, to ern cousins. They are called “Libres,” London, and now, as one Mexican critic remarks, to Hollywood. Its architec- ture reflects all these moods, and its literate citizens, vibrating from east to west, from south to north, suffer from acute inferiority complexes. . I feel perpetually ill at ease in the capital, and spend most of my time mapping out the next trip into the provinces. Yet indubitably it is one of the great cosmopolitan cities of the world. Its site is magnificent, its cli- mate superb for those who like unlim- ited sunshine at 7,500 feet above the sea. It rests in a great valley rimmed with mountains. To the east Popoca- tepetl and the White Women lift, their everlasting snow fields; from streets, plaza, balcony, their glittering masses cmmbe :finé-nndnh and colonial pal- aces—such as the Viscainas—are lovely; many of the avenues are regal; chn;:nd tepec, where the cadets were slain Maximilian ruled for a few short years, is one of the most deserves unlimited pages. richly illus- jde book. But I am :‘:fi"&my and I do not like it Ve 1 do mot like its architec- ::Irr:l "dmll’lhlz; its altitude gives me a dull ache abaft the right ear; above all, I do not like the Yankee invaslon, painfully reminiscent of Zenith and Middletown. thumping tremendous it hxl:? ‘They are mostly W‘T!m‘ or the heraldic .L“&."fiuuu; their North- | weight-lifting 'machines. | appliance shop, with heaters, - ‘meaning free, because of the cardboard sign displayed on the windshield when a fare is wanted. When the fare is captured the sign usually stays in place. One can go anywhere in the city for 25 cents. The overproduction is stupen- dous, the driving superbly reckless. Fleets of trucks and motor busses. Chauffeurs of the latter consiffer the day ruined when they have not cap- sized, or at least stripped the mud- guards from a brother bus. They do not, however, have the scope they should in a flat region like Mexico City. To see them at their best one must ride behind them to Acapulco—double re- verse curves on-a 14-foot road, with a good 1,000-foot drop into a gurgling river over the unrailed road edge. This where their talents have real scope and where passengers crawl out with their hair gone gray. Many American Phases. Steel post boxes; electric advertising signs over shop windows; bicycles, a lot of them; street arc lights; radio an- tennae; telephone cables on poles (they have not yet gone underground); a steel rubbish can; “no parking” signs; a weighing machine; an ice cream ven- dor; a cine with huge poster heralding Bebe Daniels in “Dixiana”; another ad- vertising “Radio Pictures” in English; another, Paul Whiteman's Band. A sports shop with -window ~full- of tennis rackets, golf sticks, basket balls, flelders’ gloves, backgammon sets and An electric toasters, iddles, ice boxes, flashlights and all the standard gadgets. The day cold for Mexico—say, 60—one heater.is | The two persons out of three not native costume regale us with modern | American collars. the cheaper grades of suits from American clothing factories, | tight rayon frocks all but sweeping the | ground, near-silk stockings, close-fitting felt hats, extra high heels and legs | whose curves are subtly wrong. Every {man wears a felt hat out of deference {to the Winter season. The sun has no | such deference; on some of these De- | cember days it is strong enough liter- l'ally to strike one down. This, then, s a atreet corner in our city. It serves, I think, to give the pat- tern of the whole—a confusing cock- tail of machines, Maximillan, colonial . The Indians still vitality, but he before forces -which descend sh upon him primarily from the North. Side by side on the same continent the area known as Mexico and the area kpown as the United States (here we are always referred to the “United States of North America” to distinguish us from the United States of Mexico) have commingled and interpenetrated one another for uncounted thousands of years. The Rio Grande is less formi- dable than its name, particularly in the dry season. According to the theory of Paul in,: the mound = builders of the Mississippi Valley came up from Mexico. Certainly migrating Indians came down from the Great Plains upon the Mexi- can plateau. ‘'We find the maize cul- ture spread generally over North Amer- ica. Once Mexico held title to Texas and most of the Far West. Our cowboy fiction, our cowboys’ very habits, would be something far less picturesque with- out the Mexican range culture which lies back of both. It gleams in such words as vamouse, hombre, corral, mesa, ‘sombrero, mi ite, rodeo, remuda, Te- ata, Bronco, nevada, poncho, no sal canyon. Nor should we forget that Mexico and Spain fought the English in Ohio and Florida, and so helped us win the Revolution of 1776. Drt Affects Millons. Millions of Mexicans have erossed the Rio Grande to work for a time in mine or field or on the range. Some have drifted to the cities. Scores of thou- eands have gone back to their milpas, particularly since the market crash of 1929. On June 30, 1928, there were 2,000 Mexicans in the United States. They wnnh‘n‘““‘ a ml.‘r:tory population 't ‘They move, Paul 8. Taylor, lowing the crops, in May, g and the fruif 3 Sum- mer, harvesting in the early Pall, and later nlmf;-p:m lettuce in the Imperial Valley. Winter finds e the whole family, of cou beside - their ramshackle 8an, to the Coast. I was constantly meeting in outlandish places young men been in Chz’tfl. Los York. recognized an American (which the Indians, I glad to say, often did not), and ap- the American seaso] les (D'l‘, , in nal c; 4 e yel rse—camp! filvvers in Southern California. Their cycle ebbs and flows from Pennsylvania, to Michi- uj t!‘e most who had and New me instantly as am proached with & warming assortment of being | my nattve I found one youth who A oG Foh Pt | to be sure-footed and able in the fields of business or of economic thought. {Among all that the writer has seen |only one thinks the depression will last | as much as three vears. This particu- {lar pessimist is a learned man with an | exalted place in the world. His learn- |ing and experisnce, however, are not |in the area of business. When he says, | most_forbiddingly, that this depression | will be known in history as “the erisis of 1933"—meaning that the worst is still two vears ahead—that is consid- | |ered by the pessimist's friends to bs | merely a whimsical exaggeration. Every | other authority the writer knows, prac- | | tical or theoretical, believes we shall | be well on the way out of this de- ' pression by next Fall. Practically all | zay we have already passed through the worst of it. Deeper 1920-21 Depression. One feels like pointing out that a de- | pression within every adult's memory, the one of 1920-21, was even deeper than this, in the sense that the fall of prices was both greater and more sud- den, yet within two years of the begin- ning we were well on the way out of it. At that time we saw tbe price of cotton double itself within two years. In a subsequent and minor depression, in 1925, we saw the price of cotton double itself in little more than one year. -Some things can happen again. hould add that the present depres- slon has features which make it not wholly analogous to the 1920-21 one.) So much for that. Assuming trat things go badly, assuming the depres- sion is not over when the presidéntial campaign of next year gets under w let us consider that “plausible remed: which some one may come forward with —the “plausible remedy” with which some presidential candidate, so it is said, may beat President Hoover. If there is anything of this kind in the future, almost certainly the can- didate will be some new incarnation of William Jennings Bryan, his “plausible remedy” will be a renewal of Bryan's “free and unlimited coinage of silver” in a fixed ratio to gold. The only difference will be in the ratio de- manded. Bryan in 1896 demanded that the Government of the United States declare and enact that one ounce of gold shall be forever and exactly equal to 16 ounces of silver—“16 to 1" was Bryan's cabalistic formula in 1896. The new “plausible remedy,” if it comes, ‘will merely change the ratio to a figure considerably higher. Silver Question Recurs. It seems grotesque even' to suggest that we may have that old “free silver” fight over again. A little over a year 2go, on June 17, 1930, I wrote in this p.m & brief - tch about silver, called for by something that had hap- pened xlbmxt our foreign trade. = B a bt bring hlnk the old silver issue. ck the ol z ‘l‘&mhud the notion, at that time, as fantastic. But as the weeks passed I observed mention of silver turn up wtlhucx thinking about it, hard to avoid re- membering how easily nearly half the population of the country embraced this panacea in 1896. No other book ever originated in America had anything like the circulation of a curious little paper covered volume, cheaply printed and illustrated with crude woodcuts, known as “Coin's Financial School,” written by W. H. Harvey, whica in 1396 and during a vear or so preceding. caused millions of people to believe that the T in the ratio of 16 1 would relieve d>btors, restore justice. and in all respects bring some- thing like economic miliennium. Of Mr. Harvev_and his little vellow covered book “The Review of Reviews” said in August, 1896: “As a disturber of old parties, a pathfinder where political issues were mixed and hazy, an agitator with a genius for exposition so great as to sway public_opinion from the Alleghenies to the Pacific, Mr. Harvey has made it certain that his name must. be forever connected with on: of the most remarkable chapters in the po- litical history of his country.’ * “Pinocchio” to Have Memorial In Stone ROME. — “Pinocchio,” he of the lengthy nose and pop eyes, whose ad- ventures have been followed by the chil- dren of the world for 50 years, is to bs immortalized in stone. All-the children of Italy, including the children of past days who have not forgotten their child- hood friend, will contribute their “soldi” for the erection of a monument to the internationally famous character. The monument itself will be erected in Flor- ence to commemorate the fiftieth anni- versary of the character’s conception in the agile brain of Collodi. “Pinocchio™ has been a childhood hero to millions of Italians and foreigners, and today seems to be more popular than ever. Tllustrated books of his adventures still sell like hot cakes at Christmas time, and no Italian home is quite complete without & “Pinocchio” doll. Collodi is reputed to have been translated into as many foreign languages as Shakespeare. e — Survey of Hawaii Jointly Undertaken HONOLULU. — Stanford = University and the Carnegie Institute are co- operating in a survey of the “problem of the future of Orientals in the Ha- wailan Islands”” To make this survey, Prof. Edward K. Strong of the depart- entals of American citizenship, Hawali has become a favorite spot for the study of race relations, there being now no fewer than eight such studies in prog- rese here by varlous institutions. Dr. Strong’s inquiry will be devoted particy- larly to finding the possible occupational cumulative frequéncy, :a.m other day, oni July 9, I T trends of the so-called “‘second ggnera- tlon.” -4