Evening Star Newspaper, January 2, 1932, Page 6

.A—+6 4 STAR, WASHINGTON, D. €, SATURDAY, JANUARY 9 1932, THE EVENIN( THE EVENING STAR With Sunday Morning Editio WASHINGTON, D. C. SATURDAY January 2, 1932 THEODORE W. NOYES....Editor The Evening Star Newspaper Company 11th St. an ennsylvania Av New York Office: 110 East 42nd St. jcago Office: Lake Michigan Bullding. uropean Office: 14 Regent St., London, England. Rate by Carrier Within the City. ¢ Evening Star..... .......45cpermonth | and Sunday Star ndays) 60c per month 65¢ per month W The Sunday Star S5c_ner copy Collection made at the end of each month | be sent in by mail or telephone Rate by Mail—Payable in Advance. Maryland and Virginia. 1y and Bun: 15r.$10.00: 1 mo., 88c oniy 13511800 1 mo-. Soc | indas oty . 135 §4.00; 1 mo. 40c All Other States and Canada. n:l’ only . 1yr., $5.00: 1mo. B0c Member of the Associated Press. The Associated Press is exclusively er to the use for republication of all atches credited 1o it or not dther ted in this paper and aiso I published herein. All rieh’s pecial dispatches herein et e 8- wise cred- the local news of Government Housing. Occupation today of the new home of the Department of Commerce marks | another step in the progress toward the | provision of an adequate housing of | the Federal agencies of administration in Washington. This great structure, largest in the world in point of floor space and other dimensions, is the sec- ond of the group of Government build- ings to be erected within the Mall-Ave- nue triangle, wh has bcen pres empted for this purpose, the Internal Revenue office having preceded it by several months. Work is under way to prepare the foundations of other build- ings which are to house the Depart- ments of Labor, Justice and Post Office, the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Hall of Archives, together with & structure which will connect the De- partment of Labor with the Interstate Commerce offices and serve as an audi- torflum. When the new Post Office De- partment is finished the old one, stand- ing immediately to the east of the site of Its successor, will be razed and the build- ing of which the Internal Revenue office forms a part will be completed around the group of squares, the addition to house various bureaus. At the eastern point of the triangle will rise a smaller bullding, which has for the present been allocated to independent offices. There will then remain only the space directly west of the new Post Office De- partment, now occupied by the old Southern Railway Building, the con- struction effecting a continuous facade, including the present Municipal Build- ing, which is to pass into possession of the Federal Government. This great group of Government structures, which according to present plans will be completed within a decade, Will be the largest assemblage of bulldings definitely erected for government administration in any capital. There will be other construc- tions, to house the War and Navy De- partments, the Public Health Service, the Supreme Court. The Department of Agriculture is now being provided with an extensible annex, which will house the scattered bureaus of that branch of the Government. An ad- ditional office building for the use of the House of Representatives is ap- proaching completion south of the Capitol. It has been often pointed out that the Federal Government has never had a complete outfit. Possibly even with this broad program of constructions the Government's needs will not have been fully met when it has been completed. Additional services may be created, departments which are soon to be housed in these new constructions are likely to grow in personnel and ex- pend in activity beyond the capacity i of their immediately prospective homes, | necessitating additions and annexes. ‘The planning of these constructions, however, has been upon a liberal scale, with provision for development which may adapt to the increased require- ments of the next half century. Had this great work been under- taken twenty-five years ago, when the proposal was advanced for the concentration of QGoverrment struc- tures, as far as the space permit- ted, within the Mall-Avenue triangle, it 1s probable that the need of extensions would by now have been felt, for it is not likely that the buildings would have been planned upon as large a scale as that which has since bsen adopted. A different spirit prevailed then in mat- ters of appropriation, and there was lacking the disposition to build greatly in accord with the artistic requirements of Capital-making. While these works could have been accomplished ruch less expensively than is now the case, there has undoubtedy been a gain in the | character of the architecture and the | dignity and impressiven=ss of the results that will soon be evident with the com- pletion of this present installment of Government housing. The United States as a nation has the most gold. France comes second ‘Third place probably lies In the teeth of American citizens. e e Gen. Fechet's Resignation. Maj. Gen. James E. Fechet chooses & rather peculiar method to bring public attention «~ bear upon his resignation from the Air Corps and from the Army, which he has served so long and so well in the course of a distinguished military career. Warning his fellow citizens that “we are the most hated Nation in the world; we house more than our share of the world’s ‘treasure” and “unless there 18 immediately a naticnal consciousness of impending trouble, with ample prepara- tion to meet it, our fool's paradise will be lost,” the general has shed his unl- form o lend his encrgles, as a civilian to the work of a national magazine devoicq to the development of commer- clal aercnautics. Qen. Fechet says that he is not interested in the aviation in- dustry as 2 business, but it must suc- eeed commercially if it is to be “an fsset of national defense, and without such an asset we shall have no national defense.” One cannot help but wonder what “national consciousnéss of impending trouble” and, as civilians, work toward “ample preparation to meet it.” And, st the same time, one may question seriously the benefits of s “national consciousness of impending trouble” once that sort of consciousness has been developed. Of course, there will be development of commercial aviation. There has al- ready been an extraordinary develop- ment, and the surface has been merely scratched. Nobody can foretell the fu- ture part to be played in the industrial life of the Nation by aviation. But has its growth in the past been founded on the desire to strengthen an asset of national defense, or because it has been able to meet the tests of survival on its own merits? At a time when the world is paying the penalty for a wholesale development of “consclousness of impending trouble,” and in consequence is seeking to pre- vent future development of that con- sciousness by substituting a desire for continued peace and sanity, one ques- tions the wisdom of attempting to vitalize or develop & promising indus- s- | try under the guise of strengthening the national defense. Commercial avia- tion is entitled to governmental assist- ance until it can stand on its own feet. One of the best ways to cut down exist- ing subsidies for commercial aviation is to place them squarely in the cate- gory of appropriations for greater arma- ment. These are going to bear the brunt of many cuts. The real develop- ment of commercial aviation should be, and it will be, regarded as a business, not as preparation to meet impending calamity. The Master of Manchuria. Chinchow passed into the possession of the Japanesc Army today and the over all Manchuria north of the Great Wall of China. Nippon has accom- plished her objective within barely three and & half months of the day she set out to attain it. A territory larger than France and Italy combined, with a pop- ulation of 30,000,000 souls, is annexed, for all practical purposes, to the Island Empire. From the Sea of Japan, where its northernmost waters wash to the door of Vladivostok, sweeping around the Korean Peninsula into the Yellow Sea and the Gulf of Chihli and stretching far away to the borders of Mongolia and Siberia, Japan's Emperor is monarch of all he surveys. The campaign upon which the Japanese embarked nearly forty years ago, when they waged their first war against China, and which they continued when they fought Russia in 1904-05, now bears its richest, but hardly its final, fruit. A loo¥ at the map of Asia reveals the vast dimensions of this modern conquest. Were the cir- cumstances which accompanied its latest stages less open to question, Japan's achievements since September 18, 1931, might claim an enviable place in the annals of that virile nation. Un- fortunately, the verdict of history may be less kind. Confronted by & set of accomplished facts, the world today must resign itself to the hope that sooner or later Japan will somehow succeed in justifying her seizure of Manchuria. The Tokio gov- ernment has promised that the open door for international trade will be maintained in the conquered provinces. That is something. There is every Teason to believe that a Manchuria brought under the reign of Japanese law and order will constitute an im- pregnable Hulwark against the spread of the Russian Communist system across the steppes of Siberia into China, India and regions beyond. That is well, too The Japanese to the last contend that their march into Manchuria is solely for the suppression of “banditry” and the restoration of normal conditions for life and property. All nations can profit from the development of such conditions in China’s northernmost territory. That much said, all is said that can be advanced in defense of what Japan has done in and to China this Win- ter. The less said on other phases of her action, probably the better. To her and her statesmen must be left the responsibility of deciding whether the damage to the world’s peace machin- ery—the precedents created, the hope- lessness which must obsess the nations amid their efforts to make good faith the bedrock of international agreements —was worth even the mighty aggran- disement of Japanese power which the domination of Manchuria denotes. ——————— The fifth postulate of Euclid’s geome- try is to the effect that parallel lines never meet. Maybe not, but they merge. Ce———— Add new similes: As self-sacrificing 85 a 1931 foot ball coath. ——— Holland's Tulip Depression. As an addition to the European fnancial troubles comes an announce- ment from Amsterdam that the flower bulb industry, which is one of the chief resources of Holland, is in a bad way. At the annual meeting of the General Society of Bulb Culture the chairman, in his opening address, painted a gloomy picture of the situation. The fall in English and Scandinavian cur- rency, the measures taken by the British government against imports, the general world confusion and the economic depression in America have contributed to a grave state of affairs. The depre- clation of land and stocks of bulbs has caused financlal institutions to limit or cancel credits. This situation might have been worse, said the chairman, if the poorest harvest in the history of the bulb industry had not neutralized the consequences of excessive overpro- duction. Even so, it was pointed out, during the past year the world, under the worst of circumstances, was able to buy one hundred million pounds of bulbs. When anything happens to the bulbs in Holland things go decidedly wrong. For bulb growing is to that country what cotton is to the Southern States of America and silk to Japan and cof- fee to Bragil. Holland has grown rich on tulips. For over three centuries this flower has been a source of great in- come to the people of the Netherlands. It was in the last decade of the six- teenth century that the plant was in- troduced, coming originally from Tur- the result would be were many of our generals and admirals, having devoied the greater part of their lives to mas- tering the professional problems of na- tional gefense, to quit the service and key. The soil cf Holland was par- ticularly adapted to it and the people proved to b2 adept cultivators. In 1634 tulip culture became & veritable craze and for four years the wildest banner of the Rising Sun now floats | 'became civillans in order to develop a |speculation prevailed. Enormous prices were paid for individual bulbs, as much as $5,200 for s single,spectmen. A bulb boom set in much like the land booms of newly opened countries, the Mississippl bubble in France and the speculative ‘dlamond frenzy in Eng- land. Fraudulent schemes were floated. At last the government was forced to intervene, but not until many fam- ilies had been ruined financially. After a time the industry was standardized and though the popularity of the plant declined somewhat, bulb growing be- came the mainstay of Netherlands finance. There is considerable competition to Holland bulb production in this coun- try which obtained its basic stock from the lowlands of Northern Europe. American bulb growers have cut heavily into the Holland market for domestic consumption and have even invaded the fleld in other lands which were for many years mainly supplied from Hol- land. England, too, is now by impo- sition of a tariff, effective January 1, secking to protect the bulb-growing in- Idustry in that country from Dutch (competition. These rivalries have un- doubtedly contributed to the depression in the bulb market in Amsterdam which is causing concern in the land of the dikes. - ———— For pure, unadulterated municipal nerve one must hand it to Chicago, which town has already asked its school teachers to work one month for nothing in 1932 so that five million dollars may be slashed from the coming year's bud- get. It is comparable to nothing more nor less than a promise from a stick- up artist that he will be around next March or April, v ———— Women may admire a “nifty boxer," such as he who recently advertised him- self for marriage for the sum of $500. But generally they prefer to wed a good rug-beater or leaky-faucet fixer. e r———— Some appraisers of the present House of Representatives think that an ap- propriate gavel for its presiding officer would be one made of a combination of rhinoceros hide and balsa wood. — e All the business leaders who “see an early upturn” have to do is stick at it and never vary their system. It is & long depression that has no hump. r—a— Any resident of or visitor to Wash- ington would a thousand times prefer to view a rare and beautiful live fish than a $31.20 waste basket. r—— It may be that a lot of those careful and considerate drivers one is unex- pectedly meeting now are without titles for their cars. —— SHOOTING STARS. BY PHILANDER JOHNSON. Father Time. Old Father Time came prowling near. I saw him and I shed a tear. Then Father Time began to sigh Like wintry winds that sweep the sky. And such a face of woe he wore That in my weeping I forebore, And in defiance of my grief In laughter,light I fcund relief. And when Old Father Time observed ! That I from melancholy swerved, He quenched his tears and very soon His face was smiling as the moon. His moods, I found, with mine would go. | With all his family 'tis so. Times good or bad the:iselves reveal, According to the way ycu feel. A Sign of the Times. “How do you know that statesman s losing his grip on popular favor?” “The magazines,” replied Senator Sorghum, “are putting new names into the anecdotes in which his has figured for years.” Human Vanity. “Some women are terribly vain,” sald the censcrious person. replied Miss Cayenne, “they | are. And by the way, did you ever notice & man who was fixing himselt up to have his photograph taken?” Change of Exercise. | The statesmen who keeps busy shaking hands While on vacation trips should not complain. He must, to meet the popular demands, Exert his biceps while he rests his brain. Cost of Production. “Farm products cost more than they used to."y “Yes," replied Mr. Corntossel. “When a farmer is supposed to know the bo- tanical name of what he’s raisin’ an’ the zoological name of the insect that eats it and the chemical name of what will kil it, somebody’s got to pay.” 1932, Nineteen Thirty-two, we extend Anew The welcome of a trusting friend To you. The year just gone has not done all 1t should. So unto you we lift this call: Be good! Each year our hearts to song have moved At first. But some that sang the loudest proved ‘The worst. It is not wondrous might or skill We crave. We simply say we hope yau will Behave. “When you turns over a new leaf,” said Uncle Eben, “you's got to make up yoh mind not to notice de people ‘dat insist on huntin’ up de back numbers an’ makin’ remarks.” e —— It Might Have Been Worse. Prom the Ann Arbor Daily News. The warden of Cook CounAt{'s Jail has been criticized for \ul.ng Ca X car on a business mg, ut the critics will have to admit that it was a lot THIS AND THAT BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL. One of the garden magazines ton- tains an excellent article on what ‘vas done in a garden in five years with a set expenditure of $25 a year. Perhaps too few home owners realize the advantages of putting a garden on a budget. It is not so much the sum which counts, as the steadiness of the garden’s income. If a plan of procedure were drawn up by every one, on moving into a new home, and this plan_steadfastly ad- hered to, even the barest place in time could be turned into scmething resembling & horticultural dream. The trouble with soc many places is haphazardness of thcm. You see it at a glance. The owners might tell you that they were not interested in be- coming Gardeners with a big G, that the results they them. As for other people, It was ncne of their. business. This is all strictly true. But, as Mr. Milne says in his novel, “Two People,” about being told that you were right, there s not much satsfac- | tion in it, after all. One might just as well have a plan as not, and there can be little doubt that a set sum, spent according to a plan, over a peried of years, would make many a home place ::ppear to be | twice as large and many times as beautiful. Now there would be some advantage in this. But the greatest gain would be, rather, the personal satisfaction of the home owner: We speak of the real home owner, not the curfous type which scems to have grown up in the United States in the past decade, the man who se- cures & home, and then begrudges every cent spent on upkeep. To hear him talk, a roof should never sprinz a leak, a gutter should never rust, noth- ing at all should ever go wrong. . Perhaps mansions in heaven trouble-free, but the ones built hands in this sphere are ctherwise. best laid plans go astray; a carcless workman sometimes leaves conditioas which cost money to remedy later. by Such matters are to be expected, no | matter wnat cost home one is able to | buy. AR Some home owners willingly spend time and money on their automobiles, while begrudging every penny which they are forced to put upon their homes, although the latter investment may represent 10 times as much money as the former. ‘This type gladly spends heurs in the alley, washing end polishing the family car, but positively esnnot find an extra hour in which to paint the house trim éhe);nselves or to hire some one else to o it. These are not real home owners. They merely go through the motions of owning a home. The real home owner, while he may not shout with joy when a necessary expense comes up, is will- ing to pay it, and happy that he is able to do it. TMere i just that much gif- ference between the two types. There are a great many other difierences, too, but they need not be gone into here. What interests us at present is the good habit which the true house holder may form by the simple ex- pedient of putting the garden on a budget, and adhering to it every vear, if possible. If things break well, as we say today (If the fates are propitious, as folks used to say), it may even be possible to exceed the given sum upon occasion. 8o much gained for the garden, It may be stated, without much fear of contradiction, that the average home owner spends far too little on the yard, or grounds, of his place, in proportion to their sizz. Many a man who would not think twice about taking a party secured sufficed for | are | The | to the theater would shy visibly at the Jdea, evep the mere thought, of paying $6 for '; gol?dbeevaxl'n:egcmfi;xyt the theater wil only the next dlmhmn the bush wjll live on for years. At least one may hope that it will. The idea of the set, fixed expendi- ture is a good one. It means, in the first place, that one is going to be in- terested in something enough, and for long enough & time, to be willing to pay for it. Sometimes it scems as if human be- ings are only truly interested in What they have to pay for, ome way of an- other. There are different sorts of payments, of course. Money 1s taken as the consideration in many things. If you go up to the railroad ticket offi and declare your attention of traveling from one city to another, the agent is all attention If he discovers that you lack a dollar of being able to ay for the ticket, however, he shortly oses interest in you. 1t is much the same everywhere. No matter how much one may Jament this state of affairs, from a theoretical, avains the solid basis of reckoning. Often many a dreamer would be fur- prised at himself if he could realize just how much his own interests are bound up with price, and, even more than price, a full payment. K n The home garden is geiting put off rather meagerly, from year to year, be- fore one stops to realize it. Then, alas, the habit is formed. It is a bad habit. It makes parsimony particularly par- simonious. The cure may be a sudden New Year resolve, or a Fourth of July | resolve, or a Labor day resolve. The time of the year makes no particular difference. Nobody keeps New Year re- solves, anyway; perhaps it would be better for the homeowner to make one, in_this matter, whenever he pleases. Where many a homeowner, who means to treat his garden fairly, falls down is in failing to purchasé the big- | gest and best shrubs, plants, evergreens, | ete., he can find, within the limits of | his pudget. Effect is what the average pershn wants in & garden, and he had better plant to get it, filling in later, than try to achieve a major effect all 2t once with small plants and bushes. More gagden plans go wrong from this one thing than all other matters whatsoever, once the gardener has made his resolve to put the grounds on {a fair, prcportionate budget. Nothing will knock the horticultural ambition out of a person so completely as a dose of little rose bushes, little evergreens, little lilacs. If any of our dear readers have pur- chased little plants, and think that we have seen them, and are “hiiting” at them, they are very much mistaken. We are hitting at ourself!: We have spent plenty on poor garden material, and nobody can see any result, not even ourself. And as we look around, going Aabout Washington and suburbs, we see we have plenty of company. Oh, a great deal of it. All of us would be | better off to resolve highly to spend a certain sum every year, if we can afford |it, and to get a few of the biggest and best plants we can get, rather than scatter our coins on a host of little plants which might do well several ears from now if we were expert | horticulturists ~ We suspect that most | of us amateurs are not expert horticul- turists in any sense. We love flowers and like to have them around us, that ic all. And it is encugh. It is a great deal. We need not apologize. All we do is admit that real horticulturists, who make a business of it, can and do E;Dw better plants than we can. The ppy thing is that they will sell to us, |and are remarkably enthusiastic, we | suspect, about this budget business. Highlights on the Wide World Excerpts From Newspapers of Other Lands OVIET ECONOMIC REVIEW, Moscow.—The first cotton sub- stitute factory recently began production of “cottonin” from flax waste at Leningrad, in ac- cordance with the method discovered and developed by Prof. Beliasnikov. The cottonin produced was exactingly t ed and found suitable for the manu- facture of cloth. Xk ok Spain Prepares for Olympic Games in U. S. A B C, Madrid.—Baron de Guell, pres- ident of the Comite Olimpico Nacional, on being told that the government had appropriated 400,000 pesetas for the needs of the Spanish team which is to &mclpau in the Olympian games at Los Angeles next year, manifested a lively interest. Baron Quell announces that selections will immediately be made from all the sporting clubs in the republic, and that these candidates, already noted for -their prowess and ability, will meet soon in competitions and trials to determine the very elite of the contenders. Baron Guell has no doubt that the team ultimately selected will return to Spain with a most envi- able and honorable record. Nearly all the groups of the Spanish Athletic Federations have representatives whom they consider inferlor to none. ¥ Seeks Protection for Cinema Proprietors. Irish Independent, Dublin. — Two hundred cinema proprietors had gone irto bankruptcy during the last two months, and a very large number of the others were on the verge of a sim- ilar fate, said Mr. A. 8. Comyns Carr, | K. C. at a London meeting establishing the Film Industries Co-Operative So- ciety, Ltd. The object of the society, he said, was to bring independent cinema owners together, in order to obtain fair terms from the great film companies. * K Neck Breathers Held Minor Criminals. Evening Post, Glasgow.—Petty crime is on the decrease in Scotland. Among minor criminals let us not forget to include the man who breathes on your neck in a tramcar, and the other fiend who treads on your coat tails with muddy boots when descending the: stair behind you. * % % Many Sons Fail to Perpetuate Peerage. Daily Mail, London.—With the death of Lord Bateman of Shobdon Court, Herefordshire, in a Paris nursing home at the age of 75, a peerage becomes extinet. in unusual circumstances. Lord Bateman's father, the second Baron Bateman, had five sons. They all reached maturity and all died child- less. The heir presumptive, Capt. C. 8. M. Bateman-Hanbury, who was the last Lord Bateman's youngest brother, died only two months ago. ‘The lapsing of the peerage is all the more surprising since the first Lord Bateman also had flve sons. The family, which dates back to the time of King John, has occupied Shob- don Court for generations. An order was made in 1926 by Mr, e's | Justice Tomlin authorizing the sale of heirlooms at Shobdon Court, and it was then stated that most of the family better than for Al Capone to use the warden’s car on a business trip. - - Weapons. Prom the Ann Arbor Daily News. A woman has been chosen as an American delegate at the disarmament conference, which may indicate that the rolling pin menace will enter the discussion. ——— Long Greens Are Best. From the Harrisburg Teleeranh. “It's all right to telk about a.white Christmas,” writes Eph Keljoy of New- port, “but the real pleasure comes from a long green Christmas.” estates had been sold, but that many attempts to sell Shobdon Court had been unsuccessful. The heirlooms at the house included several old masters and also valuable antique furniture and silver plate. Lord Bateman married in 1904 Mrs, Marian Alice Knapp of New York, He was educated at Eton and joined the 2nd Life Quards, seeing service in Egypt. Earthquake, Not Match, Caused Managua Fire. La Noticla, Managua—The war be- twesn the finsured snd the insurers continues little abated. As has been often stressed in these columns, the | British companies have held too strictly to the letter of their contracts in at- | tributing the destruction of our city | last Spring to the earthquake and not the flames. Even on the basis of this technicality, there 18 no equity In | urging such a repudiation, for in the | case of Managua the quake may be | sald just as truly to have precipitated the final catastrophe wrought by the fire as if it had been, instead, a lighted match accidentally dropped into a heap of straw. Had there been no fire many would not have sought to realize on their policies. But there was a fire and its cause was the earthquake— not the match—and so policyholders Justly feel entitled to be paid. * ok ¥ Unsafe Vehicles Banned to Protect Public. El Universal, Mexico—Unsafe and antiquated vehicles are to be barred the use of the streets by order of the Consejo Concultivo (Consulting Coun- cil) of the city. Trucks, automobiles, busses and horse-drawn conveyances must all submit to periodical inspec- tions to make sure that they offer no potential jeopardies, through weakness or deficiency, to the public, or in the case of private vehicles, to the owners and drivers. Besides increasing the safety factor in traffic, the relegation of many unsightly vehicles to oblivion will greatly enhance the dignity and | beauty of the thoroughfares. Many of these equipages have long been an of- fense to our eyes. kA “Cook Book” Glives Formulas for Poison Gases. Berliner Tageblatt.—Herr Stoltzen- berg, the manufacturer of Hamburg, widely known through the serles of lead-poisoning mischances in his fac- tory, in 1928, a short time ago pub- lished, in his own print shop, a series of essays entitled “Prescriptions for Potent Poisons.” This bookldt of 70 pages, which at first was sold for the high price of | more than 20 marks, is nothing less | than a “cook book” for the manufac- | turing of deadly campaign gases; & | kitchen guide for the concoction of asphyxiating vapors, enabling every amateurish dilettante to produce these pestilences in the privacy of his own dweliing, All of which goes to show that the | Phenomena of gases and polsons did | not cease to have their charm and in- terest when the war ended and that | the frightfulness of that epoch is apt to be revived on & larger or smaller scale when the novices in chemistry, residing in every dwelling, or apart- | ment house, begin to get their hands | proficient in the new art. For Herr | Btoltzenberg s not satisfled with dis- | tributing new formulas for poison gas at a very attractive figure. He supple- ments his “cook book” with a’ price list which quotes the necessary in- gredients at quite reasonable rates and | enumerates the utensils reqtired, which | he also is in a position to furnish at | short notice. All that one has to do, | therefore, after procuring the chem- icals and the retorts, cauldrons, tanks, crucibler. reservoirs. etc., is to follow icareruu, the instructions in Herr Stoltzenberg’s handy compendium and the result will be “Blue-X,” “Green-X." “Yellow-X,” or ramnsibe. according to the recipe selecte It ““r;'e be remarked here, however, | that the prices on Herr Btoltzenberg's | cooking apparatus are about five times | as much as @ laboratory chemist would | expect to pay for the same articles and so the domestic concocting of poison gas may be comparatively re- stricted, despite the fact that Herr Stoltzenberg now ;'}Xnul"yr K.“‘;"";‘.':iy his “cook book.” Howeve X menter who has a labor mumy S?'ulpped would be able to oceans of most any variety of poison gas very reésonably. e Business Melts Away. F the Hamilton Spectator. ‘;’Xn )o‘x: u:lrx:k your luck is bad, just pause and consider that you might have been & snow shovel manufacturer. » some say visionary, standpoint, it re- | THE LIBRARY TABLE By the Booklover ‘With her habitual urbanity and phi- losophic balance of thought, Agnes Repplier has in her latest volume of es- says discusced “Times and Tendencies.” The “Times” are the early 1930s and the book should be read to discover what are the “Tendencles” which Miss Repplier considers menacing, serious or merely ironically amusing. There are & dozen of the essays, which begin with “Town and Suburb” and end with “A Vocabulary.” Refusing to pass judg- ment on the relative merits of city or country as place of residence, Miss Rep- Ylm' says: “Generally speaking, and leaving out of consideration the very poor, to whom no choice in life is given, suburbs do so because they want to. Men and women who live in small towns do so because of their avocations, or for other practical reasons. They are right in afirming that they like it. I once said to a New York taxi driver: ‘I want to go to Brooklyn’ To which he made answer: ‘You mean you have to So with the small-town dwellers. They may or may not ‘want to,’ but the ‘have to' is sure.” In “A Vocabulary,” ! Miss Repplier deplores the poverty of the vocabulary and the slovenliness of pronunciation of the average and under- average American, and quotes H. G. Wells to the effect that “‘America has partly lost the gift of rational speech.” Tllustrative of this loss are such expres- sions as “Whaja got?” Wherya goin’? “Waja say?” “Hadjer lunch?” “an‘ leggo of “Sall I can say.” “Na less'n 50 cents.” “I yusta know 'im.” “‘Wanna g'wout?” Reasonably, she asks: “If some Americans can- speak superlatively well, why cannot more Americans speak pleasingly?” * ok K K “Peace and the Paclfist” is one of the best balanced of the essays in “Times and Tendencies.” Miss Repplier is either militarist nor pacifist; neither | an adherent of super-preparedness nor .of peace at any price. She points out the irony of scrapping “a few middle- aged ships which might have been per- mitted to live out their lives in tran- quillity,” while “airplane bombs which can precipitate upon a doomed city two tons of T. N. T. and phosphorus bombs carrying their aeid fire make_cruisers and so-called destroyers seem like old- fashioned and genial things.” The es- say “Cure-Alls” is not entirely about medicines and other therapeutic agen- cies. The cure-alls of propagandists are gently satirized. “Reformatory measures are hailed as cure-alls by people who have a happy confidence in the per- fectibility of human nature, and no dis- couraging acquaintance with history to dim it.” Of course, prohibition has a paragraph, but a short one, and Miss Repplier appears to be, as many others ere, bored with the whole subject. “So much has been written on the subject that the public has ceased to read any of it.” * ok K K We as Americans are tactfully ad- monished not to be too egotistical, too superior in our satisfaction with our own country, in the two essays “What Is Moral Support?” and “Condescen- sion in Americans.” In the first we are told that what we mean when a speak of the “moral support” of the United States as being given or withheld is the power of our wealth. This point is made by a comparison with Italy. “Suppose Italy were to threaten the United States with the withdrawal of her moral support. How droll the idea would be! Yet Italy is a country civi- lized to the core. * * * There is every reason why Rome and Washington should respect each other and be as morally helpful to each other as they know how to be; but there is no reason on earth why the moral support of one should be of more value than the moral support of the other, unless we translate morality into terms of strength and wealth.” 1In the second essay we are urged not to allow our Americanism to take the form of scorn of the qual- itles of all other nations, or, what is almost worse, condescension toward them. “It is as demoralizing for a nation to feel itself an ethical exhibit, as it is demoralizing for a young woman to win a beauty prize in an Atlantic City contest.” * K K K The years and the decades pass $o qmckxyymu yesterday is soon today and today is soon tomorrow. We are gscarcely out of the 1920s but a book has already been written about them, “Only Yesterday. An _Informal His- | tory of the 1920s,” by Frederick Lewis Allen. As we review with the author the events of those recent 10 years we feel that the decade must go down to history as a wild, disorganized period, ending in black disaster. The book ends with October 24, 1929, when the stock market crashed. Our famil- farity with the events related does not prevent us from marveling that some of them could have happened in & supposedly sane world. Automobiles, radios, diamond rings, sets of furniture, houses, almost the world, could be bought with a small deposit and & not over-secured promise to pay. Mr. Allen calls attention to the fact that in Jan- uary, 1928, “the President had actually taken the altogether unprecedented step of publicly stating that he did not consider brokers’ loans too high, thus apparently giving White House sponsor- ship to the very inflation ‘which was Worrying the sober minds of the finan- cial community.” The oil scandal of the Harding regime is told in connected narrative by Mr. Allen, with compari- sons with some of the scandals of the Grant administration. The younger generation, with its independence and frankness, laudably honest or out- rageous, according to circumstances and opinion, is given considerable space. Styles are analyzed, with illus- trations from “Vogue,” and an attempt is made to show some significance, some beneficial evolution, in their changes. Though so recent, the 1920’s seem, 88 we read, to belong very definitely to the past. KR “The Unknown War,” by Winston Churchill, which tells of the World War on the Eastern front, where Rus- sia fought Germany and Austria in Galicia and _East Prussia; Gen. Persh- ing's “My Experiences in the World War”; the “Memoirs of Prince von Bulow,” which has much to say about the origins of the war; “King Albert in the Great War,” by Lieut. Gen. Galet, now chief of the Belgian general staff, and “Newton D. Baker,” by Frederick Palmer, who narrates the career of America's Secretary of War during the world conflict, are all books which might be suggested as gifts for men or women still interested in going over the story of the World War and its causes. Many are now more in- terested in reflecting on the disastrous results and in reading any suggestions for remedying them. * ok kK Paul M. Mazur, in his book, “New Roads to Prosperity,” gives six recom- mendations: 1. The organization of & national economic council, to advise the Government and private business concerning economic matters, such as tariffs, war debts, farm relief, produc- tion and distribution, trust laws, social welfare legislation, credit, etc. 2. In- crease in the powers and usefulness of the Federal Resétve System. 3. The stimulation of consumption through installment buying. 4. The liberaliza- tion of dividend paying by corpora- tions during prosperous times, to promote the flow of money into chan- nels of consumption. 5. A systematic effort to eliminate city slums by & building program which would provide model sanitary housing. 6. The com- pulsory adoption in all industry of the five-day week, which would “increase the production requirements or the consumption of the Nation, create a scarcity of labor and necessitate the improvement of technique, but without Increased technological unemployment.” k. Elizabeth, future Duchess of Hamil- ton, is the heroine of E. Barrington's ' posthumous story, “The Irish Beauties.” ! In the gay and superficial eighteenth century the beautiful Elizabeth Gun- ning was as poor as & beggar mald. | | men’and women who live in cities or in | e e R e ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS BY FREDERIC ]. HASKIN. ‘The answers to questions printed here each day are specimens picked from the mass of inquiries handled by our Arul Information Buresu main- taine in Wi D. C. This valuable service is for the free use of the public. Ask any question of fact you may want to know and you will get an immediate reply. Write plainly, in- close 2 cents in coln or stamps for return postage, and address The Eve- ning Star Information Bureau, Frederic J. Haskin, Director, Washington, D. C. Q. What are the latest figures show- ing the proportion of woman drivers involved in automobile accidents?— . D. 8. A. Figures for 1930 published by the A. A. A. show that out of 1227817 drivers involved in accidents, 1,146,781, or 93.4 per cent, were males, while 81,- 038, or 6.6 per cent, were woman ?r:vlen: of 36,806 drivers involved In atal males and 58 per cent were women. Of the total number of drivers in the country, 24.3 per cent are women. Q. At how many places in the United States is paper currency made?—J. F. A. Only one place engraves and prints paper currency—the Bureau of Enmvlng and Printing, in Wash- ington, D. C. ¢ Q. Please settle an argument”as to whether the British or the Boers won the battle of Spion Kop.—W. A. C. A. The British were defeated. Q. What do stamp collectors mean when they talk about “first day covers”?—P. O. L. A. A first day cover is an envelope with a stamp of a new issue that has been mailed and the stamp canceled on the first day the new stamps have been placed on sale. Some collectors have blocks of four stamps of each denomi- nation on each envelope. First day covers of the new George Washington Bicentennial stamps are those mailed in Washington on January 1, 1932 as the stamp will not be on sale in other cities until January 2. Q. When was a powder horn a part of the equipment of our Army?—E. R. A. A powder horn was of the equipment which a Colonial militiamen was required to have a} hand for serv- ice at a moment’s warning. Require- ment was continued by act of Congress May 8, 1792. The requirement was not Tepealed until 1820, and the use of the powder horn was continued until during the Mexican War, in 1847. Q. What is the liquid fn which shrimps are canned?—O. S. W. A. It is a weak brine solution of 8 or 10 per cent strength. Shrimps are often canned dry and air-tight, so that no liquid is necessary. 4 Q. When did the Romans bestow a name on a female child?—T. M. A. A. On the eighth day after birth. A i male child was named on the ninth day. Q. Is there any kind of poison which will kill chickens?—P. A. N. A. Chickens are susceptible to any i polsonous substance which will affect other animals. In fact, it is necessary to use caution in setting out any insec- ticide or raticide which may be acces- sible to poultry. Q. In what way is Copeland con- nected with the firm which made Spode china?—MJE. M. A. In 1827 Josiah Spode dled. His works were, however, continued. Cope- land soon became a partner and the style of the firm name was altered to 8pode Son & Copeland. Eventually the works passed into the hands of the junior partner, who was later joined by Qarrett, until in 1847 the firm style be- came Copeland & Sons. qj What makes an airplane fly?-a ‘A, This embraces the whole subject of aerodynamics. However, briefly, a propeller acts as an “air screw.” It accidents, 94.2 per cent were | q_anmlq 4 stream of air (slip stream). 'his stream acts upon an &ir foil. The design of this air foil is such that the slip stream causes a near vacuum on the top surfaces, glving 85 per cent of the lift of the plane. The remaining 18 per cent is on the bottom of the wing. Q. Why did people wear patches o their faces?—D. T. A. These bits of silk or court-plaste were worn to set off the complexion by contrast. Both the beaux and belles of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries wore them as adornment. Q. Why was a message to Garcia of such importance?—W. H. W. A. When war broke out between | Spain and the United States it was | very necessary to communicate quick’ | with Garcla, the leader of the insurg | ents. "He was somewhere in the moun | tain fastnesses of Cuba, no one knew | where. No mail or telegram could reack him. Rowan was sent for and given s letter to be delivered to Garcia. He ac- | cepted the mission without question and | delivered the letter. The message to | Garcia was pertaining to co-operation between Garcia and the United Stat. Q. How are seraphim classed in angelology?—T. F. A. In Christian angelology they are classed as the highest order of angels, holding the first place in the first triad |of the angelic hierarchy — seraphim, cherubim and thrones. Q. Is it true that Alexandre Dumas and Alexander Pushkin had negro blood?—S. N. A. The paternal grandmother of Dumas, the elder, was a full-blooded negress. The maternal great-grand- father of Pushkin was an Abyssinian general in the service of the Czar. He was not of Negro blood. Q. What places will the United States frigate Constitution visit on its IV u:‘ of southern ports this Winter?— A. It will visit the following ports in the order named: Brunswick, Ga.; | Jacksonville, Fla.; Miami, Fla.; Pensa- | cola, Fla.; Mobile, Ala.; Gulfport, Miss.; | New Orleans, La.; Corpus Christi, Tex. | Houston, Tex.; Galveston, Tex.; Lake | Charles, La.; mpa, Fla.; Key West, Fla. The Constitution will return to ‘Washington, D. in April. Q. Who was the first woman auto- mobile driver or first to obtain a license in the District of Columbia?—E. M. 8. A. The Department of Vehicles and Traffic says that the first automobile | operator’s "license issued to a woman | driver in_the District was issued to | Kate N. Foote of 1712 Twenty-second street, on August 11, 1903. It is a | question whether she was the firs§ woman to operate a motor vehicle in the District, but as a matter of record she was the first woman to be licensed. Q. Who owns the Russian eml on Sixteenth street in Wi ‘Who occupies 1t?—N. N. A. It still is taxed in the name of the imperial Russian government, bee ing assessed at $525,000. It is unoce cupled except by & caretaker and watchman. Q. Is & passport necessary when irav= gtncg sto Canada by automobile?— A. While a passport is not necessary in going to Canada on & visit, the fol- lowing information is required of tour= ists going to Canada from the United States: Name of manufacturer of car; manufacturer’s serial and engine num- ber; style and value of car; license number; number of extra tires; signa- ture and street address of owner, city or town, and State in which owner is resident. Qé ‘What sort of food is chipolata?— A. It is an Italian creation, half sauce and half stew, made of carrots, turnips. chestnuts, onion, sausage, mushrooms, _artichokes, celery and strong veal gravy. e ~ il American interest in John Drink- water's idéas of public service has been aroused since the famous modern writer %tve his indorsement to the reading of hakespeare as a means of devnl?lng statesmanship. Editorial writers delve in the works of the dramatisi and sug- gest quotations appropriate to present- day political and social questions. “Drinkwater’s idea that statesmen should be compelled to read something from Shakespeare every week has merit,” in the opinion of the Cincinnati Times-Star, which advises: “In his works they would find texts for every present problem, as-witness that query in ‘The Winter's Tale, ‘Mine honest friend, would you take eggs for money?’ or Baptista’s counsel in ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ not to ‘venture madly on & desperate mart,’ or the project of the poet in ‘Timon of Athens’ who planned 'a satire against the softness of pros- perity’ These texts hold corrective medicine for agrarian experimentalists, radicel innovators and politicians for whom the world ended when a house of cards tumbled in 1920. Shakespeare provides still stronger stuff in his plois and characters, wherein appear the fickleness of mobs, the age-old wiles of the demagogue, the tragedy that awaits him who 15 ‘passion’s slave,’ the comedy that consoles the philosophical onlooker, the rewards of steadfastness, the eternal need of a generous and tolerant spirit. Here, indeed, s good fare for all of us.” * ok KK “There, by the grace of inspiration,” according to the Little Rock Arkansas .| Democrat, “is a truly constructive idea. Let us have more statesmen who know their espeare. Let us send them to a school, and in the curriculum of that school let there be & course of primaly study from a ‘catechism’ which con- tains, among others, these lines from the writings of the bard: ‘Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing; more than any man in all Venice.' ‘Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.’ ‘How oft tne sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done.’ ‘The small- est worm will turn bethg trodden on.' Her mother, the Hon. Mrs. Gunning, daughter of Viscount Mayo of Coote Castle, Ireland, brought her five chil- dren to Dublin, Her two eldest daugh- ters, Elizabeth and Maria, are the “beauties” of this tale. The arrival of 8 fairy godmother in the shape of a famous kind-hearted actress helps to smooth the path of poverty and to bring ahout a successful marriage for Elizabeth. Horace Walpole is an Im- rtant figure in the novel and his ome at Strawberry Hill is the scene of balls and other festivities. The novel, like others by E. Barrington, 15 & mix- ture of history and imagination. * x % % Posthumous works of Arnold Bennett are already beginning to appear. “The Night Visitor and Other Stories” is a collection of rather romantic stories not in the usual tradition of Arnold Ben- Nett. One of tha best of the stories, Strange Affair in a Hotel,” seems al- episode of his last and very original novel, “Imperial Palace.” Another ex- cellent story is “The First Night” in which a young actor unexpectedly has his chance when the star actor de- serts at the last moment. * ok ok K Another book on the “good old times” is \W. Graham Robertson’s “Life Was Worth Living—Then.” It is a book of memories of the interesting pormlq:n the author has known, all eminent Vic- torians. Sarah Bernhardt was his friend, as were also Ellen Terry, Irving, Ada Rehan, the Drews, Sir Arthur Pinero, Augustin Daly, Forbes-Robert- son, Sargent, Henry James, Oscar most a8 if it had been designed as an | Drinkwater Stirs Interest In Shakespeare, Public Guide Also, ‘press not a falling man too far. ‘Nor is the Winter of our discontent.” ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, then are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ ‘Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand. And when the statesmen have mastered the wisdom of those lines they can be ad- vanced to others, such as these: ‘There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough- hew them how we will’ ‘Imperial Caesar, dead, and turned to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away.’” Fear is expressed by the Louisville Courier-Journal as to the possibility of unsatisfactory results “if members of Congress were compelled to read Shakespeare every week,” for “they would just quote him, and political ut- | terances are bombastic enough.” With & tribute to “the colorful pageantry and gn.nd symphony of human emotions here played out before the statesmen,” ‘Lhe Providence Bulletin concludes: “It is an ambitious, scholarly program, one in which not only this scholar-producer but eminent men in various walks of life place great hope of purifying, en- riching and strengthening a public mind sadly in need of enrichment.” * Kok X Pointing out that Mr. Drinkwater “offers no definite citations for those who are too busy to read more than a few lines a day,” the New York Sun makes the suggestion: “Would states- men take down their Shakespeare to seek texts for business sermons with which to stir their lazy colleagues to greater industry? Then let them cry at those who - yearn for fatter days Hamlet'’s impatient query, ‘What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed?’ Let them prod sluggards into action by exclaiming, as did the Queen in ‘Cymbeline,’ ‘'Tis not sleepy business, but must be look'd to speedily and strongly!" " ‘“‘Constant study of Shakespeare,” ad- vises the Buffalo Evening News, “would give the lawmakers balance and per- spective. There is in him a rich fund of wisdom on which these, our masters, might draw with profit to the country. The lawmakers would be the better for pondering such thoughts as these: “‘But man, proud man. Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what 'S His fiund' glassy essence, like a hairy ape, Plays such fantastic trlck‘sry bepfeor. heaven As makes the angels weep.' ‘And: ‘He draweth out the thresd of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.’ “‘More: “Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, Thy 's and truth’s.” “Yes, it would be well if legislators were to make Shakespeare their guide. They then would develop a true sense %r :;:lues T&d wou:d 80 k:bout their usiness wi eater circu t and mpomn:mfty." ke ———— The Final Ultimatum. From the Toronto (Ont.) Daily Star. _ As far as the China-Japan situation is concerned we understand that the giil“in ngwmhltn‘;a dg:lieed that Japan roug a a8 soon as has got what she wants. e Hurley Strong Defender. From the Dallas Journal. Secretary Hurley seems to be as strong for presidential as for national defense. e Minority Report. From the Rutland Daily Herald. Almost everybody knows at least one Wilde, Burne-Jones and Albert Moore. Tussy little man who remin ity ds him of &