Evening Star Newspaper, January 3, 1932, Page 24

Machines to (Continued From Third Page.) tOonfinued From I SN and rollers and trucks. The roads should be soundly bullt, depression or no_depression, This spirit permeates the life of Latin America today. What can be done is being done, but machines—new ones or, temporarily, old ones from the junk-heap—multiply the effort and make the pesos go farther than they) ' ever went before. Venezuela lays down new highways and plans a great new as & means of employing men the idle ofl fields, but, neverthe- Jess, modern equipment and modern methods are to prevall, and every muscle turned to the work must be multiplied by the use of machines fitted to the task in hand. Machine Trade Encouraging. Lick Jungle still effective. In certain Central Amer- ican coffee plantations labor is held in this way, and whole villages in the hills | are bound to serve in the coffee pick- ing on distant plantations by an in- debtedness renewed continuously in re- | turn for the use of farmlands near the | villages, which the owner acquires for the purpose of thus guaranteeing his | labor supply. | In many of the countries producing seasonal crops, as in Cuba during the sugar-cutting season and in Argentina |during the wheat harvest, there has been & steadily increasing movement of 1abor from Spain and Italy. These work- 'ers are facetiously called “swallows,” a word that describes their seasonal mi- gretions between their own fields and those of Latin America. This move- ment has been interrupted during the , One of the outstanding breaks in| “the clouds of world trade is that belief | in and demand for machines in the lands that share this hemisphere with | us. Our total exports to Latin Amer- | Jca in 1930 were about double those| ®f 1913, but in the great “machinery” | classification our 1830 exports were | 2%, times those of 1913. We shipped | 8 times the value in agricultural | machinery and 15 times the automo-| biles in 1930 that we did in 1913.| In one category of motor trucks—a vital and integral part of the agricul- tural, industrial and machine-age de- velopment of Latin America—1930 showed a comfortable increase over even the mighty boom year of 1929 Another class, refrigeration machinery, ‘Was also one of the few listings in the export table to mark an increase in 1930 over 1929. The age of the machine may be coming in for hard knocks in its “home town"—that is, Main street— | but out where national development is 80 important that men think about it and work for it, even in times of de- pression, the machine age is in quite odor. In fact, they are ready or a little more of it. Tumbling com- | modity prices, disappearing export bal- ances, revolutions and troubles with foreign debts have stirred Latin Amer- ica to challenge the world with a definite turn to & new version of the machine age. Latin America has been producer, rimarily, of raw materials and in mining and agriculture the coun- tries have been steadily increasing | users of machinery. Indeed, in agri- culture, the machine age came long ago to those lands. The wheat grow- ers of Argentina used the combine harvester years before it was intro- duced into general use in this country. ‘While itinerant threshing crews were | still making their annual trek from Bouthern Kansas northward with the ripening grain, the Argentine wheat | ‘owers were doing their own harvest- | g and threshing in their compact combines and competing easily with us in world markets. Excavation Machines Used. American earth-moving machinery has been one of the great instruments of the opening of every tropical region in re- cent years. In this, American groups, clearing and draining banana planta- tions and sugar fields, have led the way, but other cultural industries and public works have followed. Every field of tropical enterprise can count the ad- vantages of the use of machinery and its redoubling of the strength of the buman hands that once fought alone against the jungle. That battle is be- ing won today because machinery has come to serve us; it was being lost, steadily, thrnu%h the long procession of history everywhere, uitil these new in- struments came to change oldtime methods. The future of our civilization 8, in the lap of our ma- is certainly true if the tropics are vital, as they seem now to | be vital, to the progress of that civiliza- tion toward its distant goal of human | welfare. | The ancient civilizations of Latin America were all—with the exception of | the Inca in Peru, where llamas were avallable—built virtually with the bare | hands and muscles of men and women. ‘There were no beasts of burden, other | than the llama, in all the length of the ! Americas. The Spanish conquest was | achieved virtually afoot; Cortez had 16 | horses in his army that conguered Mexico, Pizarro 27 in Peru and Alvar- ado’'s army tramped the jungle from Mexico to Guatemala with only a few horses for the leaders. The opening of the deep ‘interior was done, in large part, without animals. Only today, with the airplane, are men opening | wilderness which until the late 20s of | this century could not be penetrated | save by expeditions in which each man, white, black or brown, carried his own | food as well as his arms. Thus, on | down to our own day, the machine age, did the limitations of human physical | strength and endurance bind the de- ‘velopment of Latin America with its ap- | palling obstacles. | The cramping force of the dependence | on hand labor extends far beyond trans- rtation problems, however, in explain- the formerly slow development of Latin America and especially of tropical Latin America—into which classifica- tion about four-fifths of the area falls ‘The labor required in all agriculture before the development of machinery was enormous. In the great plantation crops to which tropical agriculture has been dedicated this is multiplied many fold. The classic example is the sub- | tropical crop of coffee, whose yield an scre is more or less comparable to that of wheat, but which requires approxi- mately 10 times the labor, with hand cultivation, weeding, pruning and final- ly the tremendous hand task of the | harvest. | Labor Not Plentiful. | Onder a theory that Latin America is | & region of abundant as well as cheap | labor, this demand for redoubled hands | would not have been a serious question, | but Latin America is not, and never has | been, a region of abundant labor sup- plies. Cheap, yes, but not abundant Contrary to general opinion—an opin- fon that has been wrong for about 450 | years—there is no great surplus of labor in any part of Latin America. Economic pressure has brought many of the In- dian and mixed-blood populations under the yoke of production in the mines snd plantations of today, but the long history of peonage in many of the coun- tries should be indication enough that there is no plethora of labor there Wage slavery has been the rule at one time or another in every Latin Ameri- can country producing great plantation crops for the last two centurfes. It per- sists widely even today, a direct inher- | ftance from the more actual slavery of | the Spanish and Portuguese era. Time | and a changing social attitude on_the | part of governments and employers have modified the conditions somewhat, but | men still work under the shadow oti debts deliberately forced upon them ‘ln‘ crder to obtain their labor and from which they never escape. This is the situation in most of the | countries where there is no floating population of independent workers and even where these exist the custom of | kidnaping workers from the city and more salubrious climates for work on denk tropical plantations still goes on Mexico, in the last years of the Dllz; regime, was the scene of the best known of these cases of modern slavery. The | #isal plantations of Yucatan were sup- | plied with labor from far-off Sono;: in the ns of Yaqui Indians caught as rbr?:d condemned to be transported undreds of miles to virtual slavery on the hemp farms. In the Valle Na- | clonal, the tobacco district of Vera , and, more disgracefully, on some of the cultivated rubber plantations owned by stockholders in the United States, enganchados (literally “hooked” Jaborers) were taken in droves, kept in barbed wire barracks and worked mer- cilessly. The basis of their service was & debt, advanced for debauch and kept active by purchases at the planta- tion stores. Not uncommonly this debt ‘was on from father to son. The sbolition of this debt system, so far as 4t has been accomplished, was a worthy achievement of the Mexican revolution of 1911-21. ‘The debt peonage system persists #lsewhere, however, and variations are | was cheaper, or seemed cheaper, to im- depression, but it is an essential factor in the economic life of the important agricultural countries of Cuba and Ar- gentina In other countries as well there is some migration of labor, and Brazil has sought to tempt such workers to its coffee fields. Where this course of mi- gratory labor is not available, as in the coffee countrles generally, the workers vitally necessary for the picking season are brought from the cities and towns to the plantations. The harvest time is made a period of festival not unlike the harvest festivals of the Middle Ages in Europe, but not always are liv- ing conditions such as to invite all the hilarity, although it does provide much of the laxity of ancient times. Old System Scrapped. In the economic unfoldment of Latin America, the scrapping of the old tradi- tion of plentiful labor was thus inevita- ble. The idea has been sustained through recent years by the low wages aid to workmen. But this wage con- dition has been due, not to a plethora of labor and the old law of supply and demand, but because the production of raw materials, to which Latin America has been chained so long, could not be carried on except with cheap labor; it was low wages or no work at alll A man working in the cane fields or pick- ing coffee could not possibly produce enough to bring back to him from the distant world markets more than a starvation wage, The very heart of the backwardness of Latin America is here revealed, and with it the promise of future change throughout its economic status, by crop diversification and the developing use of machinery. When sugar fell to so low a price that no wages could be paid for its har- vesting, the fleld laborers of Cuba cut it for nothing, and this cane ured into world markets, further to depress the price of sugar. The meager return sufficed only to keep the soup kitchens going on the plantations. ‘The wages of Latin America’s millions have been determined by the value of their product, not by the scarcity of the hands. That is why the use of ma- chinery in Latin America has been so astonishingly effective. By all the rules of economics—taking the premise that labor was cheap because it was plenti- ful—Latin America was not ready for the machine. It was the same condi- tion, the casual observer thought. as in the Orient, where ships were coaled by hand because the excess of the labor supply made this method cheaper. But this was not the case in Latin America. The moment machinery was intro- duced in any industry there production increased and higher wages could be and were paid. The reason for ma- chines was that there were not enough hands to do the work. and the reason for low wages was that the work, done by hand, competed with the starvation wages of Asia and Africa. Competition Keenly Felt. Indeed, in recent years Latin Amer- ica has begun to feel keenly the com- petition of Asia and Africa in the pro- duction of raw materials. The cacao of Africa already has taken the place of some of South America’s production of the chocolate bean, and even the raising of lower grade coffee may well ass to Africa in future years. Rubber as been grown in Asia for years and in Africa for a shorter time, and the trans- fer of the plantation crops in general from Latin America to these areas of abundant as well as cheap labor is probably inevitable. The lack of an actual surplus of labor thus enters definitely into the fate that decrees that Latin America shall some day cease to be a great source of plantation produce. Another factor s that the newer plantations in Asia and Africa are being organized on a more soundly modern and thus more profitable basis. The transfer of the rubber industry from Brazil to the East Indies is a case in point. Wild rubber trees dot the forests of the Amazon, but the stands are not uniform and the rubber trees are scattered, from a dozen to a hundred an acre, over immense areas. The rubber latex. or sap, was tapped by wandering Indians or by loosely controlled gangs, often of im- pressed workers brought from all pver razil. It was cured by dipping a stick into the white latex and drying it over open, smoky fires. This rubber, dirty, filled with sticks and leaves, and often enough smoked and burned so as not to be workable was the world's only source of supply t the dawn of the sutomobile era lantations were projected and some were laid out, in Brazil and in Mexico as well, but there was neither the labor nor the organizations to perfect them to the extent which was finally achieved in the East Indies and the Malay Peninsula. There, with seeds smuggled out of Brazil through a sharp cordon | of inspection, immense areas of rubber plantations, with the trees in long rows and carefully tended, grew into produc- tion. Modern methods of curing the latex were perfected. and this rubber is today the dominating grade in the world markets. The Brazilian industry has virtually disappeared. Recent at- tempts to create a plantation rubber industry in Brazil have been delayed as much by the lack of the large sources of labor required as by political condi- tions. Organized Planting Needed. A correlated effect of the continuiny labor shortage has been the lack of de- velSpment of organized planting and cropping of products other than the long established staples like sugar, cof- fee and cacao. Coconuts and other tropical sources of vegetable oils, for instance, are not produced generally in Latin America on a plantation basis; and fibers, gums and other products of tropical forests are not available in the Qquantities and with the assured supply that they are in lands which have sur- plus laborers ere are but two solutions if La America i to develop the possibiiitis of tropical raw materials. One is the use of machinery and the concentration on crops where machinery can be used, The other is a new labor supply. Of the two, there seems no question as to the ultimate and wiser choice. Ma- chinery offers to Latin America release and prosperity in this as in other fields. Diversification of crops is becoming the tendency, definitely, in the agricul- tural economy of Latin America. In Cuba the great sugar plantations needed every available worker for the big crop in the days of high-priced sugar. It port foodstuffs from abroad rll:{e lhe!r;nulocng:. Lo ore than that, the trans; o facilities of the island were p"g;f:’ua their capacity in handling cane and sugar, and food raised at one end of | the island could not be carried to the other. Even Havana could not get na- tive fruits like pineapples from Cuban | provinces during rush times on the railways; Hawailan canned pineapples | were served on Cuban tables. Eggs and flour and canned goods and patent | foods of every sort were imported wntil the fall in Cuban sugar prices took on | ® dominating phase and the people, | encouraged by the government and | with heavy new duties, took up the rais- | ing of their own foods. The change | covered the whole island, and perhaps | saved, as much as so individual a move- ment could, the economic existence of the people, and prepared them for a sounder prosperity. A s movement has throt all of the countries. During Tecent years Mexico, which since the . revolution of 1911 had been importing increasing quantities of foodstuffs, be- gan to raise more food, and more kinds of foods. Also, new highways into the interior of the try were opened, tapping new sou of supply. ese are but examples, yet every- where the tendency has been marked. It is of interest hefe pecause it indi- cates & new type of thinking regarding sagriculture. a greater conservation of wealth and a greater opportunity to build the individual and the nation into sound and balanced economic units. This leads, however, to the most sig- nificant phase of the future possibilities of Latin American agriculture. It has been suggested that the end of these piantation crops has come in Latin America, and that a new era is dawn- ing. That new era certainly does not eliminate the cash crop, nor the possi- bility of an increasingly important in- come from nrflculmnf products abroad. But it does mean the bringing of Latin America definitely into the production, on a large scale, of the great food staples of the world. To Use More Latin Food. ‘The older nations, including the United States and to a lesser extent Canada, are becoming industrialized so rapidly that first in meat and wool and later on in the cereals they will have to turn more and more to Latin America for their supplies. The indication is of the same procession of events as hap- pened in Europe when the United States, in the second half of the last century, began to cheap farm produce into the older countries. They could not produce as cheaply as they could buy these foods, and so turned their energies to manufacturing. Now the role of supplier of the world's food is definitely passing from the United States; in cereals it is Canada that is now on the upswing. But there are vast future food-producing areas in Latin America even outside of Argen- tina. In the next 25 years the trans- formation will bs well on its way. What will be produced time only can tell, but first of all, perhaps, will be meats. The introduction of the quick-freezing proc- ss, which makes frozen meat as 1- ble as chilled meat, has made defi- nitely possible the coming, first, of Ar- gentine and Uruguayan meat, and later of beef from the warmer countries, to the United States market. ‘The previous lack of development of the food crops in the tropics been due to two definite factors. One is the climate {tself, with its alternating dry and rainy seasons, and the luxuriance of the jungle growth which takes back each wet season the gains of the dry. The other is the problem of solls. Boils Are Deficient. Basically, the tropical soils are rich in humus, but deficient in mineral salts, those ingredients in the soil of the tem- perate zones which have made them granaries of the world. But mineral salts are replaceable by fertilizers, and by the same means there undoubtedly can come an elimination of at least some of the tropical luxuriance of weeds. Irrigation, the product of engineering, is the solution of the problem of rainy seasons and dry. Years ago it was de- termined in the sugar flelds of Hawail, and of Peru as well, that irrigated sugar fields are more economical and better producers than the lowlands, on which sugar cane is traditionally grown. The development of irrigation is one of the great romances of Latin American ag- riculture. Engineering has been able to impound water in arid regions and, more recently, cheap electric power has pumped water from beneath the surface of lands too far distant to be served hr the irrigation ditches of the dam itsell, Irrigation has turned flat regions emi- nently adapted to the use of machinery from deserts into gardens, and the process is hardly begun. Irrigation—and fertilization—are the answer to most of the questions that are presented as the unanswerables in regard to tropical and desert agriculture. Immense regions still await the solu- tion which other branches. of science and engineering and machinery can provide for them. The Amazon Valley, occupying half the area of South Amer- ica, is yet to be harnessed. Its first use will unquestionably be its forests, now almost completely neglected and yet ca- pable of producing an immense amount of timber for untold centuries to come. Under sound forestry laws and methods, which have been evolved at such tragic waste of the timber resources of the United States and Canada, the forests of tropic Latin America may well fur- pish timber and pulp and paper to the world in perpetuity, Drainage Is Difficult. ‘The Amazon and its hundred mighty tributaries, and likewise the upper reaches of the corresponding river sys- tem to the south, the River Platte basin, are so flat that drainage is slow and difficult. They present engineering problems and reclamation costs which may not be solved for generations. That they can be solved when the need arises cannot be questioned, but there are im- measurable areas on the very slopes-of the Andes and draining into the Ama- ?)n basin which are to be developed irst. The contribution of the two Anglo- Saxon areas of America to the solu- tion of the agricultural problems of Latin America is very definite. Canada and the Northwest of the United States form the laboratory of the temperate region and the once desert wastes of the Western United States of the tropics. But the greatest gift North American agriculture has made to that of Latin America has been machinery. In the somewhat circumscribed field of agriculture this contribution has been tremendous. The tractor, as applied to agriculture—not to mention its other uses—has revolutionized farming in the temperate and subtropical regions, and certainly in the tropics. No list of the contributions of North American manufacturing to the uplift of Latin America is complete without a figura- tive wreath of laurel on the machine which can go where no vehicle but an ox cart could ever go before and, in- deed, with crawler tractors, into swamps and over mountains where no ox could pull a load. In the opening of new lands, in the tropics or in the temperate zone or on the heights, North American earth- moving machinery has made possible developments which without its help would literally still ‘be waiting for a miracle. Through swamps and over trackless wastes, the power shovel and the “bulldozer” and the scraper and grader have built not only the roads but the very flelds themselves. Plows of All Types. ‘The list is endless, and not least are North American plows, of all the varied types which long experience has evolved here. A disk plow drawn by a pair of oxen, or & handmade wooden plow drawn by a gasoline tractor—these pic- tures you can see in almost any day's ride in Latin America today. They mark the growth, the reaching for the perfection, a mechanized age in agri- culture. For a generation the gifts of the machine age have been going to Latin American agriculture in increasing measure, and during recent years they have been supplemented by all the panoply of the machinery of farm and shop and mill. Flour mills and pack- ing plants, establishments for the ex- tracting of the essence of farm produce to be sent to the factories of the world in concentrated form, canning plants for the preservation of fruits and vegetables, grading and sorting and ofl- ing and packing plants for fruits— these are rare today, but they are more numerous than one would expect and their multiplication is as certain for the future of Latin America as is the rising of another sun. As the years go on we shall see, too, a closer grading and more careful pick- ing over of the raw materials sent out to world markets. Wool will be selected and baled more carefully in its mar- ketable classification, cocoa beans will be picked over or selected by machin- ery, 50 as to command the highest prices in world markets; so will coffee, and indeed every product of every country. The co-operative brands which have placed certain types of , melons and canned goods of the Btates in & position mand everywhere full value of their marked gradgs without the examina- BY BARTON. N e taught me many things. Slddgxlal&d ll‘lle: ever for e{ that the reader is interested first of all and most of al% in himself. Second, he is fhter- Don't try to sell me articles on the indus- Write me something that will make I can take that and use it THE closest friend I ever had was the great editor, John M. ested in other people. trial revolution in Tasmania. the reader say: ‘That applies to me. own advantage.'” ol 0 years beforge he died he knew that death was inevitable. He had cancer. But he kept right on working. I lunched with him on the last day he was able to get to the office. His interest in life was just as keen as ever. e spent about three hours talking over the ever-changing, ever-amusing human race. Half jokingly he remarked that he had written his own epitaph. “When I am gone I want you to put a stone over me and have carved on it these words: “Here lies & man who lived nearly fifty years and learned only one great truth— There is no substitute for work.” I have recalled that remark very often in these last few months which have brought such startling changes in so many lives. There was & man whom many envied; he made all us com- monplace folks feel discouraged. e was the head of a big busi- ness which seemed to be so well organized that he ran it with no effort at all. He would lie in bed until noon and phone his instructions to the office. He led a busy social life and took long trips; yet his income grew by leaps and bounds. It seemed all right, but it turned out to be all wrong. The business is busted. and he is out. There was a young man, about half my age, who made $3,000,000 in the market. I used to think, “What a dull fellow I am to have worked 25 years! This lad makes me look silly.” But he is cleaned out, and, while the rest of us are consider- ably deflated, some of us still have fobs. Perhaps this depression is getting us back to first principles. Perhaps the Aimighty was serious when He said to Adam, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” Perhaps it is not in- tended that we shall develop a permanent “leisure class.” That was John Siddall’s idea—no substitute for work. (Copyright, 1931.) Year in Latin America Is Featured By Overthrow of 13 Governments (Continued From Third Page.) heavals and political disorders which troubled her during the year just ended, Latin America can proudly point to exception, should be held more to the credit of Latin America than against it. | seven presidential elections which, in Because the Salvadorian revolt had | the most peaceful and democratic way, none of the characteristics which jus- |resulted in the constitutional selection tified the previous movements in other |[of new governments in a third of all Latin republics. the Latin republics. Salvadorian Revolt Personal. Bolivia and Guatemala Elect. On the contrary, as I had occasion to| Early in January the Bolivians had a point out scarcely a few days ago, the | Presidential contest in which they un- Salvadorian revolution resembled more | 8nimously elected the man chosen by the old-fashioned, personclistic coup | Agreement of all political parties. Dr. detat for purel s s Daniel Salamanca was, shortly after, Pirely selfish Durposes, {rom | augurated s the first chisl execu: | tive to have the support of all political | sectors in Bolivia. Soon afterward the Guatemalans elected in a similar fashion their new President. Gen. Jorge Ubico was pro- | claimed the “single candidate” and con- firmed at the polls, without opposition, to head the destinies of the country. | “Like the elections in Bolivia “and Guatemala, the one which followed in El Salvador was also considered a model for its fairness and freedom. Dr. Araujo was elected President by a large majority and in the course of a few days he had legally taken possession of the reins of government. 'Unfortu- nately all the credit which this action secured for El Salvador was spoiled later on by the militaristic coup last month against President Araujo’s regime. Others Vote Conservatively. The presidential electons in Ecuador, Peru and Chile, which followed in suc- cession, were not different. They, also, were sald to have been the freest elec- tions that those countrles had enjoved in & long time, and they were held in & far more peaceful atmosphere than it had been expected. With only a few weeks between them, the presidential contesis in Ecuador, Peru and Chile had many character- istics in common. A study of the per- sonalities involved, the conditions pre- | Vailing, the platforms offered, the is- cues at stake, reveals the same political trend in the results of all of them. A turn of public opinion toward conserva- tism, in self-defense against the men- acing advance of radical . theories. | Montero in Chile, Sanchez Cerro in | Peru and Bonifaz in Ecuador repre- sented this conservative spirit. Democracy Gains In 1931, Pinally, in the Argentine Republic, | presidential elections were also held the | latter part of 1931. There, too, the fair- ness of the elections has been praised by impartial observers, and the win- ning candidate, Gen. Justo, has re- ceived the largest plurality ever ob- tained by an aspirant to the Argentine | presidential post. | " No matter how many political upsets Latin America has witnessed in 1931, it is only fair to admit that, at the end | of such a turbulent vear, she is much nearer to democracy and popular gov- ernment than she was before the re- cent revolutionary wave against dic- | tatorial rule started. (Copyright, 1932.) Rescu: Effort Fails, But Hero Wins Medal which the other recent Latin American movements differed so much. None of the social, political or economic reasons which have been advanced to explain the latter was present in the case of El Salvador. A revolution unpreceded by visible signs of popular discontent, accom- plished suddenly with the aid of a group of ambitious young army officers against a government which only a few months before had been inaugurated after an uncontested electoral victory, the Salvadorian upset has resulted in the constitution of a provisional regine in which its leaders figure prominently. As it was to be expected, and in ac- cordance with the provisions of the Washington treaty of 1923, the new Sal- vadorian government has been deni>d recognition by the United States and the Central American republics. Two Uprisings Unsuccessful. The two unsuccessful revolutions Latin America during the year whlr'l,\‘ has just closed were those in Honduras and Cuba. Particularly the last one commanded world-wide attention, for it provoked a short but bloody civil war. in which many lives were sacrificed in an attempt to overthrow the govern- ment of Gen. Machado, the last expo- nent of dictatorial rule in that part of the world. Exception is made, of course, to almost “traditional President” G(:rx_g?z gf Venezuela e bitter internal strife in kept the island republic for qul?l:‘bz while or the front page of American newspapers.” Together with {solated, minor outbreaks in Argentina, Brazil | Paraguay, Venezuela and the constani denunciation of her plots to disturb in- ternal order in other southern republics a very active y American politics. Lol unately these other minor at- tempts of rebellion, which are. ony natural in a period of world-wide dis- organization and serious economic dis- tress, were easily overcome by the Latin American governments and thus further complications and political chaos avoided. . Paraguay President Forced Out. Before mentioning those countries where, in striking contrast, constitu- tional general elections resulted in the peaceful change of authorities, the sud- den_resignation of President Guggiari of Paraguay must be included in the list of those imposed by force. The Paraguayan executive's resignation, however, was not the result of a “coup d’etat,” neither did it result in the con- stitution of a new military or civil re. gime. It was simply caused by strong opposition of the people to his inter: national policy and a desire of the President to avoid internal strife. After hi; resignation his own Vice President took charge of the government. As against the number of violent up- —_— P tion of appraisers will find their paral- lels in Latin America. Today, in tropical swamps, power shovels and draglines and crawler tractors blaze the trail of the modern ploneer. Drainage and bridges and ir- rigation ditches are their meat, and the amount of mud and muck and stagnant water they devour in a day would have meant months of slow and kllun{s effort by armies of men with shovels only a few short years ago. No longer does a tropical railway mean that & human life must be paid for | every tie laid down, as was the estimate in the original laying of the Panama Railroad. No longer do spoiling food and the unending wet heat of the tropical forest hang as a continuous menace over the white men and over the black and brown men who blaze the trails of civilization. Even the In- dians of Guatemala, who refused for years to work in the tropics because legend coming down from distant ages told of the death that lay in wait there, are now coming gingerly down to the work and the comforts places from which once sent their ancestors the hills. Ty | an piague or famin scurrying to | HONoLULU, Hawali—A man who | failed to make a rescue has just been | decorated by the United States Army with the coveted and rarely bestowed soldiers’ medal. He is Corpl. Jesse R. | Compo of the 64th Coast Artillery, sta- tloned at Fort Shafter, Honolulu, On November 19, 1930, Corpl. Compo swam into a raging tropical torrent here to attempt the rvescue of Col. James P, Berney of the 8th Field Ar- tillery and his sister, Who had been caught in the sudden rise of the waters of & small stream, their auto overturned and themselves driven to the barely won shelter of a tree; The rising water threatened to engulf them and Corpl. | Compo swam with a rope from the shore. He was swept down stream by the current, and this particular effort at rescue falled, but his example in- spired a larger party to attempt the rescue, and later in the night the effort suceeeded. bravery Was con e enno = | sidereh so_ouistanding that the War Department decided to bestow the medal, which is the highest decoration e Army in_peace time. in Rome, N. Y., lEm'ope’el Air Ministers | { | Consider Co-operation VIENNA.—The International Aero- nautic Federation has just held an important meeting in Rumania at- tended by air ministers from the chief European _countries, including Lord Amulree of Great Britain, M. Dumesnil for France and Gen. Balbo, the Italian air chief, who flew his own plane to the conference, The host to the group was Prince Valentine Bibesco and it met at his home in Mogoshoala, near Bucharest. One of the most famous pilots in the world, Dieudonne Costes, acted as a sort of taxi driver to the conference; he plloted M. Dumesnil there from Paris and helped organize the visitors. The conference discussed a number of matters of common interest to com- mercial aviation, such as the creation of an aerial passport to replace the present complicated authority neces- sary to fly over various countries, ap- thorization for tourist planes to carry sport guns and wireless, reduction in the number of forbidden zones and, In general, development of ways and means of aerial co-operation so as to make touring by air practicable and ras'y in all of Europe. Republicans in Hawaii Want More Delegates HONOLULU, Hawall.—After years of fruitless effort Hawali republicans now seem to have a fair chance of fimng the representation they desire the Republican National Convention. Since Hawaii became a territory and began sending delegates to the national con- claves of the two old-line parties, the G. O. P. here have felt at somewhat of a disadvantage. Only two delegates and two alternates are allotted this terri- tory by the Republican party, whereas the Democratic party allots six delegates and six alternates. The Republican National Committee for Hawall, James P. Winne, and the Governor of the Territory, Lawrence M. Judd. also a Republican, are now in Washington and one of the things Gov. Judd intends doing is to see what he can do to boost the representation. It is anticipated, according to cablegrams he has sent home, that action will be taken at the next formal meeting of the National Committee, Hawaii Coffee Record Adds Another to Total HONOLULU, Hawail.—Hawaii has set many world’s records in sugar and pineapple production and for the 1930-1 season has hung up a new agricult- ural mark—that for coffee. With an average of 1,800 pounds of coffee per acre, the Kona district on the Island of Hawali has set a record that is two and three times as high as that of other coffee-producing coun- tries, including the largest in the world, Brazil. During the season the Kona district, which grows virtually all the coffee produced in the territory, yielded a crop of 10,000,487 pounds, surpassing last year's crop by about a million pounds. The price has been low and many coffee growers are making little on their year's efforts. In the last 10 Britain’s New (Continued Prom First Page.) frame and steely mind seemed tireless. His earllest speeches gave a tremendous sense of grip and evoked even the praise of the chief of the Tory opposition, Balfour. Often he would be up at 5 in the morning, working on his briefs; then off for a busy day in the law courts; after which he would go down to the House of Commons and work there for eight or nine hours, advising his ol leagues about technicalities of the law in regard to various bills and making explanatory or fighting speeches in the House. He had no home life over all this period. His wife died after they had been together only three yea Golf, motoring, hunting, law and po tics—there was his life. Thus tolling and concentrated, his elevation was very rapld. Four yea after he entered Parliament he was made solicitor general, and two years later Asquith promoted him to attorney general, with a seat in the cabinet. Then came the war. As pacifists Lloyd George and Simon were rather expected to resign. But they managed to recon- cile their principles and stay on, and in the cabinet reshuffie in 1915 a prelude to the Lloyd Georgian coalition, Simon had to be looked after. At that time he could have had the most glittering prize within the reach of a political lawyer—he could have taken a peerage and the lord chancel- lorship. But he chose to plank that office on the unwilling shoulders of a judge, refuse a peerage and take on the home secretarwship, the most thankless job in the cabinet. Why this apparent self-sacrifice? Well, he is a wary and far-seeing man, who never loses his sense of proportion and of judgment. A peerage would have taken him forever out of the arena of the House of Commons and sidetracked him in the upper chamber, and although as lord chancellor, head of the bench and bar of England, his salary would be $50,000 (which salary would last just as long as the govern- ment lasted), with a life pension of $25,000, after occupying that exalted post he would not be n)fi)wed to return to ordinary practice at the bar. And he then was only 42, ambitious, with higher office in prospect, a proved professional earning capacity of $200,- 000 a year and 30 years of aciive life before him. Condemned for Stand. But & man like Simon, a Noncon- formist, a humanitarian, an intellectual, without rude natural force, hostile to conscription and to all those arbitrary methods which the bigger, rougher men lumped together and called “the more effective waging of war.” could not be comfortable for long in a cabinet of the warlike. Then came a time when Kitchener, Asquith and Lloyd George were all col vinced of the necessity for conscrip- tion. Simon at last had to declare for or against, and he went into opposition. Nor was it passive opposition. On the contrary, he was active and virulent, and if he had been a man of bigger personality he might have managed to unite under his leadership all the de- featist elements in Britain and split the country. However, at that time England was in just such another patriotic fervor as years the production has more than doubled. Spanish War Veterans Meetings This Week. l Camps. Monday — Department joint public installation, Pythian Tem- ple; Gen. Henry W. Lawton Camp, Pythian Temple; Col. John Jacob Astor Camp, Stanley Hall, United States Soldiers’ Home. Thursday—Richard J. Harden Camp, Pythian Temple. Priday—Gen. Nelson A. Miles Camp, Pythian Temple; Admiral George Dewey Naval Camp, Northeast Masonic Temple. Auxiliaries. Monday-— Admiral George Dewey, Northeast Masonic Tem- ple. Tuesday—Col. John Jacob Astor, 921 Pennsylvania avenue southeast. Thursday — Gen. Nelson A. Miles Auxiliary, Drum and Bugle Corps, Armory, Central High School. Friday—Gen. Nelson A. Miles Py Officers of the camps will be installed Monday night by Department Installing | Officer William I. Jenkins at Pythian Temple, at 8 o'clock. Department Commander Samuel J. McWilliams will preside. Camp commanders are direct- ed to have the officers of their re- spective camps report to Charles A. Strobel, department junior vice com- mander, at 7:45 pm. They will also have their camp colors for the massing lors. Of’f’l":e Council of Administration of the Auxiliaries met at the Y. W. C. A,, be- ing convened by Department President Janet Sikken. Plans were completed for the joint public installation January 11, in Naval Lodge Hall, Fourth street and Pennsylvania avenue southeast. The department president will install the officers of the auxiliaries, with the exception of those of Dewey, which voted not to participate in the public installation. Its officers will be in- stalled at its meeting tomorrow eve- ning. Tghe flag donated by the national president to the auxiliary having the largest net gain in membership for the period ending June, 1931, was awarded to Dewey Auxiliary. Past Department President Cora M. Campbell, chairman of the Christmas Distribution Committee, reported plans completed to .arry on the work of her committee and that the various hospi- tals would be visited. Announcement was made regarding the Defense Conference February 1, 2 and 3. National President Florence H. Becker will arrive in Washington in time for the conference and while in the city will make an official visit to this department, at which time a ban- quet and reception will be tendered her. Past Department President Louise M. Moore has been appointed chairman of the committee to make arrangements. The council voted to participate in the ceremonies commemorating Lincoln’s birthday, the Maine Memorial exercises and the Bicentennial celebration. Col. James S. Pettit Auxiliary met December 28, with President Annie Berthiaume presiding. Department Comdr. Samuel J. McWilliams and staff and Quartermaster Gen. James J, Mur- phy were among those present. The Glee Club rendered selections and the junior members performed dancing feats. Presents were distributed from the Christmas tree. The auxiliary pre- sented to President Berthiaume a _table lamp and Treasurer Gertrude Keyes was given a similar present. and Sec- retary Rebekah Pedigo was also pre- sented with a gift. Mrs. Berthiaume distributed gifts her officers, color guards and committee chairmen. President Ella Ford of the President’s Club entertained the members at her home with a turkey supper. A musical program was rendered. National Lineal Society of the Span- ish War will install officers in Pythian Temple next Wednesday, with Supreme Chief Ruler Mrs. Lucy Goldsborough acting as installing officer, The fol- lowing will be installed: Chief ruler, Mrs. Josephine Yarbrough; chief ad- viser, Mrs. Sadie Coulter; assistant chlef adviser, Mrs. Mary Burke; deaconess, Mrs. Katherine Parker; aide, Mrs. Mary Tultavul; chief of records, Mrs. Kath- erine Baum; chief of finance, Mrs. is 107th Infantry,: Mrs. Mary Werden; sentry, Mrs. Annie with t Garvey. ipating in three pointed chalrman and will have charge at the last election, which confounded Lloyd George and Henderson and swung the Baldwin-MacDonald-Simon- Samuel coalition into power. Simon could do nothing effective, and as soon as his constituents had the chance they deprived him of his seat in Parliament, Even in that phase he retained his real friendships, including his friend- ship with the greatest jingo and mili- tarist of them all, Winston Churchill. One would have expected Simon to keep quietly out of the way and the war. However, while protesting that a man of his age and training could not be of much use to the military machine he still got himself a lieuten- ant’s commission, donned a uniform and went out to general headquarters. After being with the quartermaster general’s section for a few days he was transferred to the Royal Air Force. He did some advising on the bombing of German towns from the viewpoint of international law, but whether that ad- vice had any effect whatsoever on the determination of the air chiefs either to bomb or not to bomb is problemati- cal. He also took advantage of his proximity to Paris to run down there and marry a charming widow and take a week or so off for their honeymoon. Returns to Practice. Further, while still holding his maj- esty’s commission, he appeared in his professional capacity in the law courts back in London—which caused the acid question to be asked, what would hap- Pen to a private or even an ordinary officer who was a barrister in civil life and attempted to follow this interest- ing precedent? In short, in the army he still re- mained the privileged politician, and his enemies did not allow him to for- get it. After 96 days he doffed his uniform and returned to his practice. A rumor spread around a wrathful army that he been granted the distinguished service medal, but a newspaper denial was at once published. It was, stajed the corrected report, only the O. B. E., an order for noncombatants. He did more useful service, from the viewpoint of damaging the enemy, in one memorable day in the Central Criminal Court in the Fall of 1917. A young British officer, named Mal- colm, had left the trenches on getting news that a Russian civilian was either trying to seduce his wife or had in fact done so. The officer went around to the Russian's rooms. A shot was heard and the Russian was found with a bul- let through his heart. It looked a clear case, and the public prosecutor treated it as such. There was sympathy with the officer, but what could be done? In England there are no degrees of murder, and there is no appeal to the so-called unwritten law. Foreign Pilot A murder is a murder and calls for the death penalty. Lawyers did mot see what could be done, and they were even more plexed when it became known that Sir John Simon had been briefed. Simon? For years now he had been the man for big financial and cormercial and tax cases. Calm, expressionless, the tall, slim lawyer walked around to the Old Bailey on the day of the trial. The court ped when he stated that he had no bot:nflon of putting his client in the With his faint, chill smile he de- clared that there had been & quarrel which resolved itself into a question of one man's m :‘:heg‘s, .Mo{u“ crown must eory stand-up fight and a slaying in self- defense before the trial could go fur- ther. He submitted that the crown had failed. The officer was exonerated and restored to the service of the King. Opposes Irish Policy. After the war came the coercion phase in Ireland. A Parliament packed, as a result of the celebrated 1918 elec~ tion, won on slogans of “Hang the Kaiser” and “Make the Germans Pay, with hard-faced men who had don well out of the war, approved the pols icy. From outside Simon denounced it. He tried to rally religious opinion nx}sl“n!:c the “Black and Tans” and re- T ‘The Torles cursed him, but this phase of war politics faded out. So did the plethora of hard-faced parliamenta- rians. The coalition collapsed. In 1923 MacDonald was restored to Parliament and so was Simon. But Simon, the Liberal, was not blood brother to Lloyd George, his titular leader. The watching world became aware of strains and stresses. ‘The general strike came. Lloyd George did not jump into the national fight against it, and carefully refrained from doing anything to allenate Labor, in which he glimpsed his political allies of the future. Simon, on the other hand, took an immediate stand against Labor, and his pronouncement of the movement as illegal was a turning point in the conflict. For quite a while after that he kept outside party politics and parliamentary affairs. A complete investigation of the situation in India and the question of what was to be done about that vast subcontinent in the matter of its rela- tions with imperial Britain had to be undertaken, and a detached man was required to head a royal commission composed of parliamentarians chosen by the respective leaders of the Con- servative, Liberal and Labor parties. Simon was the unanimous choice for | chairman, and after he and his com- mission had made two comprehensive tours of India in successive years the mass of evidence they collected was re- duced to the two big volumes of the report which bears Simon’s name. It is recognized as one of the most mas- terly documents of its kind ever pro= duced. It is Simon’s magnum opus. Conducted R-101 Probe. It had not long been published be- fore the giant British airship, the R-101, crashed in flames on the low hiliside outside Beauvais. The British air minister and the chief of the air staff were among the victims. The inquiry looked like being political high explosive. The government cast around for a man whose name would ire confi- dence to handle the inquiry, They found the man in Simon. ‘These two services—which in hard financial terme meant a sacrifice of anything from half a million to a mil- lion dollars—put Simon in lire for a peerage, if he wanted one, and political preferment when the time was ripe. The India report especially threw a smoke cloud over whatever remained of his harrying of the war-time govern- ment on the conscription issue. A good many people had thought that Simon's long absence from his practice would mean that a lot of the work that used to come to him would be stolen by professional rivals and would not return to the Simon cham- bers. They were mistaken. Briefs flooded in and Simon had to raise his fees beyond their already dizzy level to reduce the flood to the capacity of & single brain. It also became apparent that in the period he had been detached from poli- tics his antagonism to what might be called Llovd Georgism had been grow= ing stronger and that these two were nearing a showdown. Liloyd Geor looking for an issue and pending the emergence of one playing adroit politics to keep himself in a good strategic posi- tion, had pat Labor in office twice. The cold, poised Mwyer, who before the war had been considered rather on the ex- treme radical side, did not like this move the first time and protested the second time. The split between him and his Welsh chief widened, At last Simon took the jump. He declared that the case for ending the Socialist government was clear. It had become for Liberals an issue of the na- tional interest versus a shifty policy of party expediency. He (Simon) was through. Rallies Liberal Band. He rallied his little band of dissi Liberals to MacDonald, keeping gfex: distinct from the larger band which finally deserted Lloyd George en bloc and rallied around Sir Herbert Samuel. The Simon band was and is separated from the Samuelites on the question of tariffs. The Manchurian business has been Simon's first task. Lawyer-like, he saw the complications and deliberately avoided coming to grips. When he read out a long statement in Parliament on his return from the League Council meeting in Paris he avoided the dan- gerous spots so adroitly that a member got up and inquired sympathetically if he at least couldn't tell them what the war was about, exactly. He could tell, but did not. He is not the sort of man Whose fire can be drawn until he is ready and the big game crosses sights. Eatyme e BARCELONA, Spaln. — Barcelona, which, with its revolutionary strikes, bombings and pistolero assassination contests, has had thrills galore within the last decade, has been experiencing a8 new type—the thrill of the gold rush. It was no great Klondike-like dis- covery that brought on the stampede, but a find of a different sort, namely, of an early Christian necropolis or bury- ing ground. Workmen building a road through the grounds of St. Paul’s Hos- pital, near the heart of the city, dug their picks into human bones and then into the stone slabs of sarcophaguses. They reported their findings to the police, but the latter, after investigat- ing, decided it was no case for them and passed the information on to the city’s official archeological body. Prof. Duran Sempre, director of the his- torical archives, on taking charge, found that an early Christian ne- cropolis of considerable extent had been unearthed. Meantime news of the discovery spread around and throngs from the neighboring poorer sections of the city flocked to the scene, questing treas- ures and gold. Fantastic stories were told of how the early Christians had been accustomed to take such valua- bles with them to the grave; therefore, the crowds were hopeful of finding some lying around. So insistent and pressing were the gold seekers that heavy police guards had to be called to control them and keep them from doing serious damage before the ex- cavators could get in their work. Prof. Duran_ Sempre, who imme- diately made plans to pursue investi- Katherine Lawson; standard bearer, Mrs. Mary Rink has been ap- of the arrangements. gations asked the lice to tell the People that the urg) Christians were Big Gold Rush Is Begun in Barcelona By Discovery of Ancient Graveyard was the Spanish equivalent for apple- sauce, and stood their ground, stand- ing around in the hope that a lump of gold or something like that would turn up and escape the eye of the official excavators. The finding of the necropolis is added evidence of the strength of the early Christians in this region even in the days of the Romans, in the opinion of officials of the Institute of Catalan Studies, which has made extensive excavations all through Catalonia. (Copyright, 1932.) New Goethe Rooms Honor Poet Dead 100 Years BERLIN, Germany.—One of the main events in connection with Frankfort's Goethe celebrations in 1932 will be the dedication of the new rooms of the Goethe Museum on March 22, the 100th anniversary of the poet's death. Two houses, adjoining the house in which Goethe was born and dating from his time, have been acquired for the pu . The ground floors of the houses will be used for the manu= script archive and the graphic de- partment and for the users of the library, which, with 47,000 volumes, is the largest and most complete Goethe library in the world. The eleven rooms in the second story will be used as_exhibition rooms, containing pic- tures of Goethe's parents and earlier ancestors, souvenirs of his youth and articles connected with his life a8 poor ‘as themselves, if not poorer, and had little gold to take with them to their graves, The crowd sald that N s