Evening Star Newspaper, May 7, 1933, Page 71

. THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MAY 7, 1933: BY DR. FRANK THONE. EPRESSION is a word of harsh and hideous sound to the ears of most of us just now, and the idea that depressions have been the world’s greatest spurs to progress, that suc- cessive hard times have been a series of evolutionary sieves to sort the fit from the unfit, hardly comes at first as a -cheering gospel. . Each of us, nursing his own trouble and making it-seem as big as possible, may be too apt to see himself as among the lost, the non- survivors. But there is at least one philosophic scientist, Dr. Carey Croneis of the University of Chicago, who looks back over the earth’s immensely long geologic history and sees in it the same moral that the more thoughtful historians and econ- omists have been finding in the story of our own briefer, more rapid pulse of financial booms and slumps. Resolutely he tells us that through the millions of centuries, hard times have been good times, and good times really bad times in disguise. Geologic history has repeated itseir over and over in an ever-ascending spiral: a cosmic depression has scourged the planet, eliminating inflated stocks, trimming the chastened survivors to the bone and sending them forth fitter, more alert, more able to take advantage of the returning better times. But the better times have betrayed those who trusted them too much, luring them in over- development and too-optimistic expansion, so that when the next crash came—as come it always did—down they went in their turn and the cycle repeateq itse'f. 01 |P all geclogic time is .aken as 2,000,000,000 years and is represented on a clock dial a8 one hour,” says Dr. Croneis, “then 33 min- utes of that hour elapse before the age of in- vertebrate animals is well under way. “Even the beginning of the age of reptiles and the dominance of the dinosaurs occurs only nine minutes before the minute hand reaches 12. More surprising still is the fact that mammals, the dominant life of the present, have been the ruling animals of only the last paltry two and a half minutes of the hour. “And man, commonly thought to have been present for 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 years, has only occupied the center of the stage for a breathless two or three split seconds. In fact, man is such a newcomer that he has existed only while our geological clock has been strik- ing the hour.” Through all of these ages of recurring de- pressions, the curve of life has pursued an upward spiral,"as Dr. Croneis sees it. How- ever, it is not the smooth optimistic unbroken rise pictured by well fed philosophers of mid- Victorian days, when evolution as a popular idea was a new thing under the sun. Dr. Croneis admits setbacks as well as ad- wances; the curve is ragged, though still always upward trending. In times of stress, he says, the weak organ- fsms have died out, but the strong have always emerged from the troughs of trouble more powerful than ever, Modified to fit the chang- ing environment, they have been ready to take advantage of the return of “good times.” When Dr. Croneis speaks of a “strong” organism, he does not at all mean bulky in muscle, but strong in the balance of a fit body and an alert mind. . If the world’s recurring geologic hard times have been consistently ruth- less toward any one tendency, it has been toward the piling up of huge bulk without in- telligence governing it. One need only mention the dinosaurs, out of a dosen possible examples. A diplodocus stuffed with his own flesh was like a bank stuffed with unrealizable paper, or & huge overcapitalized corporation, while its poor teacupful of brains swings the figure, with invitable irony, to golf- playing dummy directors. No wonder such monsters, with all their re- sources tied up in unwieldly “organization,” could not change front to meet the crisis when it came, and so perished! * In the early seas of the Cambrian epoch, about half a billion years ago, the aristocracy Cosmic Hard Times Have Hit the Earth Often, and Have Always Left Hardier, Fitter, More Intelligent Races Behind to Enjoy Prosperity’s Return. W hen a pair of heavy operators appeared, the little fellows had to run for cover. But in the end it was the little fellows who survived—to evolve into horses. were the tribolites, creatures related to crabs and lobsters, resembling in general appearance their diminutive remcte cousins, the many- legged “pillbugs” you find under boards and in damp cellars. “Incredible as it may seem,” remarks Dr. Croneis, “they were the first families then; and in their time -there were no living rivals. 11\ JEVERTHELESS, in their own life history they tell the old but ever recurrent story of the survival of the simple and the destruc- tion of the specialized. “The ornate members of the group, like over- expanded individuals. families or industries, flourished in times of plenty, but they became extinct long before their lowly, generalized and conservative cousins had departed from the scene.” At last, however, times got too hard even for the fittest of the tribolites; or more likely a newer aristocracy, driven into more efficient living by the spur of tight times, eliminated them. At any rate, we see, several geological de- pressions later, the race of fishes ruling the world, and facing another period of crisis, with their water supply dwindling and their pools - history of animal life. it briefly: “A few ganoid types, with the true spirit of pioneers, used their fringed fins to crawl painfully from the desiccating ancestral pools to other less stagnant ones. “These first air-breathing, partially land- living vertebrates not only gave rise to the am- phibians (relatives of frogs and salamanders) —they originated a Paleozoic parable to the effect that, then as now, animals or industries which, instead of bowing to hard times, use what resoudces they have to meet the changing situations are likely to be rewarded handsomely with the return of prosperity.” ‘These fish that came ashore because they had to, and liked it, ruled the world when the land consisted of endless warm swamps rich with coal- vegetation and a-hum with giant insects for the new .rulers to eat. The Coal Age was a time like the still-la- mented Late Twenties: an apparently bound- less era of easy pickings, a “permanent plateau” at a bull market level. But like the same lush period in our own memories, the Coal Age crashed into a terrific period of cold and drought—and woe then to its fat, easy-going amphibian bosses! | This particular geologic depression ended not merely a chapter, but a whole volume. The Pal into developing active bodies, armored with scales, able to with- A reol bear raid during one of the earlier depressions...when the hard times of the glacial period taught mankind such things as the use of fire, the - value of clothing and perma- nerit shelter and better patterns for his weapons. stand the droughtier air and to scrambile more ably for the living that was now a great deal harder to get than it had been before. Y were like the energetic tribal chieftains of the ancient world at the breakup of the Roman Empire, who founded the first feudal aristocracies. The! again they were its masters. But they learned nothing from the experi- ences of their ruined predecessors. saurs were a few mouse-like primitive mam- mals. They were subservient, indeed, to the gigantic masters of the moment, who, as 18 characteristic of the great (and especially the near-great), probably were totally unaware of the mammals’ presence. “But these small creatures, like some appar- ently insignificant individuals and many un- promising infant industries, had great poten- tialities. They proved their mettie at the close of the Mesosoic, when the earth went through one of her really great depressions. times successfully. Out of their crude begin- nings have come the greatly diversified and rul- ing mammalian types of today.” They were one group Which was not over- expanded at the time when opportune depres- sion hit them. In fact, they sold the market short and made their fortunes in the decline of reptilian values. The roots of great modern spreading tree of types were firmly anchored in the very sion which was too drastic for the dinosaurs. the story of man himself might be added. For man also was born of a depression, ene of the greatest of depressions of more recent geologic time, the Pleistocene Ice Age. pre-glacial men, if they existed at all, lived in days of ease and didn't have to sponsible and improvident. The glaciers changed all that. By the time the Ice Age was half over, we have plenty of evidence that man was on the job, looking out for Number One and Family in first-class order, He had learned to keep warm in spite of the glaciers, by taking to caves or building wickiups on the river banks where he fished, and by wearing clothing made of animal skins. He had invented improved tools and weapons of stone, which no ape ever did or thought of. He had made the most important discovery of all human history, lowbrow though he was: he had learned the use of fire, More Stock, Less Profit TEB fallacy of increased production in order to maintain totals of profit in times of falling prices was well illustrated last year by the experience of the live stock industry. Statistics gathered by the Department ot Agriculture indicated that there was an increase in the live stock of this country of 2 per cent over the previous year, but the price dropped 17 per cent, resuiting in a total loss in value of half a billion dollars, Proof that the proper course is a curtail- ment of produciion is given in another farm product, wheat, which has been climbing suf- ficiently higher to cause considerable optimism as the result of short Winter wheat crops and delayed Spring wheat plantings indicating no serious overproduction this year as in the years past.