Evening Star Newspaper, December 9, 1934, Page 23

PROPHETS RECALL COLDEST WINTERS Snow Lay on Ground Here Two Months Cen- tury Ago. ‘Weather, the ever-fascinating sub- Ject in which everybody is interested, is always with us. It affects our daily lives as nothing else. Looking ahead as to weather is a fascinating occu- pation at which nearly everybody works. The goosebone prophets say this Winter is going to be a tough one. The scientists in the Weather Bureau find no basis for making long- distance deductions. However, when you look out the window on a blustery Winter day and see the telephone linemen working their way up a pole to keep open serv- ice that will save you going to the grocery store or help you call a doc- tor quickly, you are glad to have tips on the weather in advance. Take, for example, the country-wide blizzard of 1888. The “do-you-remember-way-back- when” contingent will find a lot of talk about in the Winter records com- piled by the American Nature Asso- ciation. This organization does no prognosticating but it can look at the record and remind you of some Win- ters that were Winters. Snow on Mediterranean. A remarkable recent Winter in Eu- rope was that of 1928-29, in which heavy snow fell along the" shores of | the Mediterranean and records for low thermometer readings were broken at | many places in Central Europe. | 1917-1918. The “war Winter.” An! excessively cold and snowy Winter east of the Rocky Mountains, while warmer than the average in the Far West. Especially memorable on ac- count of aggravating the economic difficulties arising from the World War through frequent interruption of transportation services. 1912, Severe cold weather during the first three months of the year caused an unprecedented formation of ice in lakes and rivers in the North- ern United States and Canada. For| the first time on record Lake Superior was frozen from shore tc shore, so that moose crossed on the ice from Canada to the United States. Lake, Michigan and Lake Erie were also completely spanned with ice in some places. 1899. Unprecedented cold wave February 11-13, with zero tempera- tures reaching from the Gulf Coast Mobile, Ala., recorded 1 degree below zero; Vicksburg, zero; Washington, 15 degrees below; New York, 6 degrees | below; St. Louis, 19 below; Chicago, 21 | below; Ottawa, 24 below; Toronto, 12 below; Montreal, 13 below. New Or- leans had 2 inches of snow and the river was filled with heavy floating ice for a week. Heavy and widespread snowfall over the Eastern United States. 1880-1881. vere Winter everywhere east of the| Rocky Mountains. Severe Cold Wave. 1886. The cold wave of January 6-12 was one of the most severe on | record, especially in the Southern United States, | Unusually long and se-| where there was im- | mense damage to fruit and agricul-, tural crops. { 185 #First three months exces-; sively cold in the middle latitudes in| the United States. Chesapeake Bay at Annapolis closed by ice January 8- March 14. Baltimore and Philadel-| piia harbors closed until late in| March. Long Island Sound closed to| navigation January 25-February 27. Tce formed in the Mississippi as Iar\ South as Vicksburg. 1835. Very cold Winter, beginning ! with January. On February 8 temper- | atures below zero everywhere north of | Savannah and Natchez; also in the in- | terior of Northern Florida. Snow lay | on the ground from December to May | in parts of New England, and two ‘whole months at Washington. 1779-1780. Perhaps the coldest Winter in the history of Eastern North | America. ‘Thomas Jefferson says: | “The Chesapeake Bay was frozen solid from its head to the mouth of | the Potomac. At Annapolis the ice| was 5 to 7 inches in thickness, quite | across, 5'4 miles, so that loaded car- riages went over it.” Immense snow- fall in New England and Eastern Canada. Bayou St. John frozen at New Orleans. 1740-1741-—Long remembered in Virginia as “the cold Winter.” In early March Long Island Sound was frozen over so that people rode from Stratford, Conn., to Long Island. 1717. The “great snow” of this year is celebrated in the history of New England. It fell from February 19 to 24 and lay for a long time from 5 to 6 feet deep at Boston and elsewhere. The Winter was extremely cold. Barred From Betting. Germany has ruled that unemploy- | ment relief money cannot be used for betting. Siamese D.elegalionj Awaits Conference With Tiny Emperor Prajadhipok to Be Asked to Reconsider Decision to Quit Throne. By the Assoclated Press. LONDON, December 8.—A Siam- | ese delegation which came all the way | from Bangkok to see if King Pra- Jjadhipok would abandon his inten- | tion to abdicate tonight awaited his tiny majesty's pleasure to start con- ferences with him. ‘The delegation hoped to patch up troubles arising from aleged encroach- ments on Prajadhipok’s royal pre- rogatives, and induce him to pack his truckload of trunks and return home to his golden throne. The “supreme arbiter of the ebb and flow of tides” the “brother of the moon” and “the possessor of the i 24 umbrellas,” whose monarchy is| one of the world's oldest, was at quiet | Cranleigh, in Surrey, the retreat from | which he announced his decision to sbdicate in October. | A courier was sent to the modest royal residence to inform him that the delegation, headed by Chao Phya 8ri Dharmadhibes, speaker of the People’s Assemby, which the King eharged with curtailing his privileges, | had arrived, and was ready to talk sny time. Sri Dharmadhibes said he could | not outline his plans in detail until the King's wishes were known. - The first conference will not take place before Monday, it was ine dicated. | velt's regime will probably get a taste {of the kind of criticism that was | visited against | money | must wait for Government checks. THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, DECEMBER 9, 1934_PART ONE. s B34’ BAILIFF T0 BE TRIED \Campaign to Reduce Failure Bronze Goes to Peru It took mearly a quarter cen- tury to finish this equestrian statue of Fran- cisco Pizarro, which was ship- ped to Lima, Peru, yesterday. It depicts the congqueror of Pe- ru in full armor with drawn sword and will be set up before the governmental palace in Lima. The statue was be- gun in 1910 by Charles Carey Rumsey and his widow, Mrs. Mary Har- rison Rumsey, now N. R. A. consumers’ coun-" sel, who completed the work. \Superstitious in Drought Belt See ‘Act of God’ Against A.A. A. Spread of Belief Among Farmers Trou- bles Agriculture Chiefs as Money and Heat Slash Production. Superstition is riding high in the drought belt. Many of the farmers who were asked by the Roosevelt ad- ministration to kill 6,000,000 pigs and | {250,000 mother pigs are saying that the drought is God's way of punishing the folk who slaughtered animals while there was hunger in the world. Officials of the Department of Agri- culture are a bit concerned over the | spread of this superstition and they | ! are inclined to blame the meat pack- | ers. The latter indignantly deny it. | | As for the origin of the tale, it is| | pointed out that it came first from the pulpits of Iowa and has been trav- | eling across the farm country ever since. Some day, of course, this whole curtailment of production Will be analyzed retrospectively and the Fed- eral Government under Mr. Roose- the Federal Board of the Hoover days. When the Government undertakes | to interfere with natural law, it usually runs into trouble. Who Pays? About $200.000.000 in processing taxes are to be collected this year for hogs. Where is it coming from? The packers? But all the meat packers | of the country didn’t make more than $34,000,000 in profits last year, and this was just about offset by the total of their losses during 1931 and 1932. So, assuming that the processing tax is not going to come out of pack- ers’ profits, it will come out of the American people who are going to pay next Winter a higher price for meat products than this year, partly be- cause of the shortage and partly be- cause of the taxes. Restriction of production has come at a most unfortunate time. Had there been no restriction, the sur- pluses would have carried over nicely. The producer would have gotten in- creased prices, but the public would not have had to face famine prices. Already the indications are that about 25.000,000 bushels of rye will have to be imported Already the Department of Agri- culture has indicated that farmers may plant forage crops on lands with- drawn from production. It was on account of this withdrawal that bene- fit payments were made to farmers. Cotton Falls Short. Already the cotton program is threatened and the Iatest figures in- dicate that the cotton crop will fall short by 1,000,000 bales of what was set as the desirable limit. This is be- cause nature has destroyed part of the crop. The trouble with the farm program is that it was based on the notion that curtailed production would mean higher prices for the farmer and that the public would gladly absorb the increased living costs. But it turns out that when the prices of meat at retail get too high, the people eat something else. Had there been no processing taxes, it is believed that the live stock pro- ducer might have had just as high prices, but he would have had his As it is today, he Farm | sooner. Just why the delay is not explained. The Republicans are saying the pur- pose is to withhold the money till the Fall election campaign, in the hope that it will make the farmers feel better and cause them to vote for a Democratic Congress. But whatever the reason, the fact is red tape is slowing up the payments Near Endurance Mark Jean La Rene (right) and Henrietta Sumner of Chicago and Cali- fornia, respectively, inspecting their plane, Miss Oklahoma, before and meanwhile the prices of things the farmer buys are going up. The theory that all these processing taxes could be largely absorbed by the mid- dleman is rapidly being proved falla- cious. Taking the case of the meat pack- ers, the processing taxes of $200 000,000 will have to be absorbed by the public. For the profit of $34 000,000 earned by the packers is less than 2 per cent on the capital they have invested and they are not likely to sell goods without some margin of profit. Indeed, the politicians and demagogues who have been deceiving the agricultural world for a long time can hardly declare now that a 2 per cent return on money is out of line when the Goyernment itself pays bet- ter than that for some of its bonds. Many businesses today are not earn- ing 2 per cent and many would be better off if they put their capital in Government bonds and avoided the hazards of capital investment in pri- vate enterprise altogether. Two Courses. When the consumers begin to re- bel at prices of food products that contain the processing tax in them, TOMORROW IN DEATH Bladensburg Officer Accused of Shooting Colored Prisoner. By a Staff Correspondent of The Star. UPPER MARLBORO, Md., Decem- ber 8—Charles Florey, Bladensburg towh bailiff, is scheduled to go on trial {2 Circuit Court Monday on charges of manslaughter in connection with the shooting of Decatur Stevens, col- ored. Police say Stevens was shot and killed when he attempted to escape from the custody of the bailiff who was taking him from Bladensburg to the Hyattsville lock-up. Florey is represented by Attorney Robert W. McCullough. e Ladies’ Aid Elects. COLESVILLE, Md. December 8 (Special) —The Ladies’ Aid elected officers as follows: President, Mrs. Granville Thompson; vice president, Mrs. Harola Bradford; treasurer, Mrs. William Hobbs, and recording secre- Mrs. Charles Hobl - In Schools Brings Results Fairfax County Study Shows 17.6 Pct. Less Students Repeating Work Than After 1929-30 Year. Speclal Dispatch to The Star. FAIRFAX, Va, December 8.—An intensive campaign to reduce the per- centage of pupil failures in the ele- mentary schools of Fairfax County during the past few years resulted in 17.6 per cent less pupils failing in their class work at the close of the 1933-34 session than at the end of the 1929-30 school year, it has been revealed in a statistical summary and survey of retardation compiled by Mrs. Elsie A. Davis, county elementary supervisor. At the conclusion of the 1929-30 session, her report shows, 28 per cent of all elementary pupils had failed their respective grades, while at the close of the past session but 10.4 per cent had failed. Because of the financial burden im- posed upon the county in reteaching failures, it was determined by local school officiels to make a careful check of the problem following the 1929-30 session with a view toward adjustments to reduce the failure per- centage. It was estimated the county would spend approximately 25 per cent of its school revenues in 1930-31 to reteach the failures of the past school year. - As one of the first steps, a general system of elementary supervision was installed and better trained teacherr sought. For the 1920-30 session, 69.5 per cent of all elementary teachers had less than two years of college training, whereas the report of the elementary supervisor discloses that less than 4 per cent were in that class at the close of the past year. In her retardation survey Mrs. Davis shows poverty responsible for the greatest number of failures, with 29 per cent in that class. She found that an unadjusted curriculum caused 23 per cent to fall to com- plete their work. ’ Other failure causes were listed as physical defects, 10 per cent; late entering school, 8 per cent; employed, 10 per cent; parents separated, 4.1 per cent; mothers dead, 3 per cent, and fathers dead, 11.2 per cent. It was also brought to light through the survey that the average number in the family of retarded children is 6.5 members, while for nom-re- tarded children it is 3.4 members: retarded children live an average of 2.5 miles from school and non-re- tarded children an average of 13 miles, and the retarded child misses nearly four times as many days from school as the non-retarded pupil. Professions Are Studied. Only 8.5 per cent of the retarded children come from homes where either the father or mother hold pro- fessional, semi-professional or clerical position, while 39.5 of the non-re- tarded come from such homes. Most retardation was found in rural schools, according to the survey. A one-room school, since consolidated with another, located approximately 10 miles from a main highway, was found to lead in tl:2 number of pupils failing their work. Fort Humphreys School was shown to have the least retardation problem. Most of the children there have trav. eled extensively, the report sets forth, and have had rich contacts and in & majority of+cases have parents who ere college graduates. It is expected the revised curricu- JJum, when finally introduced into all schools, will play an important part in reducing pupil failure even more, through the opportunity offered every child to take a more active and un- derstanding part in school work. WILL CASE TESTIMONY TO CONTINUE TUESDAY Special Dispatch to The Star, CULPEPER, Va., December 8.— Court adjourned this afternoon, after being in session since Monday morn- ing, with the legal battle centering around the Somerville will case being still without victory for either side, and the hearings on this suit will be resumed on December 11. Dr. Mulholland of University of Vir- ginia Hospital, one of the witnesses called yesterday, testified as to the enfeebled condition of Miss Somerville while a patient of his Atwell Somerville, mayor of Cul- perer, and co-defendant in the suit brought by Frances T. Somerville and others, was on the witness stand in direct testimony all of today, and will be cross-examined when court con- venes Tuesda; fi&g&mm&%&nxm&m&mm&am&w&m&amm&%a:s: COME TO \ | | they will: turn to other articles that are not so taxed. will then be confronted with the necessity of levying procedsing taxes all along the line end forcing up the | cost of Mving artificially or abandon- ing the experiment altogether, just as price-fixing has been dropped by the N. R. A after all the ballyhoo about it last year. Stabilization of farm prices can come to a large extent by the opera- tion of natural laws, assisted some- what by the Government in the or- derly marketing of exportable sur- pluses and some slight measure of control over marginal lands. But complete stebility will never come as long as the Government is unable to make the mysterious forces that control the weather obey the codes of fair competition. D. L SEVEN ARE INJURED AS CAR TURNS OVER| Five Charlottesville Residents Taken to University Hospital Following Crash. Special Dispatch to The Sta: CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va, Decem- ber 8.—Seven young people of Char- lottesville were injured, three seri- ously, when the large sedan in which they were returning from a dance at Wolftown, Madison County, failed to negotiate a curve near Ruckersville on Route 29 today. The top of the machine was crushed into the body of the car. Five of the injured remained in the University Hospital tonight. They are: Ellis Brookman, unconscious from concussion of the brain and probable fractured skull; Lelia May Hildebrand, 19, unconscious from fractured skull; Doris Virginia Hilde- brand, 18, her sister, broken leg and cuts and bruises; Cynthia Davis, 18, cuts and bruises; Roy Breeden, 21, broken collarbone and cuts about the head. ‘Two other occupants of the car, Bernard Pace and Russell Rogers, 21, received minor injuries and were al- lowed to leave the hospital after treat- ment. taking off at Oklahoma City in an attempt to break the women'’s refueling endurance flight record. They have been aloft since 4:42 p.m., November 30. —Associated Press Ph The Government PERIENCE. Meet RIENCE. rienced men only. Dz Y WITH AT LEAST 6 YEARS’ RADIO EX- - HORACE CARLISLE Star Radio outside service man with over 6 YEARS’ EXPE- Horace has been with Star Radio since 1928 and during that time he has serviced thou- sands of radios. When you call on Star Radio for service you can depend on getting expe- DE LUXE SERVICE IS EXCLUSIVE WITH STAR RADIO BECAUSE EVERY STAR RADIO SERVICE MAN IS AN EXPE- RIENCED VETERAN . STAR RADIO CO. R CHRISTMAS PHILCO OTHER PHILCO RADIOS FROM $20 TO $295 or AC-DC Current Philco 54C REFRIGERATION- SPORTING COODS: rovie. DISTRICT 4700 1350 F {T.NW. 09 II'h STHNW. T $29.95 3022 14 AT NW. eSS e G ot o & R A R R R A T A R R A R R S R R R AR AR AR R AR AR NINRARIRINTNR Philco 45C $49.95