Evening Star Newspaper, January 6, 1935, Page 29

. 3 LATIN AMERI CA IN 1935 MAY SEE BIGGER REVIVAL Co-operation vs. Nationalism Noted| South of Rio Grande as Nations Seek to Restore Economic Stability. BY GASTON NERVAL. S LATIN AMERICA embarks on 1935, the prospects for do- mestic peace and economic recovery seem brighter than they have been since the end of the “prosperity years” in 1928. With very few exceptions, the gov- ernments on the other side of the Rio Grande can look forward to the next 12 months with greater confi- dence than they or their predecessors eould afford at the beginning of each of the preceding five years. Yet, neithpr the depression nor the political restlessness which accom- panied it have disappeared com- pletely. As the new year begins. the two great conflicting forces which are at work throughout the world at a pace accelerated by the emergencies inherent in a period of crisis—inter- national co-operation and nationalism =—are also present in Latin America. Clash Will Continue. In the world front, the continued tlash of these two forces will be the paramount issue of 1935, as it was that of the year just ended. International co-operation is repre- gented by the combined efforts of the | leading powers to preserve world peace, the activities of the League of Nations, the disarmament movement, the agitation for the lowering of cus- toms tariffs, the stabilization of cur- rencies and the revival of interna- tional trade. Blocking the advance of this constructive tendency is the spirit of nationalism, aroused by material needs and internal disarrangemen:s growing out of the depression, and easily carried to extremes in times of discontent and political efferves- cence such as we are living. Outstanding instances of national- istic outbursts are, today. the Far Eastern crisis, the revival of the Junker spirit in Germany, the mili- tant mood of the Central European states, the debt defaults. high tariff walls, bitter commercial rivalries among nations, the denunciation of the naval treaty, etc. Chaco War Cited. | appears in most of the Latin American countries, although in this case the clash is between national co-opera- tion and the interests and ambitions of party groups. Here, too, the eco- nomic depression has made the clash more acute, stressing, on the one hand, the need for co-operation but intensifying, on the other. personal passions and political intolerance. Three States Face Problem. Right now the clash appears more |in evidence in Cuba, Mexico and | Peru, although in each with different | characteristics. In Cuba national | co-operation is prevented by the | subsistence of an unpopular gov- | ernment, which grows more arbitrary |as the forces opposing it swell and | threaten armed action. Instead of | making the Cubans forget its original sin—the obvious support from a for- | eign power which made it possible— the Mendieta regime has alienated through sheer inability and the use |ar force, until today the resistance it finds in the masses of the island re- which overthrew the Machado dicta- torship a year and a half ago. THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JANUARY 6, 1935—PART TWO. Facts on 30-Hour Week | } | Mandatory 30-Hour Week Might Have Little Effect Now, but Its Consequences Would Be Disastrous, Says Noted Economist. BY NEIL CAROTHERS. Professor of Economics and Director of the College_of Business Administration at Lebigh University. HE present government of this country is strangely like the man in the hospital who was asked by the doctor why he had jumped through the plate-glass window. He replied through his bandages that he could not remember, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Uncle Sam is becoming a chronic window jumper, and the officlal explanation that it looked like a good idea at the time is beginning to resound over the land. It is not considered de rigueur, in literary circles, to beat a dead horse: and in political circles it is considered comme il faut for private persons to permit government to bury its dead without comment. But one illustra- tion should be permissible. A year ago | the N. R. A. was a miraculous instru- ment of immediate recovery devised by one political group after another, | governmental geniuses of magic un- derstanding of economic forces. Where is N. R. A, now? Echo answers, ‘Where? Never, except in war, has public is pretty nearly as wide as that | this Nation ever given so patriotic and pathetically trustful a response to a governmental appeal. To find a coun- It must be remembered, though,!terpart of the little struggling store- that this popular resistance only | keepers and small employers who at proved effective against Machado when | the United States unequivocally told | him to go. and in the present case the United States has not only been | instrumental in placing the Mendieta | government in power by refusing to | recognize its predecessor, but it has }consis(enrl,\‘ supported it since. In Mexico, quite the contrary, it is the government which is being op- | posed in its sincere and well-planned | endeavors for national co-operation by isolated groups or vested interests | which refuse to accept the ideals of | social justice which the Partido Na- cional Revolutionario is carrying out. Although in Mexico this opposition is | feeble and scattered, and very far from endangering the stability of the newly inaugurated Cardenas regime, it | will be interesting to observe the man- i ner in which the latter will ultimately impose its will and fulfill its plans for In Latin America, too, as in the | an integrated national economy. world at large, the major problem Aprista Movement Fought. facing the new year is the clash of these two opposing forces. Interna-| In Peru, as in Cuba, the govern- tional co-operation is represented here | ment has sided with the forces of re- by the efforts of many American | action, and is violently combating the governments to stop the Chaco war- |only true attempt at national co-op- fare involving Bolivia and Paraguay. | eration ever started there, the Aprista by their endeavors to launch a new | movement. While, up to now, the era in inter-American relations with | Aprista leaders have elnphasized their greater stress on the sovereignty and®preference for peaceful and legal equality of states. by their attempts | means to attain power and practice to conclude non-aggression pacts and | their program of social reform, gov- economic agreements for the aboli- | ernment persecution might suddenly tion of highly protective tariffs, by | make of them active revolutionaries the suppression of policies fomenting | Later on, when their international il will—such as intervention in | differences over the Chaco have sub- domestic affairs. non-recognition of | sided. Bolivia and Paraguay will also revolutionary regimes, forcible col- | face very serious internal crises. Some Jection of public debts and other mis- | of the most important political news taken practices of earlier years. On the other hand, nationalism is present in Latin America—and very much so—in the Chaco war, in the other territorial controversies still unsettled, in the tionalistic platforms of the radical sectors, in the several tariff wars in Progress among the southern republics. ¢+ So much for the international out- Jook. Internally, the same conflict increasingly na- | | of the year in Latin America may come from La Paz and Asuncion. | But, although, obviously, in none of the other Latin American republics conditions are so normal or so settled as to discard the possibility of a domestic crisis in the next 12 months, Cuba, Mexico and Peru promise the most interesting developments as the | first leaf of 1935 is turned. ! (Copyright. 1935.) Russian Plot Declared Designed For Effect on Foreign Nations (Continued From First Page.) — upon capitalism and democracy. Stalin would make it the residuary legatee of a system which he confidently be- lieves is docmed. The invasion of Manchuria and the | yise of Hitler were phenomena which | gave fresh impulsion to Stalin’s policy of associating with the western na- tions. At the moment when the Man- churian affair broke the Soviets were seized by a new form of the old night- mare. They saw both Japan and Ger- many not impossibly acting together | as the soldiers of the western capital- istic powers—Britain, France and the | United States—in a conjugated attack upon the Soviet Union. And against such an attack they realized that they | ‘were as yet helpless. In the minds of my Soviet friends with whom I talked during the Dis- armament Conference at Geneva in| 1932 this idea of a combined capital- istic attack was an obsession. At that moment, of course, the notion was purest moonshine. The western na- tions were too divided among them- selves to agree about anything. Never- theless it was at least arguable that France, fearful of Germany, and Britain, disturbed over Japan, would welcome the involvement of both countries in operations, the one in the Ukraine and the other in Siberia, which would keep them occupied and offer them opportunities for expansion in directions which would be least harmful. In any event it is now patent that all Soviet statesmanship must be di- rected to keeping Germany isolated in Europe and Japan in Asia, for Ger- many and Japan are the two powers whose purposes constitute —undis- guished threats to the bolshevists. It is equally plain that the Soviet Union could only hope to profit by the hos- tility of the western nations alike to German and Japanese policies if it abandoned the attempt to promote the world revolution within these countries. Its own security depended upon the extent to which it acted in good faith with the western nations. It was confronted by the deadly peril of a posstble double attack by Japan end Germany. It was a matter of life and death that such an attack should mot have the backing of the West. During the last few years, therefore, ever since the Manchurian affair and particularly since the German revo- ution, the Soviet Union has associated itself closely with all attempts to pre- serve peace, to promote disarmaments and to multiply non-aggression pacts. It has sought understandings with ‘Washington, Paris, London and Rome. It has disassociated itself with all ac- tive intrigue with the Communists in western nations. But, in doing this, it has brought down upon itself the passionate resentment of those who, like Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev, would have invited the risks of con- certed action in the hope of realizing the world revolution during the period of world depression. ‘It has been suggested frequently on this side of the Atlantic that the recent purge in the Soviet Union dis- closes serious domestic weakness on the part of the Stalin regime. Con- ceivably that is true, but I should doubt it. Such evidence as I can assemble leads me to think that it was rather an evidence of a strong dictatorship resolved to have done “once and for all with a minority which, at a moment when matters of foreign ,8s conspiracy existed. seems to me to | have been designed not to overthrow | the Stalin regiffle at home, but to dis- | credit it abroad by suggesting the ex- | istence of such strong forces of do- | mestic opposition as to make the western nations, which were drawing closer and closer to the Soviet Union, hang back and hesitate, and to pro- vide with fresh ammunition those elements in Great Britain, France and Italy which are hostile to any rela- tions with the Reds. It was a re- version to precisely the same tactics employed by the nihilists before the World War, whose various acts of ter- rorism were not infrequently addressed to the outside world rather than to Russians themselves. But the point I set out to make at the start of this article is that from the point of view of the outside world what is important is that the authors of the assassination of Kirov were those who were hostile to the present policy of peace and understanding pursued by the Stalin regime. Had they been able to retain power in the Soviet Union or should they be able to recover it, then the world would be confronted by dangers to peace of almost incalculable di- mensions. Again and again I am asked if I believe in the sincerity of the present espousal of the cause of peace by the Soviets. The answer, of course, is that I do, because obviously all the in- terests of the Soviet Union are at the moment locked up with the cause of peace. The ultimate success of their colossal experiment is conditioned upon immunity from outside attack during the present critical years. Next to that, their major concern is that if they are attacked by Japan or Ger- many they shall have the moral, if not the material, support of the west- ern capitalistic countries, which for different reasons are equally anxious to_prevent conflict. When a government's material in- terests coincide with its public pro- fessions, then it is safe to accept those professions at their face value. And that today is the Soviet situation. (Copyright. McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) Ship to Start Search For Lusitania Bullion LONDON (#).—Search for the bul- lion of the Lusitania, sunk off the head of Kinsale in 1915, will be started by the former lighthouse steamer Orphir early next Spring. One of the officials of the company formed to undertake the project is at present in the United States com- pleting financial arrangements. The Orphir’s equipment includes a one-man “submarine,” by which a diver can move with complete freedom in any direction. A\ Science Fails to Curb Rat Menace in Britain LONDON (#)—England wants a pied piper like the man who lived in Hamlin Town. Gas attacks, firearms, deadly poisons and all the schemes of modern science marshalled against the estimated 40- odd million rodents resident in the country have failed. The common brown rat continues to survive and thrive in spite of modern, ruthless warfare. Authorities believe policy were of utmost importance, had dertaken by an act of violence to gken the Soviet Union abroad. In & word, the conspiracy, &0 far that the rats have become mx numerous by 20,000,000 in the 50 years, cruel sacrifice bravely met the in- credible terms of the President’s re- employment agreement, you can look at Napoleon's common soldiers dog- | gedly facing the Winter on the Mos- cow road. Critics Were Ignored. Before the N. R. A. campaign was well started it became obvious that it rested on the shifting sands of econ- omic error. tificial wage-raising and restriction of production were just exactly the things that would not cure depression. | When, here and there, a few compe- tent critics reluctantly but patrioti- cally protested the planless, incoher- ent and hystical construction of the codes they were ignored. ‘The one purpose in referring to this bit of economic history is to sound a warning. In the present session of Congress there will be presented a succession of proposals for further | tinkering with the economic appara- | tus. Many of them will be unsound in principle and injurious in prac- tice. But they will be buttressed by all sorts of economic arguments and appeals to social justice. The impulse to illustrate again is irresistible. For flve years a con- scienceless crowd of silver owners and silver gamblers covered the country with a blanket of propaganda teach- ing the doctrine that a subsidy to that dangerous and useless monetary ma- terial would aid China. The specta- cle of a Senator from the Far West shedding tears over the Chinese was ludicrous. but it was presented day after day in Congress. At intervals some informed and honest authority, sometimes from Harvard, sometimes from Leland Stanford, sometimes from Princeton, sometimes from the Government, itself, publicly demon- strated that this propaganda was a venal hypocrisy, that raising the price of silver would injure Chinese trade, injure China and to that extent in- jure the United States. “Ignoble Measure” Passed. Did Congress accept the word of dis- interested and fearless critics? It did not. It accepted the word of men with a financial interest in silver. The ignoble measure was passed. Within less than six months China on bended knee begs this powerful country to relax the strangling pressure on Chi- nese economic life. And it becomes the duty of Secretary of State Hull, a man of character and understanding to reply in the name of this great , country that relief can not be granted. During this session of Congress there is going to be a violent, organized political effort to force this Nation to | jump through another plate-glass window. This time it is the 30-hour week. The discussion of the measure will be protracted. There will be much oratory about social justice, about re- moving the burden of toil from the masses, about human life being more sacred than profits. And not one word of this will have the remotest connec- tion with the proposal for a legal 30- hour week. The thought occurs that the men in Congress who really have the Nation's welfare at heart might be interested in a very brief and simple statement of the economic facts about this proposal. It should be said in advance that there is no economic issue more com- plex and obscure than this matter of the hours of labor. The trained econo- mist hesitates to speak categorically about it. It is only some Senator or Representative who knows exactly what will happen when some major operation on the delicate industrigl body is performed by Congress. But scientific analysis, the history of eco- nomic practice and plain common sense unite to give the economist a certain opinion about this project of the 30-hour week. Three Productive Assets. Let us start with some very ele- mentary economics, such as we insist that our beginning college -students shall learn before they are permitted even to hear about applied govern- mental economics. A nation has just three productive assets. There is, first, the land, with its resources in fertility, minerals and vegetation. There is, secondly, the capital equipment which the nation has created, in the form of buildings, machines and apparatus of many kinds. And thirdly, there is the labor of its people. These three—, land, labor and capital—are organized into a gigantic productive enterprise. Out of the product of this giant com- bination comes the living of the people, the returns to labor, to the owners of capital and to the owners of land. 1If the total product is large, the standard of living is high. Wages come out of this product. There is no other source. The shares of the product that go to the three partners are determined by very complex forces, but in general they are determined by the relative scarcity of the three factors. If land is very scarce and labor is very plenti- ful, as in Ireland, rents are very high, relatively. In China there is much land but the number of laborers is enormous, and the scarcity of capital makes the total product small. The Chinese hordes have a living standard that we would consider unfit for ani- mals. Inany event, the share of labor is set by automatic forces of nature. It cannot’ be increased except by greater total production relative to the number of laborers, Imagine our eco- nomic planners taking over China, where men work 12 hours a day for less than 2 cents an hour, and setting up an N. R. A, with a 40-hour week and a wage of 50 cents an hour! With a given set-up of land, labor and capital, as in' America, the wage level and the standard of living de- pend on the utilization of these three factors. Whatever reduces the produc- tivity of any one of them reduces the product and reduces wages. ®hat is all there is to it. You can solemnly | Artificial price-fixing, ar- | propound fool theories, you can talk glibly about “sharing the work,” you can believe in impractical schemes for “absorbing the unemployed”; but this cold fact still stares you in the face. It has been a fact a long time. The | Roman Empire collapsed when mili- tarism absorbed too much industrial labor. The medieval guild system | blew up when the honest burgomasters established their own N. R. A. and re- stricted production and employment. It is this simple fact that the de- | fenders of A. A. A. have found so em- | barrassing. ‘There may have been | ers a dole, but the proposition that you can help the country by restricting | production defies economics. It is a | some justification for giving the farm- | ~Drawn for The Sunday Star by J. Scott Williams reducing hours increases the total out- put is, in general, not true. It may | be true in very rare cases. If it were | true generally the employers would | find it out before the laborers. What |is true is that in the case of uneco- | nomically long hours the last hour | may mean an actual loss to the em- | ployer. He can actually afford to re- | duce hours without reducing the total | pay. Thus we find a resistless ten- | dency toward shorter hours in highly | skilled trades, in machine work and in many lines of “white colar” labor in- volving continuous mental exertion. This is the economic reason why the typesetter, the electrician, the highly | skilled automobile worker, the tele- | graph operator and many other types to all labor in this country would have reduced industry to chaos. Any per- son conversant with the actual con- dition of labor in the building trades | and in the anthracite industry knows | what uneconomic wages and hours can do even to highly skilled and strongly organized labor groups. A very special factor makes radical reduction of hours most dangerous. As we unceasingly mechanize our in- dustry the capital equipment becomes more important and more expensive. Arbitrary shortening of hours reduces the working life of this machinery, increases the overhead cost and en: larges the depreciation ratio. Increas- | ing the number of shifts is not a sat- | isfactory solution in any case, and it |is not even possible in many cases. | For many concerns, shortening hours means a plant idle so long that costs | will wipe out returns from sales. All this tedious economics is essen- tial for an understanding of the pro- posed 30-hour week law. In April, 1933, the Senate passed the Black- Connery bill by a majority of 50 to 33. The Senate had passed a similar bill at an earlier session. This time it ap- parently escaped passage in the House only because the administration had devised the N. R. A. and insisted that D3 CAPITAL CHARACTERS BACK IN THE EIGHTIES Good Poker Players Were Plentiful and Carpenter Relates a Few Tall Card Stories. This is the thirty-sizth of a series of weekly articles on interesting persons ard events in the National Capital during the 80s, by Frank G. Carpenter, world-famous author and traveler. The next chapter in the series will be published next Sunday in The Star. CHAPTER XXXVL BY FRANK G. CARPENTER. OAQUIN MILLER has returned from New Orleans and is again at work in his log cabin on Washington Heights. I visited him yesterday and found him superintending the cutting of some immense branches from the great oaks which shade his home. Mr. Miller, in a rich dressing gown and flowery velvet slippers, was standing outside, his head bare and long, flaxen, curly hair waving in the breezes which blew up from the Potomac. He had a face bronzed with the Louisiana sun and rosy with good health. On entering the cabin after a hearty ting, I sat down for an hour's chat before the smouldering embers of the big fireplace. The cabin is now complete. It is the bill should give way to the more | thoroughly comfortable and homelike. gospel, dubbed him “Poker-Bob,” and the name, as usual, sticks. How Henry Clay was cheated at cards is a story told by Congressman Calkins. He heard it when he was campaigning in the southern part of Ohio in a little town where Clay was accustomed to stop overnight on his way to Washington. “One night,” Maj. Calkins says, “to pass the time Henry Clay became engaged in a game of poker with | some men about the hotel. A pro- | fessional gambler pushed himself into the party and for a time he cheated without being discovered. At last he laid down three aces, while Clay held two in his own hand. One of the poker party who told me the story said that Clay's anger was terrible. He slowly drew himself out of his seat and rose upward until he seemed about 17 feet high. He pulled out | his pistol, as the man made for the | door. Clay did not follow him. Ine | stead, he walked around to the chair | the gambler had recently occupied and shot a hole through its seat. The gambler left town instanter.” A One-eyed Cheater. “I have another good card story.” continued Maj. Calkins, “and Senator | Jones is my authority for it. He devastating thought that the fearful of workers enjoy a short work day. costs of relief are partly due to the} This agaln explains a sad paradox artificial reduction of food stuffs. It |of life. Those workers who have the is this simple fact about production shortest hours and work under the | that puts to rout the whole crowd of | most attractive conditions receive | amateur economists who have been | much the highest wages. They are misleading government and labor with | the most highly skilled. they work on | talk about “over-production” and “de- ' the wgost productive equipment and fective consumer power” and an “era | they are beneficiaries of this principle | of plenty.” It is a reflection on jour- | of production by machines. It is the | nalism in America that the findings of | introduction of machines, so much re- | two excellent books recently published | sented by labor and so greatly de- by the Brookings Institution should | plred by the magazine economists, have created widespread editorial sur- | that has given American factory labor | prise. These two books merely dem- ‘ the eight-hour day. | onstrated statistically what economists Unhappily, this Jbeneficient force | have been teaching for years. It is | works but slowly in other fields of la- | this simple fact of economics that bor. In vast areas of wage-work, | made technocracy so ridiculous. diminishing returns from long hours are not reached quickly. This is espe- cially true of the cruder types of man- | The fundamental truth that you ual labor and of some types of “white- | | cannot help labor by reducing pro- | collar” work. In such work,as ditch | duction is the basic fact in this 30- | digging or retail selling or dish wash- | hour week matter. If the average work ' ing or cotton picking, the point of week in normal times is 44 hours, then | diminishing returns is reached only the national dividend is simply the when physical exhaustion becomes a product of 44 hours of labor applied | factor or the excessive length of hours to our land and capital. Cut this | results in deliberate slowing of the rate work week to 22 hours and you de- | of work. stroy the American standard of living. | _ Cut it again to 11 hours and our civ- Move Profit In Leng Hears. | ilization disappears. Cut it once more | Even in certain types of machine | to 5!, hours, and death sweeps away Operation simplicity of work may mean | | the population. But you say, this is a | that long hours pay the employer and | | proposal to cut to 30 hours. Exactly. the employe more than short hours. | It will have the same starvation tend- | In all such cases there is no auto- | ency, but it will not go quite so far. |matic economic tendency to reduce | We could drop the discussion at this | hours. This explains the sad fact that | | point. But the matter does justify |the poorest paid work the longest | some refined analysis. The hours of | hours. It tells us why it has been | labor in mechanical industry 50 years | necessary to restrict the hours of 1 ago were 60 hours a week. A hundred | Women and child workers. It explains | years ago laborers who talked of a fu- | Why hours have been lowered in many | ture 10-hour day were regarded as lines only after bitter strife. It ex- | dangerous radicals. In the earlier Plains why collective bargaining has | times men worked from sun-up to |in general been absent where it was | | sun-down. One of the glorious facts | 1005t needed and most militant and of American history is the slow but | 8Tasping where it was not required. relentless reduction in the hours of | But the grim conclusion of it all is labor. There is no economic historian | this: No matter where the point of whose heart has not been stirred in | diminishing returns is found, whether | pity by the annals of the child, woman | 8 & nine-hour day or a 12-hour day, | and man workers in the time of Rob- |2ny reduction below that level cuts Tendency to Starvation. | half of this_700,000. elaborate plan. Its passage had been held up temporarily by discussion of the necessity of barring imports made ! in countries of longer working hours. | Class Legislation. A careless nation considers this measure a proposal to establish a uni- | versal 30-hour week. It does nothing | of the sort. On the contrary, the | measure intends to give a very small | and relatively prosperous minority of | labor special advantage. It is class legislation for the benefit of a small group of workers at the expense of | all the rest. The bill passed by the Senate a year ago prohibits interstate commerce in | commodities produced in plants em- | ploying workers more than six hours | & day for five days a week. There are 150,000.000 persons gainfully employed | in labor or business or the professions ‘ in this country. This bill would apply almost exclusively to workers in mills | and shops. It might be made to in- | clude workers in mines, quarries and forests, but a large proportion of these workers have piece-work or seasonal | arrangements that would make the | application of the law impracticable. | The group primarily affected would | be the workers in plants, factories, | mills and shops in industries primarily | | of the manufacturing class. The num- | ber of such workers at this time is 6,000,000, and of these a great many | are employed by concerns doing no interstate business. With some admit- ted exceptions, this group is made up of productive and well paid workers. In the midst of the most pitiful un- emplovinent and distress this group, last September earned an average | wage of just under 60 cents an hour. September Average 33 Hours. But note a far more extraordinary fact. This entire group averaged only 33 hours of work a week in Septem- | ber. One year earlier they averaged | 36 hours, and 15 months earlier they averaged 42'> hours. The prolonged depression, the general stagnation in the capital goods industries, the part- time operation of plants, the exten- sion of the share-the-work plar and the N. R. A. have brought the hours down to 33. If a rigid 30-hour week should be imposed on the whole group | it would require only 11 per cent more of the total now employed. At the most it would take 700.000 from the unemployed ranks. There are some- | where between 8,000,000 and 10,000.- | 000. In practice it might not add The inevitable result would be a rapid increase in costs of operation, a declining market and reduced production. How much unemployment would result is un- certain. What, then, s the real objective of this scheme for the 30-hour week? The bed made of the limbs of a tree | is covered with hangings which would do honor to the White House and a rich variety of Oriental color is seen in the curtains which hide its iower end from the sitting room. Around the walls on pins are stuck Mr. Mil- | ler's telegrams and letters ordering literary matter and it is by these that he reminds himself of the work he has on hand. On a shelf made by the jutting out of one of the logs lies a great pile of white paper filled with writing. There is enough in this pile to make a dictionary and Mr. Miller, when I asked as to it, toid me that it was made up entirely of plays which he had been writing. Joaquin is ambitious to write the great Ameri~ can play and I know of few men in the United States who are so well fitted to do it as he. The plays which he has already written have been successful; he tells me that his last play, “Tally Ho,” is bringing him a nice little income. Col. Wintersmith, Col. Dick Wintersmith is, by the way, one of the curious characters of Washington. He is one of the best story-tellers at the Capital and he has a fund of reminiscences as long as the Old Testament. He can tell stories by the hour about the great men of the past and to have a talk with him on horses and horse racing is an equestrian education. He is familiar with the pedigrees of all the noted horses of Kentucky, back to a period not far distant from the Fiood, and like his friend. Senator Beck, he knows their offspring and descend- ants as well as his own genealogical tree. He tells a story well and enjoys it himself as much as his hearers. He was acquainted with Henry Clay dur- ing Clay's latter years and I heard him speak of his first meeting with the great statesman not long ago. Said he: “It was on the occasion of a great speech of Mr. Clay's in Kentucky that I was introduced to him. After he had finished I looked at him so intently that he remarked it and asked me why I did so. I replied: ‘It has occurred to me, Mr. Clay, that I am younger than you and that after you have passed away I will! want to remember you as the great- est man and the finest orator I have ever known. I looked at you as I did that I might daguerrotype your every lineament upon my soul.’ “‘That,’ replied Henry Clay, ‘is the finest compliment I have ever heard’ During the remainder of the day Mr. Clay and I met several times, At one time we were walking together and he seized my arm and exclaimed: ‘Mr. Wintersmith, I wish I had your physique!” “Yes.” I replied. “and I wish, Mr. Its proponents have very hazy ideas of the economic forces involved. Some of them honestly believe that it will ert Owen. provement? It was not the kind- heartedness of capitalists. As a class capitalists have been quite as blind to economic truth as labor leaders. vice president of the United States | Steel Corp. years ago stated that the 12-hour day then prevalent made men old at 40. But Judge Gary reported that the steel industry could not afford to reduce hours. It was not the labor unions. The hours of labor were go- ing down steadily for 50 years before the American Federation of Labor was born and they have gone down rapidly in wholly unorganized lines. It was not legislation. There has never been in American history any general law reducing the hours of labor in private industry and there has been no Gov- ernment pressure until N. R. A.’s blind excursion into the field. Economic Forces Credited. It was the operation of economic forces that reduced the hours of labor. The most striking feature of our mod- ern capital equipment is its all but unbelievable productivity. The power loom and steam engine of the New England of a century ago were ludi- crously inefficient, but they so sur- passed hand work that they built cities in a generation. This produc- tivity of capital has been an accelera- ting marvel. And with every increase in output the Nation has had a choice to make. It could take this increased production in a higher standard of living, or in increase of population, or in shorter hours. This Nation divided it among all three. It developed a standard of living that is the envy of other peoples. By an extraordinary birth rate and a reckless immigration policy it had & population growth un- known before. And steadily, in all lines, it reduced the hours of labor. But this choice among three options is not accidental nor arbitrary. In the absence of Government interference or labor union monopoly, the choice is itself determined by immutable eco- nomic forces. This involves some rather tricky economic analysis, and it may well be that the legislator who has the power of life and death over American industry will not care to weary his mind with such tedious rea- soning. But here it is, none the less. The inevitable tendency of capital- istic production is to substitute ma- chinery for man power. The pick be- comes the steam shovel, the small- town butcher is replaced by the pack- ing plant, the bookkeeper gives way to the bookkeeping machine. The machine tends ever to become more complicated and to run at higher speed. The strain of long-sustained 1abor on delicate and fast-moving ma- chines runs rapidly into diminishing returns. Long hours begin to make for slipshod work, mistakes, accidents, irregularity of output, a rapid turn- over of labor and a tortured labor force. All these cost money. The last hour in 10 costs the employer more than he gets from oppation. ‘The familiar argument of that What has caused this blessed im- | Al down production and lowers wages. This is not a pleasant fact, but it is a fact. The ‘“stretchout” system is an inexcusable thing, but it is the nat- | ural result of an N. R. A. code of hours and wages that would not let industry survive. If you arbitrarily but gradually reduce hours in all fields of industry below the maximum pro- ductive level you slowly reduce the standard of living and the wage level. If you pick out one particular indus- the industry and put its workers in the bread line. ‘The President recently by executive order reduced the hours of work in certain textile manufactures from the code level, already much below the competitive depression level, to 36 hours. That this executive action was dictated by the highest motive goes without saying; whether it is good economics is another question. The industry concerned is fighting the or- der to the last ditch, and the summary dismissal of the whole code authority indicates what the actual administra- tors of the code think of the measure. Source of Problems. This gives rise to one of the un- solved problems of life. A part of our labor force is pitifully inefficient through physical, mental, moral or educational defects. From these come the sorry victims of our competitive system. Here we find the sweatshop worker, the restaurant worker on an 84-hour week, some women employes and handworkers of many kinds. Ar- bitrary reduction of their hours throws these workers on relief. How far society should go in re- stricting the hours of such workers is a social question that distresses sconomists, however assured politicians may be. In the long run economic his- tory shows that it is wiser to restrict hours in these fields at least to that point where the workers are not vic- tims of exhaustion and are not de- prived of opportunity for decent home life and recreation. It is better for society to face higher costs for goods than increasing charity burdens. The eventual solution of this problem is simple, but its discussion is not within the province of this article. At the other end of the scale are the efficient, capable, high-wage, short-hour workers. This writer hesi- tates to enter upon a discussion of the question of the proper length of the work week. He may be wrong. But it is his sincere judgment that in no major industry whatever is there any economic or social justification of a shorter work day than eight hours or a shorter work week than five and one-half days. This is the standard 44-hour week. A general reduction below this level means higher costs and lower wages throughout our civilization, It is my belief that those codes that reduced hours to 40 or less have been injurious to labor and have increased unemployment. The application of the actual wage and hour Jwvels of the President’s unemployment agreement \ try and lower hours violently, you ruin | “spread work” and relieve unemploy- | ment. Some honestly believe that the application of the 30-hour week to interstate industry would in some mysterious way force its adoption for all labor. The American Federation of Labor. whose economic analysis is usually of a sound character, belleves that it will do much to relieve unem- ployment. At the annual meeting of the federation this year a unanimous vote indorsed the bill and the federation is now pushing its passage. ‘Wage Increase Objective. But consciously of unconsciously, the objective of the measure is an increase in wages by law. The depression is coming to an end. Normal times are ahead. If in this time of muddled economics and thoughtless legislation a legal 30-hour week can be jammed through and fastened on industry, it will have little effect now, but will have a profound consequence later. When prosperity returns, a starved consumer demand will avidly absorb a large increase in manufactures. The abnormal restriction will create a tremendous demand for skilled labor. This labor is limited in supply. A scarcity value will be created. Wages will soar. When the 30-hour law has created a shortage of skilled labor, workers will put in one or two hours of over- time at extra pay. The six-hour day will become an 8-hour day at wages at least one-third higher than the present return for eight hours. No- body expects to work only 30 hours under any law. What is hoped for is pay for six hours equal to present pay, with pay and a half for two more hours. This is an excellent am- bition, but it is not a pretty thing to force by law. The World War created temporarily a similar condition, -and wages of $25 a day were not unknown. The real objective of the 30-hour week is to creater by law a special ld-‘ vantage for a special minority group of workers. It would be at the ex- pense of the consumer, all other laborers and of the standard of living of the country. Just incidentally, it will injure the workers themselves in the end. The monopoly will exist for a time, at the expense of the coun- try, but it will collapse. The exces- sive coasts engendered will inevitably react on manufacturers in interstate trade. They will be hurt by local and foreign competition. The industries themselves will be driven to frantic efforts to substitute machines for men, and will succeed in many lines. In the end many of the beneficiaries of such a law will join the ranks of the unemployed. This writer’s sympathies are with the unorganized, overworked and. poorly paid. He would like to see definite measures to aid the poor devil who washes dishes in a restaurant 60 hours a week, the scrubwoman on her knees, the overworked bookk , the man who works with a pick all day long. He has no sympathy for legislation for the benefit of a spekial class, or for & Senate that passes it Clay, that I had your head!" Card Players. Do statesmen play cards? To this question the answer is ves. The President himself is quoted as having his favorite game. Gen. Garfield was fond of euchre and whist and there are a score of men now in the United States Senate who understand the most subtle intricacies of poker. Dan- iel Webster was a famous hand at euchre, Gen. Scott liked nothing bet- ter than a night at the whist table and Frank Pierce knew how to play cards and liked them. In the days of Pierce the Presidents were more | democratic than they are now. They walked about the fown and paid visits to their friends in their rooms. An old stager whose white hair was black while President Pierce occupied the White House, gave me an illustration of this tonight. “It was on a hot July evening, away bach in the fifties,” said he. “Two Senators and myself were seated, with our coats off in the rooms of Senator Clemens of Alabama, having a quiet game of poker. It was a gameg of 50-cent ante and the coins were lying on the tale. A gentle knock was heard at the door. Senator Clemens yelled out in a stentorian tone, ‘Come in’; the door opened, and in walked Frank Pierce, then President of the United States. table and arose to put on our coats. But President Pierce said, ‘Don’t dis- turb yourselves, gentlemen, I have just come to make a social call on my friend, Mr. Clemens, I don't want to interrupt your game.’ “Mr. Pierce sat down and chatted a few minutes with us and then rose to g0. As he left the room, he asked how the game was played, said he would like to take a hand, but that he had other engagements. Such an action in this day would be remarked upon all over the country. In 1850 it was accepted as a matter of course.” “Poker-Bob” Schenk still lives at Washington and the title which he got from his little pamphlet published in England while he was the Ameri- can Minister there still sticks to him. It is a very unjust title which Mr. Schenk owes to a noted English duchess rather than to his card- playing habits. He met the lady, I am told, at one of the court recep- tions and somehow their conversation turned to playing cards. He described to her the beauties of poker in such a way that she became intensely interested and begged him to write her out a set of rules and directions for playing the great American game. This Mr. Schenk very kindly did. The duchess learned to play poker and as it wove its fascinating toils about her she wanted her friends to learn the new game. For con- venience she had Mr. Schenk’s letter printed in a neat pamphlet and dis- tributed it among her friends of the court circle. A malicious scribbler heard of the fact and telegraphed to the American newspapers that our foreign Minister hjd published a book on poker playing.’ They took it for As we saw him, we all pushed our chairs back from the | says the incident actually happened in one of the little mining towns of his State. One night at the lead- ing saloon of this town a party of half a dozen men were playing poker. One of the players was a nice young fellow, a graduate of Yale Col- lege, a man who had been quite suce | cessful at mining. and who had made | himself popular with his fellowmen. Another member of the party was | & one-eyed stranger. The others were | honest miners working about the | camp. The play went on from early {in the evening until about midnight. All the time the one-eyed man seemed | to get the good hands. On several | occasions the Yale graduate thought | he saw the one-eyed man cheat, but he made no sign. “At midnight the college man stood up and quietly said: ‘Gentle- men, we are all tired playing and some of us are about broke. I pro- pose that we now take a recess and have some oysters and champagne. Then we will throw away these cards, jget a new deck and see if our luck doesn't change. We will set out to play a strictly square game and'— | here he looked straight at the one- eyed stranger and put his hand on his revolver at his belt—'and the | first man we catch cheating we will shoot out his other eye. The oysters | eaten, the luck did change. The one- | eyed man lost every cent of his win- nings and as daylight broke through | the dirty panes of the saloon win- dows he rose, declaring himself dead broke.” Another story about Clay, so well authenticated that it comes to me | almost directly from Henry Clay's mouth, relates an adventure of his with old Throckmorton, a noted hotel | keeper of Louisville in Clay's time. | Throckmorton was one of Mr. Clay's | most intimate Kentucky friends. In | their latter days the two were almost | inseparable, and they often played | together at the whist table. Throck« morton was a fine whist player, and | nothing irritated him more than to have his game interrupted or spoiled by talking. He generally beat Clay, |but Clay got ahead of him at one whist party in Louisville, when the two men were partners. The stakes were nominal—a dollar a game, I think—and as soon as the party sat down at the table Clay began to tell stories. He paid no tention to his hand and through his blunders trick after trick was lost. Throckmorton protested from time to time, finally saying: *“Really, Mr. Clay, for a man of your ability, 1sducauan and reputation, you are the | poorest whist player I have ever { known. You talk too much.” | But the play continued in the same {way and Throckmorton grew more ;and more explosive. At last Clay | said: “Throckmorton. you are making more fuss by your objecting than I Now"—and here he | pulled a ten-dollar gold piece out of | his pocket—“we will each lay $10 on the table and the man who speaks | first shall lose his money.” Throckmorton consented. The $20 were laid besides the stakes of a idounr 8 side in the middle of the | table. Clay.began to play worse than :evzr. He trumped = Throckmorton's | ace. He threw away tricks until Throckmorton, who for some time had been gritting his teeth, rose and Ipushed the money at Clay. “Here, take the money,” he cried. | “I am not going tb let $20 stand in the way of my telling any such card- playing idiot what I think of him.” He then went over Clay rough-shod. Clay laughed as he put the two gold pieces in his pocket and the company laughed with him when he said that he had been trying for years to get the best of Mr. Throckmorton and he was glad to feel he had done so for once.” by my stories. Nose Back on Statue After 50-Year Absence QUIRIGUA, Guatemala (#).—A Maya god or chief, sculptured on a monument hundreds of years old in the ancient Maya city here, finally has back the nose he lost more than 50 years ago. The story of the missing nose is told by Dr. Sylvanus Morley of the Car- negie Institution of Washington, who has been restoring Maya monuments here. The nose, weakened by a ecrack in the stone, first fell off in 1881, when a cast of the sculptured head was made by A. P. Maudslay, British archeologist. Maudslay stuck it back in place with plaster of paris and bound a rope around it to keep it in place. When he returned in 1894 the rope had rotted away, but the plaster still held the nose in place. It still was in place 27 years later, when Dr. Morley visited the site in 1921. But between that year and 1928, when Dr. Morley again visited Quirigua, the monument fell flat and the jar had displaced the nose. How- ever, Dr. Morley found it in the grass once more and intrusted it to a fruit company official, who placed it in his office safe. Early in 1934 two other Carnegie Institution men visited Quirigua, ob- tained the nose, and replaced it on the solemn face of the Maya statue, fastening it with cement that should hold it permanently. —_— Mussolini’s Postscript. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Mussolini says he wants ten years of peace for completion of his great reclamation projects, but he eases the shock to Italian militarists by adding that what the !mblhue gains the sword must