Evening Star Newspaper, August 10, 1935, Page 8

A8 THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 1935: B e e = — — ————————————— THIS AND THAT BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL. THE EVENING STAR With Sunday Morning Edition. WASHINGTON, D. C. SATURDAY ............August 10, 1935 THEODORE W. NOYES etk ik et e SRR M The Evening Star Newspaper Company. Business Office: 11th St and Pennsylvania Ave. e ; o - Eurogcan Omoe: 14 Hewent St London. Ensiand. Rate by Cazrier Within the City. Regular Edition. The Evening Star The Evening and (when 4 Sundays) e Eventng and Sunday § undays The" Bunady ‘Star -5¢ per copy Night Fi Editlon. Night Pinal and Sunaay Star N Night Finai Star- = Collection made Orders may be sent tional 5000. Rate by Mail—Payable in Advance. Maryland and Virginia. fly and Sunds ily only_ Sunday only-. 45c per month 60c per month 65¢_per month All Other States Daily and Sunday..] yr. $12.0 Daily only_ 1 5. Sunday only. Member of the Associated Press. The Associated Press is exclusively entitled to the use for republication of all news dispatches gredited to it of not otherwise credited, in this and also the local news ) X :Tlpe;llhls of publication of special dispatches herein are also reserved. The W. P. A. Strike. There is a faint note of “I told you s0” triumph in Mr. William Green's comment, from Atlantic City, on the strike of W. P. A. workers in New York and elsewhere. “We told Congress just what would happen if they failed to insert the clause calling for prevailing wage scales into the Public Works Progress measure. They didn't believe us. All this trouble has taken place just as we predicted it would.” But even those who supported the McCarran prevailing-wage amendment and still believe in its principles cannot fail to see the grotesque elements of this attempted strike in New York. Boiled down, it is, the President suggests, no strike at all. Men who have been offered work by their Government are merely refusing to accept the oppor- tunity. If they do not choose to work, they need not work. But they cannot expect, at the same time, to receive Government relief. As far as the prevailing wage issue is concerned, the strike is premature. That issue, as Senator McCarran and others saw it, was whether a rate of pay to skilled mechanics on Government relief jobs, lower than the rate of pay for the same class of private work, would not tend to lower private wage scales. That effect, in New York, has not been demonstrated. The W. P. A. work is too new to have pulled down established wage scales. As General Johnson points out, the mechanics are now given a chance to earn $93.50 a month on new-style relief, as against the maximum of $60 a month they were able to earn under the old-style relief. That is a distinct gain. They are at- tempting to strike now, not because the monthly rate of pay is too low, but because the hourly rate of pay is lower than the prevailing rate under private employment. There is not much substance to the strike issue in the form it has assumed. But its inherent possibilities of em- barrassing the administration’s labor and relief policies are interesting. Mr. Hopkins, for instance, has in effect given notice that as far as the Government is concerned the strikers can either work or starve. If they do not choose to work, in other words, they can expect no relief from the Government. But it was not so long ago that Mr. Hopkins, in the case of disputes involving labor and private employment, took the posi- tion that, regardless of the merits of such disputes, if striking men and women were hungry the F. E. R. A. would see that they were fed. The President was asked yesterday if the newly created Labor Conciliation Board, set up by Mr. Hopkins, would be called on to conciliate the New York strike. The President would not agree, however, that this was a “strike,” or that the participants were “strikers.” The point of view, in other words, is obviously influenced by whose ox is being gored. ————r——————— By flying to the edge of Ethiopia Mussolini will show courage. When marched into the interior his soldiers ‘will show even greater daring. ———————————— Memories. The things people remember are not invariably consequential. On an eve- ning recently a group of passengers gathered in the lounge of a trans-At- lantic liner, fog-delayed, and, reacting to the occasion, talked of weather. One said, “I recall a time in my boyhood when fog hung for days over the Ohio River belo® Pittsburgh so thick that the chickens thought it was night and went to roost and stayed there.” And another declared, “We used to have fog on Nantucket that really seemed to have the consistency of soup. It would come right into the house and fill the rooms like smoke, and we were afraid of it and would cry because we thought we would be smothered.” But @ third speaker capped the climax with & reminiscence of his childhood in Lon- don. “The classic fogs,” he affirmed, “are ghostly affairs. John Galsworthy tells about them in one of his books, and I have dlways believed that he must have found an incident for his ‘Forsyte Saga’ in the fact that my father once stumbled over a dead man in the street on a foggy night—the poor chap had been run down by a cab at a crosling and no one had seen him lying there until my father came along.” From fogs to storms was a natural evolution, and the group exchanged impressions of thundershowers, bliz- zards and hurricanes. Gradually the talk drifted to extremes of temperature. A wit in the circle told a predigious tale of Manitoba. “There was a certain winter,” he related, “when it was so cold that the sounds of railroad whistles and bells froze in the sky, and we had to wait until Spring for them to thaw out for us to hear.” Thus prompted » to exaggeration, & gentleman from At- lanta reported that it once was so hot in that city that a sirloin steak exposed on the sidewalk to test the broiling powers of the sun had been burnt to a crisp before it could be rescued. The .conversation had descended to the level of the ridiculous, but it served to pass the time and perhaps to calm the trepidation of those who were an- noyed by the incessant “baying” of the ship's siren. A philosopher behind a curtain would have smiled at the child- ishness of the device. Yet he also would have known that life very largely is built on ideas otherwise hardly worthy of preservation. Each career, it seems, has scars which the spirit hides with memories - which in themselves do not matter. No individual can afford to be too constantly conscious of his sorrows. In the interests of self-preservation he allows his brain to remain filled with harm- less fixations—old memories of unim- portant things, people and events— thoughts which have little other excuse than that they do not hurt. Speed, Agony and Death. There should be no necessity to instruct motor speeders in the deadly risk they run when they race their machines over the streets and roads, and the deadly peril to which they expose other users of the streets and roads by so doing. It should be patent to all who are thus addicted to high speed. Yet evidently, from the reaction of those who heard Judge McMahon's reading, in the Traffic Court yesterday, of an article printed in a magazine de- scriptive of the terrors of traffic at high speed, there is need of such solemn admonition. Of the sixty-two motorists assembled for hearing thirty-three were charged with speeding. To them par- ticularly the judge addressed the words which he thus quoted from the article: “Every time you pass a blind curve, every time you hit it up on a slippery road, every time you step on it faster than your reflexes will safely react, every time you drive with your reactions slowed down by a drink or two, every time you follow the man ahead too closely, you're gambling a few seconds against this kind of blood and agony and sudden death.” Every word of that analysis of the speeder’s risk is true. It should convey to the dullest mind the terrorism of speed on the road. Perhayps some of those who heard the reading did not know much about reflexes and reactions, but all of them certainly knew what was meant by racing past blind curves, hitting up the pace on a slippery road and following the man ahead too closely. There is no defense in the plea of bad judgment on the road. The speed limits, set with regard for the safety of all, are known, or should be known, by all motorists. The lamentably con- tinued story of the tragedies of motor speed has been and is being told almost daily in the news reports. The thought “such a thing cannot happen to me” does not protect the speeder or his victim. It does happen, with frightful frequency and persistence. Maybe that bit of literary instruction in court yesterday had some corrective effect. The fines that accompanied it, ranging from $5 to $25, may have helped to stress with lasting emphasis the peril of speed. Assuredly those who heard that lesson and who paid for the privi- lege should never repeat their offenses. If they do, they should be barred for all time from the roads and streets as drivers. B The Ohio House Vacancy. The shockingly sudden death yesterday of Representative Charles V. Truax of Ohio raises an interesting political question. Will a special election be held in that State to fill the vacancy thus created in the Lower House of Congress? Mr. Truax was a member at large and to fill the vacancy a State-wide ballot must be had. The cost of such a ballot will be considerable and it may be that that consideration will cause postpone- ment until next year, when the entire State machinery of election will be in gear. . But this consideration is perhaps not as important as another that arises from the decided overturn in Rhode Island last Tuesday, when a Democratic va- cancy in the House, caused by a resig- nation to permit the incumbent to take a judicial post, was filled by the choice of a Republican, by a very large ma- jority, involving an overturn of thirty- four thousand votes from 1934. The Rhode Island contest was directly based upon New Deal issues. An Ohio State- wide contest would probably take the same turn. And.a similar result in the Buckeye State would be even more significant than that which has just caused a decided case of political jitters in administration circles, despite all claims to the contrary. Discretion dictates letting the seat vacated by Mr. Truax’s death remain unfilled for the remainder of the Seventy-fourth Congress. But even abstention from a contest has the effect of raising doubt as to the confidence of the administration regarding the re- sult if such an election were ordered, and at this stage of the case any show of uncertainty is apt to have a deleterious effect upon the party morale. The case thus becomes a dilemma, either horn of which may be difficult to handle. Es Deterioration. Deterioration of America’s most leis- urely class, the knights of the road, otherwise known as hoboes—once upon a time called tramps—is attributed to the promiscuous sustenance admin- istered to them by the Government under the general relief program which has formed so large a part of the re- covery procedure of the New Deal. A dispatch from New York states that Ralph E. Dalton, head of a newly estab- lished hobo college, declares that relief methods have all but knocked the props from under that system of livelihood and that the “knights” have turned softies. r “They've lost the feel of the road since they have been getting home relief,” he complains; “they don't ride the rods like they used to.” This is disheartening. It is cutting at the roots of an institution which had become firmly established. Yet the traveling panhandlers have been soften- ing for quite a long time past. The advent of the motor car and the develop- ment of the art of hitch-hiking have set new standards of transport and widened the range of the wanderers. And the institution of*public relief stations has simply shifted the burden of giving sustenance to them from the tender- hearted housekeepers to the community purse. : Has the system of communication be- tween these restless rovers that once reached the proportions of a secret lan- guage gone as well? The tramps’ argot was once the subject of profound study by philologists. Now they talk like economists and professional correcters of social ills, President Dalton of the hobo college thus states his prescription for the cure of the evils of which the tramp is supposedly a symptom: “I will call for a five-day week, the four-hour day and insist on six months’ vacation for every man; it's a simple and easy way to end the unemployment problem.” This is just going a little further toward the goal of universal idleness than some of the prescriptions of the sociological doctors who have been seek- ing to administer restoratives to the ail- ing body politic. The Dalton plan ¢calls for a maximum of 520 hours of work a year. It does not go so far as to indicate a rate of pay or how the pay roll would be provided. But at that it is no more lacking in definition of ways and means than some of the other schemes that pave been seriously advanced, and even seriously considered, in the line of equal division of means and opportunity and responsibility, regardless of qualifications, talents and capacities. Thirty days’ annual leave for Gov- ernment workers will stimulate business in a way. More golf clubs and travel accessories will be needed, and those who serve Uncle Sam will find the en- thusiasm of recreation which prevents the depression of dull routine. e e ————— Divorce is so easy and the dollar has become so cheap that it is hard to see how ladies should go on killing their husbands, even for mercenary reasons. —— e Hints on fashions are still offered under a Paris date line for the benefit of old- fashioned folk who think Paris still sets the fashions. France demonstrates the need of more collegiate influence to enable the mortar boards to assert more -authority over steel helmets. Perfect politics would avoid an equit- able distribution of taxes that would prevent anybody from feeling that he has been selected for “soaking.” Former President Hoover celebrates his sixty-first birthday today. As a cam- paigner he is still below the retire- ment age. Shooting Stars. BY PHILANDER JOHNSON. Banished Laughter. “I've lost my sense of humor,” Said Hezekiah Bings. “To almost every rumor A threat of battle clings. A plot for weapon making To kill us each and all Seems like a jest, forsaking ‘Whatever we recall Of simple early teaching, Of piety and sense, Ridiculously reaching To foolishness intense. The boy in martial training, The girl in study deep, ‘While science she is gaining, Must also learn to weep. As ultimate consumer Of jests, I fear such things! I have no sense of humor,” Said Hezekiah Bings. Luxurious Travel. “What I expect to see,” said Senator Sorghum, “is a series of broad high- ways with fountains and flower gardens in the middle.” “I'll appreciate that,” said the motor- ist “a great deal when I am traveling, but more when I pause for refreshment. Your philanthropy will not be complete until it provides shade trees and free lunch.” Jud Tunkins says a loaf of bread s so handsomely wrapped up that he hates being obliged to throw so much of his purchase into the waste paper basket. Seven—Eleven. We say this life we're leading Is but a game of chance. ‘The numbers we've been heeding Increase at every glance. ‘We once would mention millions In a spirit all perplexed. ‘We'll soon say Seven Billions, And Eleven Trillions next. Prepared for Peace. “T ‘apologize!” said one diplomat. “But you have given no offense,” said the other. “T know there is no present reason for my apologizing. But I wish to be on record with an expression of willingness to do so on the slightest provocation.” Somewhere. When one Great Intellect speaks out Another one expresses doubt. And still another will Qisclose Opinions differing from those. The patient and inquiring mind Some solace presently must find. In all this reasoning, day and night, Somebody Surely Must Be Right. “Everybody says he favors de pursuit of happiness,” said Uncle Eben, “but at present nobody seems able to be happy unless he’s makin’ trouble foh somebody else.” [ ] Better Cars and Service Will Yield Transit Profits To the Editor of The Star: o A question for the Capital Transit Co.: Why not think of the patrons first before you take off a man on every new car? One-man cars slow up the serv- ice, because the motorman operates the car, collects the fares and would do work that two should do. Instead of making it harder for the riding public from an economy standpoint, get the Public Utilities Commission to counter- mand several rerouting orders. No need to tear up the tracks on Kennedy street from the plow pit on Fourteenth street to Georgia avenue. Of course, to double-track Kennedy street from the plow pit to Third street would be a service that is needed and will help business on that line. Put off for sev- eral years the changing of the tracks at Fourteenth street and New York avenue. Several hundred thousand dollars have been spent on new busses that will have to last for years. I have been told § to 6 years is a long time for a bus to be good enough to give service. The older the bus, the more fumes it throws out. That is where a street car shows its reliability. It will last several times longer than a bus and I call that the proper kind of economy. Yes, the tracks have to be repaired once in a while. So do the streets. I still advocate more street cars like those on the Fourteenth street line. I understand they were over- hauled right here in the shops by the company, and lots of the -old cars can be made over in the same way. I am glad to see that The Star comes out in favor of two-man cars, and I do hope that popular opinion will show that one- man cars are not increased and that some day in ‘the near future they will be eliminated entirely. Pay the workers a just wage, give the best service possible and the Capital Transit Co. will make everybody satisfled and in that way it surely will make money and in time pay dividends to its stockholders. Treat the car riders right and in the long run money will be made by the transit company. FELIX A. URY. R Appreciation of ) A Star Editorial To the Editor of The Star: Please permit me to offer my appre- ciation and congratulations upon the editorial “Trouble,” appearing in Mon- day's issue. It is timely, philosophically sound, finely conceived and most beau- tifully expressive of a truth the world sadly seems to fail to understand or accept. Last week I wrote a short letter to a Virginia paper which I formerly owned and edited, treating of this subject. In that letter the familiar lines of Arch- bishop Trench were quoted: “0 life, O death, O world, O time, O grave where all things flow, 'Tis yours to make our lot sublime ‘With your great weight of woe. Though sharpest anguish hearts may wring, ‘Though bosoms torn may be, Yet suffering is a holy thing; Without what were we?” The letter was printed and was read by a close friend who disagreed with me. This personal reference is made be- cause your editorial coincided so clearly with my own thought that I am glad to see a paper of The Star’s importance en- tertaining identical views. I am sending that editorial to my paper for publica- tion. * JOHN A. PHILLIPS. Tiberius Tax Model Preferable to Modern To the Editor of The Star: The tax bill now before Congress sug- gesis that ancient rulers were wiser than the modern. This is illustrated in the case of the Emperor Tiberius. Notwith- standing the fact that the imperial finances were gravely embarrassed when he mounted the throne, he refrained from any increase in the taxation and sought to balance the budget by strict economy, even reducing the existing taxes when possible. In the collection of the exist- ing revenues he tried to secure strict honesty by the care with which he selected his procurators, who were the officials responsible for the management of the imperial estates. (He was, no doubt, a believer in and supporter of the civil service.) It is said that when Aemilius Rectus, prefect of Egypt, sent him a large sum of money the result was a curt message in which the Emperor declared that he wished his sheep sheared, but not shaved. He would not permit the confiscation of property under the guise of taxation. It is quite certain that the tax bill before Congress would not receive the approval of Tiberius, for it not only takes from the sheep all their wool, but also their hides. It is probable that after the first application of this law, if enact- ed, there will be nothing left to tax. ALEXANDER SIDNEY LANIER. Education an Asset And Not a Liability To the Editor of The Star: An opinion expressed by a personnel interviewer or official in a Government department reveals that he observes the average college graduate seeking a po- sition to be conceited and is not given any more consideration than others making similar applications. Such a statement naturally calls for protest. Is it justifiable to describe an edu- cated man thus when prbbably he slaved his way through an institution of higher learning by working at the humble post of dishwashing? The very fact that a man accomplished a college education is a most severe test in itself of in- genuity, initiative and capability. Pity the employer who does not comprehend the great asset in a college-trained mind! + JOE EDDY. Refutes Objections to One-Man Street Cars To the Editor of The Star: The objection to one-man cars appears to be based on the fact that it has been customary to employ two men on a street car. Nobody suggests putting two men on a single-deck bus, even though it may accommodate nearly as many passengers as a car, simply be cause from the very first such busses. required only one man. And yet, in addition, the operator of the bus must steer his vehicle and usually does not have the benefit of electric power, which necessitates the shifting of gears. If street cars continue in use, the one-man car will probably become uni- versal because we maintain a Patent labor wherever possible, but we are re- in practice that which J. F. SMITH. B Special Stamps. well (Mags.) Evening Leader, ‘We have been boosting in this space for several years the value of lawns, trees, shrubs and grass in the home garden. These alone, we have insisted many times, would make a good garden. It is heartening, therefore, to find an estate with no flowers pictured in the current issue of Horticulture. It is the property of Grenville Lindall Winthrop of Lenox, Mass., and has been awarded a gold medal by the Massachu- setts Horticultural Society. The estate has no flower garden and no flowers, except such as may be found on shrubs, planted for the birds. The accent has been placed on the lawns and trees, although there is a rock pool. Preference is given to ever- greens and native trees. k5 Plenty of shrubs, of course, are bound to give many flowers. Such things as lilacs, snowbails, altheas, snowberries, to name but a few known to every one, will keep the most severe yard from being too severe to the average eye. No doubt this sort of garden is easier on the vast estate, where wide natural sweeps catch the eye. Still it is a very practical solution of the modern garden problem for the very smallest gardens. Increased attacks by pests of all kinds, including insects, beetles and fungi, have rendered the keeping of even the smallest place something of a problem. ‘There are many city people, toc, who have neither the time nor inclination to-do the active work of a garden. ‘That this is more than many would admit is realized by any one who has really worked in a garden for as much as three months at a stretch. We specify three months, for there are many vigorous persons who, having plunged into garden work for a few weeks out of the superabundance of their energy, declare the work terribly easy. These same persons, however, we have noticed, seldom carry on their work after the really hot days of July and August | come along. Then they sit on the porch drinking mint juleps, and permit the flower bor- | ders to become overgrown with weeds, the grass to grow long and everything in the garden to take care of itself, * x % % One gentleman has written a nice book on week end gardening, but the | tguth is that a flower garden demands constant care, That is why one may suggest, With some propriety, a garden without flow- ers, except those which bloom on the shrubs. Even such a garden as this will re- quire much care, but surely not as much as the typical flower garden, with its planting, transplanting, pinching off, watering, removing faded flowers, train- | ing of vines and the score and one other tasks necessary to keep everything in | good shape. Then there is the spraying with in- secticides and fungicides, a real task, | not to be undertaken lightly. Watering must be done. These are but the beginning of flower | gardening, even on the smallest place. Let no one say that if one does not STARS, MEN enjoy the work, he or she should not take up gardening. This statement scarcely holds water, because there are thousands of persons who honestly love gardens and the things of the garden, but who, through various forces of circumstances, hon- estly do not have the time, and, in some cases, the physical energy to carry on. * % x x For all these, nothing is quite so good as the garden reduced, not to its lowest terms, but to just one tone— The green tone. A great many home owners tend to forget the primary value of this beau- tiful color. It is quite beautiful, in itself, to justify a garden of nothing else. Evidently the Massachusetts Horti- cultural Society thought so. Most of the persons who look at the pictures of the Winthrop estate will think so, too. There is no gainsaying that the word “garden” is very wide in meaning. There are all sorts of gardens, ranging through all the branches of specialty. Not only are there gardegs devoted to special plants, but there are formal and informal ones, large and small gardens, costly and inexpensive gardens. Recent years have given impetus to | rock gardens and water gardens, * X K % There are so many gardens that there is room aplenty for what might be called a trees-shrub-and-grass garden. It is really no new thing. Many a home owner has achieved it solely through lack of time or inclina- | tion to raise flowers. When thought and effort, however, are put on the same project, it is mani- fest that something exceptional may result, as in the case of the beautiful estate mentioned. Let no back-yard gardener think an estate, in the ordinary sense of a very large place, is at all necessary if he desires to garden primarily with trees, lawn and shrubs. The joker comes in the shrubs. These woody perennials are as flori- ferous as anything in the plant kingdom. A proper selection of shrubs would give a succession of bloom from very early Spring to very late Autumn. Such a common thing as the althea, | sometimes called Rose of Sharon, fur- nishes exquisite flowers all during the latter part of July and the month of | August, when blooms are at a premium in many gardens. The witch hazel will come into flower at frost. There are any number of shrubs, some common, some not so well known, which will supply all the fioral beauty any one could wish. The green garden, with or without flowers, is a beautiful garden. One thing it does is to throw the attention ‘more on the condition which grass, shrubs and trees ought to have all the time. This will mean that more care is given them, thus bringing about a wholesome circle of interest. In the ordinary garden, with many flowers, care of detail is often permitted to go | by the board. If grass, trees and shrubs were all one had, no doubt even the laziest gar- dener would see to it that they were kept in the very best condition possible. AND ATOMS Notebook of Science Progress in Field, Laboratory and Study. BY THOMAS R. HENRY. The valley of the MacKenzie River in Northwestern Canada, favorite path of Arctic storms into the North Ameri- can Continent, probably was the south- ward road of the first human beings in the New World about 15,000 years ago. Such is the deduction of Dr. Ernst Antevs of Yale, foremost authority on the glaciation of North America, from the sites where the earliest human re- mains have been found considered in relation to the late ice-age distribution of glaciers. Anthropologists are agreed that the | continent was peopled from Siberia by way of Bering Strait, the ancestors of the Indians possibly crossing over a land bridge which since has disappeared. But the earliest relics of human habi- tation have been found in New Mexico and Colorado at the southeastern edge of the Rocky Mountains where man- made implements occur in the same deposits with bones of such extinct creatures as the mammoth and a South- ern variety of musk-ox. This is about where they might be expected, according to Dr. Antevs’ calculations as reported in the Geographic Review. Early man had followed the only open road from North to South by way of the MacKenzie Valley and " the eastern rim of the mountains. At the time of the last glaciation, he points out, the entire mainland of Northeastern North America was cov- ered with ice north of a line extending westward from New York City through Des Moines. The western edge of this Laurentide ice-sheet ran through the northwestern corner of North Dakota and northwestward into Canada, passing somewhat to the eastward of the present site of Edmonton. It was all a great, desolate ocean of ice with a few barren islands which now are the tops of high Canadian peaks. At the same time there lay over the Rocky Mountain area and to the west- ward the so-called Cordillerian ice sheet, an entirely different formation. At about the fifty-fifth parallel the edges of the two ice oceans joined, or were very close together. But since the eastern and western glaciations belonged to different systems they did not act in unison and parted company soon after the last ice retreat began. The result— that there was an ice-free belt ex- tending from the headwaters of the MacKenzie along the western border | of the great plains, culmina in a broad wedge south of dennunv.%n be- tween the eastern glacier system and the Rockies, Here was an open road southward, if there. were any human beings to take advantage of it. But, assuming that man had actually reached the western course of Alaska, the only land roads available to him would have taken him eastward into the MacKenzie Valley. His only other route would have been south- ward by sea and it is doubtful if he had case today. The land probably was barren tundra, possibly with sparse herds The ancestors of the Indians were | hemmed in by walls of ice to the east and west. below the southern edge of the ice-sheet before they could expand in any other directions. Thus the New Mexico and Colorado sites are likely to have marked actual dispersal points. It is unlikely that older remains will be found elsewhere in the country, except possibly to the northward. * el One reason for the belief that the first inhabitants of North America fol- lowed this road about 15,000 years ago is that conditions at this time were | best adapted for their migration from Asia. The sea level of the Bering Sea | region was about 120 feet lower than it is today. The sea is not much deeper than this in many places. The sea level did not rise until the glaciers started to rise, releasing enormous amounts of ice-locked water. Hence comes the probability that the region was spanned by a land bridge— possibly over its present narrowest point which is about 50 miles wide, shallow, and broken by two islands. have been the easiest time for the great migration. At the same time man would have been pushed in that direc- tion by the southern wall of the Siberian ice sheet. In the southeastern United States there was a rainy epoch which corre- sponded with the last ice age in the North. It was certainly much rainier than is the case today, as is indicated by higher lake levels. With the retreat of the ice desert conditions started. Possibly the decrease in precipitation everywhere was one reason why the glaciers disappeared since the annual Summer melting no longer was com- pensated for by snowfall. The geological evidence indicates that the artifacts found in the Southwest date from the transition period between the rainy and dry epochs. Thus Dr. Antevs finds three lines of evidence pointing to the probability of human habitation of the New World just 4t the end of the last ice age—be- tween 15,000 and 20,000 years ago. This was the most convenient time for man to have come here and his artifacts are found where one would expect to find them in view of the roads open to him. The Waiting Hostess. From the Kansas City Star. ‘We are told that a hostess should wait dinner twenty minutes for delayed guests, and after that to use her own judgment. One trouble with that arrangement is that she usually has lost. her judgment by that time, along with her temper. A Rhyme at Twilight By Gertrude Brooke Hamilton The Goad There are two men of kindly ways Who one another daily praise And quickly catch a passing mood That each to each may not be rude. Yet when they part at close of day They find themselves quite sad and gray. There are two men—I know not why— ‘Whose right hands fist as they pass by, Without a smile they barely nod, As if each would the other prod. Yet as they go a separate way Each feels new vigor for life’s fray! They were shoved southward | This would | T ¢ anasius Kircher in 1646, ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS By Frederic J. Haskin, A reader can get the answer tp any question of fact by writing The Washing- ton Evening Star Information Bureau, Frederic J. Haskin, Director, Washing- ton, D.C. Please inclose stamp for reply. Q. Has Palestine a broadcasting sta- tion?—E. J. A. In November, Palestine’s first pub- lic broadcasting station will begin to function. The Government Broadcast- ing Board has announced that the sta- tion will be operated five hours daily giving programs in English, Hebrew and Arabic. i Q. How many Government insurance policies under the Veterans' Adminis- tration are in force?—M. S. A. As of May 31, 1935, there were 591,681 policies in force, amounting to $2,610,114,219, Q. What is the origin of comic opera? —A. M. A. It is said to be “Le Jeu de Robin et Marion” of Adam de la Halle, con- sisting of an ordinary pastourelle with songs set to music. Q. In what play did Doris Keane first appear?—E. M. A. Her debut was made at the Gar- rick Theater, New York, in 1903, as Rose in “Whitewashing Julja.” Q. What is the origin of commence- ment?—E. V. B. A. The custom originated in the me- dieval universities, though the appro- priate term was inception. The cere- mony and the term were a part of the inheritance received by Harvard Uni- versity from Cambridge University, thus becoming general among American colleges, Q. Please give a biography of Charles West, new Undersecretary of the In- terior—S. C. A. Born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, on January 12, 1895, Mr. West is the son of William Henry and Clara Kunkel West. He received an A. B. at Ohio Wesleyan University in 1918, A. M. in 1919. At Harvard he was a Carnegie | fellow in 1923 and did graduate work at the University of Naples. He was instructor in political science, College of Wooster, 1920-2; Tufts College, 1923-4; Harvard, 1923-4; professor of political science at Denison University, lecturer on international relations. Vice consul at Naples, 1918-9. Member Seventy- second and Seventy-third Congresses (1931-1935), seventeenth Ohio district. Q. What E W. M A. Either of the wingless migratory crickets, Anabrus simplex and Anabrus purpurescens. They are large, peculiarly shaped crickets which occasionally mul- tiply so greatly in their native home in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains that they migrate to the plains below is a Mormon cricket?— | and destroy the crops. Q. When was the National Council of Catholic Men organized?—N. F. A. This body was established in 1920. Q. What is mescal?—E. R. F. A. Mescal is spineless cactus found in the Southwestern United States and | Northern Mexico and resembling the turnip. The tops, called mescal buttons, grow only a little above the ground and contain a narcotic substance chewed by the Indians. Mescal yields the alka- loids mescaline, pellotine and anholonine, Mescal, or pulque brandy, is an intoxi- cating liquor obtained from the roots | of the mescalmaguey or American aloe. Q. What letters does the Hawailan alphabet contain?—F. S. A. It has only 12 letters. The vowels are a, e, i, 0 and u, and the consonants are h, k, 1. m, n, p and w. Q. How long have educational films been shown in the United States?— W. B. S. A. Among the first educational mo- tion picture productions was the *“Pas- sion Play,” a religious and historical drama filmed in 1898. Its use in re- ligious services by a well-known evan- gelist introduced motion pictures for | purposes of propaganda. “Tearing Down the Spanish Flag” was an historical drama which expired after the Spanish War. Brief pictures of troops taken by camera men during the Spanish War were the prototypes of the news weekly. ‘The news weekly came on the screens in 1910 when Pathe Freres of Paris cir- culated a weekly issue of their Pathe Journal called, in America, the Pathe News. Q. Who invented the magic lantern? —A. L. R. A. It is said to have been invented Q. How high was the Washington | Monument when work on it was halted for 20 years or more?—R. G. D. A. In 1854, when work ceased for lack of funds, 152 feet had been built. Work was resumed in 1880 and the capstone was set on December 6, 1884. Q. Was the Grand Canyon formed by the erosive action of the Colorado River?—M. H. S. A. The Grand Canyon has been worn by the ceaseless flow of the silt-laden Colorado River, by the storm waters that occasionally fall into the canyon, and by weathering processes. The most effective of these agencies has been the river itself. However, it has not directly carved the canyon to its full width, nor cut the embayments that scallop the rims of the plateaus. It has cut its way vertically downward, maintaining its course almost without change. Mean- while, the rocky walls of the canyon have been exposed to the destructive action of rain and rill, of frost and landslide, of wind and chemical action. Q. What is contango day?—W. F. A. It is a day upon which premium or interest is paid by a buyer to a seller in order to be permitted to defer pay- ment of the debt. Q. When the new style calendar was adopted in England and this country what days were skipped?—C. M. A. It was adopted in 1752 and Wed- nesday, September 2, was followed by Thursday, September 14. Eleven days were omitted. Q. What was the occasion of Mark Twain's famous witticism about the report of his death being greatly exag- gerated?—H. L. M. A. According to the book, “Mark Twain: Wit and Wisdom,” edited by Cyril Clemens, the humorist and Mis cousin, Dr. James R. Clemens, were staying at the same hotel in London when the latter became seriously fll. The two Clemenses were confused by the press and a contingent of reporters came to the hotel to get the latest news. So disappointed was one young Ameri- can reporter at not getting a big story that Mark Twain suggested to him that he cable his paper the sentence that mwmm A