Evening Star Newspaper, October 21, 1935, Page 8

THE EVENING STAR With Sunday Morning Edition, WASHINGTON, D. C. MONDAY ..... .October 21, 1935 —_— e THEODORE W. NOYES...........Editor e The Evening Star Newspaper Company. Business Office: 11th st and Pennsylvants Ave, Cmeo Oeo Kake Michissn ice: Lake Pull Turopean Ofmce: 14 Regent 8t.. London. Rate by Carrier Wlthln the City. Regular Edition. ---45¢ per month ---60c per month en -65¢ per month Sunday St —-5¢ per copy Night Final Edition. igh nal Ind Sunday Star....70c per month lehg B Bear e ~65c per month Collection made’ %, each month. Orders may be sent by mail or telephone Na- tional 5000. Rate by Mlll—l’ly:bh in Advance. Maryland lnl Virginl fly and Sunday. $10. aily unly._ Sunday only. All Other States and 3 o0 X .. $12.00; 1 mo., S1, aily tdySunaay--1 35 S33001 1 mo.® 7s¢ Suncay oni_. 5.00i 1 mo. B0c Member of the Associated Press. The Associated Press is exclusively entitle the use for republication of ail news dispatc Siied 10 1L or 0} oD et psiianea m‘,’x’,‘,' o Baper AR a0 e e "6 ‘shetial dispatches herein are also reserved. _—— Ten Days of Grace. Anxious days of European tension and alarm have been succeeded by cooler tempers in Rome, London and Paris. An atmosphere now prevails which mini- mizes, if it does not entirely remove, the danger of Anglo-Italian war, a threat- ened breach between Great Britain and France has been averted, and the way reopened for conciliation in the Italo- Ethiopian conflict. While diplomacy was moving swiftly to avert the supreme crisis of a general conflagration, the League of Nations marched to final mction respecting sanctions. Most significant in these formal steps to stop the war it could not prevent is the League's decision to allow ten days to elapse before actually setting sanc- tions machinery in motion. In effect, 11 Duce is given until October 31 to decide whether Italy should risk finan- cial and economic war with fifty of the world’s nations or avail itself of the opportunity of a negofi'uted peace with Ethiopia. Many indications support the view that statesmanship will continue its efforts to avert the incalculable con- sequences of sanctions, which could lead, in the last analysis, to a blockade of Italy's coasts, a recourse which would almost automatically precipitate war and could only end in Mussolini's downfall. The League has now adopted the fol- lowing punitive program: (1) An em- bargo on shipment of implements of war to Italy, plus the lifting of restrictions on such shipments to Ethiopia; (2) a complete credit boycott of Italy; (3) a *“buy nothing” boycott against all Italian products; (4) refusal of League members to sell to Italy key products required to manufacture war materials, and (5) mutual assistance to League members that suffer from trade stoppage. On October 31 the Geneva Committee, which formulated these sanctions, will decide exactly how and when to put them into force. The League will, meantime, wel- come any communications the United States and other non-members care to make, looking to air-tight sanctions. Unless America, Germany and Japan join in measures to bring Mussolini to his knees, sanctions will be lacking in full effectiveness. President Roosevelt's legal powers in the premises are restricted by the neutrality resolution of Congress. He has already gone far in bringing moral pressure to bear on American busi- ness not to be lured into profitable trade with the belligerents and thus handicap collective efforts to restore peace. The world will wait anxiously to see whether reason descends upon the Palazzo Venezia before it is too late. That Mussolini possesses the sinews for operations in Africa for some time to come is doubtless true. But the Ethi- opians have not yet really begun to fight. Their strategy is to draw the foe farther and farther from his bases into that mountain and jungle terrain, where guerrilla warfare can get in its deadly work. Practically all authorities agree that a campaign completely to subjugate Haile Selassie means months of fighting for Italy. While it is going on, sanctions will be having their strangling effect upon a distracted Italian people. Sooner or later it will be their very existence that will be at stake, and, with it, the life of the Fascist state and of the Mussolini dictatorship. Those are specters designed to give the Roman war lord plenty of heart-searching dur- ing his ten days of grace. ————————— A family quarrel may be less bitter in the home than it becomes between bellicose attorneys trying to settle it in court. The .. 85 . B mo.. & Sales Tax in New Jersey. Gov. Harold G. Hoffman of New Jersey has called a special session of the State Legislature for the purpose of repealing the two per cent retail sales tax. The tax was imposed to raise the funds needed to meet the demands of Harry L. Hopkins, chief spender of the Roose- velt New Deal, for relief in New Jersey. Mr. Hopkins insisted that the State put up $2,000,000 a month in order to re- ceive the contribution for relief from the Federal Government. The retail sales tax is not popular. 1t treads on the toes of the consumers, large and small, and at the same time 1t worries the merchants, who complain that the State will lose $29,000,000 in sales of commodities during the coming Christmas buying. Both the Repub- licans and the Democrats have attacked the tax in their platforms. There is rea- &on, therefore, to expect that the repeal of the cales tax law will follow promptly the meeting of the special legislative session. What is to happen after the repeal of the New Jersey retail sales tax? What 15 Gov. Hoffman to do to find the neces- sary $2,000,000 per month for relief? And what will Mr. Hopkins say? Gov. Hoff- man is a Republican, elected to office 1n 1934, when the country generally was THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, hanging up victories for the Democratic candidates for public office. There is no reason to believe that the adminis- tration will object to any embarrassment that may attach to Gov. Hoffman. Gov. Hoffman has indicated that he will demand a survey of the State gov- ernment to ascertain whether there may not be a curtailment of expenditures, so that funds now otherwise used may be diverted for relief. If that can be done, the New Jersey taxpayers may throw up their hats in joy. It will mean a reduction of their present tax burden. A reduction in State expenditures of $24,000,000 a year, or $2,000,000 & month, may be impossible to accomplish. But the effort would be hailed as a step in the direction of governmental economy. Governmental economy, once upon & a time regarded as meritorious, has been rather forgotten in the last year or two. Government spending on a scale never before tried has been the order of the day. The taxpayers are beginning to worry. Whether they pay in direct or indirect taxes, they are feeling the bur- den more heavily as the months pass. Who is going to pay for the spending program of the Roosevelt administration? That is the question which is forcing itself to the fore as the 1936 campaign approaches. It is an issue that is giving more and more concern to the Demo- crats; an issue that the Republicans and anti-Roosevelt Democrats are planning to interject into the next major engage- ment. The taxpayers in New Jersey are not alone in their apprehension. Adolphus W. Greely. Physical hardships often shorten life and sometimes dull mental powers. Yet the Army, the Capital City, the Nation, in fact all the world which benefits by practical scientific achievement, today mourns the loss of one in whose long, varied and valuable career extreme bodily hazard seemed not only to enhance a natural sinewy strength, but also to serve as a whetstone for a penetrating and logical mind. General Adolphus W. Greely was nur- tured on a bleak New England coast. By heredity and by environment he had the makings of a good farmer or whale- man, a capable school teacher or suc- cessful merchant. The outbreak of the Civil War turned his activities to the paths of war and at the age of seventeen he embarked on nearly two years of continuous field and combat service with the Union Army, interrupted only by convalescences from three wounds. This was the beginning of five decades of bodily activity in the service of his country, almost any one of which in- cluded enough danger and stress to sat- isfy an average robust man. The high- tide of this half-century was the stretch of years spent in the Arctic wastes, an experience calculated to shorten the days of the strongest. Many men, fol- lowing such achievement, would have been content to rest on their laurels. Not so Lieutenant Greely, then of the Regular Army in which he rose, none too rapidly, to the rank of major general and the post of chief signal officer. In that capacity he established and for some time administered the United States Weather Bureau, then an experi- ment, now an essential of national life. His career, marked by frequent lengthy tours of duty and great responsibilities, sometimes in wild regions, went steadily on until his retirement, in 1911. Congress, by special act for the third time in his- tory, voted him the Congressional Medal of Honor, presented with appropriate ceremonies on his ninety-first birthday, last March. 3 General Greely was typical of the best of those pioneers who have brought us our national security and national spirit. He leaves to his descendants a proud heritage and to his fellow coun- trymen an unsullied fame. Spared well beyond his natural time to the Nation he so ably served, he is mourned by a world that admires the ability to see, the will to do, and the possession of ‘all powers required for fullest accomplish- ment. ——————— A biclogy building in a handsome suburban area is resented by neighbors of intellectual and conservative tastes. It might be a proper moment for Prof. Wilbur of California to train his test tubes on an effort to make it easier for the cervical cortex to get into practical relations with the germ plasm. Autumn. Autumn is at its climateric in the neighborhood of Washington. A million trees and twice or thrice as many shrubs combine to make a single picture of color rich and curiously rhythmic. It is as though Nature were a composer, writing & symphony across the skies in tones of gold and red. Surely, mere accident cannot account for the melody of it all. Something more than chance must be the explanation of the circumstance whereby exactly the right—the most beautiful—note is struck in the right place. Crossing the Taft Bridge, for instance, the responsive traveler may look out upon & vista which he would not presume to alter. The valley cut through unnum- bered centuries by Rock Creek is a work of artistic perfection which not even the most gifted of painters could improve. An occasional cynic may scoff, but the multitude, possessing superior faith in the universal miracle of life, detects & providential genius in the spectacle. Elizabeth Browning summed up the gen- instinct when she sang: “Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God.” Let it be conceded that the time which Bryant called “the melancholy days” will come and that “wailing winds” will pun- ish “naked woods and meadows sear,” the harvest nevertheless shall have been reaped, the spirit of man shall have been fortified with glorious memories for the ordeal of Winter. Death, certainly, is a fact which cannot be denied; but is not its antithesis equally important? Neither is utterly final, neither insus- ceptible of change. Spring conquers snow and ice, sets the planet singing again; the human race, innately con- A scious of the victory, joyfully joins in the everlasting song. And the noblest crescendo is that of October, praised by the poets, but no less keenly appreciated by folk who mistakenly suppose them- selves to be only an audience. ‘The democracy of the season, however, need not be argued. It is given to and may be taken by everybody. All that is wanted is a receptive soul, and the number of those so endowed is legion. N Some of the newsstand censors are objecting to college publications that affront the ordinary proprieties without trying to make literary distinctions as to communistic theory and common rub- bish. —_—————— School books may be none the worse for plain, flat definitions of such words as socialism, radicalism, communism and nihilism, with succinct descriptions of how such ideas have worked out in the past. ot ——— A commonplace remark must be analyzed before its expression. It was a pleasant day yesterday—until the re- ports of motor crashes were tabulated and announced. Some phases of warfare will go further back in Ethiopia than even the classic combats on the Mediterranean Sea. War cannot be wholly modernized, even in its killing machinery. ——— e The League of Nations survives and calls attention to Great Britain as a country that has managed to be some- thing of a League of Nations on its own account. ———— Women in politics are now so power- ful that & drawing room tea party may develop events ranking in historic im- portance along with that famous old Boston tea party. ———rwe— Shooting Stars, BY PHILANDER JOHNSON. Melody. Singing'—jes’ singin’ 'bout nuffin’ at all, Like de breeze in de Spring or de wind in de Fall! Like de baby’s sof’ cry when #t puts up its hands To its mammy. ‘Tain’ she understands! Like de notes dat a bird sets adrift on de air Fch no reason at all, 'cept a heart free f'um care— De music most sweet dat dis old world kin make Is d2 singing” dat’s done foh de singin's own sake! & language, but Oh, de horns an’' de drums set you marchin’ so gay, Like a soldier prepared foh a battle some day! An’ de fiddle puts dancin’' right into yoh feet, Or you're fallin’ in love to its melody sweet. But de music dat’s better dan any of dese Is de kind dat you hears f'um de waves an’ de trees, ‘Whar dar’s no showin’ off an’ no hirin’ a hall, But singin'—jes’ singin’, 'bout nothin’ at all. Dodging the Facts. “Have you decided what you will tell your constituents when you get home?” “Yes,” replied Senator Sorghum. “I'm going to tell 'em funny stories exclu- sively, if they will listen to them.” Every time a famous man goes wrong 8 lot of parents wish they had been more careful about naming their children. Dangerous Extremes. Oh, Patience leads us into dreams Of comfort so immense! But when it's carried to extremes 1t looks like indolence. A State of Indignation. - “So you sold that mule for $82" “Yes,” replied Erastus Pinkley. “He kept a-beatin’ me down an’ a-beatin’ me down, till finally I jest sold him de mule at his own price. I didn’ want to miss de chance of de mule’s turnin’ loose an’ kickin’ dat man’s stingy head clean off 'im.” Seclf-esteem is excusable if & man works to earn it instead of being born with it. Always in Season. Oh, you da'sn't shoot a rabbit If the season isn't right. If you have the hunting habit 'You must pause and be polite To the partridge and the pheasant. To the duck you must be nice And particularly pleasant To the bird of paradise. But the creature we are striving Most sincerely to protect Lives, in spite of our contriving, 'Mid suspicion and neglect. Through the world the bands are tooting As we call on strife to cease; Yet some one is always shooting At the poor old Dove of Peace. “Dar ain’ many of us,” said Uncle Eben, “so free from fault dat we can take a chance on de argument dat could start if we tell other people 'bout their'n.” ———————— Symbol of Uncertainty. From the Birmingham (Ala.) Age-Herald. The new potato tax stamps will bear the picture of a woman. Perhaps s & symbol of the way in which the adminis- tration has, for various reasons, changed its mind about the potato law. Motors on Trees. Prom the Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot. New York Chamber of Commerce executive says “machines don’t grow on trees.” On a busy highway they some- times appear to sprout from trees or telegraph poles. 11 Duce’s New Deal, . Prom the Austin (Tex.) American. Mussolini’s idea isn’t new. It's just th! A D. C, THE POLITICAL MILL By G. Gould Lincoln. Senator George W. Norris of Ne- braska is, he expects, to support Presi- dent Roosevelt for re-election. This is not unexpected. The Nebraska Senator, Progressive Republican, has been cred- ited with bringing.President Roosevelt's candidacy for the Democratic presiden- tial nomination favorably before the Progressives more than a year before the President became the choice of the Democratic National Convention in 1932. He told the Progressives, who were meeting in national conference here, “what the country needs is another Roosevelt.” Senator Norris came for- ward to support Roosevelt in 1932 against former President Hoover. * %k x Norris has great influence in Ne- braska. His support of the President in the coming presidential election may have a lot to do with carrying the State for the Democrats on election day next year. He will be for the re-election of Roosevelt because, he insists, the Re- publicans will put forward a presiden- tial nominee unacceptable to the Pro- gressives. He does not see his colleague, Senator Borah of Idaho, as a possibil- ity for the Republican presidential nom- ination. Either, he contends, Borah will be a candidate to succeed himself for the Senate, instead of running for Presi- dent, or he will be turned down by the Republicans in their national conven- tion. The inference is that if the Re- publicans nominated Borah, Norris might support him, although he has not been quoted as saying directly that he would abandon Roosevelt and turn to Borah, even if the Idaho Senator were the G. O. P. nominee. * ok ok x Senator Norris, for years a denouncer of the “power trust,” has given his sup- port in the Senate to President Roose« velt's Tennessee Valley Authority leg- islation and to the act to control hold« ing compapies in the public utility busie ness. He enthusiastically gave his ape proval to the T. V. A. plan when it was first launched. Jndeed, he may have had much to do with inspiring the whole project. So, therefore, it was to be ex- pected that the Nebraska Senator would be found supporting Roosevelt for re- election next year. * k% To Senator Norris, the Roosevelt ad- ministration has a liability in the shape of Postmaster General James A. Farley. Farley is chairman of the Democratic National Committee and has been the President’s chief political general since long before he entered office. Norris is a stickler for merit, and not politicg, in appointment to governmental office. He does not believe that a chairman of a political party should have a place in a President's cabinet. He has gone gunning for Farley often in the past. But Mr. Farley has hung on to both jobs. Generally it is expected that Mr. Farley will quit the cabinet as soon as the campaign for delegates to the next Democratic national convention gets officially under way. Probably early next year. He will give, then, all his time to the re-election of President Roosevelt. So the administration’s liability from the point of view of Senator Norris will have been to some extent removed. * * k% The appointment of Senator Joseph W. Guffey of Pennsylvania to be chair- man of the Democratic Senatorial Cam- paign Committee will be announced this week. The selection of the chairman is made by the party leader, Senator Rob- inson of Arkansas. During the sena- torial campaign of 1934 Senator James Hamilton Lewis of Illinois served as chairman of the committee. Senator Lewis is up for re-election himself this coming year, and for that reason will be relieved of conducting the general campaign for Democratic Senators. Senator Guffey, the first Democratic Senator from Pennsylvania to be elected in some seventy years, is serving his first term. He has, however, already sprung into prominence as the sponsor of the administration’s coal act—for the soft coal industry, and that measure is known as the Guffey coal act. The contest for control of the New York State Assembly, which will cul- minate in election November 5, is being fought with the utmost intensity. The Republicans are out to win a majority of the Assembly, to recapture the As- sembly from the Democrats. New York is President Roosevelt's home State. It has a greater number of electoral votes for President than any other State. It is, indeed, a political prize worth having in a presidential race, although it has not always carried national victory with it on election day. For example, Chief Justice Hughes in 1916 won in New York State, but lost in the Nation to the late President Woodrow Wilson. * *x X X What New York ddes in the coming Assembly election will be interpreted as indicating the swing of political senti- ment for the presidential election. The Republicans have sought in the present campaign to bring the Roosevelt admin- istration into the picture as much as possible; to make the issue national as well as State. The Democrats, on the other hand, have tried to confine the fight to State issues, with the record of Gov. Lehman as the main issue. Both sides are claiming victory. The Repub- licans have been particularly active, sending a caravan into many sections of the State. They insist that they will elect at least 80 out of the 150 members of the Assembly. The Democrats deny this flatly and do not concede the Re- publicans a seat now held by the Demo- crats. * %k x > As 4 sign of the great interest which the people are taking in politics these days, the registration throughout New York State has risen sharply this year. The Republicans read into this a sign that the people are up in arms against the Democrats. The Democrats last year had 77 seats in the Assembly to 73 for the Republicans. Now, the increase in registration this year, particularly in Upstate New York, may mean a swing back to the G. O. P, or it may not. The registration it will 'be remembered in- creased very greatly in 1934 in a nume bes of places outside of New York State, but the results were not favorable to the Republican party. —_————— ‘World Average Maintained. Prom the Boston Transcript. No sooner have London and New York started anti-noise campaigns than the war breaks out in Africa. It looks as if the sum total of human’ sound was under mystic control, and always stayed the same. Just Another Princelet. Prom the New York Sun. It must irk King George’s new grand- son to learn that he is seventh in line of succession at a time when most new ‘babies meet with no competition in the family. A Recreant Scot. From the Grand Rapids Press. A has invented a bagpipe whtch%hm plugged into a light socket. m 1t is said that necessity 1s the mother of invention. MONDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1935. THIS AND THAT BY CHARLES E. TRACEJELL. Can any one under 40 years of age be said to possess a definite and wholly formed signature? It is doubtful. Those who haveimade a habit of writ- ing their name in newly purchased books over a long period of years will know this btter than most. The popular idea, we believe, is that one’s signature is fully formed at about the legal age. One ought to be able to write easily by that time certainly, and one almost always can, but that is not to say that the ordinary signature does not change thereafter. . As a matter of fact, each one of us has two ordinary signatures, one written in the fast tempo and the other in the slow or formal. Each of these differs. What greater perfection in letter formation is achieved by writing slow and taking “pains,” as children say, is more than made up for by the greater character shown in the speedier or informal signature. e ‘The habit of writing one’s name in the fiyleaf of every book purchased, along with the date, at least month and year, is an excellent one to form. It recalls so many things later! It shows the progress of signature formation in a way than is inescapable, provided the spectator is able to assess | his changes at their true value. There will be nothing really startling, of course. Drastic changes were made and un- | made a dozen times before the subject became 18 years of age. Every one recalls them, some of them absurd, others no more than queer spell- | ing of usual names. The good name Edward, for instance, became Edouard, as one came under the spell of French for the first time. The first name was abbreviated, the second spelled out; sometimes the order was reversed. One took great liberties with one's name, because it made no difference. Perhaps the first sign of an inferiority complex in many a life has been the desire to use initials rather than the com- plete name all spelled out. These, and many another change, all are revealed as one looks back over the signatures in one’s books. * % x % There is a more subtle change, how- ever, than any of these. It has to do with the formation of the letters themselves. child had no standing at all in educa- tional circles. No doubt it was the fact that, to all who used the right hand— and this ‘included teacher—he seemed to push his signature into being rather than let the pen trail away from it. The real crime was not in usirg the left hand in writing, but in forcing a normally left-handed person to write with the right hand, whether or no. Thousands of persons thus had their writing wrecked, to no good purpose, and certainly to no gain of any one. * oK ok ok It takes between 30 and 40 years to mature a signature. Since few persons, even newadays, begin to write seriously until about 6 years old, it may be real- ized that the age of 40 years is as near a theoretical one as possible for the com= pletion of a signature. All during this period, of course, the signature may seem remarkably the same to the casual observer. Not to the owner, however. Not to the writer. Not to the maker. He sees the slight differences surely. It may be nothing more than the failure to close up the tops of such letters as “0” and “a.” It is very rarely that & signature matures by ‘closing such letters. The usual maturing of a signature is made sure by these apparently careless strokes, these little discrepancies between the perfect handwriting of the copy books and the signature of the prime | of life. * x o x This may show the real lack of sym- pathy that most persons, as children, had with the desire of pedagogues to compel as perfect handwriting as possible. They sensed, more perfectly than the authorities, the fact that in an imperfect hand, rather than a so-called copper plate one, lay the possibility of attaining a signature which would at one and the same time be legible and packed with the inner character of the writer. There is a vast gulf between this sort of good signature and the illegible mess | of hen scratches which often does duty | | on a check. Some famous men have been addicted to the latter. Therefore it cannot be said | that to write a good hand means any- | thing in itself or that to write a very The man is more than | poor one, either. his signature. That there is a relation, however, be- | tween the penman and his penmanship | has long been believed and some have | gone to the extent of working the thing | It is not much of a change, from year | to year, but a sure one. Perhaps it con- centrates in the capital letters. Many an otherwise good signature flounders ' on them. One way to solve this is to print the capitals. Some people do this who do not realize it. They still retain enough of their old penmanship to disguise what they have done. Really they print, once regarded as a penmanship crime. It is probable that not as much stress is placed on penmanship today as in the old times, when many hours were used up in writing and rewriting the same sentence in the “copy book.” use the left hand. In the old days chil- | dren were forced to use the right, whelher right-handed or not. The left-handed WASHINGTON out to a science of a sort. Most of us will be willing to be con- nature ought to be legible, but beyond that ought to portray the person who makes it. not plain, perhaps. A signature is a growth, much as a human body is. It comes in time to a form in which it is at its best. Thereafter it changes little, being partly mental, and therefore scarcely subject to the ordinary hazards of the physical life. If handwriting is indicative of inner character, it is a pretty sure thing that it changes little after 35 or 40 years. Up until then it is in formation. After that—who knows? 1 e * | Certainly not the person whose books We believe it is no longer a crime to | o have been collected over no longer period. | All he can say is that he believes his signature formed for all time. Time alone will show. OBSERVATIONS BY FREDERIC WILLIAM WILE. On returning from periodical vaca- tions President Roosevelt has seldom faced problems so momentous as those awaiting him at the White House this week. and domestic gravity are to the fore. ‘The task of keeping the United States “unentangled and free” amid threaten- ing conflict in Europe is the question to which F. D. R. will address himse'f first and as long as necessary to sate- guard our stay-out-of-war policy. If the Italo-Ethiopian scrap remains localized the danger of our involvement is not acute. Trouble would immediately arise if Great Britain and Italy were to fight, with the practical certainty that nearly all Europe would be drawn in. It is then that such trials and tribulations as confronted Uncle Sam in World War neutrality days would automatically bob up. It could not be long before the “freedom of the seas” would agan be- come a live issue, on which we would sooner or later have to take a s‘and. * ok % X If troubled international waters are sufficiently calm to permit him to con- centrate on the home front, the Presi- dent will probably devote himself pretty intensively to the unemployment prob- lem. Having consistently fixed Novem- ber 1 as the date by which 3,500,000 men would be re-employed, it must be a grievous disappointment to Mr. Roose- velt to realize that the actual total, at the end of last week, was more than 2,000,000 short of the goal. Perhaps while Work Progress Administrator Hop- kins and Secretary Ickes were sunning themselves under Southern Pacific skies they and the President evolved some magical plan for hitting up the pace. It comes as a shock to the country to dis- cover that the jobless army has not been curtailed at a more rapid rate since Congress voted $4,800,000,000 for work felief last Spring. Unless methods are devised for providing jobs on a scale hitherto not faintly approached, it will be nearer January 1 than November 1 before the bulk of the projected 3,500,- 000 jobs is filled. New York City is the banner W. P. A. community, with 200,- 610 at work. This is more than are similarly employed in any one of the States, the second largest number being 61991 in Indiana. Manhattan’s record was achieved under Gen. Johnson's re- cent regime there. * ok ok X Now that the master of the New Deal has completed his first pre-election swing around the circle, political diag- nosticians are assessing its probable re- sults. There seems fair agreement that Mr. Roosevelt found his fences in the West, especially in farn regions, in good shape. Cash bounties and higher prices for produce have distributed prosperity over wide areas of the open spaces, and voters are both affluent and grateful. Exceptions are encountered among business men, who are in a state of grow- ing apprehension over Federal expendi= ture and fear an era of oppressive taxa- tion when the bills have to be paid. The net of the President’s expedition through the West is that Democratic leaders feel he will be invincible there in 1936 and that their real fight will be to retain the Eastern industrial strongholds captured jn 1932. * K kX Another comforting conclusion to which the Rooseveltians have come is that the third-party menace is as good as dead. With neither the La Follette Progressives nor any combination repre- senting Long-Coughlin-Townsend-Sin- clair adherents showing any sign of tak- ing the national field, the Deniocrats now look for an old-fashioned two-party knock-down and drag-out with the Re- publicans. Nobody takes seriously the possibility that Gov. Talmadge of Geor- Matters of both international | gia might project himself as an inde- pendent candidate. The prospect that conservative Democrats might nominate an anti-Roosevelt ticket is coming to be regarded as equally slim. o Growing emphasis on New Deal ex- penditure as the Republicans’ key issue limelights Gov. Landon's chances of bagging the G. O. P. nomination. idge” at Topeka qualifies him more idgally than other Republican favorite | sons to personify the waste and ex- | the | travagance indictment against Roosevelt administration. Commissioner Moses observed in New York the other | day that it looks as if the elephant might turn to “another Coolidge” in 1936. The Kansan's friends say that sounds like a Landon boom in what tBn'an used to call the “enemy’s coun- * k kX About the first cold water dashed-on administratior. hopes that American business would refrain from trading with belligerents is the announcement of the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, through President Walter C. Teagle, that it sees no reason, under existing conditions, to stop sales to Mussolini. A subsidiary of the Standard in Italy has been marketing the company’s products for more than 40 years. The oil indus- try’s position apparently is that so long as there is nc definite objection on the part of the United States Government it showd continue to trade with Italy in the regular way. Although the neu- trality resolution of Congress places a mandatory embargo only upon articles “considered implements of war,” most authorities believe that House and Sen- ate would not object if the President were to proclaim that oil and other “ar- ticles” vital to military operations are battle implements. * X ok % As Navy day, October 27, falls this year on a Sunday, it will be officially cele- brated on Monday, October 28, through- out the United States Navy, afloat and ashore, and by other organizations which customarily commemorate Theodore Roosevelt's birth, 77 years ago. Navy day 1935, finds shipbuilding in most yards at near wartime peak, due to plans for completing the treaty navy by 1942. Speaking of the Navy, the 1935 Princeton foot ball team boasts a fleet- footed left end named John Paul Jones. * x x % American oceangoers are apparently taking President Roosevelt’s hint to keep off belligerent ships. Rex, queen of Mus- solini’s trans-Atlantic fleet, has just left New York with 350 pussenzers, as against about 600 on the corresponding sailing a year ago. * ok ok ox Washington newspaper men are much interestedein the candidacy of 33-year- old Henry Cabot Lodge, II, for the Re- ‘publican senatorial nomination in Mas- sachusetts. He was a popular member of the Capital press gallery between 1928 and 1932 and revealed the ancestral flair for high politics. In accepting an in- vitation to seek the senatorial nomina- tion, Mr. Lodge recites that he believes his journalistic career in Washington, together with his experience as a mem- ber of the Massachusetts House, would enable him to be of service to the peo- ple of the State. (Copyright. 1935.) —_—————————— All Running. From the Lowell (Mass,) Evening Leader. And as somebody suggests, if political candidacies continue to multiply, we shall soon reach the time when nobody will remain to sign the nomination papers. Just how this is achieved is | The | economy record of the “Kansas Cool- | | private information; " ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS By Frederic J. Haskin. A reader can get the answer to 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. What is the enlisted strength of the United States Navy?>—C. E. L. A. As of September 11, 1935, thera were 9,672 officers and 84,277 enlisted men. Q. How long was a round in a prize fight under the London prize ring rules?—M. W. M. A. A round ended as soon as a man was knocked down or slipped; thus a round might last a few seconds or many minutes. Q. How many living college graduates are there in the United States>—A. N, A. There are about 2,000,000 Q. Is there any salt content in the water of the Potomac at Washington?— N. D. A. The tidal reach of the Potomac River extends to Chain Bridge at Wash- ington, a distance of 117 miles. Salt water extends to Maryland Point, 61 miles above the mouth. The extreme point at which brackishness has been observed is near Indianhead, Md., about 24 miles below Washington. of the Sun in Judge Priest stories?— Q. Who was Malley Irving Cobb’'s E. H. "A. Prank Ward O'Malley, who died in 1932, was the original of Malley of the Sun. Q. How many feet of motion pictures did the last Byrd Expedition make?— W. M. A. During its stay in the Antarctic the Byrd Expedition obtained 100,000 | feet of film. Q. Why is glass often cut under water?—J. V. R. A. The vibration is less than in the air and the glass is therefore less likely to crack. Q. How much does the average bane tam fowl weigh?—S. M. A. About one pound. Q. Has the daisy any significance in tent with the plain feeling that a sig- | art’—J. H. A. The daisy was the flower of ine nocence in religious painting. Q. Was the authorship of Stephen Foster's “Old Folks at Home” ever quese tioned?’—E. R A. The claim to authorship of the song was sold by Foster to Edwin P, Chrisf organizer and manager of Christy’s Minstrels. On the title page of the first edition (published by Firth, Pond & Co., New York, in 1851) appears the tollowing statement: “Written and composed by E. P. Christy.” Q. Please define life—J. S A. No single definition of the term | life has been generally accepted by biolo= gists or philosophers. According to De Blainville, “Life is the twofold internal movement of composition and decompo= sition, at once general and continuous.” Lewes defines it as “a series of definite and successive changes, both of structure and composition, which takes place withe in an individual without destroying its identity.” Q. Did Gilbert and Sullivan write an opera called “The Peer and the Peri?"— A. “Tolanthe,” or “The Peer and the Peri,” was written by Gilbert and Sulli- van and had its premiere in 1882. Q. What is another name for jerked beef?—D. K. A. Beef preserved by drying in the sun is properly called charqui, being of Chilean origin. Q. When was the first Du Pont powder factory started in this country?—V. B. A. In 1802 the first American powder factory under the name of du Pont came ipto being. The Du Pont family had been prominent in philosophical ~ and radical circles which had prepared the way for the French Revolution and barely escaped death when the Extrem- ists prevailed. Among the early friends of the family in the United States was Thomas Jefferson. He wrote the young powder manufacturer as follows: “It is with great pleasure I inform you that it is concluded to be for the public interest to apply to your establishment for whatever can be had from that for the use either of the naval or military department. The present is for your you will know it officially by application from those de- partments whenever their wants may call for them. Accept my friendly salu- tations and assurances of esteem and respect. (Signed) Thomas Jefferson.” Q. Who was Oenone?—F. H. R. A. In Greek legend she was a nymph whom Paris loved before he met Helen. ‘When Paris was wounded in the Trojan War he asked her to heal him, but she refused. Later, on hearing that he was dead, she killed herself. r—————————— A Rhyme at Twilight By Gertrude Brooke Hamilton Addition to His Kennel In a street of finance at the end of the day Where homegoers waited within a door= way For their often-belated automobiles A nondescnpt puppy sniffed at their ‘The pup. m the nonce, was a topic of mirth In genial converse that gave him no ber Without tag or leash, without grooming or car, Just good for a jest or two, far below par. It happened a nabob whom most of them knew ‘Was famed for his pride in the moment came thru The group in the doorway; with nod here and there, That weighed to the fullest each envious stare, He entered his car, flanked by liveried man— Nor did his face change when the stray mongrel ran And jumped on the running board, with no defense For the laughter evoked at the nabob's expense. The chaufleur stood ready to do the pup But the master could summon a smile of rare charm. And to the chagrin of the gentlemen gay, With the dog unmolested—he drove on