Evening Star Newspaper, January 10, 1937, Page 29

INDIVIDUALISM RESTORED BY REFORMS OF NEW DEAL Resign in Private BY MARK SULLIVAN. E HAVE had Mr. Roosevelt's message on the state of the | Union. And we have had | from many experts the | turn-of-the-year summaries of condi- | tions. Yet there is one not much noticed incident that constitutes a landmark. The year-end saw the resignation of | several members of the administration. One, a lawyer, gave his reason—I sum- marize & newspaper account: “He 1si resigning simply because he has been | in Government service for nearly four | years and believes that under our cur- rent conditions of business and com- | munity life it is inadvisable to remain longer out of direct professional work.” ‘The same reason, it is assumed, lies behind practically all the resignations. What can we infer from this? First, that America is going to continue to be & country of individual enterprise, of private ownership and of business for profit. Had there been any expectation | that the Roosevelt administration is going to take America into a different | order of soclety, these men would not have resigned; they would have re- mained to direct the new order. Clearly Prof. Tugwell,” for example, Wwhose writings seem strongly to suggest belief in collectivism, would have kept his post had he thought America W going to become a collectivist count; for if collectivism were to come, Dr. ‘Tugwell would have been close to being the directing head of it. In another way the resignations of these New Dealers are convincing on the same point. They go out into private business because they believe private business is going to continue to be the backbone of American life. They believe | that there will continue to be abundant opportunity for the able and energetic to acquire private competence. They | not only think individualism will con- | tinue; they think it will provide op- portunities as good as ever before. There have been other resignations from the Roosevelt administration, important ones—Director of the Bud- get Lewis Douglass, and at least five fiscal officials. Those past resigna- tions came because the resigners felt | Mr. Roosevelt's policies, at that time, ! were taking America toward a changed order of society. The present group of resignations come from a precisely ‘opposite cause—these men resign now because they are confident America 1s going to continue to be an individ- ualistic society. Collectivism Vanishes. The dream of collectivism has van- fshed. To what extent it ever existed | will not be known accurately for years, | not until private diaries and letters | are made public. Without doubt there | was a good deal of it during the early days of the Roosevelt administration. | At the time Mr. Roosévelt took office the individualist order of society was at the lowest ebb America has ever | seen. It was at the lowest ebb in America, and it was at the lowest ebb | in the world. One great country, Rus- | sia, had abandoned individualism ut- terly, had treated it as odious, had determined to extirpate it not only in Russia but in the world. Two other countries, Italy and Germany, while purporting to keep individualism, had adopted forms of seciety and govern- ment which ultimately, if they go on, would destroy free enterprise and pri- | vate ownership as completely as Rus- sia. These experiments had supporters in America. To the effect of the ex- amples in Europe was added the fact that we were in the worst depression in our history. Millions were unem- ployed. Scores of our institutions, especially banks, had broken down. Another group of institutions, life in- surance companies, had been obliged to ?e(ault partially on one of their| obligations, their undertaking to loan or pay to policy-holders the cash val- ues of their policies. The conditions that caused this paralysis were in-| creasing. Credit was continuing to | hrink. During part at least of 1932, | &1095 of commodities and securities had continued to fall. But it is not necessary to reproduce | the picture. It was a common say-| ing that the capitalist system had | broken down. Some thought it hnd‘ gone forever, that restoration of it| ‘was impossible. Future historians will | get some amusement out of quoting the predictions—not merely predic- ation of Roosevelt Advisers Indi- cates They Believe in Opportunities | ment, some close to Mr. | that during the 1920s odious barnacles had attached them- ! selves to the capitalist system. They Business. tions, but confident assertions of ex- isting fact—by many persons, some having high leadership in various lines, to the effect that capitalism was dead. To what extent was there, within the Roosevelt administration, con- scious intention to take America into & new order? Some in the Govern- Roosevelt, hated the capitalist system, were de- termined to get rid of it. They opposed it aggressively, even if not always openly. Russian experiment and eager to duplicate it, with modifications, here. Othere had an attitude which as- sumed that the old system was cer- tain to die; and that, therefore, there was no harm in giving it a kick. They really felt they were doing a useful service in poineering toward the new. There were others in the admin- | stration—and these were the abler and more stable—who had a different view. They had no intention beyond | rescuing the individualist system | from its debacle, curing it, improving | it and sending it again on its way. These were the ones who prevailed. They were as devoted to the individual- | ist system as anybody else, and more | | intelligently devoted than many busi- ness men who were supposed to be the high priests of the system. They knew and before, | knew that if capitalism were left free | ! to indulge in its own excesses, it would | bring about its own death. From these | ! came the New Deal legislation that | aimed merely to reform the old sys- | tem, not to destroy it. These are the | reforms which, with modifications, will remain. The innovations which were designed to bring about a new order will slough away. Some already have, ‘We have moved beyond the point where we need to apprehend any at- | tempt to take America into a new order by any direct, premeditated | process. The danger of lapse into one of the European experiments by thl!j means is past. Danger Still Remains. | There still remains a danger. If we should have inflation and if it should be extreme enough it would come to a climax in violent economic | dislocations. After that would come collapse and depression. The process | would follow much the same lines as | the boom and collapse of 1929. But | such a development following a period of extreme inflation would be much more calamitous than what happened | seven years ago. Extreme inflation, | to a level of prices much higher and more disorderly than in 1929, followed by a collapse from the height, would bring more than a duplication of the depression of 1928-1933. It would mean real chaos; and out of that chaos would come anew, and in a more formidable way. the incentive for abandonment of the capitalist system. | Shall we escape inflation? Probably. I have written as if the restoration of | the capitalist system that has taken place was the work of intelligent in- dividvals. Largely it was. But much | more it was the work of the curative processes of nature. Yet more it was | a fruit of qualities inherent in the | American people. These same quali- | ties should save us from violent in- flation. | It is necessary to remember, of course, that to some extent we do not wholly control our own destiny. To| some degree we are at the mercy of what may happen in Europe. If in| Europe there should be a great war, | and whether we are drawn into it or | not, it would make inflation in Amer- | ica difficult to avoid. The national | debt we have built up is not at all | beyond our power to bear. But if, on i top of this, we should be obliged to do more borrow:ng on a large scal | whether caused by war or otherwis if to our present national debt there | should now be added as much as we | borrowed to carry on in the Great | War—in that event we should have | extreme inflation most certainly. | In any event, the thing for the pru- | dent to watch during 1937 is inflation. | Along that line lies our most serious | danger; indeed, almost our only| danger, for in other respects America | is favored by many wholesome and curative conditions which are at work in rising volume. (Copyright, 1937.) Tension Is Eased in BY A. G. GARDINER, England's Greatest Liberal Edifor. | ONDON.—There is always & | I tendenrf to be sanguine at the opening! of a new year. Cer- | tainly there is a noticeable rise | in the barometer of public feeling since the dramatic weeks before | Christmas. It may in part be due to | the reaction from the strain and emo- | tion of those weeks and the sense of | recovered stability in the institutions | of the country. But I think it is due | also to some slackening in the tension of the European situation. That situation is still grave and in- calculable, and the view that the new | year on which we have embarked will | go far to decide the issue of peace or | war is commonplace in political cir- | cles. But certain considerations are emerging into prominence that en- | courage a more cheerful tempo. No Nation Wants War. The first of these is the success of the sanitary cordon that has been drawn around the Spanish volcano. Buccess may seem to be an excessive epithet to use in that connection. It 1s notorious that the non-intervention agreement has been largely an im- posture. It has been violated in fact, 1f not in form, by Germany and Italy, by Russia and by France. If the ac- tions of Italy have been most flagrant and have come most nearly to blowing the agreement to the winds, those of the rest have been sufficiently palpable to have wrecked the facade if there had been a disposition in any quarter to wreck it. But there has not been. ‘That in itself is significant of the temper of Europe. No great nation wants war. All fear war. And the value of the non- intervention agreement is that it has revealed this fact nakedly to all the principals concerned. In revealing it, it has preserved the peace of Europe, isolated the Spanish tragedy and given a working model of how future emergencies may be controlled. ‘There is a feeling, too, that events in Spain itself have relieved the sit- uation. The prolonged resistance of Madrid has cooled the ardor of the Fascist powers in sympathy with the rebels, and, in the light of that re- sistance and all that it implies, the basty recognition of the Franco 4 Europe as Nations Put Faith in Armaments to Keep Peace junta by Germany and Italy is seen | to have been the worst kind of blun- der—a dud shell that, in failing to | explode, has discredited its authors. Further, there is observable a less flamboyant mood both in Germany | and Italy. The economic position of | both countries is severely strained and | the gravity of the food position in | Germany, however lamentable in it- self, is taken as an evidence that any- | thing like provocative action from that quarter in the immediate future | is unlikely. Eden Clears Situation, And relations with Italy have un- dergone a marked change since Mr. Eden’s firm declaration in rega: the freedom of the Mediterranean and the integrity of the Spanish realm, ! in which the future of Majorca is so | deeply involved. This declaration has been so emphatically indorsed by France, whose Mediterranean interests are as great as those of Britain or Italy, that the sky is felt to be much clearer in that vital quarter and an accommodation with Mussolini is well advanced. But by far the most important fac- tor in the more hopeful outlook is the increased security which is felt as the result of the rearmament scheme now in progress. That scheme is being carried out with the practical unan- imity of all parties in the state, for the opposition of Labor is so half- hearted as to be negligible. This solid natural front in the presence of real danger has restored confidence, and as with every day the defensive posi- tion of the country is strengthened public anxiety diminishes, and the authority of Britain in the cause of European peace is visibly enhanced. And in the background of the mind looms; another potent influence for that gause. In spite’of its detachment frony the political affairs' of Europe, the moral weight of America in those affairs is overwhelming. How that weight will be exercised rests with the President, fresh from his victory at the polls and from his task of con- solidating internal peace on the Amer- ican continent. But that it will be exercised is assumed as one of the dominant potentialities in the events of the momentous year on which we have embarked. (Copyright, 193%.) Some were enamored of the | A | fifteen years ago. But after traveling THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON D. C, JANUARY 10, 1937—PART TW Is India Going Modern? Outwardly She Seems to Be, But Ancient Philosophies and TYPICAL MARKET SCi IN INDIA. BY F. YEATS-BROWN. Author of “The Lives of a Bengall Lancer.” Etc. 2 NY man who dogmatizes about India must be foolish, or in- sincere: the country is too big for generalizations. For instance, I was told that I would find great changes since I was there last, 20,000 miles from Karachi to Calcutta, and from Swat in the far north to Cape Comorin in the extreme south, I came to the conclusion that the changes were only on the surface, and had not affected the real inner life of the people. Outwardly, of course, wireless, motor | busses, electricity and so on must change the rhythm of men’s lives,| and they have changed it in India— but only superficially: the world of appearances is not the world that| matters in this old country which is the mother, or at least the grand- | mother, of all the philcsophies of our Western world. Below the Western | tide of progress the old faiths and the | old customs flow on, shifting their channels a little here and there, but | essentially unchanged and unchecked, as constant as the rivers of Hindu- stan. My purpose in revisiting India was to look below appearances, as far as I might: I came as & student rather | than a sightseer, to explore not the tourist centers but the intellectual outposts of these philosophers who are the inheritors of the Yoga systems. As a subaltern officer in the Bengal | 30 years ago, and I have continued ever since, so far as much traveling, a certain tendency to frivolity and the fogs of London have permitted me. I am not and never shall be an adept of Eastern mysticism, but I‘ know many of its professors, and I| have had a long practical experience | of its teachings. Therefore, interpreter I am not without some qualifications. Impact of Alien Culture. But what is Yoga? How does it compare with those paths to reality which Christendom has followed through the devotion of a Saint Fran- cis or the ecstasies of a Santa Teresa? All mysticism has the same object— union with the Divine Life; but there are as many methods as there are races of mankind. In the East, and | especially in India, the path is better | peiq at Buenos Adres. charted and signposted than it is in the West. There is a kind of physical mysticism (Hatha Yoga) concerned with postures, movements, breathings and relaxation, which has been my | special interest for many years. How far can these practices be adapted to the increasing nervous stresses of modern life in Europe and America? How is India adapting herself to the impact of an alien culture, and what contribution can she make to it out of her ancient wisdom? | Such were the aims of my inquiry. | In their pursuit I traveled far in time | as well as space, finding myself at one moment in the Stone Age, and at another in the twentieth century . . . I found & land of contrasts, of rags | and romance, of high philosophies | and bestialities past belief, of exquisite | culture, and of simplicity stripped to the buff. . . | 1 left London by air in the cold fog of the last day of 1935, and soon found myself sweltering in the sun- shine of Allahabad, among two million Hindus who were attending a festival | which was ancient when we in Eng- | land were dancing round Druidic | altars. | These two million Hindus (the! largest gathering of human beings | that assembles anywhere on the face of the earth) had come from all parts of India to bathe at the junction of the Ganges and Jumna at the moment when Jupiter enters the sign of Aquar- | jus, at 8 am. on January 24. Every twelfth year the festival is even bigger. I have seen many religious pageants, in many parts of the world, but never such a procession as that which passed before my eyes this morning. Police Keep Path Clear. The route is lined eight deep with serried ranks of peasants and sight- seers, largely women. Police keep the path clear from the junction of the rivers to the Fort. First come girl Yogis, dressed in saffron robes, with garlands of white blossoms for Mother Ganges. Some of these women lead lives as pure as any lives could be; others are dedicated to Kamg, ‘he god of love, and follow paths which to us would seem very far from sanct- ity. But who are we to criticize? I am a European. My ancestors were barbarians when these people pro- pounded some of the subtlest philoso- phies that have been evolved by the brain of man. Behind these young priestesses walks a tall elephant, carrying & man who is wearing nothing but a wreath of flowers and gold-rimmed spectacles. Following him comes a mounted band of fife and drums, and then the bhaira- gis—five hundred absolutely naked men—carrying little bags of wood-ash with which to powder themselves after bathing. ‘The bhairagis are s curious sect, numbering some ailiions, and scat- | would not be able now to spea Customs Have Not Changed. WOMEN MARCH IN FREEDOM PARADE. tered throughout all Central India. They are nudists by religiouS convic- tion. The police insist that they shall wear a codpiece at ordinary times. But today, following immemorial cus- | Lancers I began to learn Yoga nearly | tom, they go down to the sacred junction of the rivers naked as they were born. Following the bhairagis come more women Yogis., then dancers, camels, elephants, a group of priests. These latter, with their domed heads and MORAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFITS SEEN IN PARLEY Dawn of Truly New Erain Pan American Relations Achieved at Buenos Aires in Spite of Criticism. BY GASTON NERVAL. S IN everything else, there are two extreme views in judging the merits of the Pan-Ameri- can Peace Conference recently of the incurable optimists who look at things superficially and either ig- nore, or profess to ignore, the subjec- One is that | tion of politics to the hard realities | of economics. They seem to think that, overnight, all the problems and | ills of inter-American relations have been eliminated, to leave only a blissful atmosphere of good-will and co-opera- tion in which nothing will ever again disrupt the mutual respect and com- | economic, political and social aspects of pan-Americanism. It is true that, so far, they have been discouragingly slow in doing it, but that should not be invoked to discredit the one at Buenos Aires, which had a definite purpose in view and was, moreover, called to order under widely different circumstances. The purpose of the Buenos Aires parley was to co-ordinate and improve | the West to their own natural dis- | the machinery for the preservation of international peace .in the Ameri- can continent. The mere enumeration of the new | instruments for joint consultation in mon assistance the American repub- | e | conflicts, & common opposition to in- lics have pledged one another. The other, that of the pessimists who refuse to let facts interfere with their professional skepticism and for the sake of it are willing to minimize accomplishments and grossly exag- gerate shortcomings, is that the con- ference, not having obtained all the impossible things which the former group claims it has, was a dismal failure. Somewhere between these two ex- treme views lies the reasonable and common-sense attitude as to the meaning and results of the Buenos sald before; was in expecting too much. If certain imaginative persons had not indulged, even before the conference convened, in fanciful predictions of the arrival of the pan-American mil- lenium, the so-called “realistic” critics visionary failures. And, by the way, ealism which deals in absolutes is not realism at all. Confusion of Suggestions. Although the intention was sound— to avoid the suspicion of dictation from Washington—perhaps the fact that the foreign, offices of all the American republics were invited to contribute whatever suggestions they |had in mind to the original agenda of the conference, had something to do with that confusion of purposes. With characteristic. Latin idealism, some of the Southern statesmen came out with all sorts of ambitious projects, ranging all the way from close cus- toms unions to an air-tight confeder: tion of American states. When, na urally enough, some of these well- meaning, but, under present circum- stances, utterly utopian proposals wei shelved at Buenos Aires, the “realists, though they themselves never had be- lieved in such day-dreams, were given food for their criticism of the confer- ence’s fruits. Such criticism, as well as the child- ish self-satisfaction of the extremists on the other end, are easily explained away, however, by judging the achieve- ments of the Buenos Aires parley in the light of what was really expected of it. The very name of the as- sembly, the Pan-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace, limited its scope. There are other periodical international eonferences of American states intended to deal with various of | | themselves never expected of it. case of war or threat of war, a com- mon neutrality policy in American tervention in domestic affairs and|8nd another was dressed in a gold | mutual assistance in the event of non- | Material that shimmered and changed | American aggression should suffice to | €0lor 8s she walked—were thoroughly | answer that question. Each one is a definite step forward and merits sepa- rate and detailed consideration in|they did not attempt to look like | subsequent articles. Some Shortcomings. In order, however, to complete the picture, let us, before analyzing the accomplishments, point out the short- comings. The Buenos Aires parley did, of course, have some shortcom- ings, but they were not, as we stressed Aires conference. The fault, as wes 1ast Week, the failure to line up Latin America behind the United States’ neutrality policy toward Europea wars, or the failure to establish a | economic union, or the failure to set up a continental league of nations, or the failure to do many other things which the members of the conference The only shortcomings which can be at- tributed to the Buenos Aires meeting are those which fell within its sphere of action, those which it could have possibly avoided, not those which were far beyond its own limitations. Among such, and because of the grave and constant menace it repre- sents, must be mentioned in first place the inability of the Buenos Aires con- ference to press for a definite solu- tion of the Chaco controversy, which only recently cost the lives of over a hundred thousand Bolivians and Par- aguayans in a bitter three-year armed struggle. The self-interest and responsibility in the attainment of that solution of any international or- ganization which is trying to establish the peace of the American continent | on solid bases is only too obvious. As long as this major conflict between two of the American nations is al- lowed to remain unsettled, the whole peace machinery so laboriously being built in the New World is threatened with destruction. A regrettable omission was the elim- ination of a very important feature of the treaty for consultation, namely, the United States’ suggestion of a permanent committee made Jp of the foreign ministers of the signatory countries, to render more effective and immediate the purposes of the treaty. ‘The failure to consider and discuss the Mexican peace €ode, leaving its study to the regular Pan-American » CINCINNATI SAVES CASH BY CO-OPERATIVE BUYING AVINGS of more than $100,000 & year to the taxpayers of Cin- cinnati, Ohio, have resulted from the Cincinnati plan of co-operative purchasing for all local governmental units. The plan is unique in the administration of Amer- ican municipalities. It is said to be the only set-up of the kind in the United States. Four separate governmental units get the benefit of the plan. One is the city of Cincinnati, with almost half a million people, comprising about 8C per cent of the total population of Hamilton County, Ohio. The second unit is the county, which has its own government entirely independent from | that of the city. ‘The third unit is the Cincinnati school district, which is almost co- extensive in area with the city, but entirely independent of the city gov- ernment. The school district is gov- erned by a board of education elected by the people. This board maintains . VIEW OF THE PICTURESQUE CALCUTTA MARBOR. | thoughtful eyes, would look distin- | guished in any gathering. Apparently | they are taking an idol to bathe; a | formless little thing, carried shoulder- | high on a litter, surrounded by pea- | cock’s fans and yaks' tails. Now come | | men with spikes hammered into their | skulis, and others with spikes in their | cheeks, to mortify the flesh; then | come priests, more naked men. All these people seem to be walking out | of the night of history . ... For an hour I waited among the crowd, and still the pageant is passing. At last I struggled out of the press of spec- | tators, to get some air. | Why is it, I wonder, that freaks fascinate me? They do fascinate me, as much as they do the simplest In- dian peasant. And freaks are far | more popular with the crowd than the philosophers I have come to seek. Among the latter, the most remark- able is Her Holiness Sankari-ma, a lady who is reputed to be 109 years .‘old. I have no means of ascertaining her exact age. but she looks very old and yet very healthy. Her skin is |much wrinkled, but her eyes are bright and clear. Her teeth are per- fect and her hair is thick and glossy, | without a streak of gray. “Long life is all & question of in- ternal purity,” she tells me—"and of | right repose. Most of us sleep too much, and carelessly. We should learn to relax properly. Personally, I | never sleep more than one hour a night. We can decide for ourselves | when we want to die, save for acci- dents. I hope to live to be 180. My teacher in the Himalayas lived for 300 years.” Has One Follower. At present she has only one follower, & middle-aged retired doctor, who speaks perfect English. He tells me that her holiness intends to take & few carefully-chosen pupils in 10 or 20 years’ time. There is no hurry She 2“ a whole average lifetime before er. When I take my leave, I ask him whether I may make her a small pres- ent, for I know that this other-worldly couple are entirelv dependent on charity for their food. “Certainly, | sir” he answers. “You may put a | coin upon mother’s toe.” I do as I am told, but her «holiness hardly no- | tices the rupee, for her mind is al- ready fixed on beatitudes beyond this world. At the races in Calcutta I saw a | very different spectacie. Here were some of the loveliest women in India, who had added the sophistication of tinction. the Indian woman drapes over her | The sari (the cloth which | L Has that been done? | head and shoulders) is an extraordi- | especially | man used to appear when it was wet| European. He is frankly up for auce narily becoming garment, to a tall and supple figure. | These ladies, in their gorgeous rai- ment—one wore a lemon-colored sari | 40 Hitler and Mussolini occupy the | Jittle doubt which he regards as the and operates about 80 public schools | with a total enroliment of more than 60.000 pupils. | The fourth unit is the University of Cincinnati, a municipal institution, supported by public taxes and endow- ments. It has an enrollment of more | than 10,000 students and is governed by an independent board of trustees First Started in 1931. The possibility of co-ordinating the purchases for the first three units was first suggested by the Cincinnati Bu- reau of Governmental Research in | 1931, In June of that year the three governmental units combined their coal purchases for a contract period of one year. The purchasing agents | of the city, county and school board and other officials co-operated in standardizing the coal specifications to insure the fairest and broadest com- petition possible. The bids were based on the total quantity of coal to be used by all three governmental units. On a total of 100,000 tons, a gross saving of more than $100,000 was made in comparison with the prices paid the preceding year. Allowing for gen- eral decline in market price, com- pared with the preceding year, a sav- ing of at least $50,000 was attributed to the co-operative purchasing. The success of this attempt, to- gether with results from a limited amount of joint purchasing by the city and school board. led to further co- ordination in the field of governmental buying. Under a financial grant from the Spellman fund of New York, a Com- mittee on Co-ordination and Co- operation of Governmental Agencies in Hamiiton County was formed. This committee was composed of the city manager of Cincinnati, the president of the Board of Education and the president of the Board of County Com- missioners. The director of the Cin- cinnati Bureau of Governmental Re- search is the secretary and treasurer of the committee and is in charge of | the work authorized by that body. | It has been the purpose of this co- ordinating committee to consider, sur- vey and recommend to the legislative branches of the local governments | such changes in organization, proce- | dure and technique as would permit closer co-operation among the three subdivisions and to co-ordinate, con- solidate or correlate all possible func- tions inherent in these governments. Without legal recognition or status, this voluntary action on the part of these representatives of the govern- mental units in Hamilton County is unique in the annals of public ad- | ministration. | The development of the plan of co- | operative buying has been a major achievement of this co-ordinating committee. It organized a subcom- mittee of purchasing agents of the governmental units for the purpose of developing on a large and scientific | standardization and co- | scale the Profit of About $100,000 a Year Record- ed When Four Agencies Pool Purchases. ‘ordlnaum of purchases. This sube ‘mmmmee consists of the city pure | chasing agent, the county purchasing agent and the business manager and | commissioner of supplies of the Board | of Education and a research assistant from the Bureau of Governmental | Research, who serves as secretary of | the group. Later the purchasing agent |of the university became affiliated with the group. An intensive study of standards and | specifications was necessary in ad- vance of joint purchasing in order to reduce diversities of sizes, qualities and types of commodities to be used by various departments while meeting the requirements of all departments. For instance, the standard sizes of floor brushes were reduced from eight to four, making possible the purchase of larger quantities of each type. The various types of gasoline that had been purchzsed by the city, county and school board were reduced to three grades suitable to the needs of all, making possible a considerable saving over former prices through the larger quantity bought. The city uses 1,000,000 gallons of gasoline a year, the county 200,000 and the Board of Education 36.000. The purchases for city require- ments in 1936 exceeded $5.000,000, said City Purchasing Agent H. F. Wagner. This was almost double the normal purchases, the increase being due to pur~hase of materials for W. P. A. and P. W. A. projects for Cincinnati. The total purchases for the city in 1935 were $2,748.573 “It is difficult.” said Wagner, “to obtain comparative statistics showing, with any degree of accuracy, the save ings which have resulted from co-or= dinating purchases, for, when come puting such figu: commodity mare kets must be taken into consideration, as fluctuating markets have a tendency to impede accuracy of figures which show savings.” However, he estimated that savings ranging from 5 per cent to 25 per cent are being made for the taxpavers on approximately 1506 items purchased jointly for the cit county, school board and university. The amount of saving depends upon the nature of commodity purchased and the quantity, Wagner has a list of some 5,000 venders willing to bid on the require« ments of the city and the other units. Under the State law and city ordie nance, bids must be advertised for publicly when the proposed purchase exceeds $500. The county and school board are not restricted by such ade e rements. Consequently, the city makes purchases for the other units on about 3.500 of the 4,000 formal purchasing contracts jointly made. There also are more than 500 in- formal agreements by which low bid= ders agree to supply needs of any single department of the city or other | units for a certain commodity, at any time during a certain period, at the price bid. These agreements are ene tered into without advertisement where the needs of a single depart- ment amount to less than $500. The periods of these agreements range from three months to a year. | Under the informal agreement plan, the combined annual requirements for all departments are estimated by the purchasing agent and bids are invited, based on this larger quantity, for de= | livery as needed. After the prices have been obtained, the lowest and best | bidder is selected and an informal agreement made. ‘Through use of this agreement plan, a large number of miscellaneous pure chases have been put on the basis of | quantity buying. This plan elimi= nates the necessity of certifying the entire amount of such a contract and thus does not tie up funds for a long contract period. It also reduces the expense of purchasing, as it requires | only one bid instead of many. (Copyright, 193 by the North Americaa Newspaper Alliance. Inc.) Mussolini, Mindful of Risk in Spain, Retires From Stage in Hitler’s Favor BY A. G. GARDINER, England's Great Liberal Editor, ONDON.—The two leading act- ors on the European stage re- mind one of that archaic weather gauge in which the | and the wife when it was fine. They | were never on show together. Nor are already apparent. Mussolini's record will not encourage any country to bank on his loyalty to any cause | which does not pay him. He fights | for his own hand all the time and | would scorn to be taken for a good | tion and is out to get the best price | in the best market. And there is | with & bold pattern of black diamonds, | cénter of the stage at the same time. | pest market. His flirtations with Hit- | modern, with their betting books, long | cigarette holders, enameled nails. But | Western women: They will never | copy our dresses, for they know what | suits them. In them I saw & chang- | ing India: An India that will adapt | what she requires from our customs, without yielding the essential beauty of her own manners. When we talk of the emancipation of women, we often forget that there re parts of India where women have Iways held sway. In Travancore, for instance, women have been masters | in their own house for thousands of | years. In the big women's hospital | in the capital, there is not and has | never been & single man in the ad- ministration. Dr. Lukhose, the lady doctor in charge, has supervised the work for the last 20 years, seeing it grow from a small clinic to one of the largest and best administered hos- pitals South India. She and her 12 assistants perform all the operations (eight or 10 major operations a week) and conduct all the routine for 300 Last year was Mussolini's turn, and, now that Hitler is catching the lime- light, the Duce is content to be in the | shadow. For one thing, he is busy | digesting the very handsome meal he made last year. For another, he is clearly waiting upon events to direct his footsteps. So far as the process of digestion is concerned, he has much reason to be satisfied. Whether the Ethiopian adventure will produce a dividend in the long run remains to be seen; but politically | all expectations. He has captured a | country as big as France and Ger- i many in defiance of European opposi- | tion, and now, one by one, the pro- testing nations are accepting the ac- complished fact and making the best of it. Some of them, who are out on the prowl themselves, have openly accepted the new empire by de jure recognition. Germany was the first to give the lead, and she was quickly followed by Austria. Hungary and Albania. Now Switzerland has joined in the same whole-hearted recogni- tion, much to the disguest of the League world. For not only is she a member of the League which Italy (Continued on Tenth Page.) conference at Lima in 1938, should be, also, listed on the debit side, for one of the main purposes of the Buenos Alres parley, the co-ordination of the existing peace machinery, had been happily achieved in the Mexican project. The same must be said of the| formula for the definition of an ag- gressor, suggested by Foreign Min- | ister Finot of Bolivia, for the lack of such definition may in the future ren- | der difficult the application of some of the instruments devised at Buenos | Aires. Against these shortcomings, must be | weighed the treaties and conventions listed on the credit side, the numer- ous additional resolutions dealing with cultural and economic means intended to bring about what has been de- scribed as moral disarmament, and, above all, the unprecedented psycho- logical effect of the Buenos Aires conference, which has made possible flouted—she is the seal of the League itself, the keeper of the very sanc- tuary which has been violated. Her shameless action, as the Manchester Guardian observes, is a fair measure of the contempt in which the League is now held by some of its members. Even the nations which took the initiative against Mussolini have come shamefacedly to heel by a sort of a recognition, de facto but not de jure, expressed by setting up a consulate in the new empire in place of the legation which existed in the Abys- sinia that has gone. Mussolini may be excused if he smiles at this in- genious discrimination, which white- washes the whole episode for him as thoroughly as he could wish. Japan led the way in this half-recognition policy and Britain and France have followed suit. It has been a bitter pill for the British public to swallow; but the government, in drinking the Ethiopian cup of humiliation to the dregs, have argued that, in the present condition of Europe, it is better to accept the accomplished fact than to the dawning of & truly new era in Pan-American relations. (Copyrisht, 1937.) leave it as a permanent bar to an it has succeeded beyond | | ler were never much more than a finesse in the game, and, now that the Franco rebellion has gone off at half-cock, his dreams of making the | Mediterranean an Italian lake have ‘becn put into cold storage. It was one thing to think of Italy as the overlord of a Fascist Spain—it is quite another to think of Spain as an outpost of Germany at the gates | way of the midland sea and the Ate | lantic. Hence, the deeper Hitler got into the | Spanish business the more Mussolini was disposed to get out of it. He has | no misapprehension as to the perils of that business and no doubt as to the | relative value of the forces which | would be engaged if things came to a | serious showdown. With Germany he | would be engaged in a very doubtful gamble—witk Britain and France his co-operation would be decisive. It is these considerations that ace count for the significant facts that, while he has outraged the League, he has never retired from it, that he has never lost touch with Prance, and that, though his papers have vilified Brit« | ain, he has been plainly anxious, on economic, and other grounds, for an accommodation with her. That that anxiety has been reinforced by the vast rearmament program now in progress in England goes without say- ing. That factor is readjusting the whole balance of Europe, and no ona 15 more sensible of this than Mussolini. (Copyright, 1937.) | Texas May Drill Oil From Its Highways AUSTIN, Tex. (#).—Texas will drill oil millions from its highways if a | State legislator has his way. Senator Joe L. Hill estimated the State could gain from $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 yearly by empowering the Board of Mineral Development to lease State highway rights of way for oil and gas development. Hill said the wells would not de- stroy highway beauty or add traffic hazards, “The entire equipment can be placed in cellars,” he said. “This has been done in many instances and understanding with Italy. There is force in this and the fruits A beautiful grass lawns cover a number of producing wells in this State.”