Indianapolis Times, Volume 40, Number 243, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 February 1929 — Page 4

PAGE 4

The Indianapolis Times (A SCBIFFS*HOWAKI> KEWSFAFEB) Owned and published dally (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Time* Publishing Cos 214-220 W. Maryland Street. Indianapolis, Ind. Price in Marion County 2 cent*—lo centa a week; elsewhere, 3 cents—l 2 cente a week. BOYD GURLEY. ROT* W. HOWARD. FRANK G. MORRISON. Editor. President. Business Manager. PHONE—P ILEX 5851. THURSDAY FEB. 28. 1920. Member of United Press, Scripps Howard Newspaper Alliance. Newspaper Enterprise Association, Newspaper Information Service aud Audit Bureau of Circulations. “Give Flight Nnd the People Will Find Their OwnWfay.”

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Killing the Primary Unless the people make a very strong aud immediate showing before the house of representatives, the government of this state will be placed permanently in the hands of the machine bosses. The senate, by a narrow margin, has voted to repeal the primary law and throw all nominations back to the convention system. The whip was cracked. The discredited politicians and newspapers which admit lack of confidence in themselves on the part of their own readers, were able to control enough timid or ignorant members. Every crooked politician in the state was at work to bring about this result. Those who have been in jails and those who have narrowly escaped jails, worked together. They seem to have influence still. The action was a ghoulish dance on the grave of the late Senator Beveridge. As long as he lived, none of those who were so triumphant in the senate yesterday, dared to venture upon so bold a pillage of popular government. The plea that the Republican state platform promised a repeal of the law was used effectively. It was, of course, a dishonest plea. The pledge was never referred to in any campaign speech by any candidate. No newspaper dared to suggest to the voters that they were to be deprived of participation in the nomination of candidates. No newspaper, even those which have been loudly demanding a -redemption of the “party pledges” ever suggested during the that such a promise had been made. The pledge was a promise of the bosses to themselves. They knew that even though they had at times succeeded in dominating the primaries that the people might some day arise in their wrath. The pledge was a promise to disfranchise the women voters of the state. The bosses well understand that with the primaries abolished they can laugh at women’s clubs, at the groups working for decency in state affairs, at all the ■women except the professional woman politician whose influence and sentiments are in line with their own. That was the real purpose. The women have been learning rapidly. They are responsible for laws and measures for honesty in election*. They are hitting at fundamentals. That worries the bosses. They have hit back. There is still a chance in the house. But if the women of the state want to protect their votes, they must rise in such numbers and in such wrath that not even the most venal or the most timid or the most backward member can misunderstand.

More Secret Treaties Every time public sentiment in America veers around toward international co-operation for peace, an ill wind from Europe''blows across to us reports of another secret military treaty. That revives the old American suspicion of Europe and all her ways, with the result that we tend to slip back into the policy of isolation. Hence the cynical reaction In this country to reports of the secret military understanding between France and Belgium. According to documents published by a Dutch newspaper, the alleged FrancoBelgian treaty of military alliance of 1920 runs for twenty-five years, provides for joint mobilization and for elaborate annual co-operation by the two general staffs. Both governments have made the anticipated denials of the authenticity of the documents. We have no way of checking the accuracy of this reported treaty. But whether such documents exist or'do not exist in written form, seems to us of only secondary importance.. The world does not have to depend upon such revelations for an understanding of the general European situation. That situation is clear, so clear that official statements can do little either to lighten or to obscure the picture. It is a picture drawn by the Versailles treaty, in which France holds virtual military hegemony over most of Europe. That hegemony is maintained through the threefold process of disarming Germany. Austria and Hungary, of retaining a huge French military establishment, and of linking that French power with a chain of military satellite states— Poland and the little entente—encircling the latq enemy states. Belgium from the beginning has been an important link in that French military chain. During the last two years France, because of economic revival in Germany and growing belligerency of Mussolini's Italy, has been trying to strengthen her military chain. That French effort is expressed in the Anglo-French "alliance," deeply resented in the United States, and in a tightening of BelgoFrench relations. Certainly the old system of military balance-of - power still exists in Europe. But that does not justify an attitude of surprised disillusionment on the part of Americans. The ten years In which this system has endured since the World war should have been long enough to accußtorn ug to the reality of the Belgo-French alliance. The significant thing is not this hegemony hang* over of the past, but that alongside of it Europe slowly Is building up machinery of peaceful collaboration and conciliation which some day may supplant the war machinery. Whether the new peace machinery will be perlected in time to handle the next world crisis depends In part on the co-operation of the United States. XI Is easy enough for us to assume a self-righteous attitude and wash our hands of Europe every time we feear of a new secret treaty-easy enough tott V

have to pay the price. Por the last war proved that a European conflict will suck us In, whether we will or no. It is our show over there. The greater the growth of European militarism, the greater the need for effective American co-operation with all the counter forces in Europe making for peace. The Kellogg pact was one step. An embargo on arms to belligerents will be another. Adherence to the world court will be still another. A working agreement with the League of Nations will help. And leadership in joint limitation of armaments will do more. This is no time for discouragement and whining. Only Money Is Needed The senate patronage investigation has been extended into the next congress and its scope broadened to take in all kinds of federal appointments. In unanimously agreeing to these two proposals, the senate proves its desire to get at the bottom of conditions in southern states, where federal jobs have been sold and politicians have prospered at the expense of government employes. The senate has not gone the full distance, however. No inquiry can be conducted without funds to pay the expenses of witnesses and the costs of the hearings. The committee has not been wasteful of its funds and has not complained, although at times the investigation has been nandlcapped seriously by lack of money. More money should be voted. Vare and Others The Reed report puts before the senate the question whether it will deny a seat to Senator-Elect Vare of Pennsylvania. If Vare is barred, the public will not be sorry. He has a long and unsavory record. As to his 1926 campaign for nomination, which is the case in point, the record is clear on his excessive expenditure of funds, his employment of so-called watchers at the polls who virtually were paid voters, the use of dummy contributors to his campaign chest, and the activity of his notorious Philadelphia ring in forcing his nomination. But that is not the whole story, vare’s defeated opponent, with the help of the Mellon millions, spent more than Vare, and employed many of the same questionable practices. If Vare is denied a senate seat, his successor will be appointed by a Governor nominated at the same time as Vare and by similar methods. That is not a defense of Vare. But it does reveal that the problem goes far beyond Vare, involving the whole of Pennsylvania politics and reaching indeed throughout national politics. The temptation is for the senate and for the public to make Vare the goat and then to sink back with a false sense of cleaning up a foul condition. If it is a question of the amount of campaign expenditures, neither the Republican nor Democratic national parties, with their admitted expeditures of about $10,000,000 in recent election, can entirely dissociate themselves from the rotten conditions in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. But the truth is that legitimate publicity expenditures in American elections have mounted to such heights as almost to exclude- candidates of moderate means, and to encourage, if not necessitate, shady practices. 1 There appears no way out of this dilemma, so dangerous to democracy, except by charging to the taxpayers the cost of electing their government officials and by prohibiting the expenditure of any private funds whatever by candidates. It will not be easy to work out and apply such system, which involves difficult problems of fund apportionments among majority and minority parties and of regulating expenditures. But until we strike at the root evils, by this or by some other method, the mere banishment of a few political bosses like Vare will not get us very far. Dean Inge of London says that in a million more years man may be a really noble creature. Flatterer. Snowstorms in the southern cities of Italy! Have they no chambers of commerce there? Traffic note: If you don’t believe coppers can be both bullish and bearish, just try talking back to one.

- David Dietz on Science __ Two Billion Years Ago No. 291 THE theory generally held today by scientists to account for the origin of the earth is a modification of the Chamberlin-Moulton theory. The changes which have been made in the original theory are due chefly to the work of two British scientists, Dr. J. H. Jeans and Dr. Harold Jeffries. The theory in its present form is frequently called the tidal theory. The theory holds that the solar system originated in material which was pulled out of the sun by a star which passed too close to the sun. It holds that the passing star raised such tides that the material was swept out of the sun in great waves. This material, as it revolved around the sun, is thought to have collected very quickly into irregular masses which in turn took on globular shapes. At the start, therefore, the solar system consisted of a sun surrounded by a set of miniature suns. But these miniatures, because of their small size, cooled quickly, becoming the present-day earth and the other planets with their attendant satellites. In addition to the planets and .atellites forming, bits of material pulled out of the sun condensed into the asteroids, the meteors, the comets and the dust and gas of the zodiacal light materials. This theory subordinates the solar system to its central sun. But observations support the theory, for the total amount of matter in the planets and their satellites is less than one-seventh of 1 per cent of the amount of matter in the sun. A second question bound up with the question of the earth’s origin is the earth‘s age. When did tipisgreat cataclysm take place? How old is our earth? Geologists have attempted to estimate the age in many ways. One of the earlier estimates was made by Lord Kelvin. One of the best methods is to estimate the amount of radium in various types of rockets and calculate the time necessary for it to have formed. All geologists agree that our earth is at least 500.000.000 years old. Mfti geologists think that the earth is older than that. An estimate of 2.000,000.000 years is thought to be close to the truth. It was 3,000,000,000 years ago. therefore, that the passing star caused the genesis of our earth. It Is one of the triumphs of modern science that from what we know of nature we can evolve a theory which seeks to explain an event which took place that long ago.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E. TRACY SAYS: “The East Needs to Wake Up; It Has Not Done as Much as It Could, by Any Means l”

SAN DIEGO, Cal., Feb. 28. Rumors of a Franco-Belgian war pact lasted jus'; long enough to produce some excited, but useless conversation. That is the way of such rumors in nine out of ten cases. Still, we fall for them, in spite of all the sad experience making wishes father to the thought. Those who want this country to stay out of the World Court, the League of Nations, or another sensible, straightforward movement to promote peace have lost a chqnce to point-out another “entangling alliance.” Too bad to spoil the show, but France and Belgium have made no war pact. tt tt tt Failure to Vote ABOUT half the citizens of Chicago stayed awi-.y from the polls. Their absence more than anything else explains how and why “Big Bill” Thompson pulled through. Like other rights, that of voting means little, unless exercised. tt tt tt California's Dam C CALIFORNIA is considering the * project of building a dam as large as that designed for Black canyon on her own account, of forming a lake in the mountains east of Sacramento as large as Tahoe and of turning the Sacramento river in San Joaquin valley. This project would involve an expenditure of more than $100,000,009. If California can conserve it for power and irrigation, why can’t eastern states, or the United States conceive as much to make people safe along the Ohio and its tributaries. Or is the east getting flabby.

Wake Up the East THE east needs to wake up. It has not done as much as it could by any means. In spite of its age and achievements, there still is plenty of room to improve and that, too, in'a big way. This idea that the east has been worked out, that its farms have grown stale and- that the best thing its people can do is move or stand pat, is doing a lot of unnecessary harm. Such states as Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or even New York, are not half developed. They have plenty of raw resources, plenty of possibilities, plenty of needs. What I invariably get out of a visit to the west is a feeling that the east lacks spirit, that it is failing to take advantage of its opportunities in the same way, that it is lying down on the job for no earthly reason, save its own inertia. n it Letting Things Slide THERE is too much contentment on the sunrise side of the Misiissippi, too much of a disposition co let things slide, too much reluctance to take hold of new and vast undertakings, especially in a mblic way. The east appears to be laboring under the delusion that it has exhausted its field of enterprise, and that there isn’t much left for it, except to joy ride, talk about prohibition, or speculate. It is content to let Florida run away with the real estate market, or for the government to do most of its reclamation work somewhere else. That is all wrong. The east still is in its infancy, still facing a bigger future than past if it only would think so. What the west is doing cannot be attributed to natural advantage half so much as the spirit of Ats people..

Times Readers Voice Views

The name and address ol the author must accompany every contribution but on request will not be published. Letters not exceedlne 200 words will receive preference. Editor Times—By Section 10450, Burns Indiana statutes, the legislature provided that whoever desired to exercise the privilege of paying any Barrett law assessment in full after the expiration of the first year of the lien of such assessment such privilege could be secured by giving six month’s notice in writing to the treasurer in advance of the time when any payment became due. In such case the interest on the deferred payments was stopped. But the bonds issued by the city to contractors to guarantee the deferred payments and interest with which to pay for the improvements as- they were made continued to pay interest for the full period of ten years. A deficit has been created under this law running into millions of dollars. The seriousness of the situation caused the taxing boards to employ a staff of accountants to audit the account books pertaining to the Barrett law and such a force, under Hillman, an expert accountant, has been at work on such accounts for more than two years and the work is not completed. Ever since 1915 this privilege of prepayment which stops the interest has resulted in an enormous deficit and the city has been compelled to pay these bonds ou’ of the improvement sinking fund, the general fund or any other fund. The stopped interest thus is passed on to all taxpayers who pay Interest on benefits accruing to the property of the individual. , The legislature recognized that mch deficit would occur and provided by Section 10453, Burns Revised Statutes of Indiana, that where deficits in improvement funds have arisen by operation of law on account of prepayments of assessments, that is, before such assessment become due, whereby payments on such assessments and interest have been fully paid and stopped, then the acts of the treasurer in paying improvement bonds and interest coupons out of taxes collected on other property not covered suen bonds and coupons are

Haven't Forgotten Anything, Have You?

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Reason

NO line of human activity tells the story of the changing order more effectively than the difference in the matrimonial approach. In older days the utterly heedless high-flyer was the youth who drove his horse from one town to another to call on his “girl,” and now Lindy flies from one nation to another. n tt u There is talk about Secretary Mellon’s declining to serve in the Hoover cabinet and tt is true that Mellon, was not enthusiastically for Hoover at Kansas City, but any man who has moved from Pittsburgh to Washington will hesitate to trade daylight for a total eclipse. a u If Teddy were alive how he would delight to meet this gentleman from northern Michigan, who recently choked a wolf to death with his bare hands! tt tt Senator Curtis may make a speech when he is sworn in as VicePresident, but he Will not make the senators sit up and take notice as Charles G. Dawes did when he went after them for killing time. •

Cross-Country Suited to School Boys

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association iind of Hy?eia, the Health Magazine. THE records have just been made available of a special study made in the Michigan State Normal college of the two-mile crosscountry run as a form of athletics for high school boys. Thirteen boys who were students in high schools in the state of Mich-

legalized and as such deficits will continue in the future, so the law reads. The treasurer is authorized to continue such payments until all bonds are paid. The section further provides that to reimburse these funds an annual tax of one cent on each SIOO of taxable property shall be levied until the improvement fund shall be sufficient to make up the deficit. This deficit still exsits. But in the meantime the city has been paying off the bonds and the interest, all of which is guaranteed by the provisions of the bond. “It is so nominated in the bond.” In 1927 the legislature repealed this wide-open privilege af prepayment and required the property owner to pay the assessment and interest in full. Since 1927 there has been no deficit under the operation of this act. Acts 1927. page 452. SAMUEL L. SMITH. Editor Times—There is .estimony (coming from the ranks of the medical profession itself) to the effect that progress in medicine is not “largely dependent on the use of animals for experimentation,” as was stated in your question and answer column recently. Manufacturers of serums and vaccines are indignant in denouncing the aßti-vivisectiqnist as a sentimentalist. The vociferous defense of the practice of vivisection has succeeded in making the uninstructed layman accept a veritable creed of vicarious atonement, a doctrine "that man may escape the consequences of his sins against Nature s laws of health by placing his suffering upon the animal creation.” The president of the American Anti-Vivisection Society rightly has said, “If we proclaim ourselves men, we must prove our manliness and look for benefits to ourselves elsewhere than in the torture of those humble creatures to whom we are as gods.” A FRIEND OF ANIMALS. When were Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney born? Dempsey was bom June 24, 1895, and Tunney, May 25, 1898.

m m By Frederick LANDIS

CONSTRUCTION of this floating airport three hundred miles at sea, half way between New York and Bermuda, marks the beginning of ocean flying as a business, for the future will find the sea dotted with such airdromes and passengers taking the air route from hemisphere to hemisphere with much less fear than was felt by the first steam train passengers. tt tt tt Senator-Elect Vare, now in Florida and insisting that he is too sick to come to Washington so his election contest may proceed, will register a marked improvement just as soon as March 4 comes and Jim Reed, his eternal opponent, leaves the senate.

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE

igan volunteered to submit to complete physical examinations a week before the competition, just before, just after and a week later. There is no doubt that crosscountry running places a severe strain upon the tissues of the body. Extensive studies have been made of marathon runners, indicating a loss of weight during competition. The ages of the high school boys studied varied from 15 to 19 years. Six were underweight. The average loss of weight in the two-mile crosscountry race for the thirteen contestants was one and a half pounds, Q. —What causes excessive perspiration? A.— Excessive perspiration may be the result of some serious general physical condition or may be associated with extreme emotional reactions. It is not a normal condition. as compared with a loss of three to five pounds among high school boys participating in basketball and football games. Five days after the race the average gain iii weight for the contestants was three and one-half pounds. The heart and lungs of the athletes remained normal before, during and after the race. It is a well-established fact that overexertion sometimes is followed by appearance of sugar in the excretions of the body. Two *bf the contestants were found to have sugar in the excretions immediately after the race, but this had disappeared a week later. Preparation Dr. L. W. Olds, who conducted the tests, feels that the two-mile eross-country run is not too severe a trial for high school runners, but

Fellowship in Prayer

Topic for the Week “LENT AND MY HOME” Memory Verse for Thursday. “And shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house” *"Deuteronomy 6:6). (Read: Deuteronomy 6:6 to 12.) MEDITATION: Here if anywhere is to be found the secret of the Jewish. people and their remarkable history. Their religion was founded on the home. Its primary observances were domestic ndt public. It was the subject of conversation in the family circle. So it was made familiar to the children from ttfetr earliest years and they never could forget. By

BUGGIES AND PLANES TEDDY WOULD LIKE HIM STILL IN THE SHADOW

HOW the other millionaires with foreign ambassadorial ambitions must grind their teeth over the report that Hoover will keep Ambassador Herrick at Paris! tt tt tt Senator Tydings of Maryland is right to insist that if these nations believe in the ftellogg treaty against war, their sincerity should be shown by some reduction in their armies. If nothing else is going to be accomplished by the Kellogg treaty, it should be used as the basis for a musical comedy. n u In other days the kidnaping of these American engineers by Mexican bandits would have caused the American eagle to scream, but since times have changed and we lead the world in crime, our jingoes cannot be heard above a whisper. tt tt tt The sinking of this fishing boat in the Pacific by a school of sardines should warn us that a republic’s ship of state can be sent to the bottom if the little fishes get control of it—and we have quite a few on board at the present time.

that at least six weeks’ preparation is necessary and that care must be taken not to overwork the runners during the period of preparation. Only recently have scientific tests begun to be made of athletes in various fields of sport. It seems quite obvious from the highly important results of this investigation that such tests should be made in all sports, particularly concerned with growing boys and girls. This Date in U. S . History February 28 i 1680—Father Hennepin explored the upper Mississippi river. 1 1784—John Wesley established the Methodist conference system. 1844—The great gun Peacemaker on steamer Princeton exploded and killed Secretary of War Usher and Secretary of Navy Gilmer. 1861—Georgia seized the mint at Dahlonega. Congress passe*} the thirteenth amendment. Territory of Colorado organized. Daily Thought j For the wicked are like the troubled sea. when it can not rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.—lsaiah 57:20. a a a WICKEDNESS is a wonderfully diligent architect of misery, of shame, accompanied with terror, ard commotion, and remorse, and endless perturbation.—Plutarch.

contrast how reticent we are on the subject of religion and especially in our homes! * Silence may easily be interpreted as indifference, or at least as a confession that religion though neces- j sary is not interesting. I must sec to it that this thing which is of j the greatest concern to me shaii J enter more into my talk at table and by the fireside. PRAYER: Almighty Father by whose compassionate care even the solitary are set in famtiier. I pray that Thy presence may not be hid in the seclusion of my home. In' the sacred intimacy of the family j make me a faithful witness to the hope that is in me, and to the! beauty of my most holy faith Amen.

FEB. 28, 1929

IT SEEMS TOME n n By HEYWOOD BROUN

Idea* an < opinions *x - pretoed In this column arc those of one of Am eriea’t moot Intereotin* wr 11 er > and are presented w i t faout retard to their agreement with the editorial attitude of this paper, l'be Editor.

HE lias all the speed of Walter Johnson at his best," say the newspaper dispatches from the south, and so I know that spring, the season of resurgence and recruits, is practically here. And soon we will hear of new Ty Tobbs and lads with hands like those of Honus Wagner. Os all American activities baseball alone has tuned itself in such a way as to give full scope to the aspirations of youth. Mute inglorious Miltons the world may have slighted, but no good lefthanded pitcher was born to blush unseen. Always I have doubted the familiar saying that the world would beat a pathway to the door of the /nan capable of making a better mouse trap, but it is true in the case of any who possess a good curve, reinforced by an effective fast ball. For almost two years I haven't seen a single baseball game, but no one reads the news from the training camps more intently. I could wish that the same passionate interest m the discovery of new talent extended to other fields of endeavor. There ought to be some spot in Florida or Texas to which young poets could be sent in March or February. Then we might read of a Ducky Holmes or a Lefty Lee who had gone south to limber up his sonnets and bake his lyric writing wing.

Their Day in Sun TJROBABLY such a statement -*■ might be exaggerated in the case of both Ducky and Lefty, but for that matter I have grave doubts as to whether young Dusty Rhodes of the Yankees actually is as fast as the great Walter. The chances are that when the season rolls around he will be back in some bush league to get more schooling. The point which rouse* my Interest and enthusiasm is thae professional baseball is always animated by such a lively optimism. This is the only living art in which newcomers do not stifle under the tyranny of the dead hand. Critics of books and music and the drama preserve certain traditional reticences. It is not customary to say of any promising young actress that she seems to be another Duse. Obscure small towns in Kansas and Indiana may give each year to the nation new shortstops and catchers, but nobody perambulates around to find left-handed poets or sculptors capable of taking a wicked cut in their inspired moments. Novelists may starve in garrets if it pleases them, but not outfielders who are ball hawks and can hit. And so I want to know if this is not a cockeyed world in -which managers, are always eager to develop and foster the budding talent of athletes, even those of high school age, while the fate of the artist is a matter of indifference to the community at large. a tt a Afone on Rocky Road IDO not mean to say that there will not be praise and plaudits for the artist ip any field who sticks his head up above the crowd, but his first steps he must take alone without much outside aid or interference. There is, to be sure, the Guggenheim Foundation under the terms of which youngsters may go abroad and study with the agreeihent that they will try to write or paint, or sing during the period in which they draw their stipend. This is a very useful work, but as in all scholarship arrangements the money advanced is far too slight to take all wordly cares from off the shoulders of the budding artist. In spite of the acute danger to myself and others I would be heartily in favor of a training camp for columnists. There must be hundreds and thousands of youngsters in this broad land with more ability than any of us who are at present on the job. Let them stand forth and •be counted. Indeed let them be dragged forth. I’ve got a farm and a fireplace and will not complain

Ravages Noticed I KNOW I wouldn't complain because the ravages of time have already been noticed in my work by very many. , In fact, such criticism I take as a complaint since derogation is usually accompanied by some statement that once upon a time I was much better. That’s certainly possible, but forgotten stuff is always praised more highly than that which can be touched and handled. Everybody says that the great Eugene Field was the American columnist beyond compare and there are probably not fifty persons in America who have the slightest recollection of what he did when he was hireling of a daily paper. At Harvard Bliss Perry annually told a story which I believe comes from one of the Spanish novelists. It was of an old priest who decided that he would retire while still at the height of his powers and in order to pick the proper time for exit he hired a young assistant whose job it was to listen to the Sunday sermon and report the precise moment when diminution began to set in. The association persisted for some three months and then on a certain spring morning the young man said, “If I may be permitted to say so. I think that your discourse today was just a shade below your extraordinary average. It was, you will understand, a marvelous address, but just a fraction away from your finest.” “Why, you young fool,” said the old priest, “I never preached better in my life.” P. S. The young man lost hla job. (Copyright, ,t3i42, t>y Th< Tl Mtf