Indianapolis Times, Volume 40, Number 252, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 March 1929 — Page 4

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It Lacked Something That the legislature which comes to a close at midnight lacked something is generally conceded. ome there are who say it lacked leadership. That may be true. But it lacked something more than this. It lacked intelligence, and courage. A majority of the members could properly resent being called tools of the machine, and yet the machine got most of the things it wanted. , A majority of the members owe little to the utilities, yet the utilities emerge with a smile. The trouble with the legislature was probably due to the fact that those who wanted to serve the people ".•ere bewildered and helpless while those who had special purposes and secret masters possessed enough brains to get what they desired. The good things that have come from the legislature were obtained by persistent efforts of groups of public minded men and women who camped on the job. Especially is that true of the city manager laws and the measure drafted by the League of Women Voters for a permanent registration that will prevent such frauds as are declared to have been perpetrated in Lake county last fall. Public sentiment forced from a very reluctant legislature the amendments to the city manager law demanded by its friends. The bosses’ last hope oi defeating this reform lies in a supreme court decision. They have lost on every other field. They will lose when it comes to an election of new officials. It is significant that the legislature refused to abolish the fee system with its pernicious evils in Lake county. The prosecutor of that county will continue to draw more money than the President of the United States. It is unlikely that there will be any vigorous prosecutions of election frauds. The state will pay bigger taxes than ever. That is not an unmixed evil, if the money were spent in proper directions. It is an evil if the state gets no more in the future than it got in the past. Taxes goes up. The automobile owner will pay another cent a gallon on all gasoline he uses. The cement people are happy. The farmers think—and only think—that they are gettting free roads at the expense of the city slicker. The schools will worry along. Yes, the legislature lacked something. It may have been leadership. Or it may have lacked the right leadership.

Hoover Starts Well Political writers are busy weighing Hoover’s first week in office. Why not? It is all too short a time in which to judge a man, but even a week can reveal a President’s capabilities and methods, especially a critical week such as this has been. Usually when there is a change of administration one of two things happens: Either the new President flounders around for several weeks finding himself, or else he permits the Washington bureaucrats inherited from the previous administration to make important policy decisions for him. Hoover has done neither. His first week in office has been characterized by an extraordinary sureness of touch. He has conducted himself and government affairs as though he had been in the White House for many years instead of only a few days. All of that, of course, can not be attributed to original genius. After all, he has been in and out of the White House daily as a cabinet officer for eight years, a’.d as a cabinet officer whose advice was sought on many problems unrelated to the commerce department. This first week has substantiated the advance predictions that Hoover is to be the “strong man” type of President, one who knows his own mind and who acts with precision—as Roosevelt and Wilson did. Take the Mexican case. Here was an unexpected revolution in a neighboring country, vitally affecting American interests. It was the largest revolt in Mexico in years, and apparently was timed exactly by the revolutionists for the very day of the change of administration in Washington. But Hoover understood k the Mexican situation without having to depend entirely on either the secretary of state or the American ambassador. He acted quickly, without bluster, but effectively. He threw the full weight of American prestige and resources on the side of the Mexican government, to which he sold war supplies while tightening the American arms and supply embargo against the ' rebels. He ordered Brigadier General McCoy, as great a diplomat as soldier, to the border. He acted more quickly and surely than other Presidents have done in similar circumstances.

In the midst of the Mexican crisis, Hoover was straightening out the tangled press relations which he inherited. By increasing the number of quotable press statements and by obtaining a representative press committee to help in reforming the White House conferences, Hoover struck at the vicious system un- ' der which some of his predecessors have propagandized the country without taking responsibility for their propaganda. In the same week the President made headway in his plan for a non-partisan commission to study law enforcement and general legal reform; got the congressional leaders together on farm relief legislation and arranged for a special session of congress; withstood attacks of the strong Republican industrial group demanding general tariff revision upward; saw the beginning of negotiations at Geneva for American adherence to the World court. t All this is gratifying. It does not mean that Hoover has settled any of the many problems before him. It does not mean that he has made no mistakes and will make no others. It does mean that he has made a pretty good, start on a long hard road. Twilight of America? The “best minds’* are taking control of industry, property and the governing machinery of our country, according to a brilliant but lugubrious book just published by Walter B. Pitkin, professor of journalism in Oolumia university and assistant editor of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Professor Pitkin calls his book 4 *The Twilight of the American Mind.” In a very few years, says Pitkin, one-tenth of the population will own nine-tenths of the property,

The Indianapolis Times (A BCUIITS UUWAKU NEWSPAPER) Owned and published dally (except Sunday I by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Cos. 214-220 W Marylai.l Street. Indianapolis. Ind Price Id Marion County 2 cents—lo cents a week: elsewhere. 3 cents—l 2 cents a week. BOYD OPR LEI. BOY W HOWARD. FRANK 0. MORRISON. Edf)or. President. Business Manager. PHONE—RIUEY OSBL MONDAY. MARCH 11, 1929. Member of United Press, Scripps Howard Newspaper Alliance, Newspaper Enterprise Association. Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulatirns. “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way.”

which is making it worse than Professor King, who had some 15 per cent controlling 65 per cent. Pitkin believes we have come to the age of the engineer and the expert. Mere craftiness is to make way for real brains. But these fact fellows, he thinks, will organize everything. Nothing will be done by human labor :hat can be done by machinery, and nothing will be done by high-class human labor that can be done by low-class human labor. The middle class gradually will be eliminated. Individualism will be eliminated. There will remain only extensive organization directed by the best minds. The rest will take orders. The rest will be employed. They will be ‘ help.” Pitkin sees the chain store completing its work of obliterating the individual store. He sees the national Incorporated baxery taking the place of the bakeshop and the house oven. He sees everything organized, systematized, incorporated, capitalized, managed and directed by the best minds. The farm problem? Bigness will solve it. Individual farming is wasteful and ignorant. A city must have food; very well. Incorporate all the farming country around the city and make a contract between city and incorporated farm to furnish what the city needs. The corporation will take the insurance against storm and weevil and will boss the job, so that farming will be able to pay the help (former individual farmers) good wages—as good as factory wages—and house them in brick houses. It all sounds very simple but—we wonder. Federal Patronage President Hoover has issued two warnings to the pie-counter boys who control Republican organizations in many states, particularly in the south. The first warning is that there will be few federal jobs to distribute at this time. The second is they must recognize the Hoover partisans who hitherto have not figured politically. Otherwise, the President has indicated, he will not devote much time to straightening out the federal patronage question for the present. To those who want to see the patronage situation cleaned up, Hoover gives the assurance that present procedure is to continue only temporarily. To those who feared that Hoover would turn his back on the old Republican organization, the President gives the assurance that he will not attempt drastic interference as long as they behave themselves. The arrangement is satisfactory. It will give the senate' patronage investigating committee an opportunity to report. It wlil give Hoover time to study the situation and to build his own improved organization. Patronage evils can not be cleaned up in a day, but they can be by long, careful study and effort. Hoover apparently is headed in that direction.

President Herbert Hoover has asked everybody to obey the prohibition law. We’re all glad that’s settled. The people who have been worrying about what to do with old razor blades can turn their attention to anew and pressing problem—what will Coolidge do with that silk hat in Northampton? A man was arrested in Boston the other day as Peeping Tom. That seems to establish the fact there still are optimists in the world. There are no newspapers in Tibet, according to a dispatch from India. Why doesn’t Gene Tunney buy a home there? , Mr. Hyde, the new secretary of agriculture, owns three farms in Missouri. No wonder he had to get some kind of a job!

David Dietz on Science - Young's Experiment No. 300

THE theory that light consists of waves in the allpervading ether of space first was suggested by the Dutch physicist, Christian Huygens. The theory, however, did not begin to make any great impression on the world of science until the beginning of the nineteenth century. The theory was established firmly then by the bril-

lia n t experimen t sos young British scientist, Thomas Young. The phenomenon discovered by Young is known as interference. Any one can try the experiment. If two pinholes very close togetherare made in a small card and a distant source of light viewed

through the holes, the light will be surrounded by a series of light and dark rings or bands. Young explained these dark bands on the supposition that they were the result of the interference of the light waves coming through the one pinhole with .those coming through the other. He explained the phenomenon in the following words: “Suppose a number of equal waves of water to move upon the surface of a stagnant lake, with a certain constant velocity, and to enter a narrow channel leading out of the lake. “Suppose then another similar cause to have excited another equal series of waves which arrive at the same channel with the same velocity and at the same time as the first. “Neither series of waves will destroy the other, but their effects will be combined; if they enter the channel in such a manner that the elevations of one series coincide with those of the other, they must together produce a series of greater joint elevations; but if the elevations of one series are so situated as to correspond to the depressions of the other they must exactly fill those depressions and the surface of the water must remain smooth; at least I can discover no alternative, either from theory or from experiment. “Now, I maintain that similar effects take place whenever two portions of light are thus mixed; and this I call the general law of the interference of light.” So wrote Thomas Young and by this experiment he established the firm position of the way theory of light. The work which Young had thus started was continued in a brilliant fashion by a young French engineer—Augustin Fresnel. Fresnel, by a series of experiments, developed the wave theory of light in what is still in almost all particulars, its present form.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M.E. TRACY . SAYS: “It Now Takes More to t Build and Maintain the Roads of This Country Than It Did to Run the Government Fifty Years Agor

ttOUSTON, Tex., March 11— i “Battle Impends,” say the , headlines, referring to Mexico. No doubt it does, and probably in more than one place. The situation has ceased to be simple. One can not get a clear idea of it by picturing Calles trying to blast his way through the central part of the country and prevent a union of eastern and western rebel forces. There are dozens of rebel leaders in the field, each obliged to act more or less on his own intiative. A third, if not half of the army, was mutinied, but wth no central command, or organization. Banditry will be the next phase, and it will come apace, if the revolt is not quickly repressed. tt tt tt Born of Revolution Texas is neither excited, nor alarmed. Time has hardened it to the experience of Mexican revolution. Texas has not only lived with Mexican revolution, but was bom of it. It was in March, 1836, that Texas declared her independence—3o,ooo against 10,000,000; a handful of frontiersmen defying an empire. Five days ago came the anniversary of the Alamo in which 183 Texans were massacred. In less than thYee weeks will come the anniversary of Goliad, in which 349 were slain after surrendering as prisoners of war. In less than six weeks will come that of San Jacinto, where Houston won his smashing victory and captured Santa Ana. 0 0 0 Time Is Great Teacher THAT would have happened, had Texas remained a part of Mexico. No one knows, of course, but the chances are it would be rather different from what it is. One hundred years ago, most Mexican states could count more people, money industries and improvements than Texas. Santa Ana voiced the prevailing idea correctly when, in setting forth to reconquer Texas, he said he was “going up there to rout cut a bunch of land thieves.” Even Americans regarded Texas as a poor proposition. It took them ten years to make up their minds to’ take it as a gift. Say what you will, but time is a great teacher. * * tt The Road Problem MEXICO, continues to fight, while Texas argues over a $175,000,000 bond issue for roads. That brings up a subject which has come to bother every state in the Union. Roads didn’t mean so much until we got to driving 25,000,000 autos, with the manufacturers clamoring for us to double the number.

It now takes more to build and maintain the roads of this country than it did to run the government fifty years ago. The all-absorbing question is, whether to borrow and pay as we ride, or increase taxes and pay as we go. It looks easy to issue bonds and let the next generation pay for our ease, but the thing does not always work out that way. Sometimes the road plays out before the bonds. There happens to be a road right close to Houston which has been rebuilt three times, though the original bonds still are unpaid. n tt Bonding as Habit BONDING has become a habit in this country Like other habits it is dangerous for that if no other reason. • The increase of debt not only for public but private enterprises is all out of proportion. Its effect will be to deflate money values, since the easiest way to pay off a given amount is to make dollars cheaper. Excellent as such a proposition may be for debtors, it is tough on creditors. Unless we all are going into debt and stay there we should be careful. Every one knows how the war affected European money values. What most of us forget is that War wouldn’t have done it but for the debts. Debts can be piled up in time of peace, if people become excited, or foolish enough, and they will have the same effect. u a m Struggle to Pay Debts TO a measureable extent, the rise in wages and prices over which we rejoice is due to cheaper money. The carpenter who gets $lO a day now is getting more than the carpenter who worked for $2.50 a day three generations ago. But not four times as much, or anywhere near it. The farmer who gets $1 a bushel for wheat these days actually is getting less than the farmer who sold it for 50 cents fifty years ago. Debts and the struggle to find an easy way of paying them, with the result of cheaper money, furnish a large part of the explanation. It would be just as well if we gave this factor of economy progress some consideration in arguing about bonds. - It would be just as well, also, to ask ourselves whether money can be spent as wisely and efficiently in big intermittent gobs as it can in a steady flow. Road building, for instraice, is not a business that can be completed and laid aside. That Joeing so, why go at it with spasms • DAILY THOUGHTS They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not.—Psalms 135:15. * *r if THE idol is the measure of the worshipper.—LowelL

Let’s Hope They Can Straighten It Out!

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Reason

WHEN Senator Robinson of Arkansas made his speech, praising Vice-President Dawes he said that the presiding officer had the unique distinction of never having been reversed in a parliamentary decision. Then when Dawes came to make his farewell speech he paid a fine tribute to the invaluaable service rendered him by his parliamentary expert. There’s positively no four-flushing about Dawes. ft, St St A parliamentary expert stands beside the presiding officer of every legislative assembly, but most presiding officers take all the credit, which makes the Dawes statement stand forth as an unusually decent thing. Thomas B. Reed, the great speaker of the national house _of representatives, once amazed congress by an apparently off-hand citation of a very old decision the English house of commons, but when he was congratulated for it he said: “Don’t congratulate me—congratulate Mr. Hinds, my parliamentary guide; he told me about it.” tt tt tt Serving lunch to those 500 people after his inauguration probably carried President Hoover back to the days when he fed the Belgians.

Most Tooth Brushes are Too Large

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hygeia, the Health Magazine. MOST of the tooth brushes sold today are too large for efficient brushing. There are all sorts of shapes available with many strange distributions of bristles, but so far as is known it is impossible to make a tooth brush that will conform exactly to the shape of the dental arch inside and outside. Some tooth brushes are made with bristles higher in the center and low at the ends, some with the bristles high at one end and low at the other, some with bristles

“ TdOAYhS TH£"‘ AMtjfomv *=S a=S asS S=s *=s s=S esS sa£ tog?- 1 CONFEDERATE UNION March 11 WHEN Abraham Lincoln was being sworn into office the Confederate flag was waving for the first time above the Confederate capitol at Montgomery, Ala. Foreign observers were holding different views as to which government was most likely to endure. Each had points of great strength over the other, and each had great weaknesses. The confederacy assumed a definitely solid front sixty-seven years ago today when it adopted the permanent constitution of the “Confederate States of America.” With few exceptions, provisions of the new document were identical with those of the federal constitution. It is interesting to note, however, that the founders of the confederacy attached so much importance to the contest *d principles of states rights that they incorporated it in their preamble. Clauses which differed from the federal constitution were, for the most part, wise provisions. No appropriations, except those asked for by department heads, could be made without a two-thirds vote of both houses of congress. A like vote was required to admit new states to the confederacy. _ ___ _.

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m m By Frederick LANDIS

MRS. REBECCA FELTON, 94-year-old citizen of Georgia, injured by an automobile, was the first woman to hold a seat in the United States senate, and if we were asked to name the next one we would say Ruth Hanna McCormick of Illinois. o*o Chicago just has celebrated her ninety-second birthday, which is a most remarkable age, when you consider how often she has been shot. * * * Mr. Coolidge’s landlord at Northampton probably raised the rent $lO a month after reading in the papers that his distinguished tenant had saved several hundred thousand dollars out of his White House salary.

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE

lower in the middle and high at both ends. This seems to make little difference, the only necessity be'ing that the brush be small and that the handle be such that it can be

P.—What is the epidemic of ringworm that is going around? A. —A recent examination of students of a college indicated that two-thirds of the men and at least one-third of the women were infected with ringworm of the feet. It is most commonly contracted in showers and on floors of gymnasiums and clubs. There is itching between and under the toes with maceration and splitting of the skin. The spread of srtich infections is best prevented by frequent scrubbing with soap and water the shower rooms and gymnasium floors.

manipulated so that the bristles will reach the front, back and sides of every tooth. The tooth brush demands proper care to give it long life and to prevent its acting as a carrier of in-

Times Readers Voice Views

The soldiers* bonus bill having been killed in the legislature, no further letters on this subject will be printed at this time. Editor Times—l saw in The Times recently an article in regard to people disobeying the law, and that Hoover was going to stop it. I would like to see him stop it. There are so many petty laws that people have forgotten what law is. There is not a man living who does not disobey some law some time every twentyfour hours. Repeal nine-tenths of the laws, and quit making more and cut out the thrills—these blood and thunder plays over the radio and in moving picture shows, this pleasure and pride, and get people down to business. Make women put on some clothes, stop printing pictures of women almost naked (and men also). Stop prize fighting. It is worse than brutes, for they do not know any better. No wonder there is stealing, robbing, kidnaping, murder charges. pur schools teach them to be men

YERY FINE OF DAWES m m HE RAISED THE RENT HOW SHE’S BEEN SHOT

OF all the retiring cabinet members, none quits with more accomplishment to his credit than the former postmaster-general, Harry S. New. He kept the air mail service from being sent to the dead letter office. o*o Russia and Mexico have both found that religion is the hardest thing in all this world to crush, a fact which became familiar to every government that ever tried it. 0 0 0 It sounds very promising for Germany and these other foreign nations to agree to cut out poison gas in future wars, but who is foolish enough to rely on such a pledge, particularly when aviation makes it the first of weapons! o*o The Coolidges could not keep three dogs, so Mr. Coolidge disposed of the two he owned and Mrs. Coolidge kept the one she owned—all of which was a conventional compromise. o*o The best thing that President Hoover did at his inaugural ceremonies was to give his old lowa school teacher a seat beside him in the glass-enclosed reviewing stand.

section rather than as a preventive. When a tooth brush is split, when bristles begin to break off and come out, the tooth brush should be thrown away. Anew tooth brush should be put in a strong salt cold water solution for two hours before using. Cold water should be used to moisten the brush before using, and to rinse it thoroughly after the teeth are brushed. The brush should then be hung in the open air in such position that the bristles will not come in contact with anything else for twen-ty-four hours before the brush is used again. Obviously, therefore, persons should have two brushes, one for morning and one for evening use. If a tooth brush is kept moist for too long a period of time or kept in an air-tight container, the bristles are quickly destroyed. Most important, however, is the fact that bacteria grow on warm, moist tooth brushes and that the use of the brush before it has dried thoroughly will merely add new bacteria to those taken from the mouth in the previous washing.

and women and not playthings. Hang every man who tries to teach Darwinism. Teach them where they are going and not where they come from. We are cutting our throats just as fast as we can. It will not be long until a person will not be safe anywhere or at any time. We must get our minds in a different channel or we are a gone nation. Now I am no preacher, do not belong to church, but I would like to see this old United States get down to business and not be a nation of thugs. RALEIGH THOMPSON. What is the maximum speed at wMch wild geese fly? The biological survey has a record obtained by a member of the royal air force of England who timed wild geese in an airplane using an air meter which showed an air speed of fifty-five miles an hour. The survey says that this probably is an average speed. There are no figures showing maximum speeds.

MARCH 11,1929

IT SEEMS TOME # By HEYWOOD BROUN

idea * n opinion* ex* oressrd to this column a r those ot one of Am erle* most InterestIn* writer, and are presented Willout recard to their a*ree- • ment with the editorial attitude ot this oaper. The Editor.

IN all presidential messages I find one important public problem somewhat neglected. I speak happiness To be sure, Herbert Hoover has had a great deal to say at various times about prosperity. But prosperity is not quite synonymous with happiness. The United States of our own day is, I suppose, the most prosperous land the world has ever known. Still, I am by no means sure that it is the happiest. As yet the distribution of wealth is imperfect and even so it might easily be maintained that the average American worker lives upon a scale of comfort unknown to the feudal baron who was without motor transportation, the radio or modem plumbing. But probably the feudal baron had a better time. Comfor'-t is so largely a comparative thing. Si tt tt

Covetousness THE commandment against, covetousness has never been enforced very rigorously. Indeed, it can not be in any competitive commonwealth. The much prized quality of ambition is based to a great extent upon envy of more prosperous neighbors. Every American wants for his country more prosperity and more education, but to attain these qualities we must sacrifice great segments of the joy of life. In an industrial age work becomes increasingly less fun. That does not mean that we would all be better off by scrapping machinery and going back to handicraft. Although toil is more tiresome now than ever before, we can abate its tortures by a shortening of hours. There is no reason why the eight-hour-day should remain permanently the goal of endeavor. 000 Utopian Morning WORK never can be abolished, but in some dim and glorious day the average citizen may be able to rise in the morning, about noon, let us say, press a few buttons, stretch, yawn and go back to bed with the remark, “Nothing to do until tomorrow.” This ideal state is still around the corner, but there is z o reason on earth why we can not immediately begin to tame work’s savage brother, education. It is not essential that schooling should be so painful to almost all the scholars. The road to freedom for the growing child lies in specialization. By 10 it should be easy eo determine in which way the twig is bent. Taboo Latin THE child who has no taste for Latin might easily be excused from this chore after the first dozen lessons. In his maturity he would not be able to decipher for himself the inscriptions on some public buildings or read the doctor’s notations to the chemist, but such ignorance might be blissful enough. We ought to get away from the ideal of the well-rounded man. It takes too much sandpaper to supply every individual with a spherical education. Reading and writing should be the only universal subjects. There is a theory that such knowledge as comes only with pain and anguish profits the sufferer most of all. I dissent. At the age of 8 I said with great sincerity, “I can never learn French.” My teachers paid no heed. They insisted upon rubbing my nose into this difficult language. The result has proved my childish wisdom. I \vas quite right. I never did learn French. 1 *

Well-Graded Track There should be more respect for the man with the one-track mind. Our greatest leaders have been recruited from this class. By now both business and the professions lean to the specialist. In college one may often pick and choose among the courses offered, but it is even more important that this possibility of election should exist in the grammar school. If you fill a lad with all kinds of asj* sorted knowledge for ten or twelf years, he may become confused and have no notion of his true inclination by the time he gets to college. I think that school and college could be, at most, pure joy. This is based upon my own experience. All through the long grind there were a few things which I enjoyed very much. Why should I have studied any others? As far as I can ascertain, no subject has ever been of the slightest use to .e from either a practical or an esthetic point of view.

St tS ft Useless Chemistry OUT of high school chemistry, to which I went wearily, I remember nothing except that salt is j made up of chlorine gas and so- ! dium. # If you put iron into oxygen it | will burn, when ignited, and there | are certain substances which may be combined to produce a gas which ! smells to heaven. But if I had never learned all this, would I be in any way a more useless member of the community? To be precise, my sharpest, memory of that chemistry course is the fact that I nearly lost my thumb la trying to put a rubber stopper into a thin glass vial. Since that day I have never at* tempted to put corks into any bot tie. I have concentrated on taking them out. In his inaugural, President Hoover seemed to suggest the possibility of a federal department of education, I’m not for that until I know that what sort of a system it will establish. I do not want the entire nation trained to engineering. There could even be too many Hoovers. .(Copyright, M 29, for Tho TimesX