Indianapolis Times, Volume 40, Number 265, Indianapolis, Marion County, 26 March 1929 — Page 4

PAGE 4

SCRIPPJ-HOWAAD

Get the Facts Although the provisions of the law make the proceeding a farce, the members of the highway commission need not permit a hearing of their charges against Director John Williams to be farcical. The highway department will spend twenty millions of dollars this year. The money comes from the people. It is a fund which is most attractive to acquisitive interests of all sorts and kinds. The commission, declaring that it is reflecting the wish of the Governor, has asked Williams, who for seven years has been a dictator of the road affairs of the state, to resign. He refuses to comply and points to the law which says that the director can only be removed on charges, after a hearing by the commission. In this case the commission itself files the charges and will then proceed, presumably to listen to evidence by its own members, and then act as judges of the case. It is not a procedure that would commend itself as having any elements of fairness. Under the conditions which exist, and that is the phrase used by the commission in demanding the resignation, it would seem that Williams would have little chance. When any man is up against any body which acts as accuser, prosecutor, judge and executioner, the verdict is seldom difficult to i forecast. That very fact should impel the members of the commission to proceed with more than ordinary diligence and care. The charges on which they are to try Williams should be serious and not trivial. For years rumor has made very definite charges in regard to the highway department. Now is the time to drag them into the open for a full and complete inquiry with the public looking on. The whole conduct of the department should be laid bare, and certainly Williams cannot afford to permit the hearing to be limited or narrowed in its scope. The backers of Williams charge that the endeavor io oust him, which is in a fair way to succeed, is prompted by manufacturers of road materials who have been blocked, it is asserted, in their greeds. The hearing should be broad enough to include the activities of the cement and stone men, of the venders of machinery. The public should be satisfied that interests which sell to the state and which have in sight this vastly increased fund are not trying to poison a watchdog. They should be convinced that the change may save money. The real test will come after Williams is discharged, and that seems likely from the yery nature of the proceeding. It is not prQbable that a commission acting on its own charges will decide that it was mistaken. That test will be in the naming of a successor. If the new director be a politician, a man who has a mind for perquisites, who has an appetite for favors, she public will be disappointed. lioad building, it would seem ought to be in the hands of those who know how to build roads. Honesty, of course, is the first demand. But knowledge is also essential. A high class engineer of outstanding reputation would be an answer to any charge that politics or revenge animates the move against Williams. Do We Face Starvation? Are the people of the United States doomed to die of starvation? Country people are moving- to the city. Farms are being deserted. There are 4,500,000 fewer people living on farms today than there were twenty years ago, although the population of the nation as a whole has increased by some 30,000,000. In other words, our population is increasing at the rate of approximately 15,000,000 every decade, while the farm population is decreasing by 2,500,000. Much is being said and written, therefore, on the subject of our future and there is widespread alarm lest we starve. But will we? W* don’t think so. \vhe*i there is a big enough demand for a thing, the thing will be supplied, and there certainly is a sizable demand for food. If we could look ahead 100 years, here is about what we would see: Almost everybody will be living in cities. There will be country clubs for the rank and file of city dwellers and country estates for the well-to-do, but farms such as we know them will be a thing of the past Here and there, in place of farm houses, will be factories—big plants run by electricity, owned by big business and managed by a president, a general manager and & board of directors. The public will be the stockholders and will receive regular dividends on their investments. These plants will operate enormous plantations, growing grain, cotton, fruits, cattle, poultry, game, vegetables and all the rest of the things which we now expect from the farm. Chemists drawing salaries of $50,000 or SIOO,OOO a year will be employed to take care of the soil. High-powered, high-salaried experts will be in charge of every branch of the business—for farming then will have become a business. Cultivation of everything will be on an intensive scale and perhaps

The Indianapolis Times (A SCKIFi’h UOVVAUD NtHSI’APEfI) jwued and pnblished daily (except Sunday) by The indlanapoiis 'i'luiea Publishing Cos.. 214-220 W Maryland Street. Indianapolia, ind Price in Marion Canaty * 2 cents—lo rents a week: elsewhere. 8 cents—l 2 cents a week. BOYD GURLEY BOY W HOWARD. PRANK G. MORRISON. Editor. President. Business Manager PHONE—RILEY 5551 TUESDAY. MARCH 26. 1929. Member of United Press, Scrlpps Howard Newspaper Alliance, Newspaper Enterprise Association, Newspaper Information Service and Andit Bureau of Ciiculatlons. “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way.”

many crops will be forced by electric lights, taking the place of the sun after the sun goes down. There probably will be few fresh vegetables and perhaps not much fresh fruit. Most everything will be canned or preserved in some way or other. In any event, nothing will be allowed to go to waste. If fresh fruits and vegetables are sold in season, what can’t be sold fresh will be preserved scientifically for sale out of season. Everything will be done by machinery. Employes will wear white collars, or what we then will be wearing in place of white collars, and there will be no “farm hands,” as the world knows them today. The present colossal waste on the average farm—the plows, tractors, harness, wagons, flivvers and so on left out in the rain to depreciate; the perishable products allowed to "rot; the unscientific management of things in general—will have disappeared. Instead, in 2029, big business, realizing the stupendous sum spent annually by 200,000,000 people, let us say, who must eat on an average of three times a day, will have taken over farming and applied to it precisely the same business methods that have made United States Steel, General Motors and such like, the colossal, profitable concerns that they are. The people of this country, without realizing it, then will have “returned to the farm.” That is to say, the university trained employes of the big business concerns that have taken over agriculture will be farming without realizing it. We can’t help believing, somehow, that we will continue to eat. The South Advances The rapid industrialization of the south has been accompanied by stories of cheap and docile labor, long hours, and the extensive employment of women and children. This has been the dark side of the bright picture of the south’s economic advance. Friends of labor therefore will be pleased to note evidences of anew attitude and the abandonment of the paternalism of plantation days, which to a considerable extent has been carried over into the new era. North Carolina, in which industrial progress has been particularly marked, has joined forty-three other states of the Union in providing compensation for workmen injured in industry, or for the departments of workmen killed in industry. The new law, which goes into effect July 1, was a compromise between labor and the manufacturers. It provides compensation on a basis of 60 per cent of pay, with a maximum of $lB a week, and limits of $5,500 for injury and $6,000 for death. Arkansas, South Carolina, Florida and Mississippi are now the only states which do not provide compensation for injured workmen. The Florida legislature will have a compensation bill before it when it meets April 1. The Arkansas senate defeated a bill similar to the one adopted in North Carolina, but it will be revived and there is strong sentiment for its enactment. Mississippi and South Carolina so far have shown no interest in compensation. It is to be hoped North Carolina’s enlightened action marks the beginning of better treatment for labor throughout Dixie. Quite a few people are said to be disappointed over Mr. Coolidge’s articles. After all, those costumes he wore in Dakota you can’t blame people for expecting some wild west stories. A1 Capone went back to Chicago to testify before a grand jury. We hope he told them something about those wicked Chicago gangsters. A Chicago couple, living in the same house for ten years and not speaking to one another, have petitioned for a divorce, spoiling it all. There are more than 3,000,000 motor trucks in the United States. Just another reason for not trying to hog the road on a dark night.

David Dietz on Scicncq Weather Study Is Young No. 313

WEATHER affects mankind in two ways. It is both his friend and his enemy. The farmer profits if sunshine and rain in proper amounts occur at the proper time. But too long a period of dryness or too heavy a rain may vork great damage. The damage which severe storms do are too well known to need much mention. Floods are particularly

On Nov. 30, 1921, an ice storm did $5,000,000 worth of damage in eastern Massachusetts. An equal amount o f damage was done on Dec. 17, 1924, by a storm which swept central Illinois, destroying orchards and shade trees and blowing down telephone and telegraph wires. The Galveston hurricane of Sept. 8, 1900, was particularly disastrous. The toll of life reached 6,000, while the damage was estimated at $30,000,000. The role which weather has played in times o• peace can be traced back to the beginnings of civilization. Yet it is only within a comparatively recent time that any understanding of the causes of the weather have been developed. The barometer had not yet been invented when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. It was not until twenty-three years later that Toricelli discovered the principle of the barometer. The word “cyclone,” which figures so largely in all discussions of the weathe- today w T as not used until 1848. It was first used by Piddington, who published his “Sailors' Hornbook” at Calcutta in that year. The word comes from the Greek and signifies the coils of a snake. Piddirc'n used it because his study of storms in the Indian ocean and the Bay of Bengal had led him to the conclusion that there was a circular motion of the wind in the storm. There had been some observations previously on the fact that the motion of the wind did not always agree with the direction in which the storm was moving. Benjamin Franklin made this observation and comments on it in a letter to Jared Eliot in 1747. But it was not until a century later that the rotary nature of the cyclone was established.

M. E. Tracy

“The Question of Why So Many Officials Need to Be Impeached Falls Back on Why Such Officials Were Elected to Begin With.” KNOXVILLE, Tenn., March 26. —Coolidge preached, but Hoover practices. The former might have given up the Mayflower, but didn’t. Let us be charitable and say it was due to his love of aquatic sports. No such alibi is available when it comes to the White House stable. Coolidge had little appetite for horses, except the electric breed. If example speaks louder than precept, as most folks believe, we are assured of more effective economy during the next four years than we got during the last. What is quite as pleasant to contemplate, we are assured of less talk about it, even though a President willing to be quizzed by reporters has been substituted for an apostle of silence. it tt tt Impeaching Officials T TAVING impeached her Governor, Oklahoma now will impeach the chief justice who presided at his trial. It looks like putting the cart before the horse, but maybe that is allowable in an automotive age. Oklahoma might clear up the situation by impeaching everybody and starting over again. Two ousted Governors within five years is a record that can not be matched by any other state, not toi mention the chief justice and his two associates now on the carpet. The question of why so many officials need to be impeached falls back on the question of why such officials were elected to begin with. By and large, the people of Oklahoma are just as honest and intelligent as people anywhere else. For some inscrutable reason, they have permitted rotten politics to get the better of them. That is the big problem they face. tt tt tt Tawdry Death Spectacles THE same civilization which mobilized the greatest army ever assembled for Marshal Focii to command, also made possible the greatest funeral in his honor ever accorded a military leader. So. too. the same civilization made possible the broadcasting of the ceremonies by radio and the profiteering by which some of the spectators were compelled to pay as much as 2,000 francs for the privilege of standing at a window. Those features of the spectacle to which we have become accustomed seem grand. Those to which we have not seem tawdry and out of place. This is not the last cortege that spectators will pay to see, or that will be carried to a listening world by wireless. In a few years, people will take such things in a matter of fact way, just as we have learned to take the organ, choir and gun carriage. a tt a

Problems of Peace Marshal foch was one of those fortunate war leaders who finished the task assigned him in triumph. Peace left him no problem but a graceful retirement. Others faced a sterner situation. Hindenburg, his defeated opponent, was drafted to help stabilize the newly formed German republic, and is still hard at work, though more than 80. In Italy, Mussolini,' who hardly was known a decade ago. has claimed the center of the stage, with a regime of political reconstruction which staggers the mind not only with its radicalism, but its boldness. Lloyd George, who stood forth as one of the four foremost men in the allied world when the war ended. but who has been in comparative oblivion for the last eight years, is re-emerging as an unexpected force in British politics. The Russian experiment moves mystically forward, with a Stalin, where a Lenin used to be, a Trotski in exile and a growing indifference on the part of outsiders as to its ultimate outcome. Ten years of peace have wrought even profounder changes than four years of war. What is more significant, perhaps, these changes are not complete. tt tt

disastrous, as the Mississippi floods testified. The Johnstown and Dayton floods are other examples On Jan. 27, 1922, a severe snowstorm caused an accumulation of snow on the roof of the Knickerbocker theater in Washington. The roof collapsed and ninety-seven persons were killed.

American Credit ITALIAN fascism, which has just been confirmed by a 60 to 11 vote, and Russian bolshevism, which seems solidly entrenched for the moment at least, promise no greater influence on the world at large, and especially in the field of international relations, than the financial readjustment which has lifted our' own country to first place. American credit, as made possible by American commerce and as sustained by modem consumption, has become a factor to be reckoned with throughout the world. This credit is doing far more than supply so much money in the shape of loans. Subtly, but definitely, it is not only promoting an international hook-up of big business in all the more important lines, but is acquiring control of those lines. The meat packing industry remains an American institution, but its operations are no longer confined to the territory of the United States. The same is true of the telephone, power, radio and many of the metal industries. American jazz, cigarets, oil cans, autos, bridges, machinery, and radio sets virtually are endemic. They have been lifted to that level by the outward spread of American enterprise and capital. The question of isolation, as opposed to co-operation with other nations, no longer hinges on politics, or diplomacy. We may refuse to co-operate, save in a half-hearted way. as we have done thus far. but we can not remain isolated. The banker, manufacturer and merchant have made that possible.

. THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES .

SAYS:

4P v ..wtraF. I 'ftta

Ancients Had Rough Headache ‘Cure ’

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical

Association and of Hygela, the Heal h Magazine.

THE idea that a headache can be relieved by pressing the roof of the mouth with the thumb is only one of the numerous silly superstitions that are related to the relief of headache. The earliest notion was that of the ancients who believed that headache was due to the development within the skull of some demon of ill health and that the proper way to cure the headache was to make a hole for the demon to get out. This they did by trephining the skull, taking out a small piece of bone about the size of a button. Skulls have been found thousands of years old which have been trephined in this way. After the trephining, the medicine man con-

IT SEEMS TO ME H ™ D

MOST of the books written about the war while it still raged were of a trivial character. Those were the days of Dawson and the whole pep up and carry on school. While the drums beat we heard nothing except that the war was a. grand and glorious lark or a noble crusade. Seemingly every one dined with a prayer or a jape upon his lips.

Recently the literature of the conflict has taken on worthier proportions. The poets, the novelists and the playwrights have had their say. Some little time was needed for humanity to get its second wind. It was not easy to write until the wounds began to heal, because blood got into the eyes of those who wanted to set words down on paper. Off hand I think of Laurence Stallings and Leonard Nason as the two who have made the distressed years most vivid as far as I’m concerned. And there might also be a word for Thomason. But now’, at what I started to call a late date, there comes an extraordinary book by an English poet. “Undertones of Wars,” by Edmund Blunden, is a book which I would call to your attention. Only eleven years have gone by and second thought must prompt the realization that the whole story has not been told even yet. This was not a war easily to be forgotten. Very probably no enduring book has been written around the great madness. tt V tt

New Note THOUGH much has been said in very many books, I feel that Edmund Blunden has emphasized one new note. Hi- book is a distillation from a diary which he kept while serving as second lieutenant at the ’British front. He has attempted to edit, without great change, fleeting impressions recorded at the time. Asa sort of appendix, there is a collection of his own war poems at the back of the book. In these I took small interest. I doubt if they are very good. Like many another poet, Blunden is more gifted In his mastery of prose. I am not sure that Edmund Blunden is particularly a pacifist though of course every intelligent man who served in France must of necessity be alienated from the “let’s-have-another” school. But whether it is part of his intention or not “Undertones of War” mines under militarism from anew direction. It seems to me that Blunden says less that war was terrible than that war was

Text * \ T 4 o’clock one afternoon our l\ tunnellois. locating German mining near their own, put up a defensive mine between the two lines. The earth heaved up to a great height in solid crags and clods, with revolving clouds of dust. “There was the flame and roar, then this dark pillar in the sunlight,

Speaking of Spring Styles

HEALTH SUPERSTITIONS—No. 4

jured forth the demon by the use of magic. The technic of the thumb applied to the roof of the mouth serves, of course, to get the mind off the headache and on the pain in the roof of the mouth. Sometimes a temporary diversion of the attention from the headache to some other point will have this result.

Headache is not a disease in itself —it is a symptom of disease and there are innumerable causes. The pain in the head is not always the same. It is customary to relate this to constant cause, whereas actually the same person may have different headaches at different times due to different causes. No doubt, the amount of circulation of blood in the brain and of fluid in the spinal cord and in the brain have something to do with headache.

Poisons of various kinds are associated with headaches, as are also

then a twittering, a hissing and thudding as it collapsed. At once the new crater was raked with machine gun fire and blasted with trench mortars and rifle grenades. Neither side wanted it, but neither would let the other set foot in It. “Several of us, highly excited, regardless of machine gun bullets, stood up on the fire step staring into the confusion and trying out our longest throws with Mills bombs. The smoke and dust hung long and swallowed up hundreds cf such

Questions and Answers

You can net an answer to any answerable question of fact or information bv writing to Frederick M. Kerbv Question Editor The Indlanapoiis Times’ Washington Bureau. 1322 New York avenue Washington. D. C. inclosing 2 cents in stamps for reply. Medical and legal advice cannot be riven, nor can extended research be made. Ail other questions will receive a personal reply Unsigned requests cannot be answered All letters are confidential. You are cordially Invited to make use of this service. How long has a head tax been levied upon aliens coming to the United States? The head tax was instituted in 1882 and was then 50 cents. The amount has gradually been increased until it is now SB. What are the limits for bantamweight and featherweight boxers? The official weight limit for featherweights is 126 pounds and for bantamweights, 118 pounds. How extensive were the papal states at the height of the papal power? The papal states at one time occupied nearly the whole of the central part of Italy. They included Roem. Romangna, Ravenna. Bologna, Ferrara, Sutri, Capua, Luna, the Pentapolis, Armilia, Parma, Modina, Reggio and Garfagnana. Is there any duty on a ring sent to England? No. Who played opposite Rudolph Valentino in “The Sheik”? Agnes Ayres. How many cows are in the dairy herds of the United States? About 22,000.000. How many librarians are there is the United States? According to the 1920 census there were 15,297 persons so employed.

Daily Thought

Is there anything whereof it may be said. See, this is' new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.—EccL 1:10. a a a THERE is nothing new except what is forgotten.—Mile. Ber ]

the beginnings of most infectious diseases. Some headaches come from exhaustion, such as that of eyestrain, worry and agitation, or disturbance of the emotions.

Long exposure of the head to the sun may cause a headache, and continuous noise and confusion may produce It.

Thus headaches that are due to psychological conflicts, to emotions or to agitation may be relieved occasionally by distraction of the attention to other things. In such cases, pinching the toe, the wearing of some foolish mechanical device, or pressing the thumb on the roof of the mouth may seem to relieve the headache. In cases in which there is an actual physical cause, such as a disease of the kidneys, of digestion, or an infectious disease, the treatment of the causes is far more important than the treatment of the headache.

Ideals and opinions expressed in this column are those of one of America’s most interesting writers, and are presented without regard to their agreement or disagreement with tj)e editorial attitude of this paper.—The Editor.

missiles. At length, the affair died out; dixies of lea came up at the usual hour and easily became more important than the blowing of a mine.” And out of this paragraph I wish to pick my text. Through an extraordinary impertinence the defenders of war choose to stigmatize pacifists as people somewhat mad and certainly neurotic. War, so the brass hats and brass hearts say, is an instinctive and natural activity of man. o tt a Tons of Metal THE chief point to be made against the recent conflict is not that so many millions died, but that an even greater number came through unscratched. So many tons of metal were hurled about to bring down a single individual that war can readily be stigmatized as the least efficient of human activities. Old-fashioned war may have been emotionally satisfactory. If a Greek didn’t like a Persian they could meet in a marathon and exchange spear thrusts. But there is no reasonable or decent drainage of rage present In the process of firing a shell at some foeman twenty miles away. Much of the shooting which went on in France could be attributed to pure nervousness. Blunden and the others round about the crater who tossed bombs into an enemy hole might well be compared to little boys jumping up and down and screeching. Firing a rifle into deserted darkness is about as dignified and as effective as sticking your tongue out. I think the pacifist after presenting all the facts of war may very propertly inquire, “Who’s looney now?” (Copyright, 1929, by The Times)

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MARCH 26,1929

REASON —By Frederick Landis

It Looks Now as Though President Hoover Will Do Nothing New About the Vexing Prohibition Situation. MR. ELIHU ROOT, a citizen of the United States, not of the British Empire, actually supported the contention at Geneva that each of the British dominions should have a judge to represent it in matters in which it said it was interested. In other words, John Bull would have seven judges on the bench to one judge for Uncle Sam. Any United States senator who would vote to ratify such a proposition should be ridden out of public life on a rail! tt tt b It now appears that President Hoover is to do nothing new about prohibition. We recall the emphasis with which in his inaugural he said that the people had called him to enforce the prohibition law and he would enforce it, but now it appears that nature is just to take her course while a “commission” makes an investigation. In other words, we are to have just four years more of the same. tt tt tt We pity the next fellow who assassinates a Mexican president, for the chances are that they will dispatch him without the intervention of the beautiful red tape which prolonged the trial of the assassin of i Obregon, which delay festered into the present rebellion. tt tt tt THERE’S no particular reason for any photographer's risking his life to make a picture of an automobile, traveling at 200 miles an hour, for the machines all seem to be standing perfectly still. It would be just the same to photograph It before the race. tt tt it It's all right for the President’s secretary to buy these rivers in Maryland for presidential fishing preserves, but Mr. Hoover will never convince us that he really likes the sport until he takes off that stiff shirt and high collar and fishes in a flannel shirt. tt tt it New York had but one execution for every fifty-six killings during 1928, and the same will hold good for the rest of the country. The United States Is the greatest health resort for murderers world has ever seen. tt tt tt WHEN Gertrude Ederle returned from swimming the English channel, New York City staged an almost inexplicable pageant of hysterics, and now Gertie has been up for trial in a New York traffic court, a u tt President Gomez informs the world that peace now reigns in Venezuela, but he appears to be utterly unable to account for it. a a tt In order to boost good times In the south, Tom Heflin calls on all southern people to wear nothing but cotton, and he practices what he preaches by ordering six double breasted cotton suits and cotton I topped shoes. Then to round out his loyalty, he will continue to talk like a boll weevil. tt u tt After thirty long years, New York City finally is to complete the tomb of General Grant on Riverside drive. There’s nothing Impulsive about New York City, except when she wants a drink of hard liquor.

FLORIDA’S DISCOVERY March 26 MARCH 26, 1513, Is the date on which Ponce de Leon first set foot on Florida and claimed the | peninsula for Spain. ! This Spanish cavalier, who was governor of Porto Rico, has been Immortalized in history as the mm who tried to find the “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.” During his governorship, vagul< traditions of West Indian native! told of a magic fountain in a country to the north, whose waters instated the bloom of youth to the aged. Fired by these stories, the cavalier decided to discover it. He resigned his secure position and set sail with three caravels on March 3. 1512. Florida was sighted on Palm Sunday, which in Spanish is called “Pasqua Florida," and hence the name, which is now more than four centuries old. Failing in his efforts to find the ‘‘Fountain of Youth,” in whose existence he had implicit faith, Ponce de Leon left Florida and retraced' his steps, believing that he might find the fountain on an island. He failed, of course, but the return voyage resulted in the discovery of the Bahamas and several other islands.