Indianapolis Times, Volume 40, Number 297, Indianapolis, Marion County, 3 May 1929 — Page 8

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Utility Regulation Annouuc-raent t-v the Governor of the reappointment of a Republican to the public service cotuniission ar.d the selection of anew Democrat tn the board is not likely to result in any drop of prices of utility stocks. Xor s tin re likely to he any "real hope in communities which believe that the utilities are oppressive. Asa matt-rof experience, the very fine thenrv of regulation of utility greed by a public commission has lost confidence because ot the failure of that bodv to see any but tlie utility side of any question. What blindness iu the commission lias failed to do, decisions in federal courts have accomplished until the public nas come to tiie conclusion that there is no hope of any relief, it pays, and pays, and pays. The political activities of members of the public service eon.mission, usually along lines in which the lobbyists for the utilities can be found, have not tended to increase respect for tb fj fairm- s h of Thai t>ody. The commission now has before it a most important question of merging various interurban lines, power plants and small utilities that are owned and controlled by the Instill interests. The plan may bo good. It may be very bad. The one certain thing about the situation is that the public, service commission, even if it desired, will not know whether it is good or bad before it passes on Ihe question. The commission has few experts to advise it. When men show- some ability or capacity for work, they mysteriously disappear from the pay rolls, cither to better jobs with private concerns or into oblivion. Theof fn-aIK- the commission represents public interest. In fact, it has become a perfunctory body, adopting a judicial mien and attitude and, generally speakincr, acting as a rubber stamp for ihe utility attitude. The Insull interests in the state become larger ea-di year. That is not so important as the fact that they have found it expedient to attract mar political factors which have nothing to do with electric service or transportation. A radical change of mind, if not of membership, in the. commission might restore it to some semblance of public confidence. Otherwise, the utilities will continue to get what they want, except in some few cities which have been able tosretain ownership of public plants and which are protected by that fact. There would have been more hope and more confidence had Governor Leslie changed the Republican member whose term expired and who now has four more years to reflect the Utility attitude on the public board. Some day, if the utilities get too greedy, the public may be forced to find a different answer. ' ' Armored Cars There are those in this city who have seen armytanks in action and to some the sight remains one of the supreme horrors of the World war. Memory of these crawling mechanical beasts, belching fire into human bodies, still brings a shudder. This horror of war now threatens to become one of the horrors of peace—or such peace as we have under the eighteenth amendment. The wide avenues of the national capital scon are to see the advent of the armored police car, if we can believe the Washington Post, and from armored cars to army tanks is but a single step. And why not? You may ask very reasonably, Have not the rum runners taken to the use of smoke l screens, another hideous device of war? Should not | the police, whose duty it is to break up the traffic, I in liquor, be permitted the use of any machinery required to keep them on even terms with the enemy? Are not the lives of policemen as precious as the lives ' of bootleggers? The answer to all these questions is: Yes, yes, yes End yes, again. But it all seems such a pity, the outgrowth of such unforgivable stupidity. For some years we have been hearuig people say the prohibition problem is merely one of enforcement. Well, the news cohunns are filled with enforcement these days. It is a rare day that death does not figure in the story, a rare day when innocent bystanders are not endangered. Smoke screens, armored cars, and next, no doubt, army tanks and bombing pianos 1 AH because some people are so completely conI vinced that they know what is best for other people: New Prohibition Era Dawns With 550 reputable lawyers of New York City orized to bring about repeal of the eighteenth ndm.ent. and others joining the movement in ,>/ > cities throughout the country, prohibition has S* |>d upon another era. There is some chance now ,'tne argument may be taken out of the hands Oi J fanatical drys and fanatical wets, and proper i '/ention civen to the influence of this one amendment on the first ten amendments popularly known as the Bill of Rights. Enough is known now about the reaction to President Hoover’s recent sermon on law enforcement to know that it hasn't changed any intelligent mind. One of the by-products of prohibition is the tremendous loss of prestige by preachers. Whether this is a good thing tor the advancement of civilization or not is open to argument. Personally it may contribute both materially and spiritually to the advancement of civilization and the betterment of the human race. It may be necessary for lawyers, doctors, and scientists genereally to organize to drive the militant preachers out of politics. Another way of putting it, although it may sound a bit raw, is that organized

f lic Indianapolis Times (A SCKIPI*S-lIOWAKI> NKWSPAI’EK) Owned and piiblNhed daily 'except Sunday i by The Inil anapoiix Times Publishing Cos., t’HW. Maryland Str*et. Indianapolis, lud. Pri'e in Marion County 2 cents —10 cents a week: elsewhere. 3 c-nts —12 ceDts a week BOYD GDRLeT • HOY W HOWARD, PRANK G. MORRISON, Editor. President Business Manager ~Th<o\ K - Y;ney” .v,r,l FRIDAY. MAY 3, 1629. Member of t'nited Press, Scrlpps- Howard Newspaper Alliance, Newgpuper Enterprise Asso- • mtion. Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of circulations. “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way.”

intelligence will have to combat organized and subsidized ignorance. But in fighting the eighteenth amendment, organized intelligence will have to consider the real power behind the preachers: for this more or less noble experiment was financed as an economic measure by j captains of industry, and the kept preachers were merely their tools, those who glued themselves to the liberal pay roll of the Anti-Saloon League and other amply provisioned and well-kept agencies of reform. Once big butanes • becomes convinced that the noble experiment is an economic failui and their financial support is withdrawn, there wll be nothing left for the reformers to do but to devote their energies to matters spiritual and try to advance the entirely praiseworthy cause of Christianity. Another and more serious by-product of prohibition is the crowing disrespect, or actual contempt, of both law and courts. While there always was more | ir less contempt for common police courts, at the same | mip there was bo*h respect and awe for federal courts, j Some of this awe came mighty near being supersti- j ion. Now much of it has vanished. In some ways this is deplorable. In other ways f may contribute in the long run to a larger measure yf liberty of the individual. There is danger in all this for.the stupid and ig,orant captains cvf industry who financed the AntiSaloon League, to put over prohibition, on the economic theory that it would increase the efficiency as well as the subserviency of labor. It is a cold-blooded benevolent paternalism that won't work. And row lawyers are organizing to save human liberty and government by law. to save tlie Constitution and the Bill ot Rights from a cancerous growth inside the Constitution. Reasons for Lawlessness Nobody can quarrel seriously with the Hoover idea that better law enforcement is desirable. It is. The fact that the lawless tendency has been what it is for the last twenty years does not make the cause less just. But the story of the criminal *s disregard for life and property is not the whole story. When all the facts and figures on that have been marshalled, let us take a look at the law's disregard for life and liberty. We have a deep conviction that, part of the general disregard for law springs from acts of ness committed in me name of the law. We refer to the maintenance by great corporations of thugs as voal and iron police; the unwarranted arrests of strikers; the issuance by courts of antilabor injunctions, which forbid almost everything but drawing one's breath; the use of force and the forms of law almost always on the side of the owner and seldom on the side of the person who works; the calling out of state militia to intimidate in labor disputes; the arrest and trial of persons for saying things or believing things; frame-up cases like Billings and Mooney; tragic miscarriages of so-called justice, such as that in the Sacco-Vanzetti affairs; the delay in trails of Sinclairs and Falls, but the speedy imprisonment of the hunger-driven law-breaker. The list might be enlarged, but these instances should be sufficient to indicate why the whole case is not made by a comparison of British statistics on ladings with similar statistics for America. If it is a question of the people's attitude toward laws and law enforcement, surely these things have something to do with the attitude. A headline in a Kansas paper says ‘‘EDITORS CAN FLAY t.OLF NOW." But the story was only about conflicting dates of two conventions being straightened out, Los Angeles recently held a floor-sweeping contest for girls. Old time affairs like that always recall pleasant memories. Just one word more about Marion Talley—she surely ought to be able to pick up a pretty nice piece of ground now for a song. Now that. John F. Curry has been named chief of Tammany hall, many of New York's political aspirants probably will groom themselves for Curry favors.

- David Dietz on Science—-

Two Weather Cycles

No. 345

EVAPORATION is one-half of the continuous weather cycle. Condensation is the other. Changes in temperature control the cycle. Evaporation goes on for a time and the air becomes filled with moisture. Then there is a drop in temperature. The air reaches a point—the so-called ' dew point—where it can no longer hold all the moisture

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form of tiny droplets of water or crystals of ice—depending. of course, on the temperature—and a fog or cloud is formed. Dr. W. J. Humphreys of the United States weather bureau lists four ways in which a given body of the atmosphere may be sufficiently cooled to reach the dew point and produce condensation. They are: First—Contact with objects colder than itself. Second—Mixing with colder air. Third—Radiation. Fourth—Expansion. The formation ot dew is the result of the first cause —contact with objects colder than itself. The ground at night radiates away the heat it has stored up during the day and its temperature decreases. When this happens, the ground cools the air immediately above it to the dew point, and the moisture condenses out into dew. If the temperature drops to a very low point, frost will form instead of dew. * Light fogs will form in winter as a result of this same cause when relatively warm humid air drifts over a snow bank. The cold snow bank cools the air below the dew point and as a result the moisture in it condenses into a light fog. This first method of cooling, while it may occasionally form a fog. is chiefly important because it forms dew and frost. We must turn to the other three methods for the production of clouds.

M. E. Tracy

The Kaiser's Grandson and a French Actress Proclaim Their Intention to Get Married. Who Would Have Thought Such a Thing Possible in 1018? —% — THE ‘ talkie" as an instrument of education is being demonstrated before the American Chemical Society, now in* session at Columbus. O. Its advantage in this field has received scant attention, but. is too obvious for comment Properly applied, the “talkie" could be made to bring the greatest men of the world into every schoolroom. Further than that, it could be made to unfold things before students as though they were seen through a microscope or telescope. tt a b Vivid instruction THE picturization of experiments and problems, when accompanied by explanatory lectures, probably is the most vivid and impressive method of instruction yet discovered. It contains possibilities which are beyond the range of individual study. It can magnify details invisible to the naked eye of a close observer until they stand out clearly before large' audiences. It can be stopped at the crucial point of complicated experiments. It can be used to portray the processes of germination and growth in such a way as make them easily understood. n a tt English—as Spoken ENGLAND has awakened to the stupendous meaning of the 'talkie" albeit in a small and nar-row-minded way. What England fears is that American accent may. take the place of her “pure" enunciation. What should console her is that if it. does this it will also exterminate her cockney dialects. When English newspapers get to ridiculing “Vermont and Kansas accents." as they have in editorializing about the dire effect of the American “talkie." they should not forget the capacity of some of their own folks to mangle the king's English. If there is any place in the United States where the language of Shakespeare. Thackeray and Dickens is more wantonly, wickedly and inexcusably slaughtered than it is in some sections of Great Britain, it has yet to be discovered. tt tt tt $180,000,000 Bridge e'r'HE Baltimore and Ohio RailI. road, in conjunction with the North River Bridge Company, asks permission to span the Hudson. The bridge will have a span of 3.240 feet, a clearance of 200 feet, and will cost $180,000,000. The ordinary, matter of fact way in which it is proposed shows how far we have gone in steel. a st tt Eiffel's Tower T'HE Eiffel tower is only forty years old. It introduced one of the most, stupendous revolutions in architecture that has occurred since the age of pericles. This skeleton of steel was the precursor not only of the skyscraper. but of such bridges as the Baltimore and Ohio proposes to build. Until Alexander Gustave Eiffel | demonstrated the strength and en- ; during power of steel, no one believed it could be made to support such gigantic structures. When he proposed to build the tower which bears his name, it was ridiculed as a “hideous, useless structure," and denounced as “an affront to heaven." Though still the tallest thing ever built by man, it has come to be regarded as rather commonplace. a a Changing Our Minds SCIENCE is not onlv teaching us how to change our methods, but our minds as well. Men can not pass from ox carts to autos, candles to electric lights, or three-story office buildings to skyscrapers in a couple of generation';. without getting the idea the* some of their prejudices and traditions should also bp laid aside. There .still is too much fanaticism and obstinacy, but by and large, people have grown vastly more open-minded than ever before. They do not carry their hatreds so far, or hold them so long. a a tt Passing of Hate IN spite of the. fact that the reparations conference seems likely to break down, there never was a great war which lost so much of its sting in ten years. Considering the slaughter, the suffering and. above all else, the wild, rabid gusts of hate, it is amazing how quickly the peoples involved have resumed peaceful relations. Comes the kaiser's grandson and a French actress to this country, proclaiming their intentions to get married. Who would have thought such a thing possible in 1918? C tt B Getting Excited WAVES of sheer emotionalism still roll among us. with vast multitudes getting excited over this or that for no apparent reason, but somehow they seem to peter out with less destructiveness thar. they used to. Take Ku-Kluxism. for instance, and. bad as it was. it led to no such disturbances as did the Know Noth- | ing movement of 1856. Just now we think we are awfully excited and wrought up over prohibition. To hear the talk, one would think the violence were just around the corner. Asa matter of fact, violence on a large scale has occurred a dozen times in this world with far less talk to inspire it. But we shall maneuver out of this mess in an orderly manner and with i little show for the present travail of the spirit but argument.

it then contains, and condensation takes place. When this change in temperature takes place close to objects or the ground we have the formation of dew. In a similar fashion, when the temperature of~the open air passes below the dew point, condensation takes place in the

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

SAYS:

Join the Golden Ride Club; Avert This

.■ | j

Wire Won’t Cure Rheumatism

BY DR. MORRIS FISIIBEIN Editor Journal of fh*- American Medical Association and of llvjreia, the Hea’-h Majiazin*. THERE are as many cures for rheumatism as there are people with notions concerning the disease. Rheumatic complaints in the elderly are chronic. Such people tend to have periods of getting better and getting worse. As was mentioned in a previous article in this series, old people not infrequently can predict a change in the weather by the fact, that the rheumatic joints hurt more than they did before. Therefore they devise such; strange, cures for rheumatism as carrying buckeye in the back pocket, j tying a string around the leg. or I

IT SEEMS TO ME

HERE in America we pride our,'•elves a great, deal upon the national sense of humor. But T wonder if this virtue may not a 4 time? he indulged in to excess. Recently congressmen screeched with delight when told how the bullet of a Volstead vigilante had crashed through a young man's brain and in New York state a federal prosecutor beamed as he explained that an elderly woman of idealistic tendencies would have to spend 300 days in jail if she persisted in a refusal to pay her fine. “That’s the law." he chuckled. T would not cheat Prosecutor Wilkinson out of his fun. his nice, clean fun. It is not every day that a prosecutor manages convict a person wholly guiltless of anything, but good intent. And even so I wonder whether Wilkinson will manage to chuckle throughout 300 days. Os course, for a time we mar expect him to sing and chortle during his morning bath. And let me hasten to add that Wilkinson is a very moral man and that both the shades and blinds are drawn. And of course he keeps his eyes tight shut during ablutions, for even his high morality would hardly induce him to bathe while clad in his long woolens. Old Judge Blinks AND how will Judge Burrows pass his 300 days? Good old Judge Burrows. His home is in New London, and Connecticut summers are among New England's glories. In Junp he can see the woods burst foicu in riotous colors. Beside the town the river runs all cool and lazy under the hot sun. I seem to see the venerable man of law reclining in a hammock with some book. “The Six Little Peppers and How They Grew” perhaps. Oh. no. not that, for growth suggests the existence of natural processes not suitable to be mentioned within the hearing of good old Judge Burrows. Perhaps he will not read at a!', but blink and turn to get the hammock fixed just so in order to nap the noon away. It is possible the judge will not sleep so well at night. Indeed I would not trade with him. I'd rather have the sweet repose of the old gentlewoman in her nice, cool cell. Good conscience before this has softened harder beds. Too much. I think, has been made of the fact that Mary Ware Dennett is a grandmother. After all it was not age. but youth, which went on trial in Brooklyn. It is the up and coming generation which says. “I want to know." and musty age, mature and married, shakes its head. It may be added. “What was good enough for your grandmother should be good enough for you.” Still, as Groucho Marx said in a late lamented show. -But who wants to marry your grandmother?—Not even your grandfather.” BBS Favors Women Jurors THERE was no lack of years in the jury box where sat the twelve good men and true. Also, if I may be allowed to digress for a moment the Dennett case should be argument for the extension of

HEALTH SUPERSTITIONS—No. 31

putting a piece of copper wire around the waist. As to their efficacy in the control of rheumatism, one of these cures is about as good as another, or. to tell the truth, no good at all. The rheumatic infection brings about inflammation of the tissues, which must be controlled from within the body. The physician prescribes remedies which decrease pain and lessen the inflammation and give what aid can be given through external influences. Particularly Interesting is the development of quackery in relationship to magic of this type. Everyone knows about the oldtime electric belts that used to be used for the treatment of rheumatism. They practically have disappeared from the American scene. A physician in Connecticut some

the jury system to women in this state. The promise of a trial by peers was not made good in the case of Mary Ware Dennett. Trial by peers means a. judgment by those who have some spiritual kinship to the accused. This woman and these wellfleshed, ruddy men of Brooklyn had nothing whatsoever in common. And isn’t it ironic that the case should have gone as it did? In courts of law the injunction is strictly laid upon all who appear that they should tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." As it happens Mrs. Dennett has been sentenced to 300 days in jail for doing just that. To escape the censor, every writer on sex topics for the young must perjure himself for the present law makes the truth a felony. Morris Ernst had no chance whatsoever to win the case. He would have had tb catch these jurors when they were a good deal younger. I started to say that there was no sap in them, but the figure seems inappropriate under the circumstances. Like all Americans they had a sense of b' jm or. When the prosecutor mac/ sly innuendoes the solid Brooklynites could not restrain a snicker. That is our custom. Sex is something to snicker about. If Mary Ware Dennett had leered and talked her book behind the back of her hand, not a jury in the country would have convicted her.

Quotations of Notables

THE only musical instrument I play is the typewriter.”—Wil- | iiam Lyon Phelps, professor at Yale, j 808 “At present the essentials of man's origin through evolution are established facts."—Dr. Ales Hrdlicka. curator of anthropology at Smithsonian Institution. BBS “A visitor learns so ! .le of the spirit of the real America from these plays."—Feodor Chaliapin (Outlook!. B B B “I have no illusions on the subject of farm relief. Indeed it is my judgment that there is no one single remedy."—Senator McNary core.). BBS “Appalling as an idiot is, he is not as appalling as a brave thinking man who is also mostly an idiot.”— Struthers Burt (Outlook*. B B B “Fortunate as the men and women who can retain their capacity to feel thrills." —Richard Washburn Child. BBS “Political progress results from the clash of conflicting opinions. The public assertion of an erroneous doctrine is perhaps the surest v ay to disclose the error and make it evident to the electorate.”—Former Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York. BBS “Mass production is making a better world. "—Edward A. Filene, Boston merchant.

years ago developed .the idea that all sorts of rheumatism could be cured by putting little wire strings around the joints. For that notion there was no scientific support. The most recent devices are alleged magnetic collars hung around the neck, with the claim that they will magnetize the iron in the blood and thereby cure not only rheumatism. but other chronic complaints. All of this is hokum, with no basis in scientific evidence. In every instance, {he magical basis in the same. The person feels better because he wants to feel better and because it is the tendency of the disease to have periods during which he feels either better or worse. But when the charm is forgotten or the disease gets worse, the magic fails.

By HEY WOOD BROUN

Marry and Learn OUT sober and plain sex eduraO tion is a more serious matter than any anecdote about a traveling salesman and the farmer's wife. The truth of the matter is that the jury of solid and substantial men did not convict Mrs. Dennett so much as sex education in general. Indeed, one of them when interviewed by a reporter after the trial said. “I think when people get married that's time enough to get sex education.” And when the reporter expressed surprise at this theory the old gentleman explained, blushing furiously. “You g?t it by instinct." But even this. Tam afraid, was a faulty approximation of thp old gentleman's ideas. This Brooklyn jury had small reverence for any instinct except that of revenge. These men had married according to the counsel of St. Paul. It was better to marry than to burn. Marriage can be a matter not unlike winding the clock. After many years of cold mutton one would rather not have the matter mentioned at all. It is extremely difficult to appeal to thp idealism of anybody who wears a union suit. But though tftese twelve men of Brooklyn reasoned after their kind I am not willing to be tolerant toward them. I hope they all itch. The lamb which is shorn to make fat citizens smug and safe will not forever be denied his proper vengeance. (Copyright, 1929, by The Times)

A GREAT many of our people, . even our literate people, do not like to read difficult books over which they have to interrupt themselves and do independent thinking. They prefer something recommended by the Crime Club, so engrossing that you can’t hear yourself think."—Dean Christian Gauss of Princton University.

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

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MAY 3, 1920

REASON

•By Frederick I.and is

Germany Proves to Be Greatest Magician in History: the Allies Need a Guardian. GERMANY is the greatest magician of all history. Since the war she has achieved pre-eminence in aviation in Central and in .South America; she has restored her powerful merchant marine; she has revolutionized naval architecture, by inventing a small cruiser which can Outrun and outshoot anything afloat, yet in spite of these great achievements, she is actually able to convince the allies that she is so poor and so hopeless that her war obligations should be reduced! tt a a Emboldened by her success in making fools of the allies in the matter of debt collection, a powerful German group now demands that the allies return the German colonies, seized when the war ended. > The next step probably will be a demand that we apologize to the kaiser and pay him a vast indemnity. The allies need a guardian! tt tt tt The Nationalist government of China states that that government could place an army of 50.000.000 men in the field, all of which convinces one that it may be better for the rest of the world to let China continue to smoke opium. tt a a WE gather from the statement of Senator Glenn of Illinois, who returned on the wet Leviathan, that the passengers were so obsessed by a desire to observe the. proprieties that, notwithstanding their thirst, it was necessary to blindfold them and back them up to the bar. tt tt a With all the furore Tom Heflin has caused because one pop bottle was thrown at him. he would not last very long as a baseball umpire. a k tt Senator Cole Blease of South Carolina is too enthusiastic in his effort to have a law passed to forbid the use of intoxicating liquor in foreign embassies at Washington, j It can't be done, you know, for ; those embassies are “foreign soil." n a a The history of the World war | being prepared by the Carnegie endowment will consist of 150 vol- [ umes. Fine for our senator', to read i while Tom Heflin's speaking. non PRESIDENT HOOVER has found a way to be sociable and at the same time save his vitality, by having a motion picture equipment put into the East room. By this method he won’t have to do arm talking except to say: “Good evening and good-by." nan King George has recovered sufficiently to preside at. a meeting of the privy council, but he's not yet strong enough to lay a corner stone. tt O tt The Governors of our various states who wish to organize staffs should be able to find some military material at a bargain when all those defeated rebel "Mexican generals flea to the United States.

=jrcjo ! Avi is! THE*AnniyEßS/jay -Lai ,-t JJ

WASHINGTON CHARTERED May 3

■O-NE hundred and twentv-seven 4 > 1 - years ago today Washington, !D, was incorporated as a city by ! an art of Congress. Its charter provided for a mayor to be appointed annually by the president of the United States and for a council consisting of two houses. ! This form of government, with a | few minor changes, remained in I force until 1371, when congress reI yoked this charter and established j territorial government throughout : th n whole of the District of Columbia. This art of 1871 took the ballot | away from the citizens ot the cap- * ital and that feature has bean the ! source of much controversy since. Tradition says that the site of the city was marked by George Washington when, as a young surI veyor. he was scouring the surrounding country. At all events, Washington, assisted by an advisory commission, chose the site in later years. President Washington seldom referred to the city in conversation by the name which had been given it as a tribute to him. Instead, he usually called it “the Federal City.” Why do soldiers fall out of step when crossing a bridge? To avoid what engineers term “critical vibration.” which tends to weaken the bridge. For the same reason automobiles and other vehicles slow down in crossing bridges.