Indianapolis Times, Volume 41, Number 166, Indianapolis, Marion County, 21 November 1929 — Page 4

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Who Owns the Air? When congress enacted the radio law it specifical y declared that ownership of the air should rest with the public. This declaration has been challenged by station WGY of Schenectady, N. Y.. owned by the General Electric Company, and the United States supreme court is studying the case. WGY bases its claim to property right on priority in use of Its channel, expenditure of large sums for equipment, and its public service. It objects to curtailment of Its broadcasting time, Mid claims that the fifth amendment to the Constitution has been violated. The lower court decided that the commission had erred in not granting the station the full time it previous'y had enjoyed. The commission, in a brief just filed, assorts that the supreme court ran not uphold WGY without declaring the radio act unconstitutional, and contends that it has done nothing more than to carry out the jnandate of congress. The suit raises a point of great public interest. Presumably the supreme court might hold that broadcasting stations have acquired rights to the channels they have been using. This would mean the passing of the public ownership of the ether. Buch a development would be a public calamity. Our Minister to China president Hoover has made no wiser appointment than the promotion of Assistant Secretary of State Johnson to be minister to China. Johnson is the finest type of civil servant which the government for a generation has been tr\tng to develop, not always with success. He is an expert. He went directly from college to the foreign service, Mid has spent most of his life in China. Like John A. Mac Murray he was chief of the fareastern division of the state department, and assistant secretary of state. Now he follows Mac Murray as minister to Peiping. In addition to the high technical qualifications which he shares with Mac Murray, Johnson has a breadth of judgment and human insight which should make him more successful than his predecessor. He goes back to China at a critical time. That country is divided by civU war and harried by famine. In January the nationalist government threatens to overthrow the unequal treaties under which the United States and other powers hold extraterritorial rights. The problem of American diplomacy Is to bring about that needed change in an orderly fashion. We can think of no man better fitted than Johnson to carry out the difficult tasks of the Chinese mission.

Twisted Justice Whether the nation’s capital is wet or dry is a subject in which the public naturally is interested. Newspaper men are in the business of presenting information on interesting subjects. The Washington Times sends three reporters to verify a two-year-old report on liquor conditions to see if they have improved or become worse. The result is a series of stories saying forty-nine speakeasies are flourishing. A grand jury is in session. Following the publication about the speakeasies, the three reporters are summoned before the grand Jury. They are questicnd as to the sources of their information. They refuse to divulge them. Meantime, however, the city editor of the newspaper supplies the grand jury with the addresses of the reputed speakeasies. The reporters also, according to the account of the Times, refuse to go before the United States commissioner in the role of prosecuting witnesses against alleged operators of speakeasies and refuse to swear out complaints against them. The reporters say they can not produce liquor as evidence of purchase and are unable or unwilling, because it might Involve the betrayal of confidences, to produce supporting witnesses. Whereupon the grand Jury sidetracks itself from the objective which constitutes the grand jury's reason lor existing, namely, the ferreting out of law Eolations. It engages itself with the task of certifying the three reporters for contempt at the behest of the prosecuting attorney, for failure to answer the questions. The reporters are sentenced to forty-five days in Jail, and the grand jury, so far as the public knows, does nothing toward running down the supposed dews that have been given by the reporters. The speakeasies presumably continue to run. The reporters are carted off to Jail and habeas corpus proceedings are begun. Here is an example of twisted Justice. An important public issue is raised by this latest exercise of the power to punish for contempt. One of the most useful public functions of a newspaper is to expose law violations. A distinct aid to that function is the newspaper’s ability to secure confidential Information on which its Investigation then Is based, nd on which action has been taken, informing the public of conditions that do exist. The attitude of the grand jury and of the judge who sentenced the reporters seems to be that a newspaper investigator automatically should become a prosecuting witness. Should that attitude be adopted by all grand juries, it would decrease automatically to the vanishing point the effectiveness of a newspaper as an investigator into subjects of great public importance. What grand juries should do is to accept such information as that provided in the Washington case, run it down, verify or disprove it. and employ it as a useful part of the basic grand Jury function. The Washington grand jury has not seen fit so to employ the information given to it. But there is no need to be alarmed about such action becoming a general custom. Why? For the simple reason that the public, which in the final analysis determines what Juries and judges and district attornej's do, will not stand for any such precedent as the Washington case would tend to establish. Father's education is beginning all over again. Junior has home work. Inefficient Government For a nation renowned the world over for organizing ability and efficiency, the hit-and-miss organization of our federal government is a national shame. That is not news. Governmental reorganization has been discussed for more than ten years by three administrations. It has been pledged by campaign orat<?s of both parties. But nothing has been done. The rtisa Is politics. Every time a President haa

The Indianapolis Times (A SCKIPPS-HOH'AKD NEWSPAPER) Owned and published dally (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Cos., 214-220 West Maryland Street, Indianapolis. Ind. Price in Marion County, 2 cents a copy; elsewhere, 3 cpnts delivered by carrier, 12 cents a week. BOYD GURLEY" BOY W. HOWARD, FRANK G.-MORRISON, Editor President Business Manager RHONE-Riley SOM THURSDAY. NOV. 21. 1929. Member of Cnlted Press, Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance, Newspaper Enterprise Association, Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations. “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way”

started out on the needed reform, there have been howls and sabotage from office holders and patronage panders. That is what happened to the Harding reorganization report prepared by the commission headed by Walter F. Brown, now postmaster-general. This thing has been on Hoover’s mind for a long time. It would be. He is best as an organizer. He found the commerce department the least important branch of the government, and in eight years made it one of the most important. The result looked like a miracle. In fact, it was only the application to government business of efficiency principles applied dally and generally throughout-the commercial world. When Hoover ran for the presidency, he promised to do the same kind of reorganizing in the White House. He is keeping that pledge. In a fortnight he is expected to present to the new congress his initial plans. The problem is essentially one of co-ordination, centralization, elimination of duplication. The nation started out with three federal executive departments, which have been added to from time to time, reaching a present total of ten. To these have been added twenty-five independent commissions and agencies. The result is that one governmental activity may be handled by as many as half a dozen departments and agencies. Apart from the obvious direct waste of money involved in such duplication, there is a serious division of responsibility, which produces in many cases gross inefficiency and negligence. Instead of attempting to complete the series of organizational reforms in one swoop and probably meeting the same failure as his predecessors, the President Is reported planning to put through congress one reform at a time. He is expected to start with* veterans’ activities and follow with centralization of prohibition enforcement agencies. Among the bureaus now responsible for some phase of veterans’ relief are the independent veterans’ bureau, the public health servic of the treasury department, the independent national home for disabled volunteers and the pension office of the interior department. These agencies and others, spending more than three quarters of a billion dollars a year, are to be consolidated in whole or in part. Similarly, most prohibition enforcement agencies, including present treasury department units, are to be centered under an assistant attorney-general. After ten years of talk by the politicians, the President has a right to assume the immediate co-operation of congress in acting on executive reorganization. France was without a government for twelve days while anew premier was being picked, but nobody made the mistake of sending any of that loan to the United States. Too much sleep is a vicious habit, says a University of Pittsburgh professor. It certainly is, professor, the way folks go about the Job with a snarl. People who dropped a little in the recent stock fluctuations can clip the experts’ opinions that the “country is basically sound” and give them to the first bill collector that calls around. The umbrella, we read, is 179 years old. The figure must be wrong, as several people have left older umbrellas than that at our house. We read that a Mr. Onion of Troy, N. Y., has applied for a change of name. This should not be granted. How will the people of Troy ever know their Onions?

REASON By FP £?ndis K

JOHN STANLEY was a state highway policeman, living at Rochester, Ind.. and the other day he was injured fatally in a col'.ision, his leg being horribly mangled and he lost a lot of blood, whereupon his brother, Glenn Stanley, opened his own veins and gave the blood, needed for a transfusion to the injured man, which is no more than the every day man would do for his folks. n * a While this was going on. a woman was dying in Germany, dying in the midst of poverty, though she had been raised in the palace of an emperor. A few miles away, in Holland, her brother, a former kaiser now in exile, was living, surrounded by many millions of dollars, but he closed up like a clam in the presence of his sister’s necessity. All of which proves that red blood is better than blue blood, particularly when the blue blood Is due to an indigo heart. tt tt a These revelations of lobbying at the national capital prove the necessity of ridding the District of Columbia of all evil and secret influences. No honest interest needs a special representative at the seat of government and we should spray the tree of government and rid it of all such parasites. u tt m AFTER writing good books and plays, but writing himself out, Bernard Shaw seeks to supply the deficiency by making violent statements. He recently told a grouD of American students in London that the people of the United States appeared to be barbarians to the English, and we wish the students had replied that our congress had not yet become sufficiently barbarous to appropriate money for scaloing knives which red savages were to use on helpless women and children. tt n u We think a lot more of William W. Willock of New York, heir to one hundred millions, who married his mother’s chambermaid, than we do of Miss Bemardine Murnhy. daughter of a rich California banker, who is about to purchase a controlling interest in an Italian prince. a a THE death of “Iron Man” McGinnity. who used to pitch for McGraw’s New York Giants, recalls the older davs of baseball when maior league teams would go through an entire season with two pitchers, using them every other day. instead of the large flock of twiri-rs. now emnloved. Then the k’*s of the country divided their allegiance between Clarkson and McCormick, who pitched for Chicago, and Welch and Keefe, who pitched for New York. u m m The American Bankers’ Association reports that New England is saving more money than ever before, which is doubtless due to the fact that Mr. Coolidge has returned to Massachusetts. u The United States senate should follow the house of representatives and establish a World war veterans’ committee to handle all proposed legislation, relating to such soldiers. If this were done we would not have 5.000 disabled ex-service men Quartered places, many of them in jails, on a <* hospital ac-

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E. Tracy S A YS : What We Need Is Steadiness, Not Spasms , in Getting the Nation’s Business Back to Normal. A BILLION dollars worth of improvements within the year, say railroad men, a billion dollars worth of puC!ic projects within four years, says Mayor Walker. Call money goes down to 4H per sent, with few takers, which means more credit for builders, manufacturers, and real estate men. Instead of collapsing, it looks as though business would boom, now that Wall street is out of the way. The stock ticker crowd didn’t amount to so much after all, did it? a a a Still, there is danger in mob psychology, whether it buys on margin, boosts real estate, or undertakes to purify society. Volstead: sm, sixteen billion share days, and the mob at Eastland, Tex., illustrate the same old weakness of Americans to overdo things. If those steering business back to normal, as they put it, don’t watch out, we will find too much of a boom and another spill. What we need is steadiness, not spasms. a tt tt That Texas Tragedy NO doubt, the people of Eastland, Tex., are very sorry that it happened. The man had been condemned to death, anyway, and after he shot the jailer, there was not the slightest chance of his escaping the penalty. Even the mob leaders would admit that they beat the law by only a few days, and accomplished nothing by doing it, except to disgrace the community. Storming a jail, dragging a human being out of his bed, stringing him up to a telegraph pole—what have they proved, what have they vindicated, what have they done to make any one feel safer? asm There is no progress in emotionalism. Try as we may, we can hate no harder, love no fiercer, or punish more cruelly than our savage ancestors. It is not what we feel, but what we think, that tells the story, and thinking amounts to little, unless it leads to the production of something better. * * 3 Emotionalism remains the raw, untamed thing it always was. The individual who yields? co it loses, and so does the community, or nation. Whether it’s a campaign for censorship, a reasonless rise in prices, or a war, you will find that unrestrained emotionalism is the cause in nine cases out of ten. s. * a • Murder and Poetry SOME six montns ago, Marion Drew of Ashland, Miss., was found dead with a bullet in his chest. G. T. Gunter, his father-in-law, owned a pistol from which such a bullet might have come. This, together with the testimony of Drew’s 8-year-old daughter and Mrs. Drew led* to Gunter’s conviction. Now comes Mrs. Drew not only confessing the crime, but confessing it in poetry. “Down on my knees before him,” she writes, “I pleaded for his life, but deep into his bosom had plunged a forty-five.”

The advancement of humanity is not to be measured by its tears, its laughter, or its shrieks, but by the things it has accomplished through quiet thinking, selfrestraint and steady work. The illusionment prevails that real achievement goes back to passion, eccentricity, or even fanaticism, but that is because we call many achievements great when they merely are atonishing. The truly great achievements are to be found in the customs, comforts and conveniences that live, not in the movements, conquests, or empires that have disappeared; in the discoveries, inventions, and methods that can be made use of by average people, not in the ability of a few to lord it over their fellow beings for a moment. a a tt Not That Stupid AN English engineer says that we could take the same number of men employed on the great pyramid and build it in one-fifth the time, or take one-fifth the men and build it in the same time. The fact that we wouldn’t build it at all represents as much progress as does our ability to build it quicker. Stupid as this age may be, it has sense enough not to waste its energy on thirteen-acre grave slabs. Our structures are less artistic, perhaps, than those of antiquity, but the majority of them are designed to make life easier and happier for large numbers of people.

Daily Thought

To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life.—Romans 2:7. tt tt tt Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others with him have dors evil. If a man has acted right, he has done "veil, though alone.— Fielding. What library ranks first in the number of books on its shelves? According to officials of the United States library of congress, the National library of Paris, France, is first in rank among libraries of the world in actual number of volumes on its shelves, at present estimated to contain 4,050,000; the library of congress at Washington, is second with 3,907,304 volumes (August, 1929,) and the British Museum library third with approximately 3,000,000 volumes. In one sense the library of congress ranks first because it receives only two copies of each new copyrighted work, whereas the National library at Paris receives more than two.

" INDIANAPOLIS community chest jy. S j •

DAILY - HEALTH SERVICE Diseased Throat Carries Diphtheria

BY DR. MORRIS FISKBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and or Ilyßeia, the Health Magazine. WHEN typhoid fever is controlled, the control is accomplished by providing good water, good milk and good food, meaning food free from germs, and by making proper disposal of sewage in which typhoid germs are likely to be found. In addition, it is necessary to control the typhoid carrier. The person who has recovered from the disease and who still has the germs in his system goes about distributing them to other people. In some instances, typhoid carriers have been found among cooks who spread typhoid fever wherever they

IT SEEMS TO ME By BROUN

A FORTUNE should lie within the hands of any novelist who can go to Hollywood and have a good time. He then would be in command of a brand-new idea. Os course, it would be necessary for him honestly to en ; oy himself. Enthusiasm can't be faked. If any such book ever :j sincerely written, I, for one, will welcome it. Out of the vast literature of disapproval which has been inspired by our motion picture capital, a few good books have come. Carl Van Vechten’s “Spider Boy,” for instance, always seemed to me a merry tale. But by now I am a little weary of stories which undertake to show up the futility, ignorance and general all-round worthlessness of the film industry. I am moved to this torpor by reading “Hollywood Girl” of J. P. McEvoy. Although it exploited a synthetic sort of humor, “Show Girl” seemed to me an amusing yarn. Formula protruded from every paragraph, but even though I was well aware of the way the trick was done, it seems to me a good one. The encore is a shade unfortunate. a tt tt \once Enough “J TOLLY WOOD GIRL” is rather rl dull business. Even more honeless than the task of building bricks without straw is the attempt to use the same straw all over again. Dixie Dugan should have been allowed to rest in peace. In the revival, most of the pace and spirit has departed. McEvoy set himself too hard a job. He tried to resurrect characters who never were very much alive. It is impossible to live again until you have done it at least once. And, in addition to this handicap, the author undertook to create comic situations around the conception that Hollywood is an intellectual Sahara. Perhaps it is. I don’t know. I’ve never been there. But surely this point of view has lost all novelty. If a director bites a genius, that isn’t news any more. Slight unseen, I venture the assertion that Hollywood and the motion picture makers have received more than their due share of scorn. They can’t be as bad as all that. After all, I have seen pictures in which invention and artistry were present. Somebody out there must have some sense.

Questions and A riswers

Do ex-Presidents of the United States receive a pension or compensation of any kind? No. What was the date of death of Marshal Fcch of France? March 20, 1929. Are there any unexplored regions in the world other than the Arctic and Antarctic regions? Where are are the unexplored regions in South America? Outside of the Arctic and Antarctic regions, there are still considerable portions of South America, Africa, Australia and northern Siberia which remain practically unexplored. In South America, the chief unexplored regions are in central and northern Brazil, the far reaches of the Amazon, Northwest Brazil and the Selvas region, Ven-

Don’t Fumble the Bull!

worked. Nowadays health departments keep records of typhoid carriers and see to it that they do not engage in occupations where they will be dangerous to the public. Another carrier menace is the diphtheria carrier. The American Journal of Public Health calls attention to a study of diphtheria carriers recently made in London. It was found in this study that the majority of diphtheria carriers had diseased conditions in their noses and throats which made it possible for them to carry about the germs of the disease after they had themselves recovered. In sixty cases treated by removal of the tonsils and adenoids, the condition was controlled where the

Indeed, I think the time has come to call a truce. The film folks should be allowed a few months in which to bind up their bleeding wounds. The satirists have them licked to a frazzle at the moment. u tt tt Inferiority NO industry in the world suffers so badly from a sense of inferiority. The men who make our pictures all are frankly apologetic, no matter how pitiful a gesture of pride they may make in press stuff and advertisements. Within a year I met one of the great stars of the screen, and he had read so much of the literary lambasting that he undertook to convince every one in New York that he himself moved through his work animated throughout with a blazing contempt for the job which he performed. This I took to toe an act. Few ever have done well in any profession which they utterly despised. There is so much testimony that stupidity is rampant in Hollywood that there seems small room to doubt the authenticity of this report. Yet it may be less than a complete story. Here and there I venture to guess there are men and women doing their best and being justifiably proud of it. I’ll admit that I don’t like to accept the report that all the high seats are occupied by morons. The motion picture is too important a part of our daily lives to make it possible for anybody with a social conscience to laugh wholeheartedly at tragic ineptitude. a tt Not Despicable THE medium itself is in no sense despicable. Particularly since the development of sound, there is no reason in the world why a master should not use the screen as a field for the work of true magnificence. As yet. no screen genius has arisen. Here and there some director has done enough to entitle him to rank among the highly talented creative artists, but the scenario writers are still a lap behind. Nevertheless, I do not believe that just around the comer there may iurk cinema Shaws and Shakespeares. To some extent, the fierce burst

ezuela and the source of the Orinoco, northwest Bolivia, Elbeni, Chaco and in southern Argentina, Clubut and Santa Cruz regions, Patagonia and the Caupes region of Colombia. There are routes and trails across some of these areas, but the work of exploration has only begun. What was the wheat production of Canada and the United States in 1928? Canada 533,572,000 bushels, United States 902,749,000 bushels. How large is St. Peter’s church in Rome, Italy? It covers an area of 18,100 square yards. The interior is in the form of a cross. The dome is 404 feet high and 138 feet in diameter. The church will hold from 40,000 to 50,000 persons.

germs were limited to the throat alone; but in forty-three of the cases when the germs were found in the nose and throat and ear, only nineteen were cured by removal of the tonsils and adenoids. The most difficult types to treat successfully are those in which the diphtheria germs are kept in the nose or in the sinuses which communicate with the nose. In such instances, vaccines made of diphtheria germs are used and the r.ose and sinuses arc washed out with antiseptic solutions. Even under the best of conditions, however, it is sometimes difficult to free the carrier entirely and it is necessary to work cut other plans for controlling his activities.

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

of ridicule aimed at tlie pictures by the literary fellows is defensive. Ever so often some good novelist or short story writer has been lured to Hollywood, whereupon he has proceeded to do a most indifferent job. Having no pride of authorship, he has defended himself by attacking the supidity of every one .vith whom he worked. (Copyright. 1929, by The Times)

I

PORT ARTHUR CAPTURED November 21 ON Nov. 21, 1894, Port Arthur, a town and strongly fortified naval station in Manchuria, China, was captured by the Japanese. A treaty signed shortly afterward provided for its cession to Japan with the whole south coast of Manchuria from the Liao to the Yalu. But Russia, Germany and France intervened and induced Japan to relinquish all this territory for the sum of 30,000,000 taels, and on Nov--30, 1895, its evacuation was begun. With adjacent territory Port Arthur was released by China to Russia for twenty-five years in 1898, Russia’s object being to obtain a naval station which she could defend for the use of her war vessels in eastern waters. It was invested by the Japanese in the Russian-Japanese war and surrendered Jan. 2, 1905. By the treaty of Portsmouth, September. 1905, the town was ceded to Japan for the duration of the Russian lease.. The lease was extended further in 1915.

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NOV. 21, 1929

SCIENCE By DAVID DIETZ —

Insects, With Their Ceaseless Advance, May Dispute Man’s Dominance of the Ea rth. MAN rules the world today. He drives his locomotives across the land, his boats across the sea, his airplanes through the air. Animals fall for the most part into two classes, those he has tamed and those fast becoming extinct. But many scientists are not yet certain that man will remain in possession of the earth. Many entomologists, as those who devote their time to the study of insects are called, feel that the insects yet may dispute man’s possession ‘of the earth. Dr. L. O. Howard, former chief of the United States bureau of entomology, says that mankind must wage perpetual warfare with the insects, and to support his claim he points to the many problems which both the United States bureau and similar bureaus in all parts of the world must face. Mans advances have hurt other animals. But they have helped many kinds of insects. Great farms arc not only sources of food for man. They likewise are choice banquets for millions of insects. International commerce has been an aid to insects. An insect is carried from one country to another. In its native country, the insect may have many enemies—other insects which prey upon it. Asa result, its numbers are kept down. In the new country, the insect may have no natural enemies. As a result, it will flourish until it costs the farmers millions of dollars a year. a tt tt Pests THE extent to which America has suffered from the importation of foreign insect pests can be gleaned from a table prepared by Professor Glenn W. Herrick of Cornell university. He lists thirty-five insect pests of prime economic importance which have been introduced into the United States since approximately 1750. Twelve were introduced prior to 1900. They were the coddling-moth, Hessian fly, pear psylla, imported elm-leaf beetle, currant sawfly, imported cabbage worm, Gipsy moth, San Jcse scale, l arch case-borer, mottled willow borer, brown-tail moth, and Mexican cotton-boll weevil. Twelve more were introduced between 1900 and 1920. They were the carrot rust fly, alfalfa weevil, European earwig, European pine-shoot moth, pine sawfly, Japanese beetle. Oriental peach moth, European corn-borer, tropical fowl mite, ba-nana-rcot borer, pink cotton-boll worm, and apple and thorn skeleton i-er. Another eleven have been added to the fist since 1920. They are the As'"tic beetle, satin moth, camphor scale, Mexican bean beetle, new Oriental beetle, Australian tomato weevil, Oriental twilight beetle, cabbage weevil, grape thri's, Mexican fruit-fly and Mediterranean fruitfly. It is important to note that the rate at which ins* - t pests are introduced seems to be on the increase. This fact is particularly alarming in the face cx the fact that strict quarantine rrc-sures were introduced about fifteen years ago to guard against insect pests. a u a Spread ANOTHER phase of the question v. hich merits considerable study is tha way in which these insect pests spread, once they have been introduced into the country. “The spread of the Mexican cot-ton-boll weevil is well known and ; n some respects significant,” Professor Herrick says. “The weevil spread eastward over the cotton belt, from its center of infestation in Texas, with an irresistible yearly progress, despite all state or local quarantine measures instituted against it. “The significant aspect of this mir ation is that the weevil did not jump ahead and form isolated outbreaks here and there, but spread outwards in uniform waves, passing over all human obstacles.” Professor Herrick ca’ls attention to the fact that the Mexican bean beetle spread eastward in a similar fashion from Alabama, advancing to the east and the north, year after year, until it had reached Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and all the South Atlantic states.The corn-borer also spread in similar fashion. The most recent pest to enter the United States is the Mediterranean fruit-fly, which made its appearance in Florida on April 6, 1929.