Indianapolis Times, Volume 41, Number 175, Indianapolis, Marion County, 2 December 1929 — Page 4

PAGE 4

$€ K t ** J • H O** AMO

The Final Evidence If any additional evidence were needed of the desireability of supplanting 1 the present form of city government with the city manager plan, it is furnished by the demands of party workers for city jobs from Mayor-Elect Sullivan. The one reason advanced by the 2,000 or more who are asking for work for the city is that they are loyal Democrats and deserve well for their loyalitv to the party ticket. That was the same reason given by the men and women who got jobs from Duvall under the rule of Coffinism. There is no reason, of course, why a man who calls himself a Democrat should be a better or a worse bookkeeper, inspector or policeman than one who calls himself a Republican. This is the very foundation of the city manager theory of city government. It depends for its success upon the denouncement of city government. It demands only efficiency and service and not expertness in elections nor servility to partisan leaders. Only where there is a political government would there be any thought of wholesale turnover in purely technical or administrative jobs when a change of mayors is made. And such changes emphasize the fact that the government is political and to a degree, gives warning to those who get the jobs that they must play the right kind of politics if they expect to keep them. If there is to be a special session of the legislature to save the country schools from the starvation forced upon them by a legislature that was much more intent on spending vast sums of money for material things to care much about the child in the back woods, it might be well to take steps to get a start toward the city manager rule of cities and a strict civil service standard for all city and state employes. The spoils system of government has always been costly and especially costly in other things than money. It means, inevitably, favoritism of all kinds and sorts. The elimination of party politics from city government will be a long step toward better government m the state and in the nation. .Now that the people of most of the cities have turned to Democratic mayors as an escape from misrule under the regime that began with Jackson and Stephenson, the legislature may be in a mood to give laws that will really permit an honest trial of the city manager system. Even the supreme court, after the last election, might discover that such a system would not violate the constitutional guarantees of citizens to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Sooner or later the cities, if they wish to grow and prosper, must get rid of the partisan viewpoint of government. Perhaps the time is here. A Job for Congress Pressing as are the many problems which confront congress at the regular session, it should find time to consider and dispose of Muscle Shoals by repassage of the Norris bill providing lor continued government ownership and operation. Ten years after construction of this great power plant, delegates to recent conference of the Public Ownership League of America found its great potentialities almost completely going to waste, with one turbine out of eight operating, with one-eighth of its potential power being developed, and that one-eighth going to the Alabama Power Company for 2 mills a kilowatt hour—the power company promptly reselling it for fifty times that. Nearby cities begging for power are denied it. This situation often is blamed on congress. But it should not be forgotten that two years ago President Coolidge pocket-vetoed the Norris bill, which would have set the turbines to humming and put the nitrate plant in operation. Nor should It be forgotten that all the great resources of the power trust have been thrown against any solution by congress, except turning the plant over to private hands. Congress Reassembles The regular session of congress meeting today has much work to do. Among the more important things to which it must give attention are the tariff bill, tax reduction, appropriations, the Vare case, extension of the radio commission, prohibition, the world court, inland waterways, naval building and disarmament, railroad consolidation. Muscle Shoals and the antilabor injunction bill. Several investigations are contemplated, of which that dealing with communications and electrical power perhaps is the most important. The session probably will last for sLx months, since members will want to devote the summer to preparations for’the November elections, in which a third of the senate and the entire house must be chosen. There will be much sparring for political advantage. It is unlikely that congress will be able to dispose of all its work. The tariff bill has been only half completed by the senate, and there remains afterward the task of adjusting differences between the two houses. The progressive Republicans and the Democrats have demonstrated that they control the senate and the old guard has realized the futility of attempting 'o get away with a tariff grab of the kind originally contemplated. Tills fact should expedite the measure. Tax reduction will be simple There will be no general legislation overhauling the tax laws, but a brie!

The Indianapolis Times (A BCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) Owned and published dally (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Cos., 214-220 West Maryland Street, Indianapolis, Ind. Price In Marlon County, 2 cents a copy: elsewhere. 3 c'-nts-delivered by carrier, 12 cents a week. BOYD GURLEY. ROY W. HOWARD, FRANK G. MORRISON, Editor President Business Manager PHONE—Riley .Viol MONDAY. DEC. 2. 1929. Member of United Press, Seripps-Howard Newsj aper Alliance, Newspaper Enterprise Association, Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations. “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way’’

resolution lowering corporation and individual income taxes 1 per cent for the coming year. President Hoover’s message is awaited with interest, since this is the first time In his administration that congress has been fully functioning. The President was criticised during the special session for lack of leadership. He now will have full opportunity to demonstrate whether the criticism was warranted. The house at least will be docile. The test of his ability to gain support for his policies will come in the senate. The country will be grateful if congress completes the tariff bill quickly. Public outcry has shown that the people will not tolerate a measure of the kind passed by the house. Congress should realize this and enact a bill such as the Republican leaders promised last November, bringing an end to uncertainty and bickering. Important matters will suffer If this is not done. An Object Lesson Advocates of waterways development will rejoice in the excellent showing during the last fiscal year of the government-owned inland waterways corporation, revealed in the report of the secretary of war to congress. The corporation was created as a war-time transportation aid, and since has been expended. During the fiscal year the corporation’s barges handled 1,881,000 tons of freight, and collected revenues of $7,163,000. Net income was $441,651, compared with a net income deficit of $10,750 the year before. Congress wisely is extending the service of the corporation to the Missouri, St. Croix and Chicago-Hlinois rivers. Terminal facilities have been provided at many Mississippi and Warrior river ports, and others are being projected. Eventually, barges will operate on the intracoastal route between Mobile and New Orleans. Forty additional standard type barges are to be acquired at a cost of $2,500,000. The report stated that the corporation “has been of incalculable benefit to the people at large,” and continually is increasing in effectiveness. It will, through co-ordination of railways and highways, bring cheaper freight rates, with reasonable returns to all participants. Bigger and Bigger Riots Michigan, it is reported, is planning to send her habitual drunks to prison for terms of seven to fifteen years. If this be true, it would seem that she Is aching for bigger and better riots in her penal institutions. If there is anything of which we may be certain relative to the startling prison outbreaks of the last year, it is that they grew out of the overcrowding of the institutions and the growing hopelessness of the inmates. Both of these factors were chiefly due to the long sentences imposed under “habitual criminal laws.” In other words, our prisons evidently are breaking down because their housing facilities and their administration can not bear up under the Increasing strain of jailing the convict class. Handling bona fide criminals brings them to the breaking point. Whereupon Michigan proposes to solve the situation by asking the state penitentiary to assume also the burden of acting as a jail, alms-house, dypsomania ward, down-and-outer-club and other institutions in which confirmed inebriates might be confined with propriety.

REASON

PROFESSOR ROBERT EMMONS of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reminds one of the old-time evangelist when he declares that bridge playing is “the lowest depth to which a human can fall.” Card playing becomes a liability only when it develops Into a habit which murders time which should be given to better things, such as the reading of good books. nun When it leads to gambling, it Is an unqualified curse, of course, for gambling, rather than tuberculosis, is the Great White Plague. BUB It is bad enough to gamble at night, but the man who does it after lunch is absolutely hopeless; he is headed for the poor house and his business for the junk heap. The man who mixes either jackpots or booze with business hours has a reserved seat on the toboggan. B B B Which reminds one that the insufferable folly of our clandestine drinking is that so much of it is done during the day. The possessors of the embalming fluid may absorb it after the day’s cares are over, just as before the eighteenth amendment, but for some reason, known only to the Insanity expert, they keep it in their desks, so they may wave farewell to consciousness whenever such sublime aspiration arrives. n b u The United States supreme court upholds a law which denies a hitch-hiker, who gets hurt in an automobile accident, the right to sue the fellow who give him a ride, which decision meets with our august approval. When you pick up a stranger along the highway, it’s enough to have to run the risk of being robbed. b e a Edward N. Hurley wisely announces that the United States is as rich as before the market crash, but numerous gentlemen inside of it are not. The only difference is that a lot of air which had been diverted from ventilation to high finance has returned to its original purpose. The stock market is not the country any more than a faro bank at a county fair is the countiy. a a tt WE are glad to see Frank E. Hering of South Bend, editor of the Eagles magazine, and allround public asset, honored by the War Mothers as the founder of Mother's day Hering is one of the brightest men in America, and one of the most likable. He is a humanitarian whose eyes are on the stars, but whose feet are on the ground. u a a It is hard to see how ex-Secretary Kellogg can get the Nobel prize for outstanding service for the promotion of peace, so long as Russia and China, both of whom signed the Kellogg treaty, outlawing war, are blowing the daylights out of each other. tt tt a The whole course of history may be changed by a trifle How different things might have been had Clemeneeau’s father not ordered him back to France when he wanted to become an American c t zens France would have collapsed and Germany would have won the war. .

„ FREDERICK By LANDIS

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E. Tracy SAYS:

Byrd's Feat Was Wonderful, But No More Wonderful Than the Fact You Could Read, About It 2Jf Hours Afterward. j COMMANDER BYRD flies W the south pole; Jack Elder makes i a ninety-six-yard rim in the Army- ; Notre Dame game; representatives I of four great powers discuss the Rusj sion-Chinese situation at Washington; the French flag is hauled down from Ehrenbreitstein; four labor leaders are convicted at Marion, N. C.- the Governor of New Jersey names Dwight W. Morrow as United States senator; twenty-five or thirty people dies from cold throughout the United States, and an old clipper ship is up for sale as an art treasure. mam One could moralize over any of these incidents to the extent of a thousand words, since each has a more or less definite bearing on that I complex thing we call progress. If Byrd's performance shows how I science has made it possible for men to find romance and adventure, young Elder’s feat shows what a part sport has come to play in modern life. French evacuation of the second Rlrneland zone suggests that, in spite of all arguments, Europe gradually is healing its war sores, I while the fatalities due to cold put the weather in competition w ith the dry agent. The acceptance of an old clipper ship as an art treasure proves how far we have left one great era behind, and how irrevocably we have entered another. nun Polar Feat Wonderful YOU read about Commander Byrd’s flight to the south pole, of course, with all the details —how they zigzagged the great plane up through wind-swept canyons, throwing away food to save gasoline; how they skittered over the great plateau at an altitude of 10,000 or 12,000 feet; how they came to the bottom of the world at last and never would have known it without their scientific instruments; how they circled around to be sure those instruments were right, and how they came back at a smashing pace just ahead of a storm. A wonderful performance, truly, but no more wonderful than the fact that you could read about it twenty-four hours afterward. bub When Peary sledged his way to the north pole twenty years ago, it was months before he could let the world know of his triumph. The time was so long, indeed, that when he established contact with civilization, he found Dr. Cook being acclaimed as the real dis.overer. What a scandal that was, and how we enjoyed it! Bum Mystery No Longer THE radio makes such scandals impossible and the airplane makes them unnecessary. Our grandfathers grew up with the idea that the poles were beyond reach, but we have seen enough to believe that they may become regular way stations on airplane routes within fifteen or .twenty years. What we have gained by way of knowledge regarding the poles is offset by what we have lost in the realm of speculation and argument. The aurora borealis ceases to shroud a mystery. . What men liked to fancy a weird region turns out a blank. The opportunity has gone for some future Edward Everett Hale to write a “John Whopper.” There simply is not any valley of diamonds, hell-mouth or hub-cap at either end of the earth. BUB Still, there may be something of value beneath the ice sheets, and if the United States can get four million square miles of land, or any considerable portion of it, by no greater exertion than lodging a claim, why not do so? Even if the giant mountains are barren of silver and gold, the control of transcontinental air routes might hold some advantage. Besides, they may contain oil, which should be even more attractive. The question is not one of imperialism or conquest. There are no people to be robbed, or exploited. Just as uninhabitated continent, which no one else seems to want. B B B Alaska ‘Comes Through’ Today that continent looks worthless, but so did Alaska seventy-five years ago. “Seward’s Folly,” they called ic, when we bought Alaska from Russia to cover up what we paid f:>i the services of her fleet and foreign policy during the Civil war. Now we wouldn’t sell it for ten times the price, B B B Science and commerce play strange tricks with value. What seemed worthless yesterday becomes the source of riches today, while what meant wealth a generation ago means little now. When the Spaniards journeyed down the west coast of South America they paid little attention to the great nitrate beds. Who knows what human ingenuity may discover in the frozen polar regions, and who has the hardihood to say that they ought to be ignored, because we don’t know?

Daily Thought

I sought the Lord and He heard n.e and delivered me from all my fears.—Psalms 34:4. u tt * It is a great truth, “God reigns,” and therefore grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord; and, therefore. no sinner on earth need ever despair.—lchabod Spencer. What is the meaning of the name Pembeau? It is a French name meaning faqjous beauty.”

7 Tr 7 V

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE ‘External Feeding’ of Skin Discounted

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hygeia, the Health Magazine, MANY women believe that it is possible to feed the skin or cause it to fill out by the use of pastes, ointments, lotions or similar preparations rubbed on, stuck on, or dobbed on in some manner. There is, however, no way to feed the skin by something put on the surface. The skin is kept alive and clear by the blood that comes to it in the lower layers. There are no blood vessels in the outer layers of the skin, and these layers get the material on which they are kept alive by an oozing of the fluid from the blood through the lower layers up to them. The layer that is on the outside

IT SEEMS TO ME

ALMOST I was persuaded on Tuesday night that “Sweet Adeline” might not be the best musical show in town. I was watching Jack Donahue in “Sons o’ Guns.” But I went back to my old allegiance because the new piece had a scene in which a band played and troops marched off to war. My objection is a great deal less than fair. A musical comedy about the war has a right to introduce a band. There were such things. Moreover, bands stir me a great deal. That’s why I’m against them. In fact, I would feel much more sure of the abolition of war if only the people at disarmament conferences would suggest scrapping bands rather than battleships. Many of the individuals who were once held personally responsible for starting the last great conflict have since been found not guilty. But I would acquit no drum major or anybody who played the fife. It’s only a short step from a march to mass murder. B B B Steals Reason 1 DON'T know why, but music moving down a street steals away all reasonableness from everybody. It is not a concern for democracy’s welfare which leads men to die, but merely bugle calls. The other night I listened to Deems Taylor as he introduced a radio hour of great bands and among the lot recorded was a famous troupe of bagpipers. This is perhaps the most inciting screech of all. Fortunately I was at home and alone.

After listening for five minutes to the pipes I felt that I must go out and punch somebody in the nose. After ten minutes of the pipes each listener must feel that he owes a civil word to no man. I managed to drain off my emotion somewhat by speaking crossly to Captain Flagg, the Airedale, who had not done a thing. It is, I believe, a chemical change which drums and pipes engender. I’ve heard that some certain tone if harped upon could conceivably

Questions and Answers

How many cylinders has the Roosevelt auto? It is a straight eight-cylinder car. What does the word graf mean in German? It is a German title that corresponds roughly to the title count in Europe, or earl in England. What river in the world has the greatest volume of water? ■ The Amazon exceeds in volume every other river on the globe. It is also the widest. What is the population of Montreal and Quebec in Canada? Montreal has a population of 952,875 and Quebec, 126.000.

That’s Better!

is a horny material which serves primarily as a protective covering and which has not within it any stimulating elements for taking up or assimilating nutritive material. The blood vessel ; that come to the skin, like those in other portion of the body, are controlled by nerves which can dilate them or contract them. When the nerves dilate the blood vessels, more blood con'es into the skin, and conversely when the blood vessels contract, less bleed comes in. The nerves in the skin react to many influences. If a person blushes, his blood vessels dilate; if he faints, the blood vessels contract. If a person takes alcohol his face flushes, and if he eats too much he is likely to have a flushed complexion. The undamaged skin will not al-

o HEYWOOD BROUN

bring down a bridge. In similar fashion there are notes which loose adrenalin and drag the human animal down to the fighting edge. Dogs can be brought to anguish with certain strains and man is not immune from going berserk if you feed him on the proper sounds. B B B War Drum PERHAPS, all the early wars of primitive peoples were inspired by some sort of tom-tom. The men of a village lived in their little valley happily enough and fished and shot and raised families. Then one day some local fiend began to pound a stick upon stretched leather. An uneasiness ran through the happy valley. He increased the beat. They could no longer sit before their hearths. Music of that sort has an effect like alcohol. And so the villagers marched out of the valley and over the hills of the horizon. On ahead went the drummer, teasing them forward out of peace and out of sleep under the stars. In jungles still the drum can shake the savage into fury and our own civilization is flimsy stuff against the excitement of an oom-pah-oom. And so I resented the band tune and the battle march of the Donahue show. I don’t like to go to laugh and remain to be all hot and bothered. So when we turn the swords into plowshares, it might be a good idea to make scrap baskets of the drums and melt the bugles down for ash trays. Very likely the sirens of the legend didn’t sing at all. Instead,

-idOAVMB TH£-

MONROE DOCTRINE December 2

ONE HUNDRED SIX years ago today, on Dec. 2, 1823, the annual message of the President to Congress set forth the Monroe Doctrine. The term, the Monroe Doctrine, is applied to the policy of the United States regarding foreign interference in American affairs. It properly is considered the corollary of the Washington and Jefferson policy of neutrality toward all European affairs. The policy is based upon two passages in President Monroe’s message and has a two-fold relation—a noncolonization and a noneintervention feature. In modern conception, it is the policy of the United States to regard any attempt on the part of an European power to gain a foothold in this hemisphere by conquest, or to acquire any new establishment in North or South America, by whatever means, as an act hostile to the United States.

low water to pass through it or any substances that may be in solution in water. A person can be put in a bathtub full of water and kept there for many days he will not be any more thirsty due to water passing out of his body, nor will he swell out due to water passing into the body. If the water is very hot, he will perspire and due to the loss of water from his body by perspiration, he will become thirsty; Fatty substances and ointments placed on the skin will not be absorbed by the skin, but if they are rubbed hard enough they may be forced to penetrate the skin and get into the glands, from which they may be taken up. When fat is rubbed in, it does not remain in the skin, but is taken up by the blood and carried to other parts of the body.

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 the editorial attitude of this paper.—The Editor.

'they formed a female minstrel troupe and trapped the passing mariners by playing “Over There.” BUB One of the Best STILL, none of this should be construed to mean that “Sons o’ Guns” is not one of the best musical shows to come this way in several seasons. For the most part it puts war in its proper place and joshes the romantic attitudes of conflict. For instance, you will find no scene more amusing than the one in which Donahue tries to get away from his three German prisoners. To the American amateur, lost in No Man’s Land, they constitute a burden because they won’t go home. You see, they’ve become used to him and want to stick. But things go much more happily when he discovers that every prisoner is a former vaudeville acrobat, and on a hilltop between the lines they undertake to teach Donahue some of the more simple tricks. This is a mad conceit worthy of Bruce Bairnsfather at his best. As for Miss Lily Damita I am more than ever puzzled as to what is the thing called dramatic ability. This recruit from the screen sings almost not at all. Her dancing is negligible. She wears her hair much too long and yet I was always hoping that she would come on again as soon as possible. I can’t understand why. Maybe it’s love.

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.DEC. 2, 1929

SCIENCE By DAVID DIETZ

‘Popcorn Stand ’ on Campus Scene of Famous Experiments Involving the Einstein Theory. ON the campus of Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland stands a little wooden shelter. Occasionally a passing autoist will wonder “what that popcorn stand is doing on the college campus.” The shelter houses the MlchelsonMorley interferometer, the apparatus with which Professor Dayton C. Miller of Case insists he has disproved one of the fundamental tenets of the Einstein theory. And by a strange turn of fate, it is almost a replica of the apparatus with which the original experiment was performed upon which the Einstein theory was based. Perhaps few people realize that the. Einstein theory actually had its beginnings in Cleveland. It began with an attempt by Professor A. A. Michelson, famous American scientist, who then was professor of physics at Case, and the late Dr. Edward W. Morley. then professor of chemistry at Western Reserve university of Cleveland, to measure the motion of the earth through the ether of space. According to the commonly accepted theory, all space is filled with a medium upon which light and radio waves travel. This is known as the ether. Our earth, in its journey around the sun, is plowing through this intangible ether. a a a Moves Through Ether ACTUALLY, the earth is moving through the ether and so are the light waves. But for the purposes of an experiment, we can think of the earth as standing still, while the ether drifts by the earth. Accordingly, light waves traveling in one direction, are moving with the ether-drift. Light waves, at right angles to the first, are moving across the drift. The situation, therefore, might be compared to a river. The current of the river represents the etherdrift. The boats represent the light waves. Now. it can be shown mathematically that a boat can travel a certain distance down the river and back to the starting point in less time than it can travel the same distance back and forth across the current of the rievr. Similarly, a beam of light ought to go faster back and forth in the direction of the ether-drift than it does back and forth across the ether-drift. Michelson and Morley devised an apparatus, the interferometer, based on an invention of Michelson’s for comparing the speed of two beams of light. It consisted of a great steel cross with twelve-foot arms. By means of a system of mirrors, a beam of light is split in two, and half the beam reflected back and forth along each arm. tr tt tt Floats in Mercury THE steel cross is floated on % pool of mercury so that it can be rotated easily in a horizontal plane. The two halves of the beam unite in a telescopic eyepiece, where they form a little pattern of light and dark circles known as an interference pattern. The interferometer now is rotated. If the speed of Kght depends URon its direction with reference to the ether-drift, the speed of the two halves of the beam along the arms will change continuously with the rotation of the cross. This should make itself apparent in a shifting back and forth of the interference pattern, or “fringes,” as they are called. Tlie experiment first was performed in 1887. Michelson and Morley were seeking for a shift which would be due to the rotation of the earth around the sun. They did not find it. A suggestion was made by two European scientists that the failure of the apparatus to show the shift was due to a contraction in the arms of the instrument with the speed of the earth. This became known as the Lorentz-Fitzgera ; d contraction, after the scientists who suggested it. E.'nstein developed this into his special theory of relativity, first announced in 1905, in which he set down the postulate that all motion is relative and that it never would be possible to measure the absolute motion of the earth through the ether of space. However, Dr. Miller, w r ho has been experimenting with the interferometer since 1906, insists that he has proof in observations with the instrument of an absolute motion of the w r hole solar system through the ether of space.