Indianapolis Times, Volume 41, Number 177, Indianapolis, Marion County, 4 December 1929 — Page 4

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Just a Suggestion Faced by the necessity of closing a very large number of country schools or raising money to keep them open, officials seem at a loss as to know which horn of the dilemma to grab. They realize that the money can not be raised by direct taxation in the country districts. The farmers are already taxed beyond the limit. Failure to provide school facilities for the children of agricultural counties can not be tolerated. That invites too many injustices and too many new dangers. While the schools are in danger the state finds it very easy to gather in twenty millions of dollars a year for new roads. The boys and girls will be able to ride even' if they can not read. Out of the twenty millions of dollars a large amount is spent for cement and other materials. The state has a iot of free labor. It gets more each month. The free labor is in the prisons, whose population grows rapidly. One or two states have found it economical to start their own cement plants. The establishment of a state plant for making cement and the payment to the school fund of the money saved on its manufacture over that now paid to private concerns might solve the problem. A state that pays twenty millions of dollars a year for roads and spends it with little supervision or vision ought not to find it difficult to keep its schools in operation.

Life Without Pardon Imposition of a sentence of “life imprisonment without pardon” on a Kentucky Negro raises the very vital issue of who and what shall determine the fitness of a convict for release. Our present punitive system Is based on the idea that, a judge logically may impose a punishment which will fit a particular crime. The convict will be ready to be released when the sentence has expired. The nature of the crime, not the nature of his conduct while in prison, Is made to determine the desirability of freeing the criminal. # Now it is obvious that it is the promise of a lawabiding life after discharge, based on evidence of reformation while in prison, which is the real test of one’s fi'ness to be at large. Neither the nature of the crime committed nor any experience or shrewdness on the part of the judge at the time of the trial can furnish any sure basis for final judgment as to the future reformation of the convict while incarcerated. The only persons capable of forming any depenr - able judgment relative to the rehabilitation of a convict are those in a position to observe his life and activities from day to day. namely, the prison authorities. Arbitrary and specific time sentences, whether for life or less, make it impossible for us to make Intelligent use of this indispensable information.

A Real Message Herbert, Hoover's first message to congress is one likelv to please the millions who voted to make him President. It is, furthermore, one likely to persuade many of those who voted against him that, after an eight-year interregnum, there again is a strong and competent leader in the White House. Space is not available here to discuss the message In detail. In the course of its more than 10,000 words, it presents an analysis and a recommendation in connection with practically every major problem confronting the country. Each of these deserves its ow r n discussion in due time. There is room for difference of opinion concerning more than one recommendation offered by the President. But, it seems to us. the message is bound to increase the steadily growing impression that an able, forceful executive has buckled down to the country's biggest Job, and that he gives every indication of making a distinguished success of it. The message makes clear the number and the complexity of the government’s problems. It reveals the manifold ways in which the government must function if it is to aid in the general well-being of the whole people. Os all the President has to say on a wide range of subjects, some part is new, a large part is not. Perhaps, in a way, the one thing he says of greatest importance is not new. This is the reiteration of his views concerning the tariff. The progressive Republicans and progressive Democrats in the senate have contended from the beginning of the present notable tariff struggle that they, and not the so-called regular Republicans, are fighting for the principles laid down by Hoover in his call for the special summer session of congress. Hoover’s message proves their claim. No warrant for the unprecedented raid on the public pocket, attempted by the Hawley-Grundy tariff bill, can be found in his original statement, which he now repeats. The special session of congress opened with the reading of Hoover’s warning against the very thing which the house has attempted to do. The house ignored the warning. The senate coalition has compelled the senate to stop and consider. Now the regular session opens with this warning renewed by the President. It is important that this time both branches of congress heed the warning. It is important that they dispose of the limited revision of schedules, for which some justification can be found, and get the tariff controversv out of the way. It stands squarely across the path of industrial, commercial and agricultural rehabilitation in which the whole country is engaged. The way to get this obstacle out of the path is not to pass the tariff bill, willy-nilly. There is no prosperity in that direction, there is only loot for a limited part of the population. The very interests pressing congress hardest for this bill are those who Stand to, lose most if the tariff fight is permitted to h©% back the general business program. They should call off their dogs. They should sum-

The Indianapolis Times (A SCHIPPS-HOWAKD NEWSPAPER) o*o<i and published daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Cos., 214-220 West Maryland Street, Indianapolis, Ind. Price in Marion County, 2 cent* a copy: elsewhere, 3 cents—delivered by carrier, 12 cents a week. BOYI) GURLEY, ROY W. HOWARD, FRANK G. MORRISON, Editor President Business Manager I * HONK—Riley S-VSI WEDNESDAY, DEC. 4. 1929, Member of United Tress, Scripps-lloward Newspaper Alliance, Newspaper Enterprise Assoelation, Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations. “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way”

mon their lobbyists home and allow congress to get on with its work. Reading merely a summary of the President’s message will convince most any citizen that congress will have enough to do in the next six months if it ignores the abortive tariff bill entirely, A Test for the Kellogg Pact Secretary Stimson’s attempt to marshall the force of world opinion to prevent—or end—a war between China and Russia in Manchuria is hailed as the first test of the Kellogg pact renouncing war. Although the two nations last summer gave assurance they would not resort to war unless attacked, Russian troops’ since then have moved into Manchuria and there have been hostilities, the extent of which is not known accurately. The great powers, with the exception of Japan, already have approved this government’s course. There is little doubt that the smaller nations wiU heed Stimson’s appeal to remind China and Russia of their “sacred promises’’ under the treaty. Thus if either resorts to aggressive warfare, it will be in defiance of the sentiment of the civilized world. It is unlikely, however, that the test of moral force will be clear-cut. The Manchuran provincial government is reported to have yielded to the Soviet demand that the status of the Eastern Manchurian railway be restored as it was at the time of seizure by the Chinese. Negotiations are said to be proceeding. If this is true, Russia will be In position to report that the controversy already is being settled by pacific means, and to tell the powers their good offices are not needed. This is what Russia did when the nationalist government, which nominally controls Manchuria, recently proposed negotiations. Manchuria is not in a position to offer serious opposition. She lacks revenues, her armies have been shown to be hopelessly inferior, and the government is disorganized. The Nanking government has troubles of its own, and can not help. Japan’s aloofness is explained as due to a belief that action is unnecessary at this tine because of the negotiations already going forward. Moreover, Japan regards her position in Manchuria as a special one, and is not eager for outside interference from any source. She stands to gain in any readjustment. Future developments will reveal the influence of Stimson’s maneuver on the complicated situation. Meantime, this country and the other powers have given evidence that they regard the restraints of the Kellogg pact as real, and intend to use all their influence to make them effective. One of the great dangers of the hatless fad for men occurs when a lady walks up to you in a department store and asks where she can find the bloomers. The glory of a landscape is in its trees, but that isn’t what men look at when they’re riding in street cars. A fashion note says track pants will be the style for men next summer. That is, for some men. A California politician was charged with paying exorbitant prices for soft soap bought for the city. And you can get so much of that free nowadays, too! A 70-year-old woman in Illinois was burned badly while smoking a pipe in bed. When will the ladies learn not to smoke pipes in bed? Ten boatmen on the Volga river were killed the other day. We knew that song eventually would get somebody into trouble.

REASON By IE Sf

MUSSOLLNI has reduced the membership of the Italian chamber of deputies from 600 to 400, a precedent which our congress might follow with profit to the U. S. A. in the matter of our house of representatives, but which the congress will not do, since that would banish many of the congressional brethren to private life. ana Our national house should be reduced one-half, making the membership something like 250 or two and one-half times the size of the senate. This would enable the body to become deliberative once more and its original prestige would return. nan With its present multitude, real debate is impossible; everything is done by committees and the average member is but an innocent bystander. Rules which stifle the constitutional right of free speech are indispensable, since action would be impossible if all of the more than 500 members could speak without limit. nan THE government well could afford to pension for life the several hundred representatives who would be retired by cutting the house membership in half; it well could afford to give each of them an estate with fountains and swans, and the time to perform the surgical operation will be during the next congress, since the reapportionment under the new census shall be made. nan Everard J. Hendricks of New York City, prospective heir to $1,000,000, becoming financially short, sells his police dog. We are intimately acquainted with a bunch of kids who are not heirs to anything in particular, but who would not sell their tramp dog for anything on earth.

M. R. Lawrence of Columbia City, Ind., claims to have raised the perfectly formed onion, it weighing exactly one pound and measuring thirteen inches round the equator, which entitles this onion to go down through the centuries, sitting beside the Venus de Mile. nan A BERLIN judge re!used to recognize the former German crown prince as an auto crash expert in a law suit, but >an empire crash expert he has but one rival, his distinguished papa. nan Professor Stanley A. Smith of 'Washington State college made a survey of the country and reports that we have three times as many automobiles as bath tubs, but this is not discouraging, since the maintenance of an automobile deans one most thoroughly. - a a a Mr. Hoover’s crime commission should concentrate on this situation in Chicago, where Frank J. Lcesch, volunteer crime fighter, dismissed the case against seven defendants, charged with murder, because the judge announced in advance that if the jury found the defendants guilty, he would set the verdict aside. a a a A lunacy commission should be appointed to consider the case of this father down to Virginia who took his 4 boy up in a balloon, then held him tight and jumped out, making a parachute drop.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E. Tracy SAYS:

History Is Repeating Itself in the Fight of Tories and Left Wing Lahorites to Beat Ramsay MacDonald. A CCORDING to PostmasterGeneral Brown, the air mail covered 10,250,000 miles last year at an expense to the government of $11,250,000. That represents an average cost of sl.lO a mile. If such price is fair, airplanes will have to be big and travel well loaded to carry passengers at railroad rates without loss. nun Left wing Laborites join with the Tories in an effort to beat Ramsay MacDonald, which is what everybody looked for when the right moment came. It is history repeating itself. Only a few months ago, French | royalists and radicals made the i same kind of an unholy alliance to beat Briand in France. You can generally depend on extremists to be against the middle, no matter which end of the game they play. That is one reason why the middle appeals to most people. n n n Alarmed by Vare Case THOUGH willing to concede that William S. Vare was duly elected, the senate probably will unseat him. That it has the right to do so and that he deserves no less is beyond dispute. Some politicians, however, and especially those committed to the doctrine of state rights, profess great alarm at the precedent that w’ould be established by such action. If Vare can be excluded because of primary irregularities, they argue, why not any one else? What they mean is that some senator-elect from the south might be excluded because he was nominated by a primary in which Negroes were not permitted to take part. That is nonsense.

The senate is exercising no new power in the Vare case. Ever since the Constitution was formed, it has had the authority to pass on qualifications of its members and that, too, without offering any specific excuse. Southern senators would be in no more danger if Vare is denied a seat than they were before. The senate is not attempting to discipline the people of Pennsylvania, but to make an example of a politician who overstepped the bounds of decency. Who can doubt that our fathers had that very thing in mind when they clothed the senate with such power? nan Common Sense Needed THE idea that v/e can make rules for every situation is absurd. In the last analysis, we must look to common sense for guidance. Because Vare is punished for spending too much money, it does not follow that the senate will attempt to force the Democratic party to admit Negroes to its primary in southern states. Those who profess to think It does merely are making political whoopee. We have not arrived at a point yet where it is necessary to save our theories of government at the price of dirty politics. If we ever do, we would better drop the theories. non In his statement on the RussianChinese situation, Secretary Stimson offers a vivid illustration of how definitely the greatest problems may hinge on moral support. As he says, “the efficacy of the pact of Paris depends upon the sincerity of the governments which are party to it. Its sole sanction lies in the power of public opinion of the countries, constituting substantially the entire civilized world, whose governments have joined in the covenant.” In other words, the Kellogg pact which represents one of the most important and revolutionary policies ever adopted by civilization, depends not on armies and navies or even acts entitled acts, but moral force. n n n Peace Is Doubtful Moral force, whether for good or evil, is and always has been, the strongest influence with which we have to deal. Its presence explains the birth and growth of every great movement, while its lack accounts for every great failure. a a sr The people of the world undoubtedly are in favor of the Kellogg pact, but whether the politicians are, is another question. Politicians have seen too much of the seamy side of life to be overly optimistic. They can’t get it out of their heads that most treaties have been broken, and that war is an old, old game. Clemenceau expressed their creed accurately when he voiced the hope of peace, but doubted realization.

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Eye Tests Urged to Avert Smashups

BY R. MORRIS FTSHBEIN, Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and of nygela, the Health Magazine. THE human being of today faces conditions that did not exist a generation ago. The streets are full of motor traffic, the air has airplanes, speed boats travel the waters, and from the windows and tops of tall buildings there is a constant menace ol falling objects. Greater and greater demands are being placed upon the eye and ear for the safety of mankind. The eye specialist is finding as a result moie and more work to do in determining who is capable of driving the various vehicles that convey mankind and who is capable of taking care of himself in the middle of the traffic. It is probably true that most automoble accidents are the result of carelessness on the part of the

IT SEEMS TO ME ’"ST

Elisabeth cushman, columnist of the New Rochelle Stand-ard-Star, reports in her department, “as a woman thinks,” on a recent speech made by this conductor. “Heywood Broun spoke,” writes Miss Cushman, “and amazed me and every one around me. The reason I was amazed was because I liked him. Somehow, he always seems to roar in his column and cast threatening glances and shake menacting fists at everybody but his readers —that is—all those outsiders who don’t agree with him. “But he' didn’t roar Saturday night, and he didn’t make any wisecracks. He spoke rather briefly and almost solemnly. One more stroke of the comb before he came Saturday and I would have thought him goodlooking.” Miss Cushman is too kind. One stroke would be of no. use to me. I’m a high handicap man and would not even think of competing with anything less than a stroke a hole and half a dozen bisques. a an AH Theme IF one hearer was pleased, the cause probably lay not in the speaker, but in the theme. This was a dinner of the Women’s Peace Society and I spoke in defense of pacifism to an audience of pacifists. Fublic speaking is fun, but there’s small utility in it. People who come to any sort of

Questions and Answers

Is the expulsion of the French from Arcadia, as pictured in Longfellow’s “Evangeline,” a historic fact or is it just a story? The expulsion is an historical fact, but Longfellow’s story of Evangeline is purely fiction, based on the poet’s imagination of the events of the great expulsion and the wanderings of parted lovers which might have taken place afterward. Os what country is Jerusalem the capital? Palestine, in Asia-Minor, between the Mediterranean sea and River Jordan. Is there any scientific authority for the stories of swallowing of young snakes by the parent snake for the sake of protection? Some pseudo-scientific writers have reported cases of the mother snake swallowing her young for protection from enemies and later allowing the young snakes to crawl out, but, according to the best authorities on reptiles in the United States not a single case has been authenticated. Most of these cases are really instances of one species of large snake swallowing small snakes of another species. Are there any cities other than Washington in the District of Columbia? Washington City is the District ■

Old Faithful!

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE-

driver or pedestrians, or of intoxication on tbe part of either. Not infrequently, however, accidents occur because someone did not see quickly, see accurately, or understandingly. Dr. Charles P. Small calls attention to the fact that eyes may become so fatigued after a long drive as to add a distinctly new element of danger. Muscle exercises do not strengthen. the eye, but overexercise of the eye is likely to interfere with proper muscle action. Another danger of driving is the danger that comes from color blindness. A color blind man may learn by daily experience on roads which he travels regularly the position of the light that means go and the one that means stop, but on an un- j familiar road if he is unable to dis- j tinguish red and green, he is likely j to get himself into a good deal of j trouble. Color blindness was not really I

meeting are convinced before they enter the hall. The speaker tells the audience what it wants to hear and the audience returns the compliment by thinking him a good fellow. It is better to write your stuff and cast threatening glances in print. If I seem to shake menacing fists I certainly mean to do so. There are things in the world which appear to me all wrong, and on these topics I hope to roar as loud as I am able. As the soldier said in somebody’s amusing anecdote, “Whisper, hell, I’ve got to turn four mules around.” Fortunately it is possible to get dissenters to start a column even if they don’t finish it. People will not listen to verbalizations in which they have no faith, but often they seek out writings with which they don’t agree. Naturally, I am not good enough to alter the course of the world even in those matters in which it is out

Daily Thought

Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are the heads of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine.—lsaiah 2$:L nun Drunkenness is nothing else than a voluntary madness. —Seneca.

of Columbia, but there are sections pf the district that have local names such as Georgetown, Anacostia, Tacoma Park and Congress Heights. Is a cow always a female animal and is a bull always a male animal? Cow is the female of domestic cattl% and other bovine ruminants. Bull is the uncastrated male. Where is Nantucket Island? Is It inhabited? It Is the largest of a group of islands comprising Nantucket county, Mass. It lies east of Martha’s Vineyard; is nearly fifteen miles long, with a surface of undulating knolls, and devoid of trees, terminating southeast of a line of bluffs, on which is Sankaty Head lighthouse. The towns of Nantucket, on the north coast, and Siasconset on the southeast, are well-known summer resorts. The island is traversed by a railway. How high is the “timber line” in mountains? It is the upper limit of tree growth on mountains; of greatest height in the tropics and gradually descending toward the north and south and also the seacoast. In the Himalayas it is about 11,800 feet; in the Alps, 6,400 feet and in the Rocky mountains from 9,000 to 12,000.

known until about 100 years ago. At that time Doctor Dalton, the eminent English physicist, was walking down the street wearing cap and gown, insignia of the degree that Oxford had just conferred upon him. One of his brother quakers took him to task for appearing in public wearing colors, and all scientists were at once on the qui vive to sec the man who could not see red. The majority of people first take up motor car driving after the age of 16 years. Dr. Small suggests that every child on graduation from high school be submitted to an eye examination to indicate ■whether or not he posseses the minmium amount of vision for driving a motor car, and whether or not he is able to distinguish between red and green. If he passes these test satisfactorily, he should be given a certificate of his ability to drive a motor car. at least from the point of view of vision.

Idea)* and opinions express'd in this column are those of one of America’s most Interesting writers and are presented wtthont recard to their agreement or disairreement with the editorial attitude of this paper.—The Editor.

of time. I don’t chance it a hair’s breadth. But how about one-six-teenth of a hair’s breadth, or any minute fraction you choose. Even that would be worth while. Os course, I would like to persuade people into a belief that war and race prejudice and censorship are all wrong. I’m no persuader. But sometimes I think I have the ability to pester. That’s the next best thing. They say a horse can not be made to drink even after he has been led to the river brim. I’m not so sure. I think he can be nagged into taking just a sip. n n n Substitutes I COULD wish for more fanaticism than I possess. Nobody can hold strongly to a belief and still be patient with the people on the other side. In fact, I doubt if patience belongs among the virtues. What has it ever done for the world? Checking back, it seems to me that every single person who has greatly altered the course of the world has been an Impatient person. Nothing much is accomplished except by those who want to do something, and do it now. A calm philosopher might say to me, “In time race prejudice will disappear out of America, but you must be patient.” Why must I be patient? Some reforms are difficult because the machinery for their success is not yet-in being. Even with the best will in the world, poverty could not be abolished in twenty-four hours. But no mechanism is needed to eliminate race prejudice. That could be swept away between sunset and dawn. It is only necessary to put hate out of the heart. It could vanish like a nightmare while the millions slept. So why wait for next month or 200 years hence? What’s the matter with today? a a a ► f Poverty NOR do I believe that the prohr lem of poverty must necessarily wait for another hundred years. During the war it was said that the Hinderburg line could not be broken. But it was broken. Under the stress of strife millions agreed, “this must be done.” I could wish that some of that fierce compulsion of conflict could be turned into the uses of peace. A nation which could batter down barbed wire and concrete citadels ought not to be thwarted bfr a line of rickety tenements. It is not humanly possible to wait for slow ferments. Somebody has to seize a stick and stir things up. A pinch of freedom now, this minute, in hand, is worth a ton of potential release in 2029. Rome, you say, was, not built in a day. Just the same I’ll bet they did get a terrible lot done to the first twenty-four hours. (Copyright. 1. by The Timm)

DEC. 4, 1929

SCIENCE

■ DAVID DIETZ—

World May Prepare for the Worst; Flood of New Theories Along Einstein Lines Forecast. npHOSE who felt somewhat bcwildered by Einstein's theory of relativity and by his more recent “field theory,” which sought to explain electro-magnetic and gravitational phenomena on the basis of the same mathematical formula, may as well start preparing themselves for the worst. Most authorities feel that the world is in for a succession of such theories, as rapidly as such brains as Einstein’s can turn them out, until our present difficulties are resolved by a “super-Einstein theory.” This super-theory will have to do many things when it does arrive. One of the things it is expected that it will do is to resolve the controversy between the relativity theory and the ether-drift experiments of Dr. Dayton C. Miller, famous American scientist and past president of the American Physical Society. Einstein postulates in his theory that it is impossible to measure such a thing as absolute motion. Dr. Miller, by a series of experiments from 1906 to the present, during which time he has made 175.000 observations with the MichelsonMorley interferometer, insists that he has positive proof of the earth's absolute motion through the ether of space. The reader might say: Well, if we accept Miller’s results, all we have to do is throw away Einstein’s. But it isn’t that simple.

Evidence 'T'O begin with, there are many pieces of evidence, which in the opinion of leading scientists of the world, support the Einstein theory. The theory came into prominence, it will be remembered, as a result of two eclipse expeditions after the World war. Photos taken of the sky during the eclipse, when the sky became dark and the stars visible, revealed the stars shifted out of their normal places. This phenomenon had been predicted by Einstein. According to Einstein’s theory, it Is due to a warping of space in the neighborhood of the sun. The warping bends the rays of light from distant stars as they pass the sun and causes the stars to appear out of their normal positions. Dr. W. W. Campbell, famous American astronomer; Professor A. S. Eddington of Cambridge, England, and many other famous astronomers, agree that this Einstein shift, as it is called, is a real thing. Much evidence for the Einstein theory has been amassed at the famous Mt. Wilson observatory in California. Dr. Charles E. St. John of the observatory staff has found a shift to the red in the solar spectrum which matches a prediction of Einstein’s. Dr. W. S. Adams, director of the observatory, has observed the same shift in the case of the dwarf companion of the star Sirius. In addition, members of the observatory staff have carried on interferometer experiments and insist that they do not get the results which Miller gets. ** u a Light GRANTING for the sake of argument, that further work will confirm both the Einstein theory and Miller’s findings, many scientists look to a super-theory to explain both by including both. In this connection, they call attention to the fact, that in his experiment, Miller makes use of light waves to detect an effect which is the result of the earth’s motion through the ether of space. Einstein likewise deals largely with light waves, as for example in the eclipse tests. , They call attention further to the fact that one of the greatest mysteries before the world of science today is the nature of light. In many experiments, the Miller experiments for example, light behaves as though it were composed of waves. But in other experiments, it behaves as though it were composed of little particles of bullets called quanta. Dr. Arthur H. Compton, who did such important work in establishing the quantum theory that he was awarded the Nobel prize, compares the situation to a football game. And he says, “The score is 6 to 6 with the ball in the middle of the field.” ' Dr. Irving Langmuir says that it is impossible to tell whether light, consists of waves or quanta and says that the answer is “both.” He says light can be either, depending upon the way we measure it. But many hope for a superEpstein theory which will explain both the work of Einstein and Miller and at the same time explain the true nature of light.

—rqOAvh& the— Am v^iijfaY

WASHINGTON RESIGNS December 4

ON Dec. 4. 1783, General Washington delivered his farewell address to his officers After the war, Washington had exerted himself in endeavoring to obtain from congress a settlement of the claims of his officers. It is probable that, had he so desired, Washington could have established a monarchy, sustained by his army, at this time. He took the course, however, of quelling this disposition on the part of his soldiers, whenever it occurred. On Nov. 25. 1783, the Brtttsh evacuated New York and Washington bid his officers farewell on Dec. 4. He made his formal resignation at Annapolis several days later and retired to private life.