Indianapolis Times, Volume 41, Number 179, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 December 1929 — Page 8

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I r KIPP S - H OH> AMD

The Rural Schools The probability that a large number of schools In the rural districts will be compelled to shorten their terms because of lack of funds, raises the question of where the responsibility should rest for the education of youth. If it is a state matter and of importance to the whole state, then it would seem logical that the control of all the schools should be under state instead of local authorities and that the entire expense should be borne by the state as a whole. The one certain element in the present situation is that it is most unsatisfactory and that a number of pupils are being deprived of facilities that are given to other children. The theory of public schools rests upon the presumption that an educated boy or girl is a better citizen and more valuable to the state than the illiterate and the untrained. The nation is fairly well dedicated to this theory'. It compels attendance. It forces parents to send their children to school. Compulsory education by the state authorities should carry with it a pledge to parents that schools will be available. It is decidedly unfair to give the children of one portion of the state better advantages and greater facilities than are open to others. Instead of the present system of merely giving aid to townships which are unable to raise enough funds by taxation to afford schools, the state, if it compels children to attend schools, should provide schools. Control of the schools in country districts by township trustees has failed so often and in so many places as to suggest that there can be a better system. It is quite probable that an investigation will show •that in many of the localities now in distress there has been a waste of funds. The schools are the most important institutions in the state and should be under the best of management and the wisest of administration. A state which raises twenty millions of dollars a year for good roads can find funds to keep the schools open. It is no answer to say that the legislature failed to appropriate enough money. The money should have been available, even if it were necessary to cut down the funds given to the highway commission. If there is a special session of the legislature, a diversion of part of the gasoline tax to this use might be made. And when the funds are made available, the state should keep enough control to see that the money is not wasted but is spent for education and not to bolster up the petty political ambitions of a township trustee who thinks of his job rather than the children. If it is a state job, let the state do it, pay for it, and run all the schools so that every boy and girl will have an equal chance, whether they live in a big city or in the most sparsely settled communities.

They Ask for Bread Jesus Christ found his first followers among the meek and the lowly. Christianity in the beginning took root and spread among the poor and the oppressed. But now, we are told by James Meyers, industrial secretary of the Federated of Churches of Christ in America, Protestant churches are likely to be found in greatest numbers "on the comfortable side of town.” Meyers Just has returned from the textile areas of the south. He told his executive committee that industrial workers are turning their backs on the churches. The southern workers, by nature religious, is beginning to have doubts about the preachers, because they have been powerless to help in the struggle for decent wages and living conditions. In some instances, village ministers have been known as the worst enemies of strikers. Meyers found similar conditions in the mining districts of Pennsylvania and Colorado and in big cities. The lot of the preacher in the company-owned and company-dominated town is not a happy one. Usually he is pitifully underpaid and is struggling just as hard to keep his church going as his parishioners are to fill their stomachs and put clothes on their backs. Disaster is apt to follow if the animosity of the employers is aroused. Meyers’ report is none the less a severe indictment of the churches. The wealthy and powetful denominations are found wanting by the very ones their religion teaches them they should help. They can build cathedrals, maintain lobbies in Washington and missions and hospitals in China and Africa, and devote their money and their energies to politics and the effort to make the rest of us good by law.

But apparently they have no helping hand for the thousands of downtrodden who instinctively turn to them The plain but unpleasant fact is that the workers suspect that the churches arc on the side of the money changers. The churches defend their right to mix in poltiics and agitate for reforms. Surely their right to interest themselves in social problems like those of the industrial south is no less. The situation Meyers pictures is a challenge to the churches. Peace in \sia’s Cocknit? None too soon the dangerous clash between Russia and China in that cockpit of Asia known as Manchuria. appears to have been halted. According to dispatches from far eastern capitals, the Kuden government has agreed to the Soviet demands for a return to the status quo ante in the matter of ( the Chinese Eastern Railway squabble, and Russian troops are reported to be withdrawing from Manchuria. In other words, the Manchurian authorities appear willing that Russia shall replace the railway officials arrested and imprisoned by the Chinese last July on charges of attempting to communize China, after which the two countries will settle their differences amicably by conference or otherwise. It is very much to be hoped that the present truce will be followed by real peace between Soviet Russia and republican China. China, at least, stands very much in need of a few years of tranquility, both domestic and foreign, in which to work out her destiny. She now is almost on the rocks. And the world has every reason to fear no telling what if war should come. Fortunately, nearly all factors in the situation make lor peace rather than war. First, Communist Russia regards China and her 40(1,000,000 people as potentially one of her most fer-

The Indianapolis Times <A BCKIPPS-HOWARU 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 cents - delivered by carrier, 12 cents a week. BOYD OHRLEY. ROY W. HOWARD. FRANK G. MORRISON^ Editor President Business Manager PHONE—Riley 5551 FRIDAY. DEC. 6. 1929. Member of I'nited Press, Rcrlpps-Howard Newspaper Alliance, Newspaper Enterprise Assoelation. Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations. “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way”

tile fields of operation, and she Is well aware that any “imperialistic” or “capitalistic” war against China now' would ruin everything. Second, the Mukden government, being virtually autonomous, and liking it, does not relish the prospect of the government at Nanking flooding Manchuria with nationalist troops to “rescue” her from the Russian invader. Mukden’s position would be weakened materially. Third, the Nanking government already has troubles enough of its own, what with a civil war or two on its hands and ah empty treasury, without taking on new ones in the guise of a hopeless and costly war with Russia. Fourth, the Japanese, the real power behind the throne at Mukden, are as opposed to Nanking sending troops to Manchuria as the Manchurian government itself. She now is in the midst of a program of peaceful penetration in, and exploitation of, that part of Asia and every year of peace makes her position there all the stronger. Fifth, Washington, London and Paris, chief sponsors of the Kellogg pact outlawing war, are well aware that if Russia and China, two other signatories of the treaty, can get away with such a palpable violation of their pledges before the ink of their signatures is hardly dry, the authority of the after all, is entirely moral—would be .weakened sadly. The Kellogg pact powers and the League of Nations both have been remiss in not acting before now. It is true that China now has only appealed to them, citing Russia as the Invader and aggressor, but diplomatic pressure could and should have been brought to bear on both countries months ago, inasmuch as they have been virtually at war with each other along the Manchurian border since mid-July. Disputes of the kind Russia and China are engaged in over the control of the Chinese Eastern Railway, bone of the present contention, are particularly susceptible to adjustment by conference, arbitration or at the hands of the world court. Both now should be told in plain language that if they can’t agree as between themselves, it is up to them to adopt one of the above alternatives or be pilloried as an outlaw nation before the court of world opinion. However, all signs now favovr a pacific settlement, which is very opportune. For certainly an ugly war in Asia would not be a nice background for the coming arms limitation and world peace talk at London and Geneva.

A Sacred Statute? The budget now before congress proposes an appropriation of $50,000 for the prohibition bureau, to be "expended for the collection and dissemination of information and appeal for law observance and law enforcement. Including cost of printing and other necessary expenses in connection therewith.” This means that the government will circulate prohibition propaganda. A previous attempt to propagandize the public schools was abandoned on order of President Hoover. Such propaganda from the government may be helpful and justified. But the question arises as to why this particular law should be singled out. Why not propagandize against murder, the sale of narcotics, arson, theft, assault and other crimes? The answer is that those charged with enforcing prohibition have adopted the attitude of the reformers that there is something sacrosanct about this particular statute. They hold it to be more important and above all other laws, and feel justified in adopting unusual and often illegal methods in its enforcement. And therein lies the reason for much of the public hostility toward prohibition.

REASON By FR S K

PRESIDENT HOOVER requests us to smile sweetly and answer in happy vein all the questions the ladylike and gentlemanly census takers shall ask us. This is all right, except when it comes to one’s antiquity. We do not believe that your age Is anybody’s business, but your own, or that perpetuity of free institutions demands that you broadcast it to the world. * tt tt Once upon a time James Whitcomb Riley went back to Greenfield. Ind., his birthplace, to receive distinguished consideration at the hands of his old neighbors. Everything was lovely, all of the poet’s former cronies being present, and then a town bore who never had resided within ten miles of Riley’s affections. approached the beloved bard and asked him his age. What Riley told him was delightful, also abundant. tt ti a Speaking of Riley, there’s a bronze statue of him on the courthouse lawn at Greenfield and the face and form are fine, but the artist put him in a Prince Albei t coat, whereas he should have been done informally. It would have been better to cast him in a storytelling pasture, the way he used to stop and talk to children in Indianapolis. tt n tt HEREDITY and environment may function occasionally. but they certainly fell down on the job in the case of this son of Billy Sunday who just has been arrested for stealing an automobile. tt tt n We don’t blame Governor Green of Michigan for saying he would not succeed the late Secretary of War Good, if the position were tendered him, for'it is better to be the whole thing in a state such as Michigan, than be one-tenth of any cabinet. O tt tt It was rather unusual for Governor Green to decline the job before the President tendered it to him. but after all this is the safest course for one to follow, since one may never have the opportunity of declining it, if he waits for it to be tendered. There s no use to be technical in such things. tt u tt 'T'HERE’S one thing we like about Mrs. Emma McJ- Mahon of Kansas, who has just celebrated her lOSth birthday and it is that she doesn't ascribe her endurance to the fact that she always smoked or never smoked, or has lived entirely on meats or has been a lifelong vegetarian. She justs sews patches on men’s clothing and lets it go at that. a it W. K. Henderson, iron manufacturer and radio announcer of Shreveport, La., may be bankrupt financially, but we can not imagine his ever becoming short on vocabulary. m m It must be a great shock to our Internationalists to have Ramsay MacDonald refer to the wisdom, of our keeping out of Europe’s endless dog fight.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E. Tracy SAYS:

Is Man a Free Agent or a Machine? You Can't Take Your Own Guess . QCIENCE is developing a supermind, says Dr. Constantine Economo of the University of Vienna. A perfectly safe statement, since none of us will be here to see’ it proved, or disproved, j Not pausing to argue the point, ! science would be doing no more than ; her duty. Considering some of the problems ! science has created, w r e need a suj pev-mind. * Existing conditions, however, suggest that we are more likely to get it by way of adding machines, wireless photography and other mechanical devices than through expansion of the brain. a a tt Some people think that we have more mind than we can use wisely as it is, and that what we really need is more conscience. Other people say that conscience is a by-product of the mind, and there you are. The whole speculation goes back to the question of whether man is a free agent or a machine. Such savants as Will Durant and Clarence Darrow being unable to settle it, why should the rest of us worry? Yet who can help it? tt tt tt Has His Own Pride IN spite of all science and philosophy have taught, the average individual regards himself as an individual, feels the urge of the ego, and believes that he must settle many problems alone. You can teach him that he is a mechanism, a product of environment and a pawn of fate, until you are blue in the face, but you can not make him act on any such a theory when he is up against a tough situation. The best you can do, or more accurately, the worst, is to destroy his confidence on the one hand, and furnish him with an alibi for becoming a nuisance, or a criminal on the other.

We would be wiser to pay more attention to the way men act in this respect than to the way they talk. Vocally, they may be ready to visualize themselves as marionettes of the cosmos, but when it comes to doing things, they are not. Does any one imagine that a Litvinoff, writing notes on the Russo-Chinese situation, or a Durkin, taking someone for a "ride” in Chicago, or a Sir Arthur Keefe, fixing fees for an operation, regards himself as a helpless puppet of evolution? Not on your life, each and every one of them acts on the idea that he is boss of the job, no matter what he preaches. tt tt tt System Out of Tune OUR attitude toward the nonexistence of free will is about like our attitude toward prohibition. We simply do not drink as we vote, which, more than anything else, is throwing our educational system, especially in its higher branches, out of tune. One moment we stress intelligence as all important and the next we proclaim that we can’t make uSe of it as we would like, because we have no say-so in the matter. tt tt tt To sum it up, we’re reasoning ourselves into a position where reason fails to count, using our intellects to prove that intellectuality develops through automatic processes, prophesying that science will produce super-minds, just as it has produced typew'riters and phonographs, and, apparently, with no nobler objective. Without realizing it, we are not only trying to dethrone God, but to take his place as the supreme product of creation, trying to represent our infinitesimal achievements as the crowning glory of the universe, trying to imagine that mechanical ingenuity equals wisdom. n a tt Still Pretty Earthy SUCH an obliterating conception would be all right, if people didn’t have so many little thinks to think about, but it doesn’t help a mother very much when the baby has whooping cough, or a father when the pay check stops. We’re still a pretty earthy set of creatures, compelled to wrestle with an earthy set of problems, and our greatest need is a kind of intelligence that will assist us in solving them, and a kind of judgment that will prevent us from causing unnecessary trouble. Sheer intelligence does not account for the difference between a happy marriage and a string of divorces, between a citizen who tries to do his duty and one who shirks, betewen the expert who makes a safe, and the one who cracks it. There is a shadowy something behind the scenes, determining whether we use our ingenuity to create oi destroy. That something deserves more consideration that it is getting.

Christmas rrs OiPD THAT AvOiDST ft" Tjf THE SQUIRM- 1 SHOPPING and

ill j i ——■ ■ —i ———l t , VHAT THE HULL FELLOW j

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE “Sunlight” Lamps Aid Health

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and of Ilygeia, the Health Magazine. AS winter comes with foggy days and less and less sunlight, the manufacturers of artificial sunlight lamps make greater and greater efforts to sell these to the public. There is a general impression, well supported by scientific evidence, that a reasonable amount of sunlight is good for humanity in the vast majority of cases. No one yet has produced a machine which will produce in the home all effects of outdoor sunlight. Outdoors one gets the fresh air, the exposure to the breezes, the exposure of the skin, and other climatic features in addition to the light itself. Indoors, he gets only the light. In both Great Britain and in this country serious consideration is being given to the question of limitations that should be placed on lamps sold to the public.

IT SEEMS TO ME By BROUN

EDDIE CANTOR, the author, thinks that I was illogical and unfair in attacking his recent stock market book, on the charge that it displayed poor taste. "You spank me verbally,” he wires, “for poking fun at the recent stock market crash through my book, ‘Caught Short.’ Since when have we jesters in this country stopped making light of catastrophes? "Would you scold Charlie Chaplin for his travesty, ‘Shoulder Arms,' which kidded beautifully the late war? Would you have stopped ‘The Better ’Ole’ or Bairnsfather’s cartoons if you could? "There must be a place in this country for ‘Caught Short’ at present, or it could not have reached 80,000 copies at this writing. "Dr. Calvin Smith, eminent heart specialist of Philadelphia, is recommending the book to his patients who were hit in the market. Dozens of letters from the finest minds are pouring in every day, calling it a boon to those financially crippled in the crash. “When you write of the doings of Gastonia and the Sacco-Vanzetti affair you deserve a great big kiss, but when you chastise comedians for the laughter they bring to the American public in these trying times, you deserve and get a great big hiss from your fellow author.” tt tt tt Pun'nifig TO clear the issue, I will state immediately that I never undertook to say that Cantor’s book had not and would not continue to sell prodigiously. Moreover, he is correct in maintaining that he is faithful to a well-known national tradition which holds that belly laughs are both an effective and a suitable antidote for tragedy. There are plenty of classical examples in which comic relief is used in this same spirit. I am stating an individual opinion, perhaps a whim, in saying that I don’t like it, even if it has been good enough for Shakespeare and Eddie Cantor. It semes to me a swing of the pendulum beyond all reasonableness. There ought to be some ground between guffaws and whimpers. Cantor falls Into error when he

Daily Thought

Cast away from yon all your transgressions, whereby we have transgressed; and make you a new heart and anew spirit; for whv will ye die, O house of Isreal?—Ezekiel 18:31. mm* If we did not first take great pains to corrupt our natyre, our nature, never would corrupt us.— Clarendon. _

An Interesting Diagnosis!

Already leading manufacturers have produced apparatus which provides only the intensity of sunlight and no ultraviolet radiation of a stronger character. The British authorities are convinced that if ultraviolet-producing lamps are sold to the general public they should conform to two conditions : First, they should give off no appreciable quantity of wave lengths shorter than 2,900 angstrom units. Second, they should be accompanied by printed instructions giving exact particulars regarding the amount of time the lamp should be used and the distance that the body should be from the lamp when it is used. The public should also be warned against using the lamp in ill health, except under the advice of a physician. In other words, the ultraviolet rays should be used for such protective value as they confer on the body through raising the resistance of the human being to disease.

speaks as if laughter were always an indication of happiness. He has been around the theater long enough to know that at times an audience laughs because it is acutely uncomfortable. It is quite possible to roar at the antics of a comedian and dislike him intensely. The well-known poem has exalted the man who can smile when everything goes dead wrong. But that doesn’t mean that he- must cackle. And if I’m the fellow who happens to be in trouble, I’d just as soon he wouldn’t show all his teeth in his silly grin. tt tt tt Discovered “'S’X TE New York City Socialists,” W writes McAllister Coleman, “these days are receiving enough publicity to make us all a bit dizzy. Reporters have discovered the Rand school. “A tabloid photographer took our pictures while we were having an executive committee meeting. Whereas for two years I have been talking Socialism over our radio station, WEVD, I always had figured that I was talking to myself. Now I get letters saying that I am obviously crazy and should be denied the air. Things are picking up. "Kindly old gentlemen who have thought of Socialism in terms of Daniel Le Leon and Herr Most

[Avr (6 TWe-ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY December 6 NINETY-NINE years ago today, on Dec. 6, 1830, the American Anti-Slavery Society was organized •in Philadelphia by delegates from the few state and city societies then existing. The society sought immediate abolition of slavery, and its work was for many years looked upon as fanatical or at least hopelessly impractical. Members of the society were denounced, its meetings broken up, and rewards offered in the south for its leader ddhd or alive. Conflicting opinion on the question of : political action caused a split in the society # in 1840. Nonvoters under Garrison gained control of the old society. Others formed the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, but the organization had outgrown a society and found a more conservative expression in the Liberty party and its successors. The parent organization con-, tinued to exist until after the adoption of the fifteen amendment in 1870.

Certain people react more strongly to light exposure than do others. Such people should be warned particularly against overdosage and against submitting themselves to ultraviolet without competent medical advice. There is, moreover, available on the market much ultraviolet apparatus that does not actually produce ultraviolet rays in sufficient intensity to accomplish any good whatever. Certainly the purchaser should be warned against inefficient apparatus. The American people are much given to crazes for new methods of treatment and new sanitary devices. The purchaser of the ultraviolet apparatus is likely to use it for a month or two and then to let it stand idle, as does the victrola, the radio, or any of the other amusement devices purchased for the home. The ultraviolet ray apparatus can do little good unless used regularly and over long periods of time, particularly in the winter months.

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

write long letters to ‘The Times,’ and to you, for all I know, saying that we ought to reorganize as a moral uplift movement. “Myself, I am buttonholed by members of my class at Columbia, now who have decided that I have no evil intentions upon the velocipedes of their young, and who are eager to tell me just how to make the party safe and sane. a tt it May Not Register "TF we will abandon our principles, JL scrap our platform, change our name and throw out all the Jews and Negroes in our ranks, ‘the respectable element in the community’ will support our candidates. That is if the respectable element does not forget to register, as so many did this past year. "All this has happened, apparently, because someone found out that Norman Thomas went to Princeton and uses a fork, and that English is spoken at our branch meetings. "The irony of it is that when we do get into power, it will be the legs of the respectable element that we will roundly bite. For we are no petty bourgeois party of reform, nor are we vastly concerned with moral uplift, political housecleaning and the other shibboleths of the reformers. We are out for revolution.” rCoDyright. 1929. by The Times)

Questions and Answers

How many colors are there? The new International Encyclopedia says: “Correctly speaking, there are but six colors—three primary of red. blue and yellow, and three secondary of orange, violet and green. All other colors are compounds of these. , What is the value of a United States large copper cent dated 1827? Three to 25 cents. What are the premium on Ignited States dimes dated 1876 and" 1888 and United States Nickels dated 1866? They command no premium, I was born in America and married an alien? Am Ia citizen? If you mr-ried an alien after Sept. 22, 1922, you still an American citizen. Prior to that date a woman assumed the citizenship of her husband. Why Is it that a person In an airplane above the earth can not see the earth revolve under him? Because he can not divest himself from the earth’s gravitational attraction. The earth's atmosphere or ocean of air which surrounds it Is subject to gravitational attraction, like every other particle of matter, and consequently, the air belt, the airplane and the man in it are

DEC. 6, 1929

SCIENCE —By DAVID DIETZ

Scientists Face Difficult Problem in Reducing All Phenomena of the Universe to a Common Set of Laws. THE aim of modem scientific research is to reduce all phenomena of the universe to a common set of laws. Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity, and his more recent “field theory” were all steps in that direction. Additional theories, more bewildering at first, no doubt, than either relativity or the “field theory," can be expected, simply because modern science has not yet realized its aim. The thing which makes these modem theories so difficult is that we look to them for explanations in terms of the familiar. Such explanations can not be given. For these theories are attempts to get behind the familiar things and explain their mechanism. At present science is unable to answer the question of “what” in many cases. It can only answer “how.” It can not tell what a light wave is, or what an electron is, or what a quantrum of energy is. It only can tell how it behaves. Those w’ho turn to Einstein’s theories and expect a simple categorical answer such as “Gravity is such and such,” are disappointed. The theory gives no such answer. The theory tells us that gravity is the result of the way things happen in the universe and then goes on to explain the laws of behavior which result in the phenomenon we call gravity. it a a Newton TO realize the necessity of Einstein’s “field theory,” we must go back to the time of Newton. Sir Isaac Newton formulated his famous theory of relativity to explain the way in which objects behaved in the universe. His law of universal gravitation stated that every object in the universe attracted every other object with a force directly proportional to the products of their masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them. It should be noted that his “law” said nothing about the real nature of gravity. It merely described the behavior of gravity. Newton’s law was sufficient in general to explain mechanical phenomena. It explained, for example, the motions of the planets around the sun. It did not, however, completely explain the motions of the planet Mercury. It also explained the tides and the falling of objects to the earth’s surface, and so on. But Newton’s law did not fit the facts in the field of electro-magnetic phenomena’. Asa result, during the early part of the nineteenth century, scientists held that there was an essential difference between matter and electricity. Matter was held to be ponderable, while electricity was governed imponderable. Newton’s law was held to govern matter, while another law, expressed in the Clerk-Maxwell equations, was considered to govern electro-mag-netic phenomena.

Einstein MODERN development of the atomic theory, however, made the nineteenth century view no longer possible. According to the present view, matter itself is electrical in its fundamental nature. The atoms of matter are constructed by* tiny particles called electrons. The electric current is a stream of electrons in motion. When a body is positively or negatively electrified, it is in a state where It has a shortage or excess of negative electrons. Consequently, it became apparent that the discrepancies between Newton’s law and the Clerk-Max-well equations would have to be reconciled some day. Einstein made the beginning with his theories of relativity. In developing these theories he went back to the Clerk-Maxwell equations as his starting point. Asa result, the absolute space and absolute time which Newton postulated, disappear. In their place appears a connected space and time, a four dimensional “space-time.” or continuum. In this, only the speed of light always appears constant, and measurements of space and time vary with the speed of the observer so as to keep the measured speed of light always constant. The “field theory” goes still further and develops one mathematical formula from which the behavior of both gravitational fields and electromagnetic fields can be developed.

carried around with the rotation of the earth, and except for the progress made in one direction or anothex by the motors of the plane, they remain in the same relative position as when they take oif from the earth. This is just as true for a plane flying in the air as it is so- a railroad train proceeding oyer the surface. How many lives were lost in the explosion at the Mather mine, near Waynesburg, Pa.? It occurred about 4 p. m., May 19, 1928. About 200 men were trapped near the mouth of a mine of the Mather Collieries Company and 195 were killed. Rescue crews and volunteers succeeded in rescuing the others. The mine caught fire and burned fiercely following an explosion which rocked the district. Where and when was Tom Ifeeney born? Gisbourne, New Zealand, May 19, 1899. Is Lois Wilson stOl playing in the movies? Yes. Her latest picture is “The Ramblers.’’ What kind of work does a die •inker do? He engraves and hardens metal dies, as for coining.