Indianapolis Times, Volume 41, Number 209, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 January 1930 — Page 4

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11 MIMM J- M O** AM ti

Most Reassuring Even the most skeptical will doubt the statement of Senator Arthur Robinson that the d' -r held at his home was a purely social event, the gathering of close and intimate friends, the intercourse of those who have the same leals, ideas, friendships and hold common thoughts about life. There was no significance at all in the fact that the guests were former Governor Ed Jackson and George B. Coffin, sometime political master. For one who made famous the almost forgotten epigram that “Birds of a feather flock together,” it would have been surprising if the guest list had been different. More reassuring is the statement of the senator that none ff his guests is longer in politics. That should have great interest, especially for the guests themselves, who may not have suspected that such is the truth. Indeed the rumors among those who talk and think of things political has been that Jackson dreams of a return from Elba. He has forgotten his geography. Take the word of Senator Robinson, it is St. Helena in which Jackson resides politically. As for Mr. Coffin, no one suspected that one battle to him meant a war. True, this modem Napoleon might have believed that he was marching back from Moscow. He has seen his soldiers fall, his generals captured, his commissary restricted to such rations as drop from the county funds. His good friend Arthur, who, many a day and oft, followed his fortunes, breaks the news, none too gently, that Coffin's day is over and that for him there is no place in politics. Away with thoughts that at such a gathering of friends there was any dreaming of the day that is gone, of plans for future conquests, of bold coup d'etat, or subtle diplomacy that would again bring back the halcyon era of dominance with power and greater honors. How’ could there be? Jackson and Coffin are no longer in politics. If you doubt, you have the evidence of their genial host, the junior senator from Indiana.

The Public Loses Again Once more the United States supreme court has rendered a decision Justifying higher rates demanded by public utility companies. And, as might have been expected, Justices Brandeis, Stone and Holmes once more dissent. In the Baltimore 10-cent car fare case Monday, the court laid down the law that “it is manifest that Just compensation for a utility .... is more than current interest on mere investment.” The court went on to decide, in effect, that regardless of possible inflation of valuation for ratemaking purposes, the financial return must take care not only of expenses, interest, depreciation and "reasonable dividends,” but must provide an additional profit "surplus,” From that astounding generalization, the court sets forth an interpretation of the anti-confiscation doctrine which should water the mouths of all the Utility companies in the country: "In the light of the recent decisions of this court, and other federal decisions, It is not certain that rates seeming a return of 714 per cent or even 8 per cent on the value of the property would not be necessary to avoid confiscation." To support this bit of economics by law. an earlier opinion of the court was cited, declaring a utility entitled to a return “equal to that generally being made at the same time and in the same general part of the country on an investment in other business undertakings which are attended by corresponding risks and uncertainties. When and where in the United States was the rate of return on such relatively safe investments generally 714 or 8 per cent? Finally, the majority decision encouraged that favorite device for utility rate increases, the claim that valuation should not rest on actual investment, but a higher Imaginary and usually irrelevant reproduction cost: “It is the settled rule of this court that the rate base Is the present value.” Justice Brandeis, in his dissenting opinion, met the company argument that the rate to which it objected would yield only 6.26 per cent on “fair value.” Very well, said he. that is enough. That is not confiscatory. That is a compensatory rate—--5.26 per cent. General business practice was cited by Brandeis in arguing for a lower depreciation allowance based on the fact of original cost rather than on the fiction of “present value." In concurring with Holmes in Brandeis’ dissenting opinion. Stone added strong words of his own on this issue. The majority decision will add nothing to the confidence of the people in the court’s wisdom on matters of economics. It undoubtedly will stimulate utility corporations to attempt further raids cn the public vmder court protection. A Decade of the League Ten years ago, on Jan. 10, 1920, was bom the League of Nations. Weak and wobbly, without funds, without a home and without many friends because it had been wished off on a rather cold arc. skeptical Europe, it functioned at first with extreme timidity. Having no clearcut notion of what it was all about, it hardly knew what to say or do and was afraid to say it or do it, even if it did know. Today every nation in the world is a member of it, except the United States, Russia, Mexico, Brazil and two or three smaller countries. It has the respect of all. Some of the earth’s greatest civilizations look to it for security, as to a savior, i.nd its accomplishments have been splendid. But for the league Austria never could have sur-

The Indianapolis Times i.% SCRIPPft-HOWAKD NEWSPAPER) O-vn- I- ill put,il<-lied dnilr "except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Time** Publishing Cos 214 •220 West Maryland Street. Indianapolis, Irid Price In Marion County, 2 cent* a C”py: elsewhere. ?. cents— dellverc-d by carrier. 12 cents a week. BOiD HURLEY. ROY W. HOWARD. FRANK O. MORRISON, Editor President Business Manager PHONE— Riley 85. M FRTjJAY, JAN. 10, 1930. M'Uiber of I nitcd Press, Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance, Newspaper Enterprise Asso ilaflon. Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations, “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way”

vived. It financed her in her darkest hours and gave her an administrator. But for the league Hungary might have gone bankrupt and crashed. But for the league there la no telling what would have happened to the 1,000,000 refugees from Asia Minor. From repatriation of prisoners and war liquidation, the league turned to constructive works of peace. It supervises mandates and looks after the Interests of millions of minority peoples living under foreign flags. It has fought epidemics, as in Poland and Greece, It has settled serious international disputes like that over the Aland is.ands, the Poiish-Lithuanian quarrel, the Upper Silesian, Danzig, Javorina, Memel, Mosul and the Bulgarian-Greek conflicts. How far the Greek-Italian near-war would have gone, after the Italian ship fired on Corfu but for the league's good offices, no man can say. In co-ordinating international sociological, economic, health and intellectual activities, it has been invaluable. “What has the league ever done to justify itself?" American irreconcilables ask. “What wars has it ever prevented?” The league would be distinctly worth while if it did nothing more than afford a common meeting ground where leading statesmen could gather in a natural manner every year and talk to one another, face to face. It was at a league assembly, at Geneva, that the Frenchman, Briand, and the German, Stresseman, met and did more to remove the standing menace of a Franco-German hostility than all the Frenchmen and all the Germans had been able to do in many years. President Hoover is not blind to the value of such personal contacts as an aid to international friendship and understanding. Witness his 15,000-mile Journey to Central and South America for that purpose and his recent invitation to Prime Minister MacDonald of Great Britain. Only now is the league beginning to function a little like it was intended to function. It has fiftyfour members. It is erecting a beautiful group of buildings to house It. It has some seven hundred permanent secretariat members and ample funds, its 1930 budget amounting to $5,435,000. Strange to say, the most sacred spot of all spots in the league's section of Geneva is a simple plaque on j a simple wall in memory of Woodrow Wilson, former President of the United States and founder of the organization for which he gave his life. Yet the United States now is the only first-class world power which is not in this great humanitarian institution. And the irony of it, unfortunately, is not lost on the rest of the world.

Edward Bok A hungry immigrant boy stood gazing at the bread and pies in a Brooklyn baker’s window. “Look pretty good, don’t they?” asked the baker, who had come out to admire his wares. “They would if your windows were clean,” replied the boy, whose mind worked faster than his hunger. So he created his first job at 50 cents a week, washing window’s. And thus began the Americanization of Edward Bok, which the editor and philanthropist recounted with pride in his prize-winning biography years later. Mr. Bok died Thursday. He died, as he wished, near the birds for which he had provided a national sanctuary and his great carillon of sixty-one bells. He was famous for many things, for instinctively he caught and held the public imagination by what he did and how he did it. But perhaps he will not be remembered best for his rise from a hungry immigrant to a wealthy American, or for his achievement as a magazine editor in winning a nation-wide following. Others have done the same. His fellow Americans remember him, rather, as the highly successful business and professional man who had the courage and vision to quit at the height of his career in middle age to devote the rest of his life to what he called “play.” By play he meant finding greater joy in service to others. With that freedom from business cares he planned and achieved the SIOO,OOO American peace award, one of the most successful projects in peace publicity and popular education ever attempted. His comment on launching that project perhaps revealed the secret of his character—an unusual synthesis of the, realist and the idealist: “I do not look for a miracle, but I look for a beginning. Before the world can have peace, it must think in terms of peace.” When he came to write the story of life, he set down as his ideal the message with which his Dutch grandmother sent her children out into the world: “Make you the world a bit more beautiful and better because you have been in it.” Edward Bok succeeded.

REASON By F S K

THE holidays are over, the family reunions have dissolved, the Christmas trees are in the alley, the kids have gone back to school, the indigestion is disappearing, the days are being put into their places | again, the bank accounts are convalescing and—as usual Santa Claus gets all the credit. * a a This has been a great week for fur in the United States, President Hoover giving Princess Marie Jose 3f Belgium ten Alaskan seal skins and Vare's announcement that ne will run for the senate against Grundy, making the fur fly in Pennsylvania. u ts a As it stands now, we are for Vare. We were against him when he was our late Pennsylvania aversion, but that proud place nas been taken by the immortal Grundy. u u a ONE HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND rabbits were ishipped to market by one Missouri firm during December, which would seem to indicate that the rabbit s foot does not bring a whole lot of luck to the rabbit. aun Alexander Zaimis. former premier of Greece and now her president, bears a great resemblance to VicePresident Charles Curtis, except that Alex is very grim, while Charley displays the ivories. The Greek looks exactly as Curtis must have looked when he read that article which Mencken wrote about him in Mercury. warn This book. "July 14th,” which reveals the serpenfine windings of European intrigue and he serpentine poison thereof, makes an American thank the Lord that He put the Atlantic ocean exactly where it is. It also has a tendency to dilute ones enthusiasm for membership in * world court dominated by the same huckleberries. \

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E. Tracy SAYS:

Three Men Probably Could Sit Down and Draw Up as Satisfactory a Plan of Naval Reduction as Can the London Conference. THE American delegation to the naval reduction conference I leaves for London, accompanied by | more than 100 secretaries, technical j advisers, clerks and newspaper men. | Equally large delegations will repI resent England, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. ! Though thirty-five or forty of- ; fleial representatives will do the talking, ten or a dozen times as many people will be located oack ! stage to give them advice. Still further back stage will be 1 the five respective governments, | without whose consent nothing ol importance can be done. o e ' The chances are that three men |of average intelligence could sit down by themselves and draw up j just as satisfactory a plan of navai reduction as this conference wifi | formulate, but that would be too simple and sincere a method, j Having developed navies through a long and arduous process ol technical improvement, we can not jth nk of reducing them by any j other method. i The idea merely of reducing has | few supporters. j What the conventional world visualizes as necessary is to diminish the caliber of certain classes ol guns by so much, the length of certain types of ships by so much, and so on, ad infinitum. 0 0 0 Not Sold on Idea THIS is because we are not really sold on the idea of naval rej Auction, but only have come to a point where we are willing to trade. ; The immediate object of the per- ! formance is to find out what the ! other fellow will do. Asa matter of common sense, we are undertaking to reduce navies on exactly the same principle that 1 we have built them, swapping battleship for battleship, cruiser for j cruiser and ,ton for ton. When we get through, we may | save some money by way of taxa- i tion, but we shall be about where j we were, as far as war is concerned. ! 000 These disarmament conferences | mean nothing by way of preventing war, except as they influence people to think more and more of a different method of settling international disputes. People fought just as fearlessly and just as foolishly before modern navies came into existence as they did afterward. Armaments have contributed little, save to facilitate the business of taking life and destroying property. Disarmament would contribute little. save to make that business more difficult. 000 Still Could Murder THE problem of peace does not hinge on the question of whether we have 35,000-ton battleships, or agree to a vest-pocket type. It is conceivable that we might j scrap all battleships, and still en- ! gage in bloody sea fights. Certainly, history contains plenty j of instances to prove the point. It is conceivable that we could throw away our guns, tanks, torpedoes and poison gas and still do a pretty good job of wholesale murder.

The cry for disarmament is merely a preliminary step, deserving encouragement, not because it promises anything of tangible value, but because it helps us to think in the right direction and helps to clear the stage for a different set-up. But thinking in the right direction and a different set-up are the allimportant things. What people want is security, and that can’t be guaranteed merely by throwing away weapons. 000 Depend on War IF nations are going to reduce their armies and navies, some agency must be devised to guarantee them against unjust treatment, and that is the crux of the problem. The world will continue to depend on war for its protection, whether it agrees to disarm or not, until such agency has been established. That is because human nature still is human. The individual, the family, and the tribe did not give up the idea of fighting for their own protection until a more adequate system of justice had been devised. No more will nations.

Daily Thought

Blessed ts he that waiteth.— Hosea 1:12. a a a True blessedness consisteth in a 200d life and a happy death.—Solon. What does dracula mean? It is from the Latin and means a small dragon, serpent, hence a vampire. It is the title of a famous novel by Bram Stoker. How is the name of the river on which London is located pronounced? It is spelled Thames and pronounced “Temz.” W’hat country owns the Dead sea? It lies within Palestine, which L? under mandate to Great Britain. Do we live on or in the earth? We live on the earth. What is the period of gestation in a rat? Four weeks. Who was the President of the United States in 1873? Ulysses S. Grant. How many daily newspapers are published in the United States? 2,215. Is Texas an agricultural state? i Two-thirds of the area of Texas is devoted to agriculture.

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DAILY HEALTH SERVICE Drug Effect Still Partly Mystery

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and of Mycreia, the Health MarazSne. ONE of the problems of greatest interest in recent years is the control of the problem of addiction to narcotic drugs. Publicity organizations keep the matter constantly before the public. At the same time, scientific bodies have been making studies of addiction in various hospitals and institutions, with a view to finding out why people become addicted and how best to relieve them from their habits as soon as the addiction is established. The results of a series of studies made by the committee on drug addiction of New York City and carried out In Philadelphia now are made available by Dr. Arthur B. Light. It is the conclusion of this series

IT SEEMS TO ME By BROUN

MICHAEL GOLD, the editor and playwright, is after me about | skyscrapers and their utility and | beauty. “Skyscrapers are beautiful,” writes Gold, “when seen against a blue sky from a ferryboat. They are ugly as the devil w'hen you have to slave in them under the electric lights, eight hours a day of rush, worry, hammering, anemia. “Ask those who work in them. Ask them if they enjoy the congestion skyscrapers mean—the horrible subway massacre that goes on twice a day for millions of New York workers. “It’s all in the point of view. Your viewpoint is that of the outsider. You live and do your typewriting around Times Square. “You can afford to be esthetic about subways and skyscrapers. But the little clerks and stenos haven’t the time to be esthetic. If they stopped to admire this ‘American art,’ the boss would fire them for loafing. ana For Profit “ Q KYSCRAPERS are not built for 3 beauty', but for profit. They are a product of capitalist anarchism In a well-ordered society there would be no need for them. “Take the garment trade, New York’s chief industry. There is not a single valid reason why it should be located in New York, except that the buyers come here, which is a commercial reason and not an industrial one. “So with other trades, many of them parasitic, like advertising, salesmanship, etc.—they will vanish in a co-operative society, and New York will diminish in size. “From a community standpoint, skyscrapers are inefficient and wasteful. Ask any engineer. And ask Lewis Mumford, for instance, whether they really feed any of the basic human needs for dignity, security, or beauty. “The answer is ‘no.’ Personally, I am beginning to feel that all this skyscraper worship is the newest manifestation of the social lie upon which our wage slave society is founded. “It is hard to defend the capitalistic madhouse called New York, so the intellectuals, in their flight from social problems, find an easy way out by praising the skyscrapers. “Nero's theory again—all is justii fied by beauty, even the burning of

Questions and Answers

What are the principal minerals found in Germany? Coal, lignite, iron ore, zinc ore, lead ore, copper ore, rock salt and potash. How are needles made? After a suitable wire has been chosen it is cut into lengths of two needles. These are collected into bundles, slightly softened by firing, and pressed to make them perfectly

‘‘Splendid Isolation”

of studies that there is nothing about the body of the person who is a drug addict that differentiates him in any serious way from the normal person, except so far as concerns his craving for the drug and the effects of the drug itself on his actions. Most addicts are emaciated, and this seems to me due to the unhygienic metnod of living, associated with carelessness and lack of responsibility when a person is under the effects of morphine or opium. The studies show that a morphine addict is not characterized by physical deterioration or impairment of physical fitness, aside from drug addiction. When the drug abruptly is withdrawn, changes that take place in the physiologic mechanisms or functions of the body are very

Rome. How I hate bum fiddlers with artistic souls! “And I repeat my wish, which is probably that of half the population of New York, for a whiff of fresh air and an eyeful of free space.” 000 Cause Congestion MICHAEL GOLD has enlarged the issue somewhat, for in the beginning I merely took exception to his theory that in Utopia there would be no skyscrapers. Now, he tells me that under our present organization they are responsible for subway congestion. That is perfectly true, but in my vision of the new world I see the skyscraper as the solution of the transportation problems which baffle all the big cities of the world. It has been pointed out that many of the iatest tall buldings of New York are large enough to house the population of a minor city. It is around this conception that

;>/ppY

STAMP ACT PASSED January 10 On Jan. 10, 1765, the British parliament passed the much-hated stamp act. The act. signed by George 111, provided “for granting and supplying certain stamp duties, and other duties, in the British colonies and plantations in America, toward further defraying the expense of defending, protecting and securing the same.” The stamp act prescribed (1) that stamp paper be used for legal and official documents, diplomas and certificates: (2) that stamps be placed on playing cards, dice, pamphlets, calendars, almanacs and ether articles, and (3) that jury trial be denied offenders at the discretion of authorized prosecuting officers When news of Its passage reached America there arose an immediate cry against “taxation without repitsentation.” Many stamp agents were mobbed and the stamps destroyed so that the act had been virtually nullified before it was put into effect.

straight They are then pointed at both ends on a grindstone and the eyes are punched by dies, after which they are broken apart. Then comes the polishing, tempering and grinding the heads into shape. What causes a short circuit in electric wire? It is caused by defective insulation of the wires, which allows the current to lt

slight and do not explain the apparent seriousness of the symptoms associated with withdrawal. Such symptoms include yawning, restlessness, sweating, hot flashes and chills, extreme disturbances of digestion, irritability, weakness, loss of weight, ana occasionally even prostration and death. The giving of the drug after these withdrawal symptoms have commenced seems to make the addict feel better, but is not accompanied by a return to normal so far as concerns the functions of the body ; merally. Apparently it is not yet known just how opium and its derivatives work these far-reaching changes in the human body and mind. One of the most important steps will be continued research to find out the basis for the withdrawal symptoms.

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

Utopians will plan. The New York of a century hence may be not one city, but a number of self-contained units. The job and the home can be housed in the same structure. Home will be a penthouse on someone of the many setback roofs of a giant tower. Downstairs will be the job in office or in factory. Instead of having to bother with bus, subway, or even airplane, the worker will step out of his front door into an elevator and be at his place of business after a swift descent necessitating not more than fwo or three minutes. In thousands of other buildings, other workers will be doing the same thing. att a Enjoyable Work WILLIAM MORRIS and the bright dreamers of an earlier day invariably saw Utopia as a semi-rustic country, where people >ang and frolicked as they labored at the task of making artistic handhewn chairs. In these plans, salvation was to come through making work much more enjoyable But the development of the machine has impaired that vision. My ideal is not like that at all. It seems to me that Utopians will simplify things a great deal by admitting that certain kinds of necessary labor never will be paricularly enjoyable Unfortunately, it is difficult to conceive a community which manages to exist without any work at all. But the next best thing is distinctly possible. We may learn to plan and co-operate in such way as to cut toil down to an insignificant minimum. (Copyright. 1930. by The Times)

Your Family Tree Genealogy is a chronology of descent, tracing families to their origins or as far back as the records will show. The construction of a family tree or history of descent is interesting, valuable and useful. The entrance requirements of a number of patriotic organizations make it necessary to construct such family histories in order to prove descent from ancestors engaged in various American wars. Our Washington Bureau has prepared a bulletin of suggestions forgathering materials and constructing a family tree that lists the principal sources of such material in America today, tells how to go about the undertaking, and gives a sample genealogical chart from which one may get an idea as to how such a family history is constructed. Any one interested in tracing his or her ancestry will find this bulletin of value in the undertaking. Fill out the coupon below and send for it: ■ CLIP COUPON HERE GENEALOGY EDITOR, Washington Bureau, The Indianapolis Times 1322 New York avenue, Washington. D. C. I want a copy of the bulletin GENEALOGY, and enclose herewith five cents In coin, or loose, uncanceled United States postage stamps to cover postage and handling costs: NAME STREET AND NUMBER CITY STATE I am a reader of The Indianapolis Times

JAN. 10, m

SCIENCE? By DAVID DIETZ

Higher Mathematics Is Expected to Solve Many of the Deeper Problem in the Future. 1 ECONOMICS and sociology may, in the near future, read like the Einstein theory of relativity. Future | advances in the social sc.ences will come through tire appl-cat.on of i higher mathematics to their problems, Prof. Irvmg Fisher, famous economist of Yale university, predicted here at the annual comention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Profesor Fisher urged the applica- ! tion of vector analyo-s to economic problems. This is one of the 1 branches of mathemat-cs employed by Profesor Einstein. A vector in mathematics is a line that possesses both magnitude and direction. Professor Fisher delivered Ui*j ! Josiah Willard Gibbs lecture, an ai" nual event sponsored by the American Mathematical Society in memory of Gibos, one of the greatest figures in American science. Gibbs, by his matnematical analysis of thermodynamics, the problems of heat transfer, made fundamental ! discoveries which accelerated the whole development of chemistry a f j heat engineering, i As Processor Hsher said, "there -s | today no g.eat ciiem.cal or xnetalI uirgical industry that docs not dc- | pend, for the development of a l great part of its operations, on an understanding and application of the laws laid down by Gibbs.” 000 Profits PROFESSOR I ISHER himself was a student of Gibbs at the time when Gibbs was a professor at I Yale. Gibbs taught there until his death in 1903. Just as the great results of the twentieth century in chemistry and engineering have come through the application of mathematics to their ! problems, so mathematical anaylsis j will point the way to the solution |of economic and social problems, I Professor Fisher said. He pointed out four fields of social ! science in which he thought more, 1 intensive use of mathematics could j be made. * j ‘‘These may be distinguished as (1) pure theory, <2 > the fitting of j formulae to statistics, '3) correla- } tion. and (4) probabilities,” he said. '‘Mathematics serves economic theory in supplying fundamental concepts based on the differential calculus,” he continued. “Tnrough the process of differentiation, it solves questions of maxima and minima, such as the simple process of determining formally what is* the maximum price that the traffic’ ! will bear in order to make profits Ia maximum. I "The chief realm of economic j theory to which mathematical anal- | ysis of this formal kind applies is I that of supply and demand, the determination of prices, and the oretical effect of taxes or tariffs on 1 prices. "Familiarity with matematics will save many confusions of thought. For instance, it is as important to distinguish between a high price and a rising price as between velocity and acceleration. ‘‘Rate of price change has Important effects, both theoretically and in practice, on the rate of interest and on the volume of business.” 0 Language BUT while urging the use of mathematics, Professor Fisher also called attention to what con--stituted proper usage. J 1 "Mathematics merely transfory/ J the raw material provided to it inufcj finished products,” he said. "It can not create any new data. Or, as Gibbs said of it, ‘Mathematics is only a language.’ "To quote Professor Benjamim, Pearse, ‘Mathematics is not the discoverer of Jaws, for it is not induction neither is it the framer of theories, for it is not hypothesis, but it is a judge over both. It deduces from a law all its consequences.’ "Some of those who hi ve decried* mathematics have imagined that the mathematical economist undertook to sit in his study, and, with mathematics as a talisman, derive some law of economics. “The fitting of formulas and curves to statistics has, of been one of the aims of statisticians for many generations. In this way we have derived our mortality tables, the basis used by actuaries for calculating life insurance premiums, "Concurrently with this has developed a science of the mathematics of mortality and of population, extending at least back to the day** of William Farr, health officer of England half a century ago. “But recently, with the development of statistics in industry, this art of curve fitting by mathematical methods has grown very rapidly and 1 examples of it will be found in many current issues of statistical journals.”