Indianapolis Times, Volume 41, Number 240, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 February 1930 — Page 4

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11 PIP PJ• MOW AMO

Hoover's Responsibility Many unexpected news dispatches are coming out of the London naval conference. “Hope for naval reduction wanes," is a typical report. The conference “is going to co6t the United States more than $500,000,000 to get parity with the British fleet,” another correspondent figures. But perhaps the most surprising of all is the following press association dispatch Friday from London: “A high authority today declared that the policies of the United States naval delegation thus far have been shaped entirely by the delegates themselves, and that President Hoover to date has made no effort in any manner to control its members from the White House." At the same time, however, the same press association reported from Long Key, Fla., that President Hoover was hastening back to Washington, and added: “It is thought here that the change In plans was made because the London naval conference had reached a point where he wished to be in closer touch with developments." It would be Inexplicable, indeed, if the President were not directing America’s naval conference policy personally. Certainly the American delegate at London is on dangerous ground when he inspires stories to the contrary. The idea of an independent American delegation to this or to any other international conference is nonsensical, Doth in theory and in fact. The President, as the elected representative of the American people, directly charged with responsibility for foreign relations, is of course fully responsible tor every American policy at London. His delegates were chosen by him to act for him. Far from evading responsibility, Hoover, beginning last Memorial day, assumed vigorous and personal direction of such policy. He rejected mere naval limitation, and demanded actual reduction. He initiated the informal MacDonald conference in Washington and the consequent formal London conference. He formulated the American policy at the conference, and presumably Is making the vital decisions as they arise. Who else, under the American form of government, could make such vital decisions. Obviously the country looks to Hoover to make the delegation’s acts conform to his pledges. Credit for eventual success or failure of the naval reduction conference, so far as the United States Is responsible, will go to Hoover. It could not be otherwise. Supreme Court Idolatry The senate fight over the appointment of Charles Evans Hughes as chief justice of the United States Is one of the most significant developments in the political life of this nation in many years. That is true altogether apart from the virtues or the defects of Hughes’ appointment as such. This explains our repeatedly expressed hope that Hoover appointments would hasten the day when the Holmes-Brandeis minority opinions, placing human rights above partisan property right, would voice the will of the court as a whole. Far from meeting that qualification, Hughes, though a sincere and able man, is the outstanding example of a jurist who advocates private corporate interests at the expense of the public interest. To persons still holding to the myth that a justice's private opinions are of no consequence in this connection because his job is merely to pass as an expert upon technicalities of the law, the senate opposition to Hughes may seem unjust and beside the point. But in fact the court in major cases long since has become a policy-forming body. When social and economic Issues are involved, the Justices tend to vote their personal opinions, as do members of congress in passing laws. The chief difference is that the court-made law can and does destroy the con-gress-made law'. Justice Mcßevnolds’ decision on Jan. 6—as we have pointed out betore—is a frank admission that such court rulings are determined by “practical" reasons, rather than by any strict interpretation of the law. Thus the court majority has helped to destroy constitutional civil liberties and completely has reversed the purpose and meaning of the anti-trust laws, which now are used to free corporations from restraint, while restricting labor organizations. The curious and dangerous aspect of this long development of supreme court supremacy as a virtual law-making body is that It has occurred without public awareness. Instead of watching the court's growing power, the unsuspecting pub'ic has come to render the court a degree of reverence which approaches perilously close to idolatry. Os all our American institutions, including the presicientcv, it is the one which few dare criticise. We have lost the eaMy American independence which held no political institution above the critical judgment of sovereign citizens. By what servilemindedness, by what medieval superstition or mummery ol mace and gown have we vested with perfection nine fellow citizens who are political appointees? The senate debate on the Hughes nomination is significant because it breaks through this hush-hush and ah-ah atmosphere surrounding the court, daring to examine that political and very human institution for what it is worth. Like other political bodies, the worth of the supreme court will depend largely on the intelligent, constant and fearless public attention which it receives. The supreme court deserves the respect which It earns by protecting the people's rights—no more respect, and no less. Public Drinking Prohibition Commissioner Maurice Campbell of New York has announced that hereafter the individual possessor of liquor in any public place will be arrested and prosecuted. Campbell's agents already have raided two hotels, and at one a score of persons possessing small quantities of liquor were arrested. At the same time, he warned restaurant and night club proprietors that padlock proceedings will be instituted against them if they furnish 'accessories"— amger ale, ice. glasses, etc.—for persons who bring their own liquor. Campbells new policies have a slender foundation in law. “No one shall manufacture, sell, purchase, transport or vprescribe any liquor without first obtaining ja to do, except that a person may. without Zjjtchese and use liquor for medical pur-

The Indianapolis Times <A SCKU'PS-HOIVAKO NEWSPAPER! Owned and published dally 'except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Co--214-220 West Maryland Street, Indianapolis, Ind. Price in Marian Coenty, 2 cents a copy: elsewhere. 3 cen’a- delivered by carrier, 12 cents a week. BOYD GUR LET. BOY W HOWARD, FRANK G. MORRISON, Editor President Business Manager I'HONE-1! I ley 55M SATURDAY. FEB. 15. 1930. Member of United Press, Hcrippa-Howard Newspaper Alliance, Newspaper Enterprise Association, Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations. “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way”

poses when prescribed by a physician,” says the Volstead act. The act does not say where, when, or how such liquor may be consumed, nor does it specify that it must be kept in the original dnig store container. Most doctors prescribe liquor to be taken with or Immediately preceding meals. If Campbell’s agents arrest someone for taking a drink in a restaurant in New York, the person arrested has vioalted no prohibition statute, but has acted as the Volstead law specifically permits and by reasonable implication encourages in case of medicinal liquor. If Campbell arrests a restaurant keeper for furnishing soda water and glasses, he arrests him for violation of no known law. Certainly it is not up to the restaurant keeper to ascertain whether his customer is acting under orders of a doctor. Furthermore, if Campbell arrests someone for possession of more than the pint a doctor may prescribe, it is up to the government to prove where the possessor got it. It is no crime to disobay a doctor’s orders, even to the extent of saving up a month’s supply of medicine and taking it all at once. Campbell's threats have the appearance of a bluff that would not stick If seriously contested in court. Our War Hangover It is rather disquieting to discover, twelve years alter the close of the World war, that the espionage act still is on the statute books, ready to be invoked at any time. It is particularly disquieting to make this discovery so soon after witnessing, in connection with Boulder Dam, what executive “interpretation" can do to law. The espionage act was used to send to jail more than 1,500 persons who voiced unpopular opinions during the war. That act makes it dangerous, in time of war, for any individual to disagree with what the mass is thinking; or to write a letter or circular or newspaper article to which any one in the government may object. But the law may have possibilities far more menacing. If a solicitor in the department of interior can interpret the federal water power act in such way as to eliminate public power provisions which congress thought were an essential part of it, what may not be done with the espionage act? Suppose it should occur to some solicitor that the present controversy over prohibition is in effect a form of war. Suppose it should seem advisable to some official to halt all unfriendly discussion of the eighteenth amendment under this interpretation. This sounds far fetched. But to the men who wrote the federal water power act, and to those who administered it up to the time of Finney, the solicitor, hts interpretation seems just as bizarre and improbable. Many of those who thought the espionage act necessary in the hysterical days of 1917 deplored certain parts of it in the saner days that followed. Among these is its author, Senator Thomas J. Walsh, who has proposed repeal of those sections under W'hich free speech prosecutions were ci Tried on. Now, while we are comparatively sane, It is the time to safeguard for the future our right the Constitution to freedom of thought and speech. Several Washington societies protest the appointment of Major-General Crosby to take care of law enforcement, charging the act robs voteless Washington of its last vestiges of home rule. We offer President Hoover free of charge a suggestion. It may seem novel, as it hasn’t been done very often, but here it is: Why not appoint a commission to investigate the last vestiges of home rule in Washington? Those 32,000 speakeasies in New York ought to offer a great op; girt unity for Senator Brookhart to speak loudly, There is an automobile now for every four and a half persons, according to statistics. That half person, of course, is one of her relatives.

REASON By F landis CK

ONE possible result of the Indiana parole board's plan to keep secret the names of those whom it lets out of the penitentiary would be that the board and the Governor could hand the loving cup freely to bandits without encountering such inconvenient and indignant protests as those which followed such paroles in the recent past. M M M The power to turn loose, to upset the w'ork of courts and juries, is the most dangerous power delegated by the state, and the state has a right to know how r that dangerous power is being used and if it is being abused, as it has been abused in Indiana, then the state has a right to know so it may stay the hand which imperils the safety of law abiding people. MUM THE granting of paroles is not a private matter between the parole board and the prisoners; it is a public matter between the people and the prisoners. the board being merely the agent of the people. It happens just now' that the people of Indiana have a bellyful of bandits, those now operating appearing to be able to handle the business without any help from those now behind the bars. If any more are let out, the people have a right to know it. M M M There must have been great weeping and gnashing of teeth among the titled foreigners in the diplomatic corps at Washington wdien the daughter of Senator Couzens of Michigan, heiress to $50,000,000, eloped with a plain, unadorned American bank clerk. a a That jury at Muncie was very merciful with Wood, refusing to send him to the chair, but Wood had no mercy for the farmer and his wife whom he murdered. We will not get far with crime control until we run a ramrod down the india-rubber back of the American jury. MUM THE Republicans will lose their most effective campaigner when Charles Evans Hughes mounts the supreme court bench, he having been their dreadnaught in the political sea since 1920. Had he spoken half so vigorously for himself in 1916. he would have been elected, but in that campaign he dodged all over the lot. a a Loretta Young, youthful motion picture star, announces that she and her screen husband intend to stay married. If they do. it will be something new in the history of Hollywood.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E. Tracy SAYS:

Why Should Public Utilities Be Guaranteed 7 Per Cent When Other Business Is Glad, at Times, to Get Much Less? SUCH a racket, and so unexpected, but what’s it all about? A hurricane may be on the way, I suggests the New York World, or ! a revolution, according to Senator j Dill, though of ballots, not bullets. One would think we had come to : a parting of the ways, to hear some j folks talk, with Mussolini or Com- | munism as the only choice, i A great and bumlr ? issue has arisen, we are told, which threatens | to wreck one, if not both old par- | ties. Well, we can think of worse pos--1 sibilities. MOM Maybe a political rumpus Is brew- ! ing, maybe the attack on Hughes ! and the supreme court will find defl--1 nite reflection in tne next presidential campaign, and maybe another third party will be born as the result. It would not be the first time, and probably not the last. Nor would it necessarily be an unmixed evil. The history of these United States is cluttered with the wreckage of bolts and third parties. What is more to the point, no one can contemplate it, without believing that most of them accomplish some good, while none of them did much harm.

We Agree on Principles THE supreme court has been well spanked, and justly so, as I think, though for going too far rather than in the wrong direction. This irreconcilable divergence of view, economic theory, and social philosophy about which we have heard so much during the last week, is largely for the sake of conversation. Asa matter of common sense, we are pretty well agreed on basic principles. With the exception of a few out and out Socialists, no one wants to see big business smashed, or the rate-making power used for confiscation. By the same token, no one doubts that exercise of the rate-making power makes it necessary for courts to fix valuations and declare what constitutes reasonable profit. mm* What we are really sore about Is the way some valuations have been boosted and the per cent some public utilities have been permitted to earn by court order. In other words, it is not the principle, but its application, that hurts. The contrast between what some people are guaranteed and what others have to risk has grown too big. Most property owners, especially in the com belt, would feel pretty comfortable if they could jump values the way some public utilities have, or make rates that would net them 7 per cent. * 0 M Seven Per Cent SEVEN per cent—that is the bug under the chip. That is what makes the Kansas wheat farmer and the Texas cotton grower cross. And why should 7 per cent have been hit upon as the deadline? Cities borrow money at 5 per cent, insurance companies are glad to lend It at 6, and savings banks pay 4 or 4%. Under such circumstances, who started the fashion of 7 per cent for public utilities? Whoever did and made the supreme court like it, certainly stirred up a lot of trouble for Mr. Hughes, because that is the rock his boat bumped. u a m Seven per cent, with four more for depreciation and four more for the expert service of some holding company—no wonder the boys at the forks of the creek are riled, or that those representing them feel called upon to say something. But it is not anew, or worldshaking, philosophy that has arisen within a week. It Is merely a demand that things be evened up a bit, that justice quite playing favorites, that stocks and bonds earn a little less by virtue of a court decree so farmers may earn a little more by comparison. MUM Warning to Court THE supreme court is being warned to give more heed to the law as determined by general usage than to that w r hich it can manufacture by strained interpretation of clauses in the Constitution. General usage has defined quite denitely the rate of interest which first-class investments should earn, and, protected as they are, public utilities should be regarded in no other light. Under existing conditions, however, they are allowed to make much higher profits, and the public is compelled to pay those profits, while it surrounds them with safeguards and guarantees such as no other class of property enjoys.

Daily Thought

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.—Revelation 4:11. MUM Glory follows virtue as if it were Its shadow’.—Cicero. What candle power will a Mazda light bulb of 150 watts produce? What candle power will a 200 watt bulb produce? The United States bureau of standards says a 150-watt bulb is rated at 2.310 lumens, equivalent to approximately 230-candle pow’er. A 200 watt lamp is rated at 3.280 lumens, equivalent to about 328candle power. What was the name of Tom Tyler’s last picture? “Pride of Pawnee.*

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE Health Effects of Light Rays Vague

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hyjrein, the Health Marazine. IT must be emphasized repeatedly that we are just at the beginning of our knowledge of effects of rays of light on the human body. The advocacy of light for everything that ails the human being Is quackery. Ultraviolet rays have been proved to have valuable functions for certain definite purposes. The safe rule is to limit their use to such purposes until more is known as to their effects, both good and bad. For the prevention and cure of rickets, the use of ultraviolet is cerestablished. It changes the ergosterol in the skin to form vitamin D. When this vitamin D is taken up by the blood it serves to enable the person to take up calcium from food and to use it in building long bones and hard bones. Rickets occurs because the bones are soft and bend. The rickety child Is bow-legged, has a pot-belly, a fiat chest and beaded ribs. Vitamin D thus is the essential material developed by ultraviolet rays.

IT SEEMS TO ME

Robert aitken, a sculptor, and the Society of Daughters of Holland Dames have gone to lav about a statue. The society wanted a monument to its ancestors, and the artist did them a group of father, mother and two children. This seems to me about as many ancestors as should be crowded into any single monument. However, the complaint of the society is not against numbers. It is not so much bigger or better ancestors which they, the Holland Dames, require. They would have them more genteel. According to the photographs, Aitken did present the early Dutch as peasant, folk. It looks like a pretty good job, judging from the pictures. The settlers are modeled as thickset, with useful and friendly square heads. But, of course, these people landed way downtown. Several centutries elapsed before Park avenue was reached. Person to See You AND, seemingly, a dame in a SIO,OOO penthouse can not tolerate the thought that her great-great-grandfather never would be able to get by the doorman. It is annoying, perhaps, to harbor the notion that the boy in the hall would elevate his eyebrows at a good tenant’s ancestor and say, sharply, “Take that meat around to the side door!” I will grant readily enough that the old daddy Dutchman looks very much like somebody who might be expected to come bearing pickles in a package. In fact, when the directress-gen-eral looked at the model dubiously, the sculptor said, “You don’t want your figures all dolled up?” and the directress-general answered, “Yes.” Up to this point my sympathies the entirely with Aitkin, but, when rebuked, he did a dreadful thing. Taking the original family as a basis, he proceeded to put them into the Union Club and the Junto? League. The four from the Half Moon in the revised version look for all the world like a quartet about to take a Palm Beach dip for the benefit of the Sunday rotogravure sections. m a a Wears Beard OLD DADDY DUTCHMAN has dropped his delicatessen aspect. By now he’s sprouted a Van Dyke beard and flowing locks. There’s lace on his sleeves, and his nose is tilted as if the great, belching chemical factories had already begun their pollution of the Hudson. His wife has acquired a “Home, James" look, and even the little children are all limousined and prettified. The Dames refused this group, too, and so Robert Aitken might just as well have stuck to his original idea. But the whole incident sets me to wondering whether the direc-

A Change of Base

It is important to realize that vitamin D also is obtained from cod liver oil and to a considerable amount in butter and egg yolk. Apparently the effects of sunlight are not limited, however, to the vitamin D production because sunlight has ultraviolet rays which seems to do things that cod liver oil and other fish oils will not always do. Apparently the ultraviolet rays have an effect In aiding weight production and In some way are related to building increased resistance to disease. Unfortunately, the proof of this is difficult, because of the difficulty of controlling the observations and of comparing vast numbers of children treated with ultraviolet rays with similar vast number not so treated. A tremendous amount of clinical evidence exists, which means that a large number of physicians who have watched the effects of sunlight and ultraviolet rays are convinced that they have resistancebuilding effect. There is also, of course, the possibility of a psychologic effect of great Importance. Every one knows that light stimulates cheerfulness and vi-

HEY WOOD By BROUN

tress general would have accepted her ancestors If the sculptor had been a miracle worker, capable of offering her not mere bronze or marble, but the flesh and blood folk who stepped off the little boat on the wooded shores of Manhatttan. Counsel for the society said in court, “The people who came here were Dutch settlers of the highest type and not peasants, and it was from the higher type that the members of this society were descended." a a a Superior Ape AND, going back Into the dusk with Darwin, I assume that the Dames would contend that their line was maintained only by the superior sort of anthropoid ape.

Times Readers Voice Views

Editor Times—l read In The Times of Peb. 11 of an attack by Mrs. Electa Chase Murphy. D. A. R., upon the address of President Bromley Oxnam of De Pauw university before prisoners at the Indiana state reformatory. She strongly protests this address as tending to produce disloyalty, traitorship and anarchy. Personally I believe President Oxnam was right. I believe he was voicing the true sentiments of most of the people. There is an abundance of evidence In support of his assertions. Is It right to tell the prisoners anything of the outside world? If it Is. then why is it not right to tell them the truth? Can they be reformed by lying to them? If we want good citizens, our government must set good examples. On the other hand If all citizens were loyal many of our lawyers, Judges, policemen, prison guards, preachers and numerous others holding public offiee would be out of workTo swell the ranks of unemployment now to such an extent would brjfig our people to starvation. If the very ones that would make all people good suddenly were given their desire it would bring suffering even upon themselves. Then let us try using the truth, only, and try to prepare our country In way 6 that her people can live—“even if they were all good.” If we do not do this, then it Is necessary to have criminals. “You can not fight the devil with his own fire.” HARRY RYKER, 1903 East Southern avenue. Editor Times—Just as soon as the fire insurance companies feel that it Is about time for another raise In rates, they begin to raise a big ballyhoo about the Inefficiency of the fire department. Now, people who think surely will take that with a grain of salt, for Indianapolis has had the reputation of having one of the moat efficient

vacity as contrasted with the depression and melancholia of darkness. Much Is said therefore of the tonic effect of light, which means the nerve stimulating or stablizing effect. This also Is not measurable by any scientific standard measurement and must be associated with the will to believe. If the person Is convinced that he is going to feel much better after the light treatment, he probably will feel better after the treatment. Another difficulty of measuring the effects of light scientifically is the fact that it is not possible to carry out studies on animals that will be directly applicable to the effects on man. The furry coat of the animal and the inability to determine what the animal thinks or feels after a sunlight treatment is a part of the difficulty. The tremendous number of sources of ultraviolet, that have been sold to the public should yield in time a general impression as to what the rays actually accomplish for the general improvement of public health.

Ideal* and opinion* expressed in this column are those of one Os Ainerlea’s most Interesting: writer* and are presented without rerard to their agreement or disagreement with the editorial attitude of this paper.—The Editor.

I’m not for the dolling up of ancestors. Some day I may be an ancestor myself. And this is my will and testament: That, when In the course of time the Grand Exalted Behemoth of the Order of the Sons of Heywood Broun contracts for a statue of the illustrouo founder, he shall require of the sculptor nothing more than justice. With a little mercy, perhaps, around the waistline. I want no lace ojj the sleeves of my bronze embodiment. In fact, it is my wish that my bargaining descendant shall say to the artist, “Take some of that crease off the old man’s trousers. He doesn’t look quite natural." (Copyright. 1930. by The Times)

fire forces in the country for some time. Instead of criticising the fire department, I believe it would be a good idea to investigate the mystery of how these fires get such headway before an alarm is turned in, especially so when there is a watchman on duty. According to Chief Voshell, the three fires mentioned in your paper recently were absolutely out of control before the fire department even was called. The trouble with the insurance companies along with the other socalled "public servants,” such as light, gas, water and telephone utilities, is that they are trying to gouge the people as they never have been gouged before, and they pick on the flimsiest excuses to try to sw'ell their already overstocked coffers, levied as a tribute from the "poor, dumb people” w r ho haven't sense enough to vote men into office who will make some sort of an attempt to quell this continual picking of the people’s pockets. I sincerely hope you will print this, to have a view’ of both sides, A TIMES READER. Editor Times —Let Mr Electa Chase Murphy remember that President Oxnam, in his address to the men in the state reformatory, dealt with facts, plain and simple, and before a group of men, who, though convicts, yet have sufficient intellect to recognize his reference to nations’ entrance into secret treaties and backing with marines unfair aggression into the natural resources of certain foreign countries, as Just plain facts. "Truth is light” and crime does not depend upon the light of truth for development. Suppression of facts never has stabilized any government or perpetuated the contentment of its people. It is the suppression of rights that makes Communists and it is our right to know the facts. Therefore, let the light shine. Let freedom ring. FRED D, ROPER.

FEB. 15, 1930

SCIENCE BY DAVID DIETZ'

Volcanic Phenomena Now Are Believed to Arise in the Earth’s Crust at a Depth of Only a Few Miles. RECENT telegraphic dispatches i telling that Mt. Pelee again is showing signs of activity, serve to recall the most violent volcanic eruption in history. It took place at 7:50 a. m. on May 8, 1902. Mt. Pelee is a volcano on Martinque Island in the West Indies. There had been small eruption from the volcano in 1762 and 1851, but they had not caused any great anxiety. On April 25, 1902. a vent near the top of the peak began to emit steam and dust. This caused no great alarm and plans were made in St, Pierre, capital of the French colony on Martinque, to organize an excursion to the volcano's top on Sunday, May 8. But at 7:50 on that morning, the great disaster took place. With a terrific explosion, a great vent opened up in the southern slope of the volcano. A great cloud of steam and volcanic dust at- a temperature of about 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit issued forth and swept down upon the town of St. Pierre. Every inhabitant of the town, but two —a number estimated at about 30,000—was killed. The two who escaped death were prisoners in a deep dungeon in the town Jail. a M M Explosion THE terrific explosion also sunk all the ships in the harbor but one, the Roddam. This ship was farther from shore than the others, but the swell which followed the explosion broke its anchor chain. The Roddam made its way to tha neighboring island of St. Lucia, bringing the first news of the disaster. The noise made by the explosion was heard 800 miles away in Venezuela. It has been calculated that material was hurled out of the volcano during the eruption at the rate of 8,000,000 cubic feet a minute. Toward the end of the eruption, a solid pillar of rock 800 feet high was pushed up out of the neck of the volcano, as, to use Professor J. W. Gregory’s description, a cork might be pushed out of the neck of a bottle. He expresses the opinion that this great mass of rock had acted as a plug in the top of the volcano, causing the steam and gasses to gather beneath it until their explosive force became so high that they broke through the southern slope of the volcano, discharging their fury directly at the unfortunate town of St. Pierre. Dr. Gregory points out that the disaster on Martinique island was preceded by a terrific earthquake on April 17 and 18, just a week before the eruption. This earthquake occurred in Guatemala and destroyed the city of Quezaltenango. On May 7, there was an eruption of Sulphur mountain on the nearby island of St. Vincent. He believes that the earthquake, the Sulphur mountain eruption and the Mt. Pelee disaster were all events in a related chain. His theory is that a sinking of the earth’s crust in the West Indian area was responsible. m n a Lava DR. GREGORY thinks that the present mild activity of Mt. Pelee may be the aftermath of an earthquake at Cumana, Venezuela, last January. In other words, that a readjustment of the earth’s crust which first made itself apparent in the Venezuela earthquake a year ago, is now responsible for the volcanic action. At one time, when it was thought the interior of the earth was molten, volcanoes were thought to be vents which tapped this molten interior of the earth. The earth’s interior is now known to be more rigid than steel and it is generally agreed that it is Bolid and not molten, though probably at a very high temperature. Volcanic phenomena are therefore believed now to arise in the earth’s crust at a depth of only a few miles. It is believed that movements of the earth’s crust cause the formation of arches of rock, lifting the pressure on rock beneath the arch. This removal of pressure causes the rock, which is at a high temperature, to liquify. The result is a pocket of molten lava. Further movement of the earth’s crust forces this molten lava up through cracks, causing a volcanic eruption. This eruption is likely to be a quiet outpouring of molten lava unless water has seeped into the lava pocket.

BOMBING OF THE MAINE Feb. 15 ON Feb. 15, 1898, the United States battleship Maine, which w r as sent by the United States on a friendly visit to Havana during the Cuban insurrection against Spain, was destroyed by an explosion which killed two officers and 264 of her crew. A United States court of inquiry which investigated the explosion made no attempt to fix the responsibility for the act on any person or persons. In April, President McKinley sent a special message to congress in which he declared: "in the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, in behalf of endangered American Interests, which give us the i right to speak and act, the war in ] Cuba must stop.” * An ultimatum was sent to Spaiu which that power declined to receive. Shortly alter this action the United States government issued • call for volunteers, and for loans from the people, and then declared war against Spain on April 25, 1898.