Indianapolis Times, Volume 42, Number 76, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 August 1930 — Page 4

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ttHFPJ-MOWAMB

Two Generals President Hoover's appointment of new chiefs of the army and the marine corps has caused a flurry In Washington and in the services, because neither ot the two appointees Is a senior ranking officer. But Hoover is not the first President to jump officers to high command over the heads of their seniors. Usually In peace time the seniority rule of promotions is followed for the sake of morale of the service, though obviously it would be absurd to tie the hands of a President by a hard and fast rule. The seniority principle is apt to work all the better in the end if officers are kept on their toes by the fact that the rule occasionally is broken In favor of an exceptional man. The President's choice of Major-General Douglas MacArthur as army chief should be, and probably will be, popular. From the time he left West Point as an honor man, MacArthur has been an outstanding officer. His record during the World war, in which he twice was wounded, and his service in the far east and elsewhere merit the high praise which the President gave in describing him as a “brilliant soldier. ’ Though MacArthur is the youngest major-general in the army, and junior in point of service to several others, the age of others would prevent them from serving the full term as chief of staff. It Is difficult to understand, however, what moved the President to pass over all the major-generals In the marine corps to name Brigadier-General B. H. Fuller as commandant. Fuller’s record is less distinguished than that of several of his seniors, especially Major-General Smedley D. Butler, ranking officer of the corps. Butler is In disfavor with the administration, according to the Washington correspondents, because of his reference in public some months ago to the hard-boiled methods of the marines during American occupation of some of the Caribbean countries. Such honesty by General Butler was highly commendable. It is rather an unfortunate coincidence that Butler, who told the truth about marine occupations, should be cast aside in favor of his junior, Fuller, who once was in command of the discredited marine occupation of the Dominican republic. The Myth of Hoover the Engineer Most Americans of passable literacy are aware of the great Coolidge myth of "the strong, silent man, but few are as fully informed in regard to the myth of Hoover, the great engineer—'the engineer In politics." It still is believed generally throughout the country that Herbert Hoover is of the genus of Goethals or Steinmetz—that he speaks the esoteric jargon of the rarified technician as freely and fluently as he orders breakfast food. When something like the power problem, waterways, coal mining or oil reserves comes up, here is a man who grasps every last technical' detail with the utmost precision and exactness That Hoover is a veritable colossus of mentality and erudition compared to the Sage of Northampton the writer would concede. But it must be maintained that the notion of Hoover as a great engineer is as far from the obvious facts as the legend that Cal put up his horny hand and stopped with a scowl the nordes of bloody-eyed striking policemen in Boston. Hoover was graduated as an engineer from Stanford university, but there are thousands of men in the United States today teaching school or selling life insurance who had just as cood an engineering training as Hoover and later did just as much work at the engineering profession. Yet they do not claim to oe great engineers at all. To hold the Hoover administration up to the critical mirror as a test of what an engineer can do in politics is unfair to the engineering profession and entirely misleading as a political experiment. Hoover In the White house is a real experiment in American politics, but it is the experiment of the super-business man in politics, not the trained and tried engineer. If Hoover succeeds brilliantly as President it will be a vindication of the vision and methods of the American business man; and his failure likewise will discredit the same type. • • A pretty true appraisal of Hoover s career and achievements is given' in a paragraph from George p. West's article on “The Success Boys at Stanford,” in the American Mercury. Hoover met his old prexy, David Starr Jordan, in 1907. He then was at the height of his pre-political career. He was employed by the London firm of Bewick, Moering & Cos. He received $ as mining engineer. $5,000 as mining expert (described by Mark Twain as a hole in the ground and a damned liar on top) and $95,000 as financial expert. This pay scale is a perfect appraisal of Mr. Hoover's relative relation to engineering and business. The only strictly engineering enterprise he ever undertook was the translation (with Mrs. Hoover) of Agricola's old Latin treatise, “De Re Metallica," which could have been done by a scholarly classicist who never had studied calculus or strength of materials. In debunking the legend of Hoover, the great engineer in the White House, we are not trying to decrease the prestige of the man. It may be more honorable to be a superbusmess man in the White House. What we are interested in is to let the people know the real facts, so they can judge accordingly. It is interesting to see what a great business man can do in Lincoln’s shoes. Some day we may also want to see what a future Goethals might do when sitting in Jefferson’s chair. We should not want the latter experiment blurred by thinking that it had been tried before. Cruelty to Animals The stories of dogs who lay shivering in the rain, or crying plaintively under the stars, hugging the slim green mound which held one whom they idolised, took up a good many pages in the old school reading cooks. Children read them, learning not only the pronunciation of words, but the meaning of loyalty.' And the dogs are really loyal—-more than one has given his life for his master. We wonder if the man in a distant city who prepared a terrible punishment for a dog the other day didn’t know this. Apparently he didn’t. He kept on, throwing more tnd more dirt into a hole where he had placed the little animal He packed it harder and harder, until finally the dog was covered, and he couldn't see the eyes. Just the nose was left above the ground. Then the man went away.* Neighbors, hearing Lie dog’s cries, came, found the nose, and dug the animal out. The dog had been digging holes in his yard, the owner explained He had cured other puppies of this habit by burying them in the ground for a time, noses exposed so they could breathe. He was merely trying the same method of- punishment and training with this puppy. It is a little hard to realise that there are people in V ■ - *

The Indianapolis Times <4 SCBIPPB-HOWAED NEWSPAPER) Owned and pnbliafced dally (except Sunday) by Tbe Indianapolia Times Publishing Cos.. 214-220 West Maryland Street, Indianapolis. Ind. Price in Marion County. 2 cent* n copy; elsewhere, 3 cents—delivered by carrier. 12 cents a week. BOYD UUBLEY. BOY W. HOWARD. PRANK G. MOKRISON. Editor President Business Manager rßONE—Wiley SMI THURSDAY, ADO. 1. I*3o. Member of United Presa, Bcrlpps-Howard Newapaper Alliance. Newspaper Enterprise Association. Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulation - *. “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way.”

the world who still viciously inflict suffering on animals. But occasionally we have to wonder if there aren’t some people who might profit a little by a few hours of . . . say, burial with merely their noses export'd. What Price Toryism? J. E. Edgerton, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, continues in his efforts against social insurance and other reforms. This time his theme is the increase of taxes and governmental expenditures in England. In a letter to manufacturers entitled “What Price Radicalism,” he calls attention to Britain's taxes. While he admits the war cost to be the most important item in the increase, he tries to imply that the British social insurance is much more significant as a challenge to prosperity and sound economics. It is a Russian idea, he holds. It already has captured England. America will succumb unless our manufacturers are ever on the alert against these Muscovite devices: “The stupendous cost of the World wax to England will be cited immediately as the chief cause, and I would not dispute that statement. But there are other ponderously significant causes that undoubtedly account for this staggering tax burden with which the mother country is struggling so gamely. “The chief of these other causes is represented by the various forms of social insurance which has been forced upon the nation by the shock troops of shortsighted social reformers, while the constructively conservative thinkers either were asleep in the lap of greed or were wasting their strength in intellectual competitions for social, political, financial or other kind of leadership. “In this connection, it is a fact alarming to every well-informed, thoughtful American that we have at this moment in our own country everything which England has of the character mentioned. The only difference is one of degree. “The smothering lava streams of socialism from the craters of radical thought simply have traveled farther in England than in America . . . witness the multiplying proposals for public old age pensions, public unemployment insurance, bonuses, pensions and other doles out of the public treasury which are wholly inconsistent with the truly American theory of government.” As often is the case, Edgerton's history and economics are somewhat wobbly. British social insurance already was under full steam in 1914, when Russia still was under the absolute domination of the Romanoffs. It was introduced, not by the British Communists, but by a bourgeois liberal government. All was going well before the war. The economic burden of all kinds of social insurance was not great. England was prosperous. Her government was meeting the social obligations of a modern state. The only important cause of the increased taxation in Britain today is the World war. It raised the British public debt from 700,000,000 pounds to 6,750,000,000 pounds. It disrupted British industry and enormously increased unemployment. Most of Britain’s major economic evils today flow from her participation in the World war. Hence, the real responsibility for the increase in British taxation must fall upon those who led Britain into the war. Edgerton’s question should be not “What Price Radicalism?” but “What Price Toryism?” Men’s neckties resembling silk are being made of rubber in France. The manufacturers won’t miss the chance to advertise their styles as the very snappiest. One way the government can save the $20,000 it spends each year for equipment in which to file income tax returns is, of course, to abolish income taxes. Cyril Tolley, former British golf champion, is considering locating in Chicago. Probably in an effort to improve his shots. The theatrical season is so poor that many actors in Chicago are working in stores. Probably in meat stores, where they can rub elbows with the hams. The 1930 tourist business is reported to be very dull in Europe. Which may mean that Americans are seeing America first at last. One reason we’re convinced the schoolboy will get it in the neck is the announcement that soap sales have increased in the last year.

REASON bv

IT'S interesting to listen to the rumbling of the heavy thinking of those financiers who long have been the custodians of the business pulse of Uncle Sam and have kept the rest of us posted as to his temperature, respiration and corpuscle count. 000 These experts disagree today as they discuss the state of affairs; they are hopelessly at sea when they try to tell us why things are bagging at the knees; they ascribe conditions to everything except hay fever and halitosis. 000 This is strange, because anybody with two brain cells trotting down the pike together has a very clear idea as to the situation in which we find ourselves and how we got there. It is as plain as the sideburns on a motion picture actor. 000 BUSINESS has been on a joy ride ever since the World war started in 1914, for every time the god of war hands a package to humanity he takes a quill and blows everything up. 0 0 0 When the war was over and the balloon was filled co the limit, we didn’t let the gas out and come doyrn :o earth, but with Harding’s election we took on more i&s and headed for the moon, and then four years later when Mr. Coolidge was elected we inflated the old air sack again. 000 Then when Mr. Hoover came in we took up the jumps again and forced gas into the old air sack until she groaned, and then it came to pass one fine lay that the balloon busted and here we are. And while we were joy riding we accumulated a lot of crazy extravagances for which we are now paying the freight . . 000 IT makes you think sometimes the federal reserve law is a mistake, that panics are nature’s remedies to erne in flation and that instead of canning this gas up inside the business world we should let it out How much better if we had let it out immediately after the war! But of one thing we are dead sure and it is that A1 Smith is the luckiest bird who ever wore a brown derby. He now is the head of a great corporation in New York City, happy, carefree and popular, but had he been elected two years ago he now would be sitting away back in a dark corner of the White House basement, behind a set of false whiskers. He would be charged with having brought all this

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES .

SCIENCE —BY DAVID DIETZ

Astronomy and Physics Unite in Amassing Knowledge on Nature and Behavior of Light. . MOST of the knowledge of the sun and the stars has been the offspring of a union of two sciences, astronomy and physics. Scientists call this union by the rather formidable name of astrophysics. This is not done with a diabolic desire to confuse the layman, but to supply scientists with a definite name for the interesting and exceedingly fruitful territory which has grown up on the border between astronomy and physics. To grasp fully the work which is going on in this field, it is necessary to have an understanding of knowledge amassed in recent years about nature and behavior of light. For light is the only means by which the sun and the stars can be studied. Originally, the astronomer could do no more than gaze at the celestian objects. Then he learned how to analyze their light by means of the spectroscope and allied instruments. Within recent years he not only studies their visible light, but their invisible light as well, analyzing the infra-red rays and the ultra-violet rays which penetrate the earth’s atmosphere. He interprets conditions and activities within the sun and the stars on the basis of what is known about the origin and behavior of these various kinds of light.

Radio T7TSIBLE light is only one form V of what the scientist has named electromagnetic radiation. The longest electromagnetic waves are the ones used in radio, sometimes called Hertzian waves in honor of Professor Heinrich Hertz, their discoverer. Once upon a time they constituted a laboratory marvel. Today, they are familiar to every one under the name of radio waves. Radio waves range in length from those more than a mile long to those a few inches long. The very long ones are used in transoceanic radio telegraphy, the short ones for the so-called short wave radio. The radio waves trail off into extremely short ones, which can be studied in the aboratory, but as yet serve no commercial purpose. Just a bit shorter than these extremely short electric waves are the infra-red. rays. Every one is familiar with them under another name. Their more popular name is that of heat rays. The heat which is radiated from an electric heater, for example, is in the form of infrared rays. Next come the rays of visible light, the longest of which give us the sensation of red and the shortest of which give us the sensation of violet. Our eye is like a radio receiver which can tune in only a limited band of wave lengtlis. The longest wave length to which it will respond is that which gives us the red sensation. Hie shortest to which it will respond is that which gives us the sensation of violet. u tt n Ultra-Violet THE scale of electromagnetic radiation does not stop with visible light. Every one knows of ultraviolet light. It is so named because it is composed of waves shorter than the waves of visible light. Your eyes can not see ultra-violet light. But your skin responts to it by tanning. Still shorter than ultra-violet light are the waves which comprise X-rays. X-rays are so short that then can find their ways between the molecules of matter. That is why X-rays will furnish a photo, for example, of the bones within a person's hand. The gamma rays of radium are still shorter than X-rays. At one time, scientists imagined tha the electromagnetic scale ended with the gamma rays. But within recent years, Professor R. A. Millikan has verified the existence of the so-called cosmic rays, waves shorter than the gamma rays of radium. These cosmic days appear to enter the earth’s atmosphere generally from outer spaceAstronomers are concerned with study the infra-red rays and ultraviolet rays given off by the sun and stars, as well as studying the visible light of those objects. They are concerned with X-rays and Gamma rays because of theries which insist that these types of radiation must exist within the interior of the sun and stars. . Finally, they are concerned with the mysterious cosmic rays, which do not seem to be associated with either the sun or stars, but which nevertheless arise somewhere in the outer regions of the universe.

Questions and Answers

How did the expression “the ghost walks” originate? It is attrlbued to one of a company of English strolling players, who while rehearsing Hamlet said in answer to Hamlet’s speech concerning the ghost, “Perchance ’twill walk again”: “No, I’ll bed and if the ghost will walk again until our salaries are paid.” What Is the rule in euchre governing discarding when unable to follow suit? Quoting from Hoyle’s official rules: “The trump made, dealer’s left-hand opponent leads a card, and each to left, in turn, plays a card of the same suit, if be has one. If not, he may trump, or may ‘throw off’ a card of another suit.” It does not specify that the card thrown off must, be of the same color as the suit led. What is tlie difference between a soothsayer and a sorceress? A soothsayer is one who is said to be able to divine the future, a prophet. A sorceress is a woman who is said to have power over evil spirits, and to be able to conjure them. Both terms are used of super - stitutions of the past and present What is the modem spelling of Pekin, the former capital of China? Peiping. What is an interlocutory decree of divorce? A preliminary decree granted sometime before the divorce becomes final

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Advance Made in Studying Heart Ills

This is the third of a. new Series of articles by Dr. Morris Fishbein en “Frontiers of Medicine.” which will describe important advances in the history of medicine and problems that face doctors today. BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor, Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hygcia, the Health Magazine. IT IS possible to tell by listening to the beat of the heart and feeling of the pulse whether the beat is taking place satisfactorily, and whether the blood is being pushed through the blood vessels and back to the heart, as it ought to be. Such measurements are, however, loose determinations. A device has been discovered called the electrocardiograph, which measures by photographing waves on a photographic plate the changes in the beat and any disturbance of the mechanism of pi-opelling the heart beat through the organ itself. In the same way, one may feel the pulse in the wrist with the finger, or one may attach to the wrist a device called the sphygmograph, which records the variations in a pulse beat on a moving strip of paper in such a way that the finest changes may be determined. The machine is far superior to the hu-

IT SEEMS TO ME BY H BROUN D

Heywcod Broun, who conducts this column, is on his vacation. During his absence Joe Williams, sports editor of the New York Telegram, will pinch-hit for Broun.—The Editor. BY JOE WILLIAMS MR. AND MRS. H. L. MENCKEN soon will be at home to friends at 1524 Hollins street, Baltimore. A few days before his fiftieth birthday rolls around America’s nosiest and most interesting bachelor will take unto himself a helpmeet. Or, perhaps, the more chaste phrase, a life partner, is the one he would prefer. At any rate, the man who said he never would and wrote it oftener and with more vehemence than anybody else in this generation is going to. I suppose the only difference between Mencken and n million other males is that he ha/1 an audience, and that perforce or otherwise he waited longer to climb out of his masquerade suit. Still, it seems to me there ought to be a law against professional bachelors such as the Menckens, even when they are clowning. Most of us go out and get ourselves married too early. A canoe ride on a silvered lake. A one-step to boop-a-doop-a-doop music ... a walk in the moonlight under sighing maples. Out of such all-revealing soul stuff is matrimony made. tt tt tt Youth’s Blind Bliss A YOUNG husband never knows how the proposition is going to work out. Nor a young wife for that matter. There is no guarantee to complete uninterrupted happiness on your ring back in the sealing rituals. At the moment, of course, neither of the contracting parties would want such a material guarantee. Only at 20 or thereabouts Is it possible to breathe the fire of high romance and genuine gallantry into the words, “Sugar Baby, 111 stick with you until trie Red Sox win a championship.” At a more matured age discreet qualifications creep in. Surely no eloping sophomore from Smith struck the first militant protest against that part of the vows which demands that the lady obey every will and whim of her drate big daddy. This undoubtedly came some years later between a discussion of civic issues at one of the Tuesday meetings of the Society for the Uplift of the Modern Wife--000 Wisdom of Later Years IT isn’t until years later that you have any time or patience for fellows like Mencken who write about home-made prisons and the delightul sanities of bachelorhood. Possibly you are interested in their doctrines only from the point of view of the academician. Or it may be that you held out for the mountains and she insisted on the seashore and the fury of the controversy did not cool off right away. In such an emotional state you are a pushover for any theorizer who intones specious hymns to the enchantment of life with the boys over at the Moose ClufcA I say that it is bad jjgfmhe peace of mipd no ex-

The Yanks Ate Coming!

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE

man finger in detecting changes. Th 3re was a time when it would have been considered equivalent to murder to push a needle into the sacs around the heart. Today, however, the physician extracts any fluid that has accumulated in that sac which he knows is there on the basis of his studies of the heart condition by the methods that have been mentioned. He does not hesitate to insert a needle and to withdraw the fluid. The beat of the heart first was heard by a physician who placed his ear directly on the chest. Then came the discovery of the method of listening to the heart through a solid tube. Later more delicate devices were discovered, which had a bell for collecting the sound, a membrane for amplifying, and robber tubes to carry the sound to the ear. With the development of electric transmission of sound and later of amplification, it now becomes possible to step up the sound so that the variations may be easily determined. Through examination of the heart after death in case of known disease, it is possible to correlate all these observations made before death with the appearance of the heart and to know the significance

tended bachelorhood to have had a Mencken in the pulpit. For verily he is a false prophet, who practices hot what he preaches. 000 4 . A Mocking Sham OF course, it may be pointed out that he made an important contribution to the cause by holdingoff as long as he did.. On the contrary, I hold that he is entitled to no credit from the cult. There is little that is adventurous or chivalrous about a love hazard at 50. At that age the seas of romance have all been charted and the

Times Readers Voice Views

Editor Times—l not only take your paper, but admire it, and today read the views of my neighbor, Silas Bainbridge and know him personally. Silas was an old line Republican, but tells me he will from now on vote the Democratic ticket until they get “as crooked as the Repubicans.” This we know is an impossibility, as it can’t be did. We should no f condemn Chicago, New York and Detroit for racketeering, for we have our own G. O. P. gasoline racket here at home, also other

281^

GENERAL WOOD’S DEATH August 7'.'’

ON Aug. 7, 1927, Major-General Leonard Wood, governor-gen-eral of the Philippines, and veteran of trie Spanish-American and World wars, died at a Boston hospital following a brain operation. Wood entered the army as a surgeon after graduating from Harvard medical school. When McKinley became President, Wood went to the White House as his personal physician. ’ ■ ■ • ■ At the outbreak of the SpanishAmerican war in 1898, Wood helped his close friend, Theodore Roosevelt, raise and lead the famous regiment of “Rough Riders.” For his conduct in the war he was elevated to ma-jor-general. Following his services after the war as Governor of Cuba, where he made many great improvements in education and sanitation, Wood was appointed Governor in'the Philippines. Here he stamped out polygamy and tamed the Sulu chieftains. When he returned to the United States in 1908 he was made chief of staff. _ -- Wood was- given inferior commands during the World war because he was thought to have given rise to certain views on preparedness unfavorable to the administration. In 1919 he announced himself a candidate for the Republican nomination for President, and made considerable headway until the steel strike in Indiana, in which he felt it his duty to participate, spoiled his chances. Two years later he was appointed Governor-General of the Philippines.

of every one of the procedures for examination. Os special interest to the patient, as well as to the doctor, is the question of how capable the heart may be of carrying on its work. To the specialist in heart disease a dozen or more functional tests are known whereby he can measure the capacity of the organ to withstand unusual effort. Fortunately it has become a recognized procedure in scientific medicine for the general practitioner who discovers the presence of heart disease to suggest to the patient that he consult someone who has given more extensive study to the subject, in case the condition demands extended investigation. Indeed this procedure obtains throughout the field of medicine generally. Heart disease is today the most frequent cause of death, its rate being at least twice that of the next nearest cause. Hence the number of men giving special attention to diseases of the heart is increasing by the old law of supply and demand. There are as yet few,if any, physicians who devote themselves exclusively to the herat. Diseases of the heart is a special branch of internal medicine.

Ideal* and opinions expressed in this column are those of one of America’s most Interesting writers and are Presented without regard to theiragreement or disagreement with the editorial attitude of this paper.—The Editor.

jungle lands of the heart hold no unknown perils. The Lindbergh flight would not have been half as exciting if he had waited until he was-49 to do it. It is always much more thrilling to fill a straight flush than to draw one on the deal. To those of us among the yoked yokelry and the bondaged Babbitry who have been i/npiously tempted by the man’s studied suavities, Mencken stands now as a mocking sham and a faithless leader. All the while he was in the back room philosophizing over his ale and kraut at syndicate rates he was yearning for a phone call! (Copyright, 1930, by The Times)

rackets yet unexposed, As an exsoldier, taxpayer and citizen, I think it is time for us to clean up this gang and our chance will be this fall at the polls. Like the Dutchman said: “Enough is a plenty.” They have been in power too long, have grown fat on the spoils of the land and are overconfident and intoxicated with power. So let’s give them a one-way ticket this fall and in 1932 send the chief back to the sticks from whence he came to enjoy his cob pipe instead of imported cigarets and high priced gold ash trays and cigaret holders. JAKE LEMMONS. 242 Kansas street. Editor Times—l am a man without work. I would like to know how men are going to get work when police are ordeNrig them off the street. Isn’t there some way we poor devils can be protected while on the street corners, without some policeman ordering us off? A READER.

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.AUG. 7, 1930

M. E. Tracy SAYS:

The Politicians WiU Hav6 the Drought to Use for an Alibi in 1932. THE United States now i* a nation of more than 123,000.000 certainty. “I mean It,” yes. I am well aware of what the census report says—l22,72B,B73—but that was for the first of April. If the population increased more than 17,000,000 during the last ten y.sars it has increased more than 271,127 during the last four months. Having settled that, let's go on. To begin with, this census shows some rather surprising changes. Though California made the greatest gain in percentage, the drift of population has turned from west to south. More than that, the drift does not represent such a drain on the east as it formerly did. New York still shows the largest numerical increase of any state, while New Jersey comes fifth in percentage. Even Vermont holds its own and Montana is the only 6tate to show a decrease. Generally speaking, the returns are such as to satisfy most Chambers of Commerce and Rotary clubs. As for the less fortunate minortiy, they can have just as good a time thinking up alibis. tt tt tt Villages Vanish THE movement from county to town continues. Where we had only sixty-eight cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants ten years ago, we now have ninety-four and where we had approximately 700 of 10,000 we now have 900. The small village, however, seems to be disappearing, with the automobile, farmers no longer need a grocery store at every crossroad while trucks and express trains make it as easy for dairymen to ship their goods 100 miles as it was to ship them ten miles when old Dobbin was king. Fundamentally, the relationship of town and country remains unchanged. Each is equally dependent oh the other to a certain point, but once that point is passed, the basic importance of rural life begins to assert itself Last fall $15,000,000 or $20,000,000 may have been wiped out in the stock market crash, while the present drought may cost $l,OOO, 000,000. When it comes to a, question of personal suffering, political unrest, and social effect, how■? ever, the drought has it on Wall Street. Most people do not think so, because they do not want to think so, because they have become obsessed with the idea that their own contrivances are of more consequence than those, of nature. a e it T Didn’t Consider Weather WHEN we took up the subject of farm relief, it was with the idea that production was the real problem, production as represented by the “exportable surplus” and calling for noting but an outlet. No one seems to have thought of the possibility that we might produce less than we needed, or that Old Man Weather had any voice in the matter. All that we talked about was the corn, wheat, cotton, potatoes and other products that would be left after we had reserved enough for our requirements. Obedient to this self-satisfied viewpoint, we limited the farm board to markets. Now that an emergency lias arisen on the production side the farm board is riot sure whether it can held, but hopes to find a loophole in the law that will permit it to do so. u u Drought Makes Alibi BY and large the American farmer and the American consumer, too, have suffered as much from droughts as f rom low prices, manipulation, and glutted markets; History, however, has little to say on the subject of droughts. By looking through newspaper and magazine files, it is possible to discover that one occured in 1901, one in 1894, and several in various preceding yearsBut there is no such wealth of material concerning them or their consequences as there is with regard to financial panics. Droughts' do not make particularly good arguments for politicians, especially beforehand. Who would think of stag": ing a campaign, or -writing a bill on a drought that has not yet occurred? Who would think of referring to a, drought of which no party or administration possibly could be: blamed? But if droughts make poor arguments, they furnish good alibis. In 1932, you are going to hear every Republican speaker tell how his party would have pulled us through the depression all right if it had not been for lack of rain. DAILY THOUGHT The God of this world is riches, pleasure and pride, wherewith it abuses all the creature- and gifts _ of God.—Martin Luther. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.—Matthew 6:21.