Indianapolis Times, Volume 42, Number 209, Indianapolis, Marion County, 9 January 1931 — Page 6

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Killing the Primary Courageously the League of Women Voters again leads the fight for real government by the people by demanding the return of the primary as a means of nominating candidates for office. They refuse to trade principle for palliatives and are not flattered by the thought of horse- trading with a Governor. The Governor, as expected, asks the legislature to kill what remains if the old primary law and place the control of parties in the hands of conventions or caucuses of the bosses. The Governor has reason to distrust the primary. He ran a poor fifth before the people and first in a convention, so he naturally would have greater faith in a body that could be manipulated than in people themselves. The Governor’s argument that there is a demand for a “return to representative government’’ may be admitted, but killing the last vestige of the primary would hardly produce this result, unless it is based on his recent statement that the people have fifteen-year-old minds politically and, presumably, are to be treated as children by being bossed. It is true that the politicians found ways and means of discrediting the primary law of this state, which was handicapped at its inception by its enemies, who tried to make it unworkable. It is more true that in principle it is eternally right and that progress is to be accomplished only by giving the people more power instead of less. The women of the state understand this and will present a measure which is designed to eliminate some of-the mistakes of the old primary and return to the people the power of naming their own candidates. The present situation in both parties strongly suggests that the primary should be revived and not killed. There are aspirants for the offices of senator and Governor in both parties who are depending for success not on principles or their own qualifications, but on the power to name delegates to state conventions. They are even now making overtures to the privileged and plundering interests instead of trying to gain the confidence of the voters. The last legislature went a long distance toward turning over the state to the plunderbund. It is well that the women are on guard to prevent the complete surrender and are fighting boldly for a restoration of the people’s power. Danger! Railroad Crossing The United States supreme court just has made an important decision which bears oj the proposed eastern railroad mergers. It ruled that the interstate commerce commission had no right to say whether the reorganization fees in the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway case were too high. Those fees are $3,500,000, of which two New York banks will got about $1,000,000, much of the balance going to other Wall Street lawyers and banks. By the time the railroad was ready for bankruptcy in 1925, its board of directors had become a bankers’ makeshift. Bankers in effect named themselves reorganization managers, and selected the committees to represent the investing public, which, in ignorance of the company’s condition, had purchased a large part of its stocks and bonds unloaded by insiders. But the reorganizers knew they did not have the uncontrolled determination of their own fees. The interstate commerce commission had cut down such fees in previous years. When the rehabilitation plans came before the commission, the lawyers said their fees and the bankers’ profits were not the concern of the government. The commission, in letting the reorganization get by, imposed the condition that fees should be examined by it, as in other reorganizations. This meant that the bankers who had granted themselves $3,500,000 might not get it all. But the lawyer-banker scheme was successful. The commission was without power, according to the 5-3 decision of the United States supreme court.. . This is another instance of the way in which railroad interests escape government supervision. It is especially pertinent to the pending consolidations, because at least one of the banking interests which profited in the St. Paul reorganization is one of the principal banking firms in the proposed eastern mergers. The supreme court decision on bankers’ reorganisation fees suggests some cogent lessons for the public, congress, and the commission. The lesson for the commission is that the only safety for the public in merger proceedings is thorough investigation by the commission, careful deliberation, and assured regulation of proposed consolidations, both in their consummation and in their subsequent operation. In case of doubt, the commission should preserve the public interest by withholding action until congress gets a chance to clear up that doubt by legislation. Justice Stone, in the dissenting opinion, in which Justices Holmes and Brandeis concurred, pointed out that our railroad realignments have been “too often the result of wasteful and extravagant methods of reorganization,’* and, as Justice Stone said: “The preservation of the transportation system and the stability of its credit, essential to its preservation, depend pot alone upon the ability of individual carriers to meet their obligations; but upon the ability of all to attract the investment of funds in their •ecurities. “If such investments are impaired by receiverships of the carriers, followed by reorganization at excessive cost, and if railroad shareholders, compelled by necessities of their situation, must contribute to rehabilitation of their properties excessive amounts upon which the reorganized carrier may not earn an adequate return, railroad credit, in a broad sense, is affected, the permanency and stability of the transportation system as a whole is impaired, and |he

The Indianapolis Times (A BCBIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) Owned sod published dally (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Cos., 214-220 West Maryland Street. Indianapolis. Ind. Price Id Marion County. 2 ceDta a copy: elsewhere. 3 cents —delivered by carrier. 12 cents a week. BOYD GURLEY. BOY W. HOWARD. FRANK G MORRISON. Editor President Business Manager PHONE—Riley 6551 FRIDAY. JAR. >■ 1931, Member of United Press. Hcrlpps-Howard Newspaper Alliance. Newspaper Enterprise Association. Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations. “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way.”

More Prohibition Complications This prohibition mess is becoming more complicated. Secretary Hyde of the agriculture department has removed the ban on com sugar as a substitute for cane and beet sugar in prepared foods. That messes prohibition up for Amos Water Wagon Woodcock, director of the bureau of prohibition, whose job it ia to see that nobody gets anything to drink that contains more than one-half of 1 per cent alcohol. For Amos in a recent report said that 534,000,000 of last year’s available 887,747,000 pounds of corn sugar could have found its way into “illicit channels.” The trouble seems to be that bootleggers can make one gallon of alcohol out of ten pounds of com sugar, and a gallon of alcohol can be converted into two gallons of whisky or gin. So the increased supply of corn sugar under Hyde’s ruling might result in 21,360,000 gallons of hard liquor. But the farmers want a market for their com. If the livestock won’t eat enough to take care of the supply, another market might be found by not barring it from foods —which may mean drinks. The farmers,' who helped wish prohibition on the rest of us, have made a great sacrifice in giving up a large part of their market for rye, barley, hops, rice and corn to make democracy safe for the AntiSaloon League. But they are getting tired, and want help from a paternal government. If every product is barred out of which alcohol can be made, the next thing barred might be potatoes. 'Apples, peaches and other fruits and grain might follow into the ash can, with nothing left finally for the farmer to chew on but the rag. Mabel Willebrandt got the grape growers out in Hoover’s state fixed up so the juice of the grape mignt sneak its way into the great American home and be permitted to become wine through the natural and universal process of fermentation, but that didn’t help the loyal prohibition farmers in the com belt, who no longer have a market with the brewer and distiller. And if there is any citizen the government must help it is the great American farmer; and that's Hyde's job, not Woodcock’s. Bull-in-the China-Shop We have no sympathy with the bungling efforts of Senator Reed and others to complicate further our situation with the Philippines by immigration exclusion laws. Much of this agitation about Filipino immigration is an attempt to stir up a mare’s nest. While we are in complete sympathy with the general idea of restricting immigration to the United States at this time, the Reed move merely is calculated to stir up trouble where none need exist. In the first place, granted that wholesale emigration from the Philippines now would be a bad thing for the United States, the fact remains that it would be no more objectionable to us—in fact, not as much so—than it would be to the Filipino leaders themselves. They are genuinely desirous of keeping their labor at home, for sound economic reasons. Consequently, the proper approach is a sane, calm discussion between American and Filipino leaders of the easiest, simplest and least offensive way of checking a tendency in its infancy, which, if allowed to go on unchecked, might prove undesirable both in the islands and in the United States. The only way to solve this or any other Philippine problem is in the spirit of partnership and by the method of co-operation. A Problem in Arithmetic The American Red Cross says it has $4,500,000 on hand; that it is feeding 100,000 persons in the state of Arkansas alone, and may have to feed 250,000 there; and that it hopes to get through the winter with present funds on hand. If the American Red Cross can accomplish this, it will go down in history as more of a miraclemaker than the Master who fed the multitude with seven loaves and two fishes. Five dollars a person for food a week is not an excessive amount, but let us reduce it to one-half that amount, just to be sure these people will not be pampered. For 100,000 persons that will be $250,000 a week. For 200,000 persons it will be $500,000. It does not take much of a mathematician to estimate how long the national fund of $4,500,000 will last in Arkansas alone.

REASON

ONE of the head men at the Smithsonian institute at Washington tells the world that a high brow is not an indication of brains, and we believe he is right. We should say that a high brow more frequent is an indication of creeping baldness. a a a When baldness approaches with slow and solemn tread, it is very impressive, being an asset to one’s majesty until the dead line gets even with the ears, but after that it is a calamity. Gentlemen have been known to shave their locks back half an inch to gain the resulting impressiveness. a a a And almost all men over 40 cling to youth with a tenacity which is interesting, particularly when the ladies are supposed to have a monopoly on such solicitude. You will notice, for instance, that Mr. Hoover likes that portrait which presents him in the bloom of the middle forties, rather than in the dropping petals of the fifties. a a a BU*T to get back to the head position, what this Smithsonian man says about the high brow reminds one that there’s not much mental significance in the shape of one’s dome. All of us have known gents with massive cupolas who cut little ice, and others with scant attics who brought home the bacon. * a a a • There used to be a lot of phrenologists coming around every year and they would thump your toppiece much as one thumps a cantaloupe, and by your, convolutions and crevices, they’d tell you your contents. But they don’t make their rounds any more and the race remains uncatalogued. a a a I REMEMBER one night when a phrenologist came to Logansport and did a good business, for he was a cut -ate phrenologist; he felt heads for a dime apiece, which brought the luxury within the reach of all. He had a waiting line, surging toward the stage, waiting to be assayed. a a a Finally a stranger appeared and he was a whizz. His head would have held half a bushel of potatoes and when that phrenologist started to ramble over that cranium he was elated. Finally he finished and gave his verdict. “Ah,” he sighed, “here we have a most unusual head. This gentleman has unlimited benevolence, the highest character and countless possibilities!” 9 9 9 The stranger left the stage and seemed to be in a hurry to get away and after he was gone the phrenologist discovered that the man with the unlimited benevolence had lifted hisjAatch and chain.

RV FREDERICK LANDIS

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES t

M. E. Tracy

SAYS:-

America Is Obsessed With Idea That Bigness Means Safety. EL PASO, Tex., Jan. B.—Between four and five million still out of work, to Chairman Woods of the President's employment committee, with no sign of marked improvement for January, but with a $2,500,000,000 public works program arranged, one-third of which is fairly close to the “pick and shovel stage.” We can console ourselves with the thought that it might have been worse, but that does not hide the dark, naked truth that we have failed. With scads of money for rent at or 3 per cent, and with the credit of the government unimpaired, it seems as though we might have done better. I still think the government should have undertaken the role of banker, instead of engineer, and much of the delay from which we are suffering goes back to the clumsiness of federal machinery when it comes to getting things done. tt n . Ail Try to Help OKLAHOMA sends word that she will take care of her own. which is not only the best news yet received, but the right kind of example. Oklahoma has struck oil. however, which helps a lot, even if she must pinch production to a minimum. Meanwhile, the railroads, though faced with the toughest outlook of any major industry, are putting their men back to work, and automobile magnates, figuring that the market must be pretty well drained by this time, are doing likewise. What really ails the situation is reduced consumption, and this country is not wholly responsible for it. The slump in foreign trade goes a long way toward explaining w’hy we can’t sell more, and why it would be an economic blunder to produce more at this time in certain lines. The agreeable notion that we can get back to the set-up of 1929 through main strength and stupidness. or that we ought to if we could, has its disadvanatges. tt U tt Think Only of Size THERE was, and is, a definite degree of industrial maladjustment in this country, a definite amount of over-production in some of its branches, coupled with a definite amount of underproduction in others; a definite determination to keep just so many people at w r ork in each particular branch and hold the structure rigid. We not only are living in an experimental age, but enjoy it. The idea of lashing such an age to huge corporations which can’t reduce their output, except by ruining thousands of stockholders, as well as turning armies cf highly specialized workers adrift, can and already has been carried too far. The great weakness of business management in America is that it makes too little allowance for the ebb and flow brought about by human ingenuity, whether in the field of mechanics, politics, or sociology. When 150.000 acres first were put under irrigation in the El Paso valley, the farmers went in for pears, alfalfa, cantaloupe, and other diversified crops. Now most of them are raising cotton, and they are doing it in response to precisely the same complex that produces billiondollar combines. * America is obsessed with the idea that bigness means safety, that if enough people do a certain thing, they are bound to succeed, no matter how stupid it may be. u a A Wrong Viewpoint COTTON is selling for 9 cents, when it can’t be raised profitably for less than 12 or 15 in the United States, but can be raised for 2 or 3 cents in the Belgian Congo. Are we going right along in an effort to grow as much cotton as we have been, if not a little more, when every sign points to the competition of coolie labor on a widespread scale? The semi-barbaric world, the world in which multitudes still can be hired for 50, 25, or even 10 cents a day, can learn how to use our machinery and imitate our methods in such fields as they have been perfected. The one thing it can’t copy is our brains. Brains, and brains alone, have made us what we are, and we have enjoyed the privilege of using them only because of that peculiar form of liberty to which this republic originally was dedicated. Too many people think of liberty as an exclusive political by-product, but it is not. It can be destroyed by an economic structure, as well as by a government. The right to think includes mechanics and chemistry, as well as opinions, and has done quite as much, if not more, in the former to justify itself. Unless we insist on more flexibility in our economic structure, more freedom of action, more chance for the small, independent thinker, we are not only going to have more depressions like this, and worse, but after that—tyranny.

MISSISSIPPI SECEDES January 9

ON Jan. 9, 1861, Mississippi seceded from the Union. The question of secession had been agitated for some time, but it remained for the election of Lincoln to bring the movement to a head. The ordinance of secession was passed by a convention, 84 to 15, and the* state constitution was amended to bring it into conformity with the constitution of the Confederate states. During the Civil war, the people of Mississippi suffered greatly, and in 1863 and 1864 a large part of the state was devastated by the contending armies. This day also commemorates the anniversary of Connecticut’s ratification of the United States Constitution, the fifth state to do so. What procedure should be followed in adopting a baby from an orphans home? We suggest that you address your inquiry to the Indianapolis Orphans Home, .

Wouldn’t It Be Interesting—?

-VP THE SPEED OP SOME CARS-- "V. ' W

Books and Radio Help 111 Persons

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor, Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hygeia, the Health Magazine. THE increasing realization of the fact that the mind of the sick person must be kept constantly in a hopeful and courageous state has caused more attention to be given to the matter of entertainment of the sick, and particularly of those compelled to remain in bed over long periods of time. Under such circumstances, radios in hospitals have proved exceedingly helpful. However, there are many periods when the radio can not be used. Moreover, the nature of the entertainment can not be ordered at any given time and there is a chance rather than positive selection of what the patient should have. In practically all veterans’ hospitals in this country and in many of the larger hospitals, libraries now are made available in which those patients who are able to be about may sit and read. Traveling’ trucks carry a wide variety of books to those patients who are kept in bed, so that they

IT SEEMS TO ME

ONE of the Sunday pm piers from which I get practically all my science, suggests the fascinating thought that there are planets many light years away which have not yet experienced the rigors of 1930. Neither the panic of 1929 nor the subsequent depression has landed upxm their shores. And through some such sort of relativity it is easy to conjure up a most satisfactory heaven. Armed with an accurate cosmic time table, it would be possible for each disembodied soul to move about among the stars and pick only such grandstand seats as those from which he might see something pleasant and to his advantage. Thus a Harvard man whose life was righteous could set himself at some point along the Milky Way from which he might view once more the drop kick of Kennard or thrill again to the marvels performed by Eddie Mehan. By careful selection he might avoid all cyies in which things went wrong and goal posts were uprooted by Elis. tt a m Yale Men AND, contrariwise, it seems possible that hell is built along much the same lines; only in this case the condemned one must pick the spots where light years bring bad news and all spectacles are misfortunes. I can imagine some Yale man who has met his just deserts and is compelled for all eternity to

Views of Times Readers

Editor Times—We have had a lot of talk of unemployment lately. Most every one lays it to a different reason. Let us take into consideration the fact that partly due to overproduction and partly due to the machine age, plants are shut down, laborers are thrown out of work. Consider the laborer; the man who spends; the man who makes trade possible. His buying power is suddenly cut off. What happens? Why the manufacturer has goods he can not sell so he cuts wages and the buying power of what few laborers he has left. Conditions become worse and worse until he, the manufacturer, takes a loss on his goods. Then he has to put laborers to work again to restock and the laborer again has his buying power and again times are good. Would it not be simpler for him to increase instead of decrease wages and save all this suffering? Some of our wiset men are telling the working people to buy more, to hold their job. How can they when they haven’t the money to buy with? Can they answer that? What is the matter with Indianapolis business men who are cutting wages and fighting any firm that wants to pay decent wages? Do they not realize that the working man’s wages will return to them and that their business will be in direct proportion to the wages they pay him? Low wages, low business! High wages, high business. Let them dig the cobwebs out of their heads and study history and see if that isn’t a fact. . We lay ?%xistmg conditions to V; //■ .v,

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE

may make a selection of the material they want. However, it is far safer for the physician and the trained librarian to help the patient in the selection of proper reading matter, than for the patient himself to pick what he wants. It has been well established that a person of unsound mental condition should not be permitted to read religious books, sex books, or any type of material that will disturb his mind. People inclined to bad dreams should avoid mystery stories with dangerous situations. Books dealing with suicide, morbid books dealing with life in sanatoriums and hospitals, and similar literature must certainly be avoided. As an example of the danger that lies in some books, the opening sentence of one of the short stories by Jack London is, “Because we are sick they take away our liberty.” Obviously such a sentence would be dynamite to a person with paranoiac tendencies. A person who is confined to his bed for a long period of time probably will appreciate particularly books on travel. Volumes noted for their beauty of style, such as the

HEYWOOD UjL BROUN

wander through the universe without a glimpse of Coy or Hinkey. Never to see Albie Booth break loose, but to observe him only in such moments as some Ticknor gripped his sweater. It may be objected that this disposition of after life will not precisely make for fellowship. Upon each appropriate planet will be gathered the blessed from Cambridge, but only the damned of New Haven. And yet I can not feel that this arrangement gravely would alter the usual mixture from the contending colleges which is present each year at bowl or stadium. Ever since I saw John Balderson’s “Berkeley Square” I have been excited by the notion of the immortality of incident. I think some such arrangement is no more than fair to 1930 —a year concerning which we have heard such scandalous reports. There Is so much bad in the best of years, and vice versa, that it ill becomes any one of us to speak ill of an entire twelve-month. You should not Indict fifty-two weeks entire. n tt tt Good Year CATASTROPHES of one sort and another came to the surface during 1930, but I am not willing, myself, to shake my fist at the dead and gone year. It hardly seems sporting. It has left just the room and Is unable to answer back save upon the crust of some far flung planet to which its reputation and record

grafting politics. Now who made crooks of our office holders? Why, we did, the people of the nation. Say a man gets a sticker on his car. What does he do? Goes to a politician and asks a favor to have that sticker fixed. Then what? Why, that politician asks a favor, it is granted. Isn’t that bribery? A business man finds a city ordinance or law interfering with his business or ideas of living. He goes to a politician and has it fixed lo it does not apply to him. In turn he makes the polltcian a present or contributes to a campaign fund. Isn’t that bribery? Then there is the criminal. He asks the same favor and gets it. Isn’t it just as fair for him as it is for the so-called respectable people? Maybe our graft or bribe is on a smaller scale than this, but it paves the way for him. So where have we any right to yell? Too, what do we say concerning the city or government. Why, get all you can, it’s off the city or government. So it looks to me as if we, the people, demand and create our graft and crooked politicians and crooked office holders. The one thing to clean up crooked politics is a newspaper that will print the truth and nothing but the truth to check up and tell the people exactly what is going on, with an earnest desire of the pieople for clean, honest government. Until we become afflicted with the desire for a clean government, we can not expect one. We get only what we desire and demand. # L. GRAY.

wTitings of Thornton Wilder, have a special appeal. Books with comedy mean much to the patients whose lives are depressed. Os special value are those volumes dealing with the conquering of pioneer conditions by emigrants, such as Hamsun’s “Growth of the Soil,” Willa Cather’s “My Antonia” and Rolvaag’s “Giants in the Earth.” The librarian and the physician will, of course, be guided in every instance by the nature of the patient’s mind and his interests when in health. It would be preposterous to insist that a university professor of classics should spend his time when ill reading Zane Grey or Harold Bell Wright; it would be equally preposterous to demand that a mechanic who in health reads nevermore than four books a year should concern himself with the “Story of Philosophy” or even with Mr. Mencken’s “Prejudices” at the time he was ill. Certain it is that properly chosen books may do much to help the patient into a proper attitude and thus psychologically to encourage his recovery.

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

is speeding even at this moment. Many things which were to my advantage happened in 1930. Even though I failed to get to congress, I can’t be altogether sullen concerning the fate which it put forth. And so I say across the intervening gap: “Goodbye, 1930; take care of yourself. I’ll meet you later, maybe, upon the surface of Saturn.” a a Pen in Hand A L SMITH has written his first newspaper column, and it is my notion that there is a good chance he will hold the job. To a great extent he has profited by the mistakes of his confrere and competitor, Calvin Coolidge. It has always seemed to me that Mr. Coolidge felt under the responsibility of acting like a member of the little Algonquin Circle from the start and attempting to wisecrack with the best of them. A1 Smith, on the contrary, has been content to approach a solid problem in a serious way. Os course, he uses much more space than Coolidge and has latitude to turn his thought around without recourse to snappy and pithy sayings. Asa veteran in the game, it seemed to me a good first column, even though it had no puns or poetry. But I feel that it is only fair to send the Governor a word of warning. Very possibly he banged the whole article off upon his machine in less than an hour. His remuneration, I trust, is more generous than that which he received from a grateful people when he was their executive at Albany. And when he came to the last line he undoubtedly looked up to say: “It’s soft. How long has this been going on?” (Copyright. 1931, by The Times)

Daily Thought

O death, where is thy tsing?— I Corinthians 15:55. An honorable death is better than a dishonorable life.—Tacitus.

Modern Science Wonders Ancient civilization had its seven wonders; in the Middle Ages the skill of man achieved seven more wonders; but science today has created or discovered seven modem scientific wonders that the ancients or the people of the middle ages would have regarded as miraculous. The Telephone—Radio—the Aeroplane—Radium—Antiseptics and Antitoxins—X Rays—Spectrum Analysis—What do you know about these seven wonders of modem science? Our Washington Bureau has ready for you a bulletin covering in brief, but intelligible form the history and the accomplishments of science in the creating of these Seven Modem Wonders. Fill out the coupon below and rend for the oulletin. CLIP COUPON HERE Department 109, Washington Bureau, The Indianapolis Times, 1322 New York Avenue, Washington, D. C. I want a copy of the bulletin SEVEN MODERN WONDERS, and inclose herewith 5 cents in coin, or loose, uncancelled United States postage stamps to cover return postage and handling costs. Name Street and No City , state I am a daily reader of The Indianapolis Times. (Code No.)

JAN. 9, 1931

SCIENCE

-BY DAVID DIETZ-

; New Books on Astronomy Open Interesting Field to Layman Reader. THE History of Science Society meeting in Cleveland in conI junction with the annual convention I of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, devoted cne session to a celebration of the tercentenary of Johann Kepler. Kepler, one of the small group characterized some weeks ago by George Bernard Shaw at the dinner in honor of Albert Einstein as “universe makers,” was born in 1571 and died in 1630. Kepler helped to establish the ; Copernican system, the belief that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun. Undoubtedly his studies of the motions of the planets had something to do with Galileo's studies, which led eventually to the formulation of Galileo's laws of motion, the laws upon which Sir Isaac New- ! ton later founded his own great work. The History of Science Society is doing a valuable piece of work in helping io focus attention upon the great names of science. For too many years the teaching of history has centered its attention upon trouble makers instead of civilization makers. A Kepler may have been less dramatic in some ways than a Napoleon, but perhaps the historian of the future wil regard him as more important. u a a Book Publishers BOOK publishers who recently have turned their attention to j the interesting field of the history i of science also deserve to be com- ! mended. In the field of astronomy, for example, there were few books which the general reader could turn to. There was, of course. Sir Oliver Lodge’s delightful classic “Pioneers of Science,” which, despite the title, is devoted to the pioneers of astronomy only. There also was Sir Robert Ball’s “Great Astronomers.” Neither, however, was easy to get hold of. This writer, wishing them both some years ago, had to wait three months for a book agent to locate Lodge’s book, while Bali’s had to be ordered from a book dealer in London. But now Simon and Schuster, famous for “The Story of Philosophy,” “The Art of Thinking,” and the cross-word puzzle books, have come to the rescue. Two of their new books are “The Great Astronomers” by Henry Smith Williams, and “The Adventure of Science,” by Benjamin Ginzburg. The first book is devoted to astronomers only. The second deals with the great figures of all sciences. The layman is advised to begin with Williams’ book, which is the simpler and more easily read and then proceed to Ginzburg’s book, the nature of which is more philosophical and exhaustive. tt tt a Great Astronomers WILLIAMS’ book opens with a chapter In which he takes the reader on what he calls “a preliminary cruise in star land.” The purpose of this chapter is to sketch the universe as the astronomer now knows it a universe in which our own galaxy of Milky Way of 40,000,000 stars is just one galaxy among several mllllion similar though perhaps smaller, galaxies scattered through the great ocean of space. The second chapter is titled “The Old Heaven.” By contrast with the first, it depicts the old notions of cosmogony that held sway in the early days of civilization. Then comes the dawn of the New Era with Copernicus. Williams traces the list of great men and their contributions—Tycho, the great observer; Kepler, the mathematical genius; the great Galileo, Horrox, Cassini, Flamsteed, the first astronomer royal, then the climax which was reached in Newton. Then follows the story of the great mathematicai astronomers who followed Newton: Laplace, Lagrange, Euler, D’Alembert and others. And the great observers, the Herschels, Bessel, Struve and Henderson. The book closes with a chapter on “The New Astronomy,” which traces In detail the contributions of nineteenth and twentieth century astronomers. Both. “The Great Astronomers” and “The Adventure of Science” should be read by every person who really wants to know the history of civilization. Can you tell me something about the Battle of Droop mountain? The Battle of Droop mountain, W. Va., was fought Nov. 6, 1863, between federals and confederates. The confederates had marched from Meadow Bluffs, Greenbrier county, and the federals from Beverly, Randolph county. They met at the ex- *■ treme point of Droop’s mountain, the federals having formed on the levels near Hillsboro. Firing commenced at 10 o’clock In the morning and continued until 4 in the afternoon, when the confederates, finding themselves hemmed in, retreated beyond Lewisburg. They were pursued several miles. The loss was heavy on both sides, con- * sidering the number of men engaged, the Union loss being thirty killed and eighty-eight wounded. It is officially rated as an engagement, not a battle.