Indianapolis Times, Volume 42, Number 304, Indianapolis, Marion County, 30 April 1931 — Page 6

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Not Charity, but Business As one successful business man to others, Secretary of Commerce Lamont reminded the National Chamber of Commerce convention in Atlantic City Wednesday that our greatest periods of prosperity always have been bought with high wages and shorter hours. In other words, uii me Hoover acfministration’s talk about necessity of the high wage-short hour system is not a matter of charity or sentimentality, but of hard business sense. The reason is clear. Profits depend on turnover. Mass production depends on mass consumption. The problem is not how to make more goods, but how to sell more goods. "If millions of workers are out of employment for a year, through loss of wages their buying power is cut by billions of dollars,’’ as Secretary Lamont explained. "If the income of the remaining millions who still are employed is cut 10 per cent through • . . part-time work, the loss amounts to several more billions. "Add to this great loss in buying power the retrenchment due to fears and uncertainties of such period and the total loss of purchasing power becomes a staggering amount." Emergency plans to combat this condition, such as the half-billion-dollar federal building program, are valuable as temporary expedients. But have no permanent value. The solution, from the point of view of general business, is to re-establish the high purchasing power of the mass market. That can not be achieved by putting men to work at lower wages and thus continuing to restrict their purchasing power. The wage level must be kept up to the prosperity level, or the merchants can not sell and the manufacturers can not produce profitably under mass production conditions. To spread the purchasing power over a larger number of workers than those now employed, economists and wise industrialists point out that the work day or work week must be shortened. That takes up the slack caused by increased machine productivity and technological unemployment. Some employers object that this can not be done without destroying profits. But they should be open minded enough to consider the experience of such companies as Kellogg of Battle Creek and of E. R. Squibb & Sons. The annual report of the Squibb company, issued Tuesday, shows an increase of profits of half a million in 1930, despite the depression and introduction of the five-day week without wage reductions. The superior efficiency of the five-day week is explained as follows: “Theoretically, the five-day week represents a curtailment of the working hours of 9 per cent, or, stated differently, an increase in wages of 9 per cent, and hence it might be anticipated that labor costs of production would rise by this amount. “But in large operations where we can maintain an actual checkup on efficiency it was found that production in the five-day week amounted to 981-2 per cent of the production heretofore attained in five and one-half days. "Or that 7.5 per cent of the 9 per cent cut In working time was picked up in the added efficiency of the five-day week. . . . Today your company operates at the lowest cost per dollar of sales in its history.”" Here is the testimony of Lewis J. Brown, president of the Kellogg company, on the experience of that organization in going from a three to a four-shift day without wage cuts, that is, from an eight-hour to a six-hour day: “The plan has proved so satisfactory that, so far as we can see now, we shall adopt the six-hour day as a permanent operating policy. It is a profitable operating plan, profitable for the workers and equally profitable for the business, due to the increased operating efficiency and the lowered cost per unit of production.” Obviously, the Squibb five-day-week plan and the Kellogg six-hour-day plan are not immediately applicable to all industries. The Squibb plan is more applicable to some industries, and the Kellogg plan to others. And neither would be at once practicable in some industries, because of special competitive or local conditions. But that American industry as a whole is headed toward a shorter work period for the employes seems Inevitably to follow from our previous successful transition from the twelve to the eight-hour day. If our practical experience of the past means anything, then that way lies the road of greater future prosperity. Causes of Religious Losses Gains in church membership for 1930 show a marked decline as compared with former years. In an article in the Christian Herald, Dr. G. L. Kieffer points out that the total gains in church membership in the United States for 1930 were 88,350, as against 242,748 for 1929 and 1,000.000 for 1928. It seems that, in spite of ministerial declarations to the contrary, hard times have not brought men back to God. Some of the gains and losses seem logical. It is not surprising that the Catholics and Episcopals register material gains. Both groups make an unusual esthete and emotional appeal to their followers and communicants are born into these churches rather than converted in adolescence or afterward. But it is hard to explain such disparity as is shown between the two evangelical groups, the Methodists and the Baptists. The former lost 43,211 members, while the latter gained 74,706. As usual, church writers assail "atheistic” lecturers and teachers as being responsible for these losses, but I believe they are quite wrong. Most direct attacks on religion, especially on orthodoxy, only provoke rapid defense reactions and a temporary strengthening of the faith. What is depleting the ranks of our churchmen is the general secularization of life by our present mechanical civilization and new types of intellectual and emotional interests. The radio has been more deadly to religion than Tom Paine, the movies more of a menace than Ingersoll, and golf more effective than Clarence Darrow. The heart of the whole matter has been admirably stated by Professor John Herman Randall Jr. in Current History: "Industrialism and city life have been far more subversive than all the scientific theories put together. We are all too familiar with theological difficulties. We are apt to overlook the real religious revolution of the last forty years; namely, the crowding of religion into a minor place by the host of secular faiths and interests. “For every man alienated from the church by scientific ideas, there are dozens dissatisfied with its lsocial attitudes, and hundreds who,

I he Indianapolis Times (A SCKirPM-HOIV ABI) NEWSPAPER) Owned and pablbibed daily texcept Sunday) t>y The Indtanapoii. Times Publishing Cos.. 'V Maryland Street, (ndlanapohft, Ind. Price in Marion County 2 cents s copy: elsewhere. .3 cents—delivered by carrier. 12 cents a week. 7 BOVD pdmI iLEY U ° V ,rf OWARD - FRANK G MORRISON. E<Jitor * rodent Business Manager t Ht) NB— R 1 ley tM I _ THURSDAY. APRIL 30. 1931. Member of United Press Serlppa-Howard Newspaper Alliance NewsnSDer Enterprise ditlon Newspaper Information Service*and Aud ftßurrsu of r ir c„latlons “Give Light and the People Will Find"TheiT6wn~Way.”

lectual doubts, have found their lives fully occupied with other interests and diversions of the machine age. “A truly intelligent fundamentalist, indeed, would leave biology alone as of little influence. He instead would try to abolish the automobiles and movies and Sunday papers and golf links that are emptying our churches. Even when the church embraces the new interests, it seems to be playing a losing game. There is little of specifically religious significance in the manifold activities of the modern institutional church; a dance for the building fund is less of a religious experience than a festival in honor of the patron saint. "And any minister knows that his 'social activities’ spring less from real need than from the fervent desire to attract and hold members. The church itself has been secularized. Its members continue a half-hearted support, from motives of traditional attachment, of personal loyalty to the minister, of social prestige, and because they do not want to live in a churchless community.” When the religionists wheel their big guns into action, they should not waste their ammunition on Clarence Darrow or Joseph Lewis, but rather level their fire on modern civilization. Talking No Crime Judge Wanamaker of Ohio has ruled that talking Is no crime in the Buckeye state. He dismissed the case against Paul F. Kassay, Goodyear-Zeppelin mechanic, who was held under the state criminal syndicalism law. Kassay was charged with threatening to leave rivets out of the navy dirigible Akron. His alleged loose language led to the charge of criminal syndicalism. Such talk, with no evidence that the proposed crime had been carried out, is not a crime in itself, the judge ruled. Fortunately, the judge went further. He held that the Ohio criminal syndicalism law itself is unconstitutional under both the federal and state Constitutions: "There is no question that the state of Ohio has the constitutional right to prohibit advocacy of doctrines for the purpose and with the intent, of having these doctrines used, but it has not the right to prohibit the liberty of speech to the extent that mere doctrines, as such, can not be exchanged and used and considered in the exchange of ideas on the public forum. "Mere talk, in and of itself alone, unattended with evil consequences that reasonably might be expected to flow therefrom, can not be made by law a crime in Ohio.” This is a double victory for free speech. Evil intent or possible dire consequences of talk are not in themselves crimes. Criminal results first must be proved. It then is time enough to start criminal procedure. In the second place, this decision encourages and legalizes the most human of all acts, talking freely on any subject. This ought to be especially agreeable to citizens of Ohio, which has replaced Virginia as the mother of Presidents and candidates for the presidency. In no other state is there more talking on all topics, private and public, than in Ohio. And it is right that this should be so. It promotes the ferment of ideas, and has put Ohio in the vanguard of the nation in municipal reforms and other healthy innovations. Citizens of that great state now have judicial encouragement of unrestrained talk, both to promote progress and to blow off steam. Cermak in Office; 2,000 Lose Jobs.” Headline. There is some truth apparently in the maxim “anew broom sweeps clean.” By buying a ticket for a farce at a London theater, you are given two tickets for the Derby. In either case you haven’t got a show. Tlie trouble with house cleaning time is that too nany robbers think it applies to them, too. Men who speak their minds, says the office sage, rarely say much. The trouble with most motorists, says the office sage, is that they are bound to get their way.

REASON

GOVERNOR WHITE of Ohio was given the opportunity to issue a deserved pardon the other day and he did it and we should say he will look back on no other act of his administration that will give him greater satisfaction. a a a A man was sent to the Ohio prison and later made a trusty for an act of heroism, but the call of freedom was irresistible and he escaped, went to St. Louis and built up an honest business, then married and as years passed, three children came into the household. a a a Then after thirteen years the man was discovered and taken back to Ohio and the Governor, looking into the case and interviewing the people of St. Louis, granted the man a full pardon. Now he is back with his folks and his business. a a a OF course, the Governor would not have let him go had he not felt sure the man had been reclaimed from crime, anchored to law and order and by the fact that he is making good. a a a There have been many abuses of the pardoning power and a large percentage of present-day criminals are ex-convicts, men who never should have been released, because they are inherently vicious and whose records proclaim them to be incurably so. a a a * But on the other hand, there are many who committed their crimes through discouragement and these should be given a chance to reform. But before they are let out the pardon board and the Governor should make sure that they have jobs for them. a a a NO pardoning power should pardon a man unless, after a careful study of the case, it is willing to go to an employer and recommend the man it has turned loose. If the pardoning power is unwilling to do this, it has no moral right to compel society to take the risk. a a a Many an ex-convict is hounded by the fear that his record will become known and he will be discharged. This fear can be lifted if the Governor or the board of pardons will tell the employer all about it and put the ex-convict on his honor., a a a And if a man has one spark of manhood in him, this kindness on the part of the pardoning power will make him take a vow to make good. We know of many cases where it has worked just this way.

FREDERICK LANDIS

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E. Tracy SAYS:

If Employers Don't Watch Out They Will Lose More Through Decreased Buying Power Than They Gain by Wage Cuts. NEW YORK, April 30.—Taking $6,000 as the value of the jewels with which Queen Isabella grubstaked Columbus, a California lawyer figures that she made a poor investment. Had she put out the money at 5 per cent compound interest in 1492, he says, it now would amount of $4,500,000,000,000, which is eleven and one-half times the value of the United States. Not questioning the accuracy of his calculation, or the soundness of his premise, who would have paid the interest. There is a deal of difference between what money earns in theory, and what it fails to earn in practice. If there weren’t, somebody would have owned the whole world long ere this. One dollar kept at 5 per cent compound interest since the birth of Christ now would amount to more than all the wealth humanity every accumulated. That’s one reason why it hasn’t been. a u tt Easy Divorce RENO’S divorce mill will start grinding next Saturday, with 300 cases in the hopper and ten minutes allowed for each uncontested case. It is expected that some of the uncontested cases will not require more than four minutes. Sounds pretty efficient until one remembers that Judge Harvey used to run them out in Houston. Tex., at the rate of from 100 to 150 each morning before lunch. a a tt Wage Cuts Hurt HENRY FORD refuses to permit a wage cut in his own plants or in the 5,000 outside factories that serve them. Too bad all employers cant’ see it the same way. They can’t, however, and the result is a constantly increasing number of reductions. Asa matter of fact, the general wage level in this country has gone down faster and farther than the cost of living. If employers don’t watch out, they will lose more through decreased buying power than they gain through decreased pay rolls. n n n Even Rum Runners Strike TWO thousand rum runners are reported to have struck in the New York district. It all goes back to depression and the racket. These rum runners conduct the ship to shore traffic. Back in 1924, they largely were regular seamen, with captains getting $125 a month, engineers SBS, and deck hands S6O. When the coast guard began to make things hot, a good many” of the seamen left, with those who stayed getting much higher pay and the vacancies filled by gangsters. Then came the .depression, forcing retail prices down and compiling wholesalers to follow. Naturally enough, some of this loss was passed on to the rum runners, who didn’t like it and who, feeling that they were indispensable, just quit. a a a Kind to Communists NEW YORK Communists should feel mighty proud of themselves. Last Sunday Mayor Walker held them responsible for starting the campaign against him and now comes Congressman Fish charging them with financing the Sandino outbreak in Nicaragua. Best of all, they don’t have to worry about the consequences.* No matter what the Communists are charged with by the way of conversation, they still depend on gentler treatment in this country than in some other. In China, for instance, they run a good risk of having their heads cut off, as the recent decapitation of 1,800 proves. Captured after a battle, these 1,800 were caused to kneel side by side along the street in such a way as would make it most convenient for the sword swinging executioner to do his work efficiently and expeditiously. Such a performance should be wonderfully reassuring to both Congressman Fish and Mayor Walker. a it Jimmy Cleared Governor Roosevelt’s dismissal of the charges brought against Mayor Walker is approved generally. They not only were vague, but dealt largely with the alleged delinquency or incompetence of subordinates. Even Republicans regard them as too thin for indorsement. The city affairs committee which presented these charges says it will go on in spite of Governor Roosevelt’s action, but unless it is in possession of far more impressive and convincing evidence than it thus far has, it only would be wasting its own breath and other people's time to do so.

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“AMERICA DAY” April 30

ON April 30, 1917, the city of Liverpool celebrated “America day” in recognition of the entry of the United States into the war. A special town meeting of citizens was held at noon. It was preceded by a service of thanksgiving at St. Nicholas church, attended by the lord mayor, city officials, the United States consul, consular representatives of all the allied powers, and leading citizens. The sermon was preached by the bishop of Liverpool. This day also marked the thousandth day of the European war. Two days later Herr Joseph Naumann, a former conservative member of the German Reichstag, was reported to have made in a lecture the following statement: “Until now the war has caused us 1,300,000 dead. This, together with the decrease in birth, gives a reduction of 3,800.000. “The surplus of females has increased from 800,000 to "more than 2,000,000. The nation has bled as never since the Thirty years’ war.”

A Poor Way to Hatch Them!

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE Malaria Problem Greatest in South

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN, Editor, Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hygeia, the Health Magazine. IT generally is believed that malaria was responsible for the fall of the civilization of Greece and Rome. It is thought also that malaria has been responsible for the destruction of modern communities and that it has controlled the victor in various wars. Scientific medicine knows everything necessary to overcome malaria, provided that people in general will help and that funds will be available for applying the information that is established. Practically no large city in the United States is disturbed by this problem, but the suburbs of cities and many small rural communities still have difficulty in combating this disease. According to figures recently cited by Dr. J. A. Ferrell of the Rockefeller Foundation, the death rate from malaria for the registration area of the United States

IT SEEMS TO ME

I HAVE never accepted the familiar heresy that it is more useful work to praise than to attack. But it disturbs me a little if a notion prevails that I am a wholly cantankerous person, possessing no enthusiasm for any existing man or institution. Since this column has been devoted rather largely in recent weeks to particulars in billing blame, I’d like to take a day off and mention some of the people and things which command my enthusiasm. In some cases it is the cause rather than the person. And in a not too infrequent number of cases it may be both. To go, then, into a somewhat haphazard list, here are members of the community who rank in my mind as up to par or thereabouts: Norman Thomas, Clarence Darrow Margaret Sanger, Irving Berlin,’ Louis Waldman, B. Charney Vladeck, Albert Ottinger, Herbert Bayard Swope, Morris Ernst, George Jessel, Ethel Barrymore, Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, H. I. Phillips, Rabbi Wise, Harry Elmer Barnes, Warden Lawes, James Weldon Johnson, Floyd Gibbons, Franklin Pierce Adams, Ruth Hale, Frank Sullivan, Babe Ruth, John Haynes Holmes, Walter White, Judge Corrigan, Fiorello La Guardia, Robert C. Benchley, Alfred E. Smith, Paul Robeson, Efrem Zimbalist, Charles Butterworth, Laurence Stallings, and Will Rogers. U # tt There Must Be More THIS will suffice for the moment. The list is haphazard and does not include all my enthusiasms. I tried to set it down more or less as the people came to my mind out of the subconscious. There are one or two great names which have not been included, because they were men and women whom I knew simply as world figures and not as individuals. If a tally were based wholly upon any conception of world importance, it would be necessary to list Dr. Sigmund Freud, who soon is to visit this country. In a column of a few days ago I ventured the assertion that Margaret Sanger would last in American memory as a person whose work had been vital in our social and economic system. It seems to me if a glance is to be extended beyond our borders, that the years from 1910 to 1931 may be identified as the age of Dr. Freud. Whether his medical technique will survive I do not. know. And it falls short of meeting complete laboratory proof. And yet I think that the world never will be quite the same as it was in the days before Freud began to dig at the roots of human motivation. Whether or not he changes medical thinking, he already has brought about a revolution in the writing of novels and an even greater overturn in the point of view of all biographers. In the years to come some other psychological theory may result in modifying the Freudian hypothesis. But we never will get back en- ; tirely ta the old dogmatic standards of tjood and evil.

was 2.2 in 1910; 1.7 in 1915; 3.4 in 1920: 2.0 in 1925; 3.6 in 1928. In contrast with these figures the rates for Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas were 17.2 in 1918; 16.0 in 1920; 8.3 in 1925; 10.3 in 1928, and 9.8 in 1929. Obviously the problem as it affects the United States today is largely a problem of the southern states. Dr. Ferrell in his analysis of the situation points out that there was general interest in malaria and in measures for its control during the five-year period previous to 1920, and that as a result death rates fell rapidly and much was accomplished. However, in 1922, extra state agencies transferred their help to county health organizations and the rates since that time have not been in the least spectacular. Dr. Ferrell tells that the factors involved in the general recession of malaria have not been evaluated convincingly and agriculture seems

pv HEYWOOD x BROUN

Eve took no more than a single bite of the famous apple. Sigmund Freud devoured the rest. tt a tt New Light on'"Crime AND this reminds me that Freud’s contribution to human thought ought to change utterly our entire system of penology. For instance, when it was reported within the month that an undersized boy of 15 had killed a store-keeper in an attempted holdup, many readers were willing to accept the newspaper report that here was a lad whose imagination had been Inflamed by motion pictures. You and I read of the fact that

Questions and Answers

Can you tell me something about the Henry Ford trade school that is connected with the Ford Motor Company in Detroit? The school Is located at the Ford motor plant, Detroit. The school shop is separate from the Ford Motor Company and covers three and one-half acres of floor space with eighteen departments. The enrollment is 1,000 and the instructors number 125. Boys from Detroit between the ages of 12 and 15 are admitted; preference being given to needy boys. One week of academic work is followed by two weeks of work in the school shop. Each type of training supplements the other. Upon entering the boy receives a cash scholarship of $7.50 per week besides $2 a month for a savings account and a daily hot luncheon. The entire course includes English, mechanical drawing, civics, auto mechanics, commercial geography, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, physics, chemistry, qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis, metallurgy, metallography, shop theory. How many foreign language newspapers are published in New v York? Twenty-six. Is Jack Dempsey older than Gene Tunney? Dempsey was bom June 24, 1896. Tunney was bom May 25, 1898. What is the value of a flying eagle nickel 1-cent piece dated 1858? From 1 to 5 cents. Is the total area of Soviet Russia as great as that of the old Russian empire? The old empire of Russia comprised one-seventh of the land surface of the globe. Its area, without internal waters, was, since the Treaty of Portsmouth, 8,417,118 English square miles. The total area of the Soviet Union in 1927 was given as 8,241,910 square miles. Soviet Russia is now the most extensive area of land within the confines of a continuous boundary to be administered by a central government. Have there been very many fatal accidents on European passenger and commercial airplane lines? The Imperial Airways, Ltd., England, and its predecessors, have flown more than 5,000,000 miles in ; seven years and carried some 75,000 passengers with only four fatal ac-

to have helped, but the influence of rainfall during the breeding season of the mosquito that transmits the disease seems to be the most important single factor. It is likely that the great drought of 1930 may be responsible for the general downward trend, but this is not certain. Exactly as economic distress is associated with an increase in all diseases associated ’with poor nutrition and bad housing, so also an increase in malaria is associated definitely with the conditions that interfere with application of malaria prevention. In times when natural causes do not favor recesses of the disease, health forces must redouble their activities. Knowledge is available to control diphtheria completely, but the diease still Is with us. Knowledge also available for the complete control of malaria, but it remains for an educated public to apply that knowledge and to make available sufficient funds for health departments to carry out the necessary epidemiologic precession.

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 oaner.—The Editor.

he encouraged his playmates to call him “Little Caesar II.” We were very ready to take this without question, because if the offense could be laid directly at the door of Hollywood producers you and I were not under the necessity of accepting any part of the blame. I happened to follow the details of this case with great interest. And I was Impressed with a later and more obscure report that the boy’s mother managed to keep in being a home of sorts upon the salary of sl7 a week. It is my notion that the abolition of poverty would pretty nearly accomplish the abolition of crime. (Copyright. 3931. bv The Times)

cidents. Fifty German air lines flew 3,814,000 miles last year, carrying 56,268 passengers with only one fatal accident. What was the ruling of the Supreme Court of Tennessee in connection with the sentence against J. T. Scopes in the evolution trial? The Supreme Court of Tennessee on Jan. 15, 1927 reversed the sentence against J. T. Scopes, but upheld the state’s anti-evolution law, and recommended that the case be nolle prossed; the court later declined to entertain a petition to rehear the case, Jan. 21, 1927. What kinds of colors should be used in tinting kalsomine? When should the color be added? If kalsomine is to be tinted, use ditemper colors, colors that have been ground fine in water, but avoid colors that are affected by lime, such as chrome yellow, chrome green, Prussian blue, etc. The tinting colors should be added to whiting mixture before the glue is put in. Is lithium or magnesium the lightest metal known? Lithium. Wffiat part did George Stone play in “Tenderloin?” The part of Sparrow.

Wedding, Bells Are they ringing for you in June? Or any time in the future? Our Washington bureau has prepared for you one of its authoritative and Interesting bulletins on Wedding Etiquette. It covers every point that the bride, the groom, the wedding attendants, the parents and friends of the bride and the bridegroom, want and need to know about the "proper thing” for all kinds of weddings. Fill out the coupon below and send for it. CLIP COUPON HERE Dept. 126, Washington Bureau, The Indianapolis Times, 1322 New York Avenue, Washington, D. C.: I want a copy of the bulletin, Wedding Etiquette, and Inclose herewith 5 cents in coin, or loose, uncancelled, United States postage stamps, to cover return postage and handling costs. Name St. and No State .' I am a reader of The Indianapolis Times. (Code No.)

APRIL 30, 1931

SCIENCE

BY DAVID DIETZ

.The Study of Ants Is Hobby of Dr. Harlow Shapley, One of World's Most BriU lia nt Astronomers. IF you saw him hurrying across the Harvard campus, you might, at first glance, mistake him for a sophomore. A second glance would reveal that he was a little older, and perhaps you would think he was one of the young instructors. Certainly, you never would guess that this youthful-looking man of less than average height and weight, smooth-shaven, and with mild eyes and a wistful smile, was one of the j world's most famous scientists. But life has a way, at times, of j breaking the traditions of novelists and playwrights, and the fact of the matter is that the man we are referring to is Dr. Harlow Shapley. director of the Harvard observatory, one of the world's most brilliant astronomers, and one of the world’s authority upon the subject of the Einstein theory. Dr. Shapley insists 1 upon defying all the traditions. Although 46, he insists upon looking more like 20. He simply won’t look as old and dignified as a scientist is supposed to look. He has a genuine sense of humor and keeps it working. And he has a hobby. His hobby is the study of ants. When Dr. Shapley was at the Mt. Wilson observatory a few years ago, the astronomers always knew where to find him if he was not at the telescope. The chances were pretty good that he would be studying a certain large ant hill. a a u Measuring Rods BECAUSE of his modest stature. it is reasonable to refer to Shapley as an astronomical David. The Goliath he chose to tackle was the entire universe. He battled lesser giants from time to time, as, for example, variable stars, or star clusters consisting of thousands of stars. Once or twice he has taken on the whole Milky Way and lately he has been concerned with clouds of spiral nebulae, each nebula the equivalent of ten billion stars or so. But the universe as a whole was his Goliath. Shdpley s chief work has been pushing out the limits of the universe. It is thanks to his work in this line that we realize today how very large the visible universe is. Quite early in the game, astronomers found that the mile was an inadequate unit of measure for their purpose. Consequently they adopted what they called the "astronomical unit."' It is the distance from the earth to the sun, a distance of 93,000,000 miles. But even that proved inadequate. And so the "light-year” came into use. It is the distance which a beam of light, traveling 186,000 miles a second, is able to cover in a year. It is approximately 6,000,000,000,000 miles. In his most recent work, Shapley has found, the light-year an inadequate unit. Its use for him now leads to the same difficulties as would be encountered in giving distances between cities in inches. He suggests anew unit, which will be equal to 10,000,000 lightyears. a tt n Magellanic Clouds IT was shortly after Shapley had been awarded his Ph. D. degree at Princeton that he began his work of pushing out the limits of the universe. He then was an astronomer at the Mt. Wilson observatory. He began extension of the universe by showing that the Magellanic clouds were much farther away than previously had been supposed. The Magellanic clouds are in the southern skies and hence invisible from the United States. They are luminous cloud-like objects, resembling pieces of the Milky Way which had broken loose. They received their name from the fact they first were described by Magellan during his voyage around the world. Shapley proved that the larger of the two clouds was 112,000 light years away and the smaller one about 102,000 light years away. He also showed the vast extent of our own Milky Way by a study of the globular clusters which outline it. Today Shapley is the world’s chief authority upon globular clusters. Within recent years, Shapley has been working on the spiral nebulae, the great masses of gaseous material and star clouds which lie at immense distances from the Milky Way. He has shown that these nebulae or “exterior galaxies,” as they sometimes are called, are organized into groups or “clouds of galaxies,” and that these clouds, in turn, are organized into superclouds. It is in the study of these clouds of galaxies that Shapley needs the new measuring unit of 10,000,000 light years.

Daily Thought

Rejoice, O young man, In thy youth.—Ecclesiastes 11:9. To be young is surely the best, if the most precarious, gift of life.— Lowell.