Indianapolis Times, Volume 43, Number 107, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 September 1931 — Page 4

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S C HI PPJ -M OW AJID

One Church Speaks To those who may have questioned the Christianity of modem churches the message of a conference of ministers in Wisconsin will bring anew basis of confidence and hope. These ministers denounce both public and private charity as a “debasing thing” and demand self-re-spect through jobs furnished, if necessary, by the government. The steadfast refusal of President Hoover to do more than appoint a committee to collect funds for private charity to relieve the distress that is inevitably linked with joblessness does not appeal to these pastors. They have the queer idea that men need work to maintain their self-respect and that self-respect is quite as vital to American standards as food or shelter. They see clearly that the logic of a governmental policy that refuses to even attempt to solve the problem of unemployment and is only concerned with the “distress” is capital punishment for every man who fails to find a job for himself. They seem to have caught some of the message of the Man of Nazareth and his doctrine of human brotherhood which could in no manner defend a society where those who have too much coldly calculate on how little others may have and still live long enough to become, later, employes or customers. Asa certificate of the humanity, perhaps the wisdom, of these ministers they also demand that public provisions be made for the best scientific services to every mother and to every child. They would banish that barrier between the mother who comes from the family of wealth and the mother who comes from the hovels of the poor. To them every mother performs a divine sacrifice and the most important service to the state. Out in the best hospitals a little life may be ushered, against its will, into the world. It may be fighting a difficult battle for life. If the father has money, there is available every scientific facility to preserve its life. There are specialists and special nurses and the child, protected through its first hours, lives to gladden the heart of the mother, to become perhaps a second Lincoln, or a future Melba. Over in the other parts of town, there may come into the world a second baby, handicapped and struggling as was the first. There are no specifications, no constant nurses and the flickering life falters and flickers until the heart of a mother breaks and the world is robbed of its potential Lincoln or its Melba. A church that demands a democratic viewpoint o nthe value of the life of a babe should be worthy of interest in its ideas concerning adult life. Is it possible that the real problems of life, unsolved as yet by financiers, by statesmen, by industrials, by labor leaders, by economists, will find their answer in the Sermon on the Mount? Desperate diseases require strong remedies. The doctrine of love instead of hate has always been strong medicine.

Bad Judgment. Under the pressure of those gentlemen who believe that they pay too much to government in the form of taxes, the county council has decided to reduce the road patrol of the county after the first of the year and throw a few more men on the bread line or into the ranks of the jobless. The professional propagandists for the tax reducers have performed a poor service. The railroads and the utilities should call a halt on such advice. The last place to cut expenses in government is in the poorly paid jobs and especially in the number of those employed as policemen or sheriffs. They may not have been needed in years of prosperity. They are always needed in days of depression and desperation. The present holders of jobs may or may not be efficient. That is not the question. There should be men ready to protect the farmers from raids. The suburban banker will feel easier. These jobs may have been luxuries in the days when there was no protest and the holders acted as guides to bewildered truck drivers who brought booze from Jasper or Clinton under a tolerant attitude in the office of sheriff. They become necessary through the force of circumstances, if for no other purpose than to guide those seeking relief to the agencies which President Hoover and Governor Leslie say will take care of all the needy. They might serve as traffic directors for the jobless. Reducing armies in time of war has never been considered the best strategy. If you happen to live in the country and your home is robbed, you will have no difficulty in placing the responsibility. “Fear Never Helps” Did you read the story of the steeplejack who spent two hours on a ten-inch ledge 150 feet in the air and got down safely? It happened not long ago in Rochester, N. Y. His companion had dropped and died, when the scaffold broke. James Kemp, w-arned by the cry of his fellow worker, was able to catch himself. Ladders fell short in the rescue. Airplanes were brought into service, but the wind was too strong. The ropes they lowered failed of their mark. Seconds and minutes clicked by—to the quarter hour, the half hour, the hour, and on. The steeplejack still hugged the bricks, while the wind sang around him, and the rapidly gathering crowd below stood in horror. A rocket gun was brought into action. After five trials a thick cord was shot over the chimney’s top, close enough so that Kemp could reach it. Balancing on his ten-inch perch, Kemp waited until a heavier line could be drawn over the chimney, and then a rope. With this the steeplejack reached the ground. As he landed, the man who had been directing the rescue fainted, but not the steeplejack. “I knew better than to let the thing scare me,” he said. The situation in the nation and the world today is indeed serious. And one of the most dangerous factors is sea thing that didn't bother Kemp. Nothing is needed now so much as a stout heart. Fear never helped in any situation. The more Intense the circumstances, the more reason for courage and good nerves. That goes for shipwrecks or fires and cyclones or earthquakes or economic hurricanes. In recent weeks, with the waning of summer, we have beome a bit panicky. Disposed as human beings are to run in herd, we now are singing such a chorus of gloom as to match in intensity of volume the reverse chorus of never-ending prosperity that we. sang two years ago. That chorus was overdone, as we know now. It is not unreasonable to assume that the one *ll MX AC* lUtfing ate) a*y At overdone. Hurt

The Indianapolis Times (A SCKIPPB-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) Owned and published daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Cos.. 214-220 West Maryland Street, Indianapolis, Ind. Price in Marion County, 2 cents a copy; elsewhere, 3 centa—delivered by carrier. 12 cents a week. Mail subscription rates in Indiana. $3 a year; outside of Indiana, 65 cents a month. BOYD GURLEY ROY W. HOWARD. EARL D. BAKER. Editor President Business Manager PHONE—Riley 5551. SATURDAY. SEPT. 12, 1831. Member of United Press, Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance, Newspaper Enterprise Association, Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations. “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way.”

was too much optimism in 1929. There is too much pessimism today. Things never are so bad as they are painted when things are bad, and things never are so perfect as they seem when the economic sun is shining. There’s a happy medium either in times of distress or times of elation. In depression, a recognition of that fact will allay fear. ‘ln boom times, it will counsel sanity and prevent excesses. We won’t harm, but will help, if wpe join in the philosophy of the steeplejack and “know better than to let this thing scare us.” Another Noble Experiment Finland is one year farther advanced in the noble experiment than the United States, It is not surprising, therefore, that the effort to rid that country i of prohibition likewise is more advanced than here. The Federation of Finnish Judges has reported to the government that prohibition has had “extremely undesirable results,” that liquor consumption has increased more than 50 per cent, and that most of the people in the country openly repudiate the liquor laws, thereby undermining legal order and increasing crime. No more striking test of prohibition could be devised than that which has proceeded simultaneously on opposite sides of the world. In both countries strong sentiment in favor of temperance existed. Both launched their dry laws on a wave of post-war idealism. The United States had a large population, while Finland just was emerging from the rule of the Russian czar. The United States belonged to the modern age, Finland to the older times. Yet the two countries reacted similarly to prohibition. In both countries, consumption of alcohol for “non-beverage” and medicinal purposes leaped up alarmingly under the dry laws. Arrests for drunkenness, violation of prohibition laws, and other crimes mounted rapidly. Both countries were infested with bootleggers and the cost of enforcement in each mounted steadily. So Finland—which has tried the experiment one year longer—first increased the legal alcoholic content of beer and now has an official commission at work drawing a plan for supplanting prohibition with modified liquor control laws. The next parliament is expected to seek a way out of its financial difficulties through legalizing and taxing liquor. Perhaps by 1932 we will have caught up with the prohibition procession in its march to oblivion. Frenzied Finance The federal tax battle has begun three months before the opening of congress. It is by all odds the most important national fight of the year. For on this issue of government financing hangs the long string of other issues—prohibition expense versus legal liquor tax; naval building program versus arms reduction; federal unempjoyment relief versus hunger and riots; redistribution of overconcentrateci wealth versus a continued lack of public purchasing power; a larger federal deficit and debt versus a balanced budget. Friday Senator Watson, after talking, with President Hoover, reaffirmed the administration policy. It is simple: Meet the mounting deficits and debts by more borrowing. Why such a violation of sound public finance? Again Watson’s reason is simple. “I think,” he says, “until after we have passed the presidential election and other highly disturbing factors, we snould steer "clear of any tax legislation.” We agree with this Republican leader of the senate that a tax increase will be highly disturbing to Republican election prospects, but we do not agree that such partisan interests are a legitimate excuse for unsound public financing. We share the view of the liberals of both parties that the deficit should be met by increased taxation of the only group from which more revenue can be extracted in this time of depression, namely, the very rich. But we hasten to add that the idea of balancing a budget and paying-as-you-go is no new-fangled radical notion. It is, and always has been, the very heart of conservative financial practice—whether for the individual, the corporation or the government. Therefore, we are not surprised that the conservative Republican member of the house ways and means committee, Representative Bacharach, and others, have broken with the Hoover-Watson wing of the administration, and are demanding a balanced budget by increased taxes from the rich. The attempt of the Hoover-Watson group to kiss off a prospective three-billion dollar operating deficit, with easy borrowing until after the election, is as financially disastrous as it is politically dishonest. And to think that the reich, but for a letter, might be rich. What this country seems to be suffering from is overprotection.

Just Every Day Sense BY MRS. WALTER FERGUSON

IN Baltimore a woman is dying. She was a nurse in France. Though no monuments will be erected to her, her life is a sacrifice to the drums of battle. In San Diego a former college football star, mentally shocked at the scene he had witnessed, brooking over the visions of comrades slain before his eyes, suddenly went raving crazy and now is a hopeless wreck in a room with barred windows. In Memphis, health ruined, children in an orphanage, another war veteran occupies a hospital cot and laughs hysterically while he says, “You people do not want to know the truth about war. Nobody wants the truth. Your stomachs could not stand it. You want romance, and glamor and lies.” Here is a little of the bitter fruit of our sowing in hatred. The whirlwind is about our ears. The wind that saw our empty posturing long sinca has sped, taking with it ten million souls. The drums have ceased. We are left with the disaster that is their eternal echo. a m THE world has twenty million wounded ex-soldiers, pitiful wrecks some of them, beating out their ruined lives against hospital walls. The total economic waste of our gunplay is estimated at approximately one hundred billions of dollars. And who can count the cost in human suffering, in youth destroyed, in shattered dreams? But do you, in your normal business of living, ever go into one of these places where a benign government takes its broken heroes? Seldom, I dare say, because it is not a pleasant experience. Yet are not these places also shrines? To them every citizen should take an annual pilgrimage, and for every wreath placed upon a dead soldier's tomb a visit should be made to living victims, so that we might see what war does to the men it spares. Then might we say to our hearts: v“Regard this wreckage that Christians have wrought In the name of their Lordi" .

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E. Tracy SAYS r

If MacDonald Is Made a Political Outcast We Are Living in a Sorry World and England Is the Sorriest Part. NEW YORK, Sept. 12.—Most everybody is predicting that Ramsay MacDonald will get the cold shoulder for his courage, that virtual oblivion will be his reward for breaking with the Labor party, and that he will be edged complacently out of the picture, once the coalition cabinet has performed its brief, but all-important task. If that’s true, we live in a sorry world and England is or** of the sorriest parts of it. That MacDonald took such a chance, there can be no doubt, but that there are not enough sensible and appreciative Englishmen to prevent stupid, destructive partisanship from spoiling the fine example he has set is not so certain. tt tt it Leaves Us Bewildered Mahatma gandhi pauses in his more 'or less triumphal progress toward! the “round table conference,” not only to describe himself as a British prisoner, but to inform us Americans that we need not expect a visit from him in the immediate future, because we are not “ready for", his message.’ The Mahatma leaves us bewildered, than disappointed. We have quite enough troubles without having to i entertain a prophet, or without uncfirtaking to help solve the Indian riddle. Beyond that, the Mahatma should remember that we won our independence 150 years ago, and without discarding our pants. tt tt tt Edging From Communism RETURNING from his seventh trip to Russia, where he is employed as consulting engineer on great power projects; Hugh L. Cooper brings the agreeable, but hardly surprising news that the Soviet gradually is edging away from Communism. Asa matter of plain, ordinary horse sense, the Soviet couldn’t, do anything else. Both nature and human nature are opposed to Communism as a permanent institution. The fact that Communism is a convenient medium for swift and violent changes of the economic order, and has played more or less of a part in every great revolution, should not fool any one as to its real character. tt tt tt The Proper Reward IF ten men were marooned on an island, with one in possession of all the food supply, while the rest faced starvation, the nine would proceed to gang upon him and take not only what they needed, but everything in sight. Asa temporary modus vivendi, they would convert what they had taken into a common pile, with share and share alike for every one. After they had satisfied their immediate needs, however, had settled down to organized life, had learned how to utilize the island’s natural resources, they would not only fall into different trades and styles of living, but each would insist on the proper reward for his own peculiar talent and the old, immutable law of weakness and strength would reassert itself. tt tt tt New Class Consciousness RUSSIA already is beginning to throw up anew aristocracy and to show signs of anew class consciousness. Czarism will not return, because its stupidity has become obvious and its worthlessness well understood, but those differences and distinctions which originate in the unequal capacities of human beings will return. Asa matter of fact, they already have returned. The commissars and Communist party, though representing but a small minority of the Russian people, already are in position not only to exercise unquestioned authority, but to demand and receive consideration beyond the reach of average individuals. tt a Gradually Evolving System RUSSIA generally is evolving a social and political system which, though new and grand in superficial appearance, will be wonderfully similar to that prevailing throughout the civilized world when complete. In form, the Russian experiment j appears both novel and stupendous, but in principle, it is as old as the hills. Russia could not have thrown off the medieval tyranny under which she was held by the Romanoff regime and embarked on an economic career at all consonant with the times, except by just such a revolution as she staged. Bolshevism represented her one hope; Communism, her one vehicle 'of transition. That, however, was purely a matter of the Russian problem and the Russian background. It had nothing to do with the problems and background of other lands. In ability to realize this fundai mental difference is what made Russian leaders bid for world revo- | lution and made the rest of us so scared of the Russian revolution.

RUSS REVOLT FAILS Sept. 12 ON Sept. 12, 1917, the revolt of General Komiloff against the provisional government of Russia collapsed after Premier Kerensky assumed the function of command-er-in-chief. Expressions of loyalty to the provisional government came from the Workingmen’s and Soldiers’ delegates, from the Constitutional Democrats, from the Bolsheviki, the Ukrainians, Finns and distinguished generals and it was clear that the Komiloff revolt had failed to receive the support it expected. Nevertheless, Komiloff with several battalions advanced toward Petrograd. and on this date occupied Gotchina, thirty miles southwest of the hospital, but there was no bloodshed. On this date also, Secretary of War Baker issued a statement in Washington that the “Liberty Motor,” America’s new standardized airplane motor, had been perfected.

Burning His Bridges Behind Hint

I II I I , . - ' " ' i——— ■ ''' ' ''' ' /■ 1 ' —.

—— DAILY HEALTH SERVICE— Health Checkups Important

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hygeia, the Health Magazine. W'HETHEF, you are a bricklayer or “the big boss,” you find that it is economical to be healthy. For loss of time on account of disease or loss of efficiency due to fatigue can be measured in terms of dollars and cents. Therefore, men should have an actual knowledge of their state of health, and this can be had by a proper physical examination. Granted that such an examination reveals no serious conditions demanding immediate correction, every one ought to know enough about personal hygiene to conduct his life to the best advantage. The human body is a combination of cells bound together in various systems, including for example, the muscles, the bones, the circulation of the blood, the nervous system and the digestive tract. These interlocking cogs of the human machine usually will get along satisfactorily if left largely alone, particularly since there is within the cells the power of repair—an ability that does not exist, for instance, in such machinery as can be found

IT SEEMS TO ME

I AM not an expert in the ethics of speedboat racing, but at this, distance it would seem as if another chapter had been added to the contention that international contests do not make for good will. Gar Wood’s confession that he deliberately tricked his English rival into a premature start sounds like very shoddy sportsmanship. Nor can I see any merit in the contention that the extra boat of George Wood’s should receive the award merely for ambling around the course. With two Woods working in cahoots against the English visitor, I think it only fair to say that he received something less than a fair deal. tt tt tt What’s the Rush? MY interest in speed contests—whether on land or sea or in the air above —is fairly dim. Very little is gained by such engagements. Before Kaye Don went to Detroit I had an opportunity to talk with him, and he contended that there is a distinct value in this matching of pace. Mr. Don's argument was that the speedboat or car of today becomes the accepted vehicle of the next five years. He tried to convince me that safety factors • are developed proportionately with the increase in power. This, I think, is true within limits. Os course, I can remember back to a day when forty miles an hour was considered an outrageous speed for an automobile. And now on clear and unobstructed roads, sixty is safe enough for a good driver. Four-wheel brakes and better tires have cut down the n""gin of accidents. And, of course, it is possible to build motor highways for fast-traveling vehicles. Kaye Don explained to me that it would be logical for such a vast metropolis as ours to construct oneway roads over which the city dweller could reach the suburbs in half an hour or less. He spoke of the devourments in Italy, where vast concrete stretches are devoted to the use of men and women who want to drive fast. But these speedways are so arranged that no cross traffic can confuse and endanger the heading flight. In this I see some merit. During the stress of unemployment it might be w T ell to plan a vast improvement in the arteries of Manhattan. As yet the problem of getting away from New York remains unsolved. There are two or three bottle necks in which congestion becomes unavoidable on any Saturday, Sunday or holiday. We could, without any fantastic effort, bring the suburbs of the city closer to its center by well-regu-lated building. California already is far ahead of our own state in the matter of roads permitting fast progress. Even so, I think that there is a limit beyond which Tapid motion becomes pure recklessness. * n A Tame Sport W’E mqst look to the air for the conqut£t of space and time. In the ether there always will be room

in an automobile or an oil-heating furnace. Then, too, man has the intelligence which makes it possible for him to realize when things go wrong and to take steps toward correction. Regular physical examinations are important primarily for the detection of remediable defects or of diseases in their early stages, but secondarily such examinations may afford a feeling of confidence in one’s state of health which means freedom from worry. Without being able scientifically to measure the amount of damage that can be done to the human body by worry, high tension or irritation, the experience of ages has shown that these factors play a definite part in the onset of disease. There was a time when worry was listed as a contributing cause to high blood pressure, hardening of the arteries, diabetes and even many infectious diseases. Unquestionably worry does play a part in the causation of disease because of the secondary effects exerted on the functioning of the body. When a man is tired he ought torest. During the resting process

to forge ahead. And even now the fliers tell me that there is small extra risk in terrific speed. However, Kaye Don spoke a little scornfully of aviation. He himself has engaged in flying, automobile racing and speedboat congests. To him the airplane seems almost a sissifled. “Why,” he said to me with obvious sincerity, “at a reasonable altitude one can cruise along at 120 miles an hour and take his hands off the controls and read a book. A car or a boat is different. There you have to be on the job every minute.” I imagine that in the personality of a man like Kaye Don there must

People’s Voice

Editor Times—l was interested in an article recently in The Times, in the Voice of the People, signed “A Farmer’s Wife.” She asks what are we going to do about John Tooley, the 13-year-old boy who stole $2 worth of tools and who was sentenced to eight years in the reform school? She also speaks of Governor Leslie sanctioning the un-heard-of penalty by his refusal to do anything. All this, I believe, should be thoroughly gone into and the right thing done about it. But I ask, what are we going to do about some of Governor Leslie’s acts? We seem to scent something odd in the passage of bus bill No. 6, in the washing of the statehouse at a cost of $64,000, when it might have been done for less than half that amoynt; in going far beyond the SIO,OOO allowance for entertaining the Governors at French Lick, and in the lavish expenditure for furnishing the Governor’s mansion? He says of the Governor’s contingent fund, “It is my money, I can do as I please with it.” I flatly deny this assertion. This money belongs to the taxpayers of Indiana. He accuses others of being unAmerican, but what, I ask, is more un-American than this needless waste of the people’s money in the terrible times of depression and unemployment through which we are passing? There is no surer way of making reds than by driving honest men beyond the point of endurance, by loading them with taxes so that the Governor may spend it in foolishness. If a Governor who makes such an assertion, is to remain in office until his term expires, I would suggest that a guardian be appointed for him, as is done for others who show themselves incapable of handling funds. A READER. Does sleeping directly in the moonlight cause blindness? The word lunatic comes from the Latin word luna meaning moon, and it is an old superstition that the moon has a direct effect upon the brain of human beings, hence the superstition that sleeping in the moonlight causes blindness, insanity and kindred calamities. This has long since been disproved by scientific investigation.

the body cells recover from fatigue. Scientific investigations have shown that definite chemical changes take place during fatigue and others during rest. The amount of sleep necessary at different periods in life changes. It varies also for different persons. The average man ought to sleep eight hours every night. Sometimes insomnia is due to physical conditions, but it may also be due to the establishment of bad habits. Falling asleep is a habit. If one establishes the routine of going to sleep easily at a regular hour and of relaxing the body at the time of going to sleep, he will probably have much less trouble than if he indulges in constant variations of the sleeping performance. The man who begins to worry as soon as he goes to bed ought to have competent advice, since the tendency is toward a vicious circle. Almost every one knows that a walk or drive in the fresh air, a warm bath or a warm drink tends to induce sleepiness. People who are sensitive to caffein should avoid the use of tea or coffee before going to bed.

DV HEYWOOD BROUN

be some terrific kick in speed for speed’s own sake. Os course, this is not a peculiar tangent in human personality. We all enjoy the rush of wind in the face; otherwise there would not be scenic railways at every amusement park. tt tt u A Better Understanding SPEED is a tonic and exhilarator of the human ego. One feels vastly superior to his ancestors. Somewhere in the back of his mind he carries the stories of those slow treks across waste lands in ox carts. Even the headline that somebody has flown from coast to coast within twelve hours gives every one of us a sense of conquest. The mountains which loomed as barriers to Hannibal and his elephants become now mere hillocks to bar the march of humankind. And in the long run I suppose that we shall all be better off when distance is cut down and the planet becomes a pebble. I imagine, or rather I hope, that the coming of international brotherhood will be hastened by the new time schedule. When the Atlantic raged as a vast water hazard, there was reason for suspicion and there was no possibility of a policy of conciliation. George Washington’s address about entaiigling alliances has been vastly quoted by politicians. But it would never have been thought or written if the Father of His Country had lived into the age when a Lindbergh could fly from New York to Paris within a day’s span. Os course, the feeling of fellowship is primarily a spiritual thing, but the bond between body and soul is heightened through physical propinquity. The fact that in the years to come we shall all rub shoulders makes it increasingly possible that we may also rub idea against idea and get out of this contact not that friction which brings fire, but the understanding which makes for universal peace. (Copyright. 1931. by The Times)

Can You Save It? That beautiful party dress that got a drop of ink on it? That tablecloth on which Bobby spilled the preserves? Those silk undies on which you dropped a spot of iodine? Dad’s vest that his fountain pin spoiled? That napkin with the peach stains? Are they ruined? Or can the spots and stains be removed? Our Washington bureau has ready for you one of its authoritative bulletins on the “Removal of Stains From Textile Materials.” It tells exactly what to try for each kind of spot or stain. It may save you a lot of money. Fill out the coupon below and send for it. CLIP COUPON HERE Dept. 144, Washington Bureau, The Indianapolis Times, 1322 New York avenue, Washington, D. C. I want a copy of the bulletin “Stain Removal,” and inclose herewith 5 cents in coin, or loose, uncanceled United States stamps to cover return postage and handling costs: Name Street and No City , State I am a reader of The Jhdianapolis Times. (Code No.)

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 f this naner.—The Editor.

SEPT. 12,1931

SCIENCE —BY DAVID DIETZ—

Miss Henrietta Leavitt, Harvard Astronomer, Gave Science One of Its “Measuring Rods ” for Plumbing Depths of Universe. GRAMMAR school children, who are beginning to learn their geography, like to write their address with a flourish, adding: “Western Hemisphere, the Earth," after “United States of America." Suppose we carry that on into the universe at large and see what we can add. Asa begnining, let us put down “Solar System, the Solar Neighborhood. the Region of the Brighter Stars, the Local Cloud, the Galaxy.” Readers who have been following our discussions of the survey of the universe upon which the Harvard observatory has embarked, will recognize here some of the major divisions which the Harvard astronomers make in the universe. Every one, of course, knows the solar system, our sun and its family of planets, one of which is the earth. The Solar Neighborhood extends out in all directions to a distance of fifty light-years. (A light-year is 6,000,000,000.000 miles.) It is a region populated for the most part with small dwarf stars. Surrounding the Solar Neighborhood and extending out to a distance of 500 light-years, is the Region of the Brighter Stars, so-called because it contains most of the 6.000 stars visible to the naked eye. The telescope, however, reveals that there are at least 500,000 stars In this region. a it a Local Cloud Immense THE Local Cloud is not so easily described. That cosmic division is based upon evidence which has not yet been analyzed completely. But it seems as if the galaxy or Milky Way Is divided into a number of great swarms or clouds of stars. > The one which contains our solar system, the Solar Neighborhood, and the Region of the Brighter Stars, is known as the Local Cloud. We are not entirely certain about the size of the Local Cloud. But Dr. Harlow Shapley, director of the Harvard Observatory, says that It must extend out for several thousand light-years and contain some tens or hundreds of millions of stars. We come now, in our discussion, to the galaxy itself, more popularly known as the Milky Way. “The stars within 5,000 light-years of the sun constitute a trifling proportion of the galactic system as outlined by globular star clusters and the Milky Way clouds,” says Dr. Shapley. “The faint stars of the Milky Way are so remote that spectroscopic methods of determining their distances are as yet quite Impossible, and trigonometric and proper motion measures are hopelessly inadequate, “Statistical analysis, based on the count of stars of various magnitudes, assist in discovering the structure of the nearer parts of the Milky Way; but perhaps now the most satisfactory attack on Its extent and structure can be made through the study of the periods and light curves of variable stars.” Measuring Rods 'T'HE use of certain kinds of varl- %. able stars as measuring rods is a fascinating chapter in astronomy. Variable stars are stars whose brilliance or light varies. Those in which the variation takes place in twenty days or less are known as short-period variables or Cepheids. This last name comes from the fact that the first star of this sort to be investigated was the star Delta I in the constellation, Cepheus. Each | Cepheid has its own definite period, ! going through its light changes with the precision of a clock. One of Jie most important discoveries about the Cepheids was made by Miss Henrietta Leavitt, one of the Harvard astronomers. This was that there was a relationship between the period of a Cepheid and its real brightness or absolute magnitude. Dr. Shapley developed this discovery into a powerful tool for plumbing the depths of the universe. For by it, it became possible to calculate the distances of Cepheids whose distances never could be measured directly. The apparent magnitude of the star could be measured. The absolute magnitude could be inferred from the period. From these two facts, it was possible to calculate the distance. “About seven years ago a program for the systematic photography of Milky Way variable stars was inaugurated at our northern and j southern stations,” Dr. Shapley ! says. This program is now to be enlarged in the present survey of the universe, he says.

Daily Thought

Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the Lord your God.—Leviticus 25:17. Oppression is but another name for irresponsible power, if history is to be trusted.—William Pinkney. Is the proper abbreviation of Pennsylvania Pa. or Penn.? Pa. is the official postoffice abbreviation.