Indianapolis Times, Volume 43, Number 173, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 November 1931 — Page 4

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A Sickening Farce When is a drunken driver not a drunken driver? Evidently the answer in the city of Indianapolis is when he is a Republican politician with a pull. Every day men and boys without friends are sent to the penal farm to serve time in disgrace and worse for driving cars when under the influence of liquor. Punishment for this offense is a policy on which every one can agree. A drunken driver of an automobile is the worst of offenders. He is a menace to life and safety of every one else. He is the one argument which the prohibitionists produce that has any weight—and the numerousness of the tribe under Volsteadism suggests that prohibition and the bootlegging era are not the answer to the problem. But if law can correct individual actions, all will agree that this particular crime must be suppressed. But with regularity that is sickening, the politicians of the old Republican regime obtain freedom when brought to the city police courts on this charge. The answer is that the judges of that court are named by the Governor. The trick of calling in some friend to act as a special judge when these cases are docketed serves the futile purpose of attempting to dodge any criticism for expected acquittals. When a drunken driver can get freedom on the plea that a police warrant charged that a politician was drunk at Twenty-fourth and Bellefontaine, when the truth wasfhat he was drunk at Twenty-fourth and College, the law sinks to the low levels of burlesque. The Governor, could, of course, ask for the resignation of judges who play such tricks with justice, unless such judicial conduct meets with his approval. One More Rivet Over the protest of members Ellis and Singleton the public service has driven one more riveT into the shackles which the public utilities are attempting to put on Indiana. The decision was made in the case of North Manchester, which has but a very few people, unable to fight as vigorously as might a thoroughly aroused larger city. It would, if allowed to become a permanent precedent, prevent public ownership and competition. That is the real fear of the utility barons. It haunts their dreams to contemplate the day when the people will compare the records of cities which have privately owned and operated plants with those of the holding company variety. They fear even more the idea that the day may come when the people will control their public service commission and have public ownership of that body instea dos private management. So it becomes important that precedent be established for the guidance of commissioners who may come into office after some of the present messenger boys are sent back home by a Governor with no secret or other commitments to these interests. That two members of the commission rebelled against further enslavement is a sign of progress, that helps to break down the growing tradition of Insull omnipotence in this state.

About These Slums Most American cities have improved or abandoned their wretched white tenement districts. There remain the slums in which the country's migrating Negro populations are forced to dwell. In a report to be made to the coming national conference on home building and home ownership In Washington on Dec. 2 the committee on Negro housing finds that “overcrowding, dilapidated structures with primitive sanitary arrangements, high rents and unusual difficulties in financing home ownership are the rule rather than the exception in Negro housing.” On the one hand Negro populations in urban tenters have increased by 32.3 per cent in the last decade. On the other, the colored strangers are denied homes in the new subdivisions and are forced to find shelter in the “run-down districts” abandoned by the whites. In northern cities only 9 to 50 per cent of these buildings meet moderate standards. Here is a timely and double opportunity for the cities. By razing and rebuilding these dwellings they will provide employment for their jobless citizens; at the same time they will be ending a social nuisance, a health menace and a moral stigma. Local communities and states last year paid 78 per cent of all unemployment relief costs through taxes. The new community chest report to the Gifford committee shows that in the 131 cities reporting their chest drives only 30 per cent of relief is being met from private funds. Since jobs are better than charity, the cities would be doing themselves double service by paying out these sums in wages for public works, especially for the conversion of slums. No public work is more pressing than that of making American cities fit for human habitation. For the Treaties Now is the time for the state department to declare publicly that it will hold Japan responsible for any further violation of the (American) nine-power treaty and the (American) Kellogg pact in Manchuria. . Nothing short of the most open and vigorous pressure by the United States, the strongest nation in the world and Japan’s richest customer, will preserve international rßpect for those treaties. Japan has modified her militarism every time the United States has co-operated with other neutral nations to preserve the world's peace machinery. But just as soon as Washington pulls away, breaking the united front, Japan takes advantage of the division to drive her army deeper into Manchuria. * Ten weeks ago Japan made her first thrust, and then waited to see what the United States would do to uphold the American treaties. When the state department did nothing, Japan made a second plunge. Then, driven by the pressure of American public opinion, the state department belatedly announced that it would co-operate with the league which had begun the task of protecting the neglected American treaties. At once Japan tempered her policy. But a few days later the state department reversed its brief policy of international co-operation, and the Japanese army promptly moved forward as the Japanese government and press cheered the state department for it* hands-ofT policy. Thla week, under pressure of public and press opinion and forty-one peace organizations, President Hoover has swung back to a very timorous apd mild form of co-operation with the league council in trying to salvage the violated American treaties. Japan

The Indianapolis Times < A SCKII’I’S-HOH AKI> >'EHSI'APER) Owned and published daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Cos.. 214-220 West Maryland Street. Indianapolis, Ind. Price in Marion County, 2 cent 9 a copy: elsewhere. 3 cents—delivered by carrier. 12 octets a week. Mail subscription rates in Indiana. S3 a rear: outside of Indiana. 6.5 cents a month. BOYD GURLEY. ROY W EARL D. BAKER. Editor President Business Manager PHON’B-Hlley MSI SATURDAY. NOV. 28. 1931 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.”

at once registered her sensitiveness to such a united iront of neutrals by starting to talk peace. But Japan has talked peace before, has promised to withdraw troops before, and each time she has been able to wiggle out of any peace agreement because the neutral nations could not count on the United Spates at the critical moment. Now, in the midst of Japan’s latest armistice talk, the Japanese armies are driving onward in violation of Tokio’s pledges. Will the state department withdraw support from the neutral nations again, or will the state department definitely, permanently and publicly cut loose from the Japanese war lords? It is one course or the other. If the state department publicly will inform Japan that America will not continue- friendly relations with any violator of American treaties, Japan will think twice before becoming an outlawed nation. It is not our job to side with China against Japan. It is our job, our definite pledged responsibility, to side with the American treaties against Japan or any other violator. If America herself will respect the treaties they can be saved. That is the issue. What happens to Manchuria is of minor importance. What happens to the world’s peace machinery is terribly important. Cunha's Conscience When a man nurses a consuming hatred for another for fifteen years it’s a pretty good sign that he has wronged that man and knows it. Edward A. Cunha, former assistant district attorney of San Francisco, took part in the attempt to hang Tom Mooney on perjured testimony. Today Cunha is the only one of the old anti-Mooney prosecution who openly opposes pardon for the man he wronged. Displaying the old savagery k of the trial days he swears he will crash the Walker-Walsh-Sapiro hearing before Governor Rolph on Dec. 1 and oppose the pardon “if I have to fight my way in.” Cunha should let time bury his hatreds—as have his ex-chief, Charles Fickert, and Billings’ prosecutor, James Brennan, who confessed himself “blinded by the chase” and sorry. The record against Cunha is sordid enough to discredit him before he starts. For instance: Cunha to Fickert (as heard by the Wilson dictograph)—“Chief, if you can get a witness who will put Mrs. Mooney at Steuart and Market streets I don’t give a damn if you put her there in a balloon.” Cunha (testifying last summer before California’s supreme court judges)—“l wasn’t worried about the direct evidence. I was satisfied that Mooney should be convicted on his activities alone. I base that statement on his (Mooney’s) own activities leading to the preparedness parade; on the bringing in of all the anarchists, on the appeals to stop the parade, even by the use of violence. At that time I was satisfied to have Mooney hang on that theory.” People will not wonder that Cunha's conscience bothers him. Such a man should not be allowed to block the release of Tom Mooney.

Indirect Censorship The case of Dr. Antonio Barcelo proves that the same eternal vigilance that has kept the press free :hrough the years is required to safeguard freedom Df the air. Dr. Barcelo, former president of the Porto Rican ;enate, was refused the right to broadcast a speech m Porto Rican independence. Although this subject has been discussed freely for years in the newspapers and an official appeal for independence once A'as carried by Colonel Lindbergh from the island to President Coolidge, station WMCA and the Columbia broadcasting system refused to carry his talk on he ground that it violated "the principle of the federal radio commission.” The national council on freedom from censorship protested to the radio commission, and was told oy Secretary James W. Baldwin that the federal body had no power of censorship over programs and that its only "principle” was “the public interest, convenience and necessity.” According to Professor Hatcher Hughes, chairman of the national council, cases are numerous in which stations and the commission evade responsibility for censorship, but nevertheless continue to impose censorship. Next month an amendment will be offered to the radio act aimed at ending this indirect censorship and giving the air the same immunities and responsibilities now attached to the press. It should carry. Rats four feet long have been found along the Amazon. Just the place for some of those South American cheese champions. The “perfect stenographer” says a powder puff is as important to a woman’s success as a typewriter. Yes, it helps her click.

Just Every Day Sense Bl’ MRS. WALTER FERGUSON

IN AN article that strives to destroy the Washington Siren myth which is printed in the current Scribner's, Anne Hard assures us that women have very little, if any, personal influence so far as changing political opinion is concerned. She denies, in short, that our leaders in the national capital are likely to trade their votes for the smiles of any lovely lady lobbyist. I suspect that it is not only at Washington that the men are so hard-hearted. A good deal of the talk about persuading men to desert a principle or to change their stand on the city council because of the fascinations of some designing dame is largely bunk, and always has been. Women, it is true, have nurtured this pretty thought, since it left them sitting in such a flattering spotlight and endowed them with the power they do not posses. From it came that long-lived and ridiculous propaganda about the “Power Behind the Throne.” That, as you know, was supposed to be a feminine monopoly. tt a tt EVERYTHING we got, too, we had to acquire with our school girl complexions, our fair forms, and our gracious manners. Romancers pictured the men falling before these concerted charms of ours in droves. Yet the author of “The Sirens of Washington” probably is correct in all her theories. I have no doubt that not one of all these men who rule the destinies of the nation but would prefer his party favors to those of any lady. The bitter truth is that we have far less influence on men everywhere than we fondly imagine. Yet of that we should be glad, because this old idea did not give us a very exact picture of women and rather a distorted one of men. It left us without honesty and them without principle. It denied us the possession of candor and stripped us of the garments of common decency, exposing us as rather unpleasant frrnids. For if we used admiration or f*ve merely for the purpose of diverting men from the“r true convictions, then we were unworthy of their respect and friendship.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E. Tracy SAYS:

Now a Submarine Builder Proposes to Walk Down a Spiral Stairway to the Very Deck of the Lustitania! NEW YORK, Nov. 28.—0f course you have read about Simon Lake's plan to visit the wreck of the Lusitania, take photographs of the main dining saloon and salvage | some of the treasures and trinkets that have lain submerged for sixteen years. What wouldn't you give to participate in the adventure, or, at all ; events, be present. Salvage is an old, old trade, but an exploit like this comes only once in a blue moon. A World war was required to make it possible, as well as such apparatus as only modem science can produce. tt tt tt Sunken Millions IT’S a far cry from that day when a naked diver came back to tell Sir William Phipps that he had “seen great guns down there,” and when, after infinite labor, thir-ty-two tons of encrusted silver had been lifted from the wreck of a Spanish galleon sunk decades before, but the treasure hunt, especially at the bottom of the sea, remains the same old fascinating adventure. Over off the coast of France, an Italian firm has been at work on the wreck of the Egypt. 400 feet down, b’asting through deck after deck, ripping off steel plate by twentyfoot strips, all because there is known to be $5,000,000 in gold in her strong room. tt tt a Dreadnaught Floated • JN Scapa Flow, even greater A operations have taken place, with thirty ships which once belonged to th German navy and which were scuttled by their crews after surrender, already brought to the surface, among them the 28,000-ton dreadnaught Hindenburg, largest vessel ever to be raised. We haven’t heard so much about this enterprise, chiefly because it centered around junk, instead of treasure. Somehow, it doesn’t seem quite the same thing to raise a ship for scrap iron that it does for gold, though it may take more skill.

A Half Mile 'Down’ WHETHER in the form of scrap iron, gold, or pearls, and whether put there as a result of human cussedness, or natural force, treasure at the bottom of the sea has lured men since the dawn of consciousness, causing them not only to take great risks but to make great improvements. Beebe has been down half a mile in his hollow steel ball designed to withstand the enormous pressure, and now Lake, inventor and builder of submarines, proposes to walk down a spiral stairway enclosed in a five-foot steel tube to the very deck of the Lusitania. At the lower end of this tube there will be a steel room, eight feet wide, eight feet high and twelve feet long, which can be converted into an air-lock, and from which divers can go out into the water, but which will not be under pressure at other times. Lake says that he expects to enjoy a smoke in that room, and to experience no more discomfort than he would at the surface. * n Romance in Achievement SUCH performances seem quite out of line with the diving traditions on which us older folks were brought up, and which included little but a rubber suit, brass helmet, air hose and pump. Some will have it that romance has been driven out of another field, and sigh for those “good old days,” when a diver took his life in his hands every time he went down 100 feet or more. But the important point is that we are able to do things we couldn’t do before, and that there is always romance in achievement. Indeed, there isn’t much romance in anything else, \vhen you come to think about it. Whether in diving, war, banking or raising flowers, men get their greatest kick out of doing something new, something different, something better.

m today -V IS THE- W 7 WORLD WAR \ ADVERSARY

REVEAL SECRET PACT November 28

ON Nov. 28, 1917, the text of an alleged secret treaty between France, Great Britain, Russia and Italy was given out at Petrograd. The “agreement” sanctioned the annexation by Italy of certain territory in return for entering the entente alliance. The “agreement” also engaged to brand as inadmissible the intervention of Pope Benedict with a view to stopping the war. The document was said to have been signed in London April 26, 1915, by Sir Edward (later Viscount) Grey, former foreign secretary; Paul Cambon, French ambassador to Great Britain, and Count Benckendorff, Russian ambassador to Great Britain. It was also said to contain a memorandum from the Italian ambassador at London to the foreign office and the allied ambassadors. According to the Bolshevist revelations. Italy was to have the assistance of the French and British naval forces until the Austrian navy was destroyed. After peace Italy was to receive Trentino, Southern Tyrol to the Brenner Pass, Trieste, Istria, and Dalmatia, with additional geographical boundaries outlined in great detail. What are the birthplaces and ancestry of Mary Pickford and Pola Negri? Mary Pickford was bom in Toronto, Canada, of an English father and an Irish mother. Pola Negri was born in Poland, her mother being Polish and her father a gypsy. When was “Tom Brown's Schooldays” published? In 1857.

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE Infants Are Not Born Tuberculous

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American iMedical Association and of Hygeia, the Health Magazine. AN infant is practically never born tuberculous. As stated by Sir Robert Phillip, one of the greatest British authorities on this disease, the old belief that certain children come into the world with the seed£ of tuberculosis is a fairy tale. The sources of tuberculosis infection are widespread, because so many of our people have the disease. The child may not come into contact with it in its own family, but it goes early to school and is at the asme time associated with other children in motion picture houses, in play, and in other ways. There seems to be plenty of evi-

IT SEEMS TO ME ** SSS°

IN banning Ted Husing from all broadcasting privileges at the stadium, the Harvard Athletic Association announced that it would not permit the use of harsh phrases in connection with its own or visiting players.' But there was a fundamental flaw in the psychology of the university authorities. They failed to announce the logical corollary to this policy. I mean if overstringent criticism is to be banned, there should also be a prohibition of overpraise. From a purely football standpoint Ted Husing’s comment that Barry Wood’s passing was “putrid” well might have inspired the Crimson eleven to a fighting fury if the remark had gone unchallenged. But the morale of the team was undermined by those who loaded it too heavily with laurel wreaths before the Yale game. A good eleven became a great deal less than that in its critical encounter because incautious critics had called it great. ft u a Heavy Burden of Praise AND in particular the Harvard captain, Barry Wood, was rendered less than effective by being made the target for too much praise. He was pictured in the press and sometimes on the air as a sort of cross between young Shelley and Machiavelli. He was credited with practically a magical skill in tossing the ball. The legend grew that Wood could not lose and that he must prevail even at the eleventh hour. Asa result, a pleasant young man and skillful player became selfconscious in the Yale game and held his best attacking weapons until it was too late. He, too, had become imbued with the Barry Wood legend. The football writers made him a myth instead of a man. And so, instead of gambling in the early stages, he sat back and did not begin to ride until the finish line was past. I agree readily enough that youngsters in the colleges should not be held up to public scorn as stupid or incompetent. This tends to bruise the ego. But it is just as true that many football stars have been spoiled not only for the gridiron sport, but for any later

Views of Times Readers

Editor Times—Most people today wait for someone else either to tell them what to do or how to do for the good of themselves. It seems that they never think or act of themselves at all. For them to investigate individually anything that would be for their own interest seems to be clear out of reason, and of no good to them, although it may be for their own personal benefit. Take, for instance, the electric, gas and water bills. Would it not be a good idea for the individual now users of such commodities to learn how to read the meter and estimate his own bills, so as to compare it with the bill sent to him? I wonder how many do that? I wonder if they do all their bills that way? Maybe your light, gas and water bills are not as important as the others. The first thing you are going to. think when you read this, if you go, is what’s the use? Well, this is the use. To read the meter incorrectly by the person employed to do that work by the com-

The Wish Bone

dence that the majority of children, indeed as many as 75 per cent, are infected with tuberculosis by the time they are 14 years old. Fortunately, most children overcome the first infection, and therefore, their resistance being built up, they are not likely to develop a serious infection with the disease. On the other hand, some children, unable to overcome the first infection, develop tuberculosis of the bones and joints, of the glands, and even of the lungs and intestines. If, however, the first sign of infection is taken as a warning and the child is given every opportunity to build resistance by the use of open air. sunshine, proper rest and above all adequate nutrition, it is likely to overcome its attack.

utility, by being hailed as demigods. If you wrack your mind and try to tlunk of the bygone luminaries of football you will find few who have attained any particular fame in later life. They have been overburdened with greatness before they were ready to bear it. And I think this same practice holds true in regard to many other individuals. Indeed, it seems to me that the prevalent tradition about praise is precisely topsy-turvy. We have all heard that one should not praise children to their faces because it tends to make them conceited and undermines their character. But we have no such rule about adolescents or the younger adults. tt tt tt Catch Them Young NOW, it is my notion that the child should get more than an even break. He needs encouragement in every experimental effort which he makes. Under the age of 10 or 12, the protective mechanism which later insulates the ego a little has hardly begun to form. Everybody ought to get a start equipped with the firm belief that he is quite a person. Once his feet are well set in some ambitious undertaking, it is time enough to take a few pot-shots at him in the way of critical appraisal. I do not intend to suggest that all sensitivity disappears about the time the voice changes. But I do think that from 15 or 16 on there ought to be a certain balance in the comment of bystanders, parental or otherwise, concerning the individual. i You and I both have known a number of young novelists to go completely ga-ga because a middling good first novel had been received as if it were a work of sheer genius. And one of the reasons why many young actors and actresses never live up to their early promise is that they become a little blinded byhaving too many hats tossed into the air just in front of their eyr> One of the most famous laboi/tory cases along Broadway concerns a leading man who was nominated by a critic as one of the truly great on the strength of his first Broadway appearance. Asa sequel, the youngster went to a sanitarium. By and by he recovered his nervous

pany is a fraud, and he is liable as well as the company. Corporations are liable for their officers, agents, and servants, substantially as the master is liable for his servant while engaged in the master’s business. In this connection, the manager of the corporation is practically the corporation, the whole of the corporate duties being vested in him. I read my meter and know just what my bill will be before it comes. Kindly' take care of yourself once, and not rely on somebody else to do what you should do. There is a lot more to do than just to make money. Find out if you can who is getting it and why. READER. Has the United States supreme ever made a decision on the question of whether the purchaser of liquor is guilty of violating the prohibition law? The supreme court unanimously decided on May 26, 1930, that purchasers are not guilty, in an opinion handed down by Justice Sutherland.

Thus far scientific medicine has developed no means of preventive inoculation against tuberculosis that is safe and certain. Possibly the method now being developed by Calmette, involving the inoculation of living tuberculous germs that have been rendered nonvirulent eventually may be made safe and satisfactory. Until suen time as a preventive inoculation is available, however, our best means of protection include the building of proper resistance through suitable hygiene, the guarding of the chill against massive infection from other members of its family or from its immediate surroundings. and particularly the feeding to children of milk from cows that are free of tuberculosis.

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 naper.—The Editor.

poise, but he was never half as good after being addled by to much adulation. tt tt tt Reviewers and Evening Up I THINK this is a fact which sometimes is forgotten in the campaign to urge dramatic reviewers to a greater friendliness toward current attractions. I hold, as I have said before, that many critics are deficient in a real capacity for enjoyment. But most of their sins of underestimate are balanced, or rather accentuated, by incautious flights into overpraise. In baseball certain umpires carry on a practice called “evening up.” If the man behind the plate recognizes the fact that he has called a legitimate delivery a “ball” he is likely to be overlenient on the next pitch and shout “Strike!” for anything that comes within a foot of the plate. But this kind of approximate justice is not good either in baseball or the theater. Every pitch ought to be called on its own merits. It is unfortunate when good work is neglected or attacked. But it may be even more tragic to identify the pretty good as magnificent. After all, one of the factors which block the path of the truly talented is the mass mediocrity which lies ahead of them in the path up to the summit. It is not within my ambition to have a football-playing son. However, if he chanced to fool me, I probably would become indignant were any radio broadcaster to call his punting, his passing, his tackling or anything else by so stark a word as “putrid.” But if I were able to divorce my emotions from the proceedings I would be equally perturbed if the label of greatness were pasted upon him without due warrant. I believe I could be somewhat dispassioate. Certainly I have great interest in what people say about me. And it distresses me if any reader writes and condemns a column which seemed to me good. But I am just about as acutely uncomfortable when something which I know is poor has the misfortune to bring me a compliment. As Lincoln didn't quite say, you can fool some of the people all the time, but never yourself.

The Movies If you are interested in the movies—as most people are—then you will enjoy reading and keeping for reference, a packet of five bulletins on the subject that our Washington bureau has ready for you. They are: 1. Directory of Motion Picure Stars 2. Popular Men of the Screen 3. Popular Women of the Screen 4. Picture and Radio Stars 5. The History of Motion Pictures If you want this packet of five bulletins, fill out the coupon below and mail as directed: CLIP COUPON HERE Department B-15, Washington Bureau, The Indianapolis Times, 1322 New York avenue. Washington, D. C. I want the packet of five bulletins on MOTION PICTURES and inclose herewith 15 cents in coin or loose uncanceled United States postage stamps to cover return postage and handling costs. Name Street and Number City st|te I am a reader of The Indianapolis Times. | (Code No.)

.NOV. 2R, 1931

SCIENCE BY DAVID DIETZ

Fifty Million Tons of New Metal Were Produced in the United States in a smglc Year. HOW important alloys, as mixtures of two or more metals are called, has become to modem civilization. is pointed out by Dr. Zay Jeffries, noted metallurgist, who calls attention to the fact that about 5,000 of them are used today, “There are more than 5,000 varieties of metals used industrially," says Dr. Jeffries, who is consulting metallurgist of the General Electric Company and the Aluminum Company of America. “Os this great number, only about twenty-five are pure metals of elemental substances and the others are mixtures, called alloys. “The principal elemental metals, in the order of tonnage production are iron, copper, lead, zinc, aluminum, tin and nickel. “Steel, the most important alloy in the world, is in its simplest form a malleable alloy of iron and carbon. “The so-called alloy steels contain one or more elements in important amounts in addition to carbon. Iron and steel are classed as •ferrous metals’ from the Latin word ‘ferrum.’ The other metals are. as a group, called ‘nonferrous.’ “Brass, the mast important nonferrous alloy, is essentially a mixture of copper and zinc. Duralumin, used in the construction of Zeppelins and other aircrait, contains about 94 per cent of aluminum.”

Consumption Huge THE annual consumption of metals in the United States runs into millions of tons. “In addition to large quantities of scrap metal recovered, the new metal produced in the United States in 1929 was about 50,000,000 tons,” Dr. Jeffries says. “The new iron production is largely in the form of pig iron which is used both in the manufacture of cast iron and steel. Os the total new metal production, pig iron was about 93 per cent, and all other metals only 7 per cent. “It is an astounding fact that we now use pig iron at such a rate that the entire United States production for the year 1830. 100 years ago, would be consumed in one and a half days. “The nonferrous metal production has increased in similar proportion. In fact, of the seven principal metals, two, aluminum and nickel, were of no industrial importance a century ago. “The history of the rapid expansion in the use of metals is as romantic in its way as the history of gold. The demands of the railroads, both for rails and rolling stock in the middle of the last century, put a premium on the inventive ingenuity of the metallurgist. “He responded by the development of the Bessemer and open hearth processes for making steel of high quality, in unlimited quantity and at low cost.”

Steel Made Speedily IRON ore first comes from the blast furnace in the form of “pig iron.” This is really an alloy of iron, carbon and silicon. It is brittle and weak. Industrial demands make it necessary to change it into tougher forms. The old processes of making wrought iron or steel from pig iron were both slow and expensive. But the Bessemer process ushered in anew day. “The Bessemer process converts pig iron to steel by blowing air through the liquid alloy and burning the carbon and silicon, the whole operation consuming but a few minutes,” says Dr. Jeffries. “The operation of a Bessemer converter is still a spectacle in the steel plant, especially at night. The open hearth furnace, at a white heat, makes the conversion from pig iron to steel in a few hours by adding iron ore to eliminate most of the carbon and silicon. “The refined steel then is poured into large ingots, which, when hot, are reduced to commercial sizes and shapes in large rolling mills and presses or hammers. One of these large hammers is the equivalent of the old-fashioned blacksmith magnified one thousand times. “Cheap steel thus made available in nearly any shape or size solved the problem of railroad expansion and then became the foundation of a great building industry, a great pipe and tubing industry and eventually revolutionized bridge and ship construction. “Later the automobile provided a great demand for many metal products, but especially stimulated the development of alloy steels. “Similarly, the .electrical industry was built around copper, and now the aircraft industry is being built around aluminum. “All industries, however, use directly or indirectly practically all of the metals and alloys available.”

Daily Thought

He taught me also, and said unto me. Let thine heart retain my words; keep my commandments, and live.—Proverbs 4:4. Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain.—Goldsmith.