Indianapolis Times, Volume 43, Number 201, Indianapolis, Marion County, 31 December 1931 — Page 4

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S c * t P * J - M OW AMD

An Explanation Needed Sometime next, year the state tax board should explain to the people of Indianapolis the method by ■which it fixed the value of the new power plant of the local electric monopoly at $1,150,000 for taxation purposes. To the stockholders who purchased the securities by which it was built, the company gave the information that the plant is worth or cost approximately $12,000,000. In any valuation for rate purposes, it is probable that the company will argue before the public service commission that it is worth even more than this. The assessor fixed the value for taxes at $8,000,000 and the county board reduced that figure to $5,000,000. Now comes the big slash by the state tax board, which insists that it is the last hope of the little taxpayer, and $3,850,000 Is chopped from that figure. In the meantime, owners of small homes, owners of rental property, owners of small businesses are taxed on a much larger proportion of their investment than is represented by this figure. In many cases the valuations are higher than can be obtained if the owner wishes to sell. Certainly these taxpayers would like to know how the light company figure was reached. They have been told so often that the state tax board is their protector. They know that when they wish to hire a policeman or a school teacher, the board restrains them from any extravagance. They also know that every dollar saved for the power company must be paid by other people. So perhaps the board will tell them why the big cut was made. The county assessor does not know. The county board members thought they were just when they placed the $5,000,000 valuation. Can it be that the board is really trying to justify the suspicions of those who have doubted its protective nature and believed that it is really the last defense of corporate greed?

Relief or Starvation The question of fighting starvation with federal money has emerged in the last three days from the realm of emotion and prejudice to a place where it can be studied in the light of exact fact and expert opinion. The senate manufacturers’ committee has questioned eleven leading social workers on the extent of destitution, the local resources available, and the need for federal aid. Not one of the eleven can see any way of getting through the coming winter without federal aid, though many of them expressed this opinion reluctantly. Their own words tell the story: “This is the most serious human problem we ever have faced,” said William Hodson, executive director of the welfare council of New York City. “The specter of starvation faces millions who have never known before what it was to be up against it.” “People can starve a long time without dying, and that is what they are doing now, on the inadequate relief we can give,” said J. Prentice Murphy, executive director of the children’s bureau of Philadelphia. “We estimate there are 3,300,000 families in this country dependent on relief at the present time,’ aid Samuel A. Goldsmith, executive director of Jewish charities of Chicago. “To keep them alive we need $55,000,000 a month, or between $600,000,000 and 300,000,000 for the year.” “We found one school where 99 per cent of the children were 10 per cent or more under weight,” said Clarence E. Pickett of the American Friends service committee. “From all parts of the country come reports of serious impairment of public health, due to malnutrition,” said Linton V. Swift, executive secretary of the Family Welfare Association of America. And w hat money is available to meet this appalling condition, calling for expenditure of from $600,000,000 to $800,000,000? “The 400 Community Chest drives all over the country will, if successful, provide only $35,000,000 for direct relief of the unemployed,” Allen T. Burns, executive director of the Association of Community Chests and Councils, testified. “Surveying forty-one relief agencies in a large number of states in the last few weeks, we found they need $26,400,000 to give the same relief they have given in 1931, and they have in sight only $16,600,000,” Swift reported. “All our money will be gone by Feb. 15,” said Goldsmith of Chicago. “If we get funds from the state, we still will be $10,000,000 short.” From Jacob Billikopf, executive director of theFederation of Jewish Charities of Philadelphia: “All the city’s money will be gone by May 1. Money we might receive from the state would last only until July.” ; Only New York City reported that it could keep its people from starving to death, but not from starving. And what is to be done? Witness after witness told of real estate confiscated for tax delinquencies, and the accompanying failure of local tax funds, of borrowing capacities reached, of bonds that can not be sold. “Federal relief decidedly will most be needed, said Burns, one of Hoover’s advisers. “Responsibility for indigency is primarily a government function, first local government, then state, then federal, when other means fail,” said Frank Bane, until recently of the President’s unemployment committee. “Numerous localities will have to have outside aid.” “Your bills (one proposing $250,000,000, the other $375,000,000 appropriation) are very conservative. These are the minimum amounts for federal help," said Billikopf. “Those who do not favor federal aid.” said Karl De Schweinitz, executive director of the Community Council of Philadelphia, “must show where else the money is coming from.” Japan Outlaws Herself The Japanese army, in violation of various treaties, including certain ones to which the United States is a signatory, is marching on Ghinchow. Secretary of State Stimson has gone off on a shooting holiday. And the state department, lacking a definite policy, refuses to act or comment on the Manchurian crisis. Rarely, if ever, has the foreign policy of the United States been so bankrupt as today. Japan’s betrayal of the (American) nine-power treaty guaranteeing the territorial and administrative integrity of China, and Japan’s betrayal of the (American) Kellogg anti-war pact, can not be justified. But at least it can be understood, considering the militarists in power. But America’s betrayal of the treaties can not be understood. Our government has betrayed the treaties. It is a betrayal to refuse—as our government has refused —to invoke those treaties against a violator. Never since Sept. 18, when Japan began her

The Indianapolis Times IA HCBIFFg-ifOWARD NEWSPAPER) m^. L ' 1 w. hed , da , n L <except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Cos. 214-220 West Maryland Street, Indianapolis, Ind. Price in Marion County, 2 cents a copy; elsewhere. 8 cents—delivered by carrier. 12 cents a week. Mail subscript tion rates In Indiana. $3 a year; ontside of Indiany 66 cent* a month. b °xd_ourZey; rot~w7howlHs; EARL D. BAKER, ‘ Editor President Business Manager PHONE— 6681 THURSDAY, Dee. 1, mi. Member of United Press. Scrlpps-Howard Newspaper Alliance. Newspaper Enterprise Assoelation. Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations. “Give Light and the People WiU Find Their Own Way.”

treaty violations, has the United States, as a signatory of those agreements, directly or openly charged Japan with guilt. And when the League of Nations council Issued a time ultimatum to Japan in defense of American treaties, our government—by refusing m co-operate—in effect Invited Japan to defy the ultimatum. If the United States government had been in league with the Japanese militarists to seize Manchuria and destroy the American treaties, the result could not have been more disastrous. Os course, our government had no such motive. But regardless of motive, in fact its cowardly secret diplomacy has played into the hands of the Japanese militarists from the beginning. This is not a case of hindsight being better than foresight. Ever since the Sept. 18 invasion, supporters of the treaties have pointed out that the state department’s do-nothing policy was encouraging Japan to destroy the world’s peace machinery. Now that the Hoover-Stimson policy has failed so completely; now that Japanese militarists are masters of Manchuria; now that the United States has advertised to the world that it will not co-operate with other neutral nations to restrain a treaty outlaw; the least our government can do is to withdraw its ambassador from Japan in protest. The United States does not run the world. The United States can not and should not seek to dominate Japan or any other nation. The United States should not intrude in local foreign disputes which do not concern it. But the United States should keep faith with its own treaties. So long as Japan persists in violating its treaty agreements with the United States, this government should withhold from Japan the friendly diplomatic relations accorded to law-abiding nations. The choice is not ours, but Japan’s. If she outlaws herself, let her be treated as an outlaw.

Glass in the Street You can not drive far in Indianapolis without finding broken glass in the street, fallen from colliding automobiles. Sometimes it is bloody glass. If there is one place where it will be found more than another, it is at the intersection of broad and smooth streets, where there is more than enough room for automobiles to avoid each other, if drivers were careful, considerate, and not impatient. In an incredibly short time, as history is measured, the automobile has been perfected. Its marvelous mechanism will do everything that needs to be done for comfort and safety. The task still is before us of perfecting the driver, so that he will not want this mechanism to do anything that is not comfortable and safe for himself and others. It can be done. Man, who has taken inanimate materials and subjected them to his will, will not find it difficult to bring his own live body under complete control. The best way to accomplish this job of matching the perfect automobile with the perfect driver is for each one of us to perfect himself. Let us each resolve that tomorrow we shall not make a single reckless, inconsiderate, or impatient move with our automobile. The possibility of perfection is a challenge to us all. Aliens Have Rights, Too The federal court of appeals has put an end to an indefensible attack upon the liberties of aliens in Michigan, by declaring unconstitutional its alien registration law. Until recently this would have been called an unAmerican attack upon the liberties of aliens, but America to an increasing extent has come to represent anything but liberty for those from other lands. The alien registration law was passed in Michigan after its backers had failed consistently to secure support for it in congress. It would have put thousands of persons under new bondage to bureaucracy, making them liable to prosecution under a whole new set of restrictions. Once its principle had been accepted for aliens, the next step in the same direction might have been registration and police cards for all citizens. If Michigan takes its discredited law to the supreme court it probably will meet with disapproval there also. Indians won damages from New York state for ands they were cheated out of. And farmers are crying to collect financial relief for the lands they ire unfortunate enough to own. A Chicago man was jailed the other day for failure to pay alimony to his ninth wife. What is that old line about “the woman pays and pays”? It remains hard for some of us to understand why the word is not spelled “pullitician.” ! Just Every Day Sense BY MRS WALTER FERGUSON FROM scattered reports we learn that the folks in the Bible Belt are a bit curious about the elegant West Pointer on dress parade at the CulbertsonLenz bout now taking place at the Chatham hotel, New York. This erect soldier, fully caparisoned in all the trappings of a cavalry trooper, lends a decided martial tone to all the photographs of the ‘‘battle” that reach the hinterland. No doubt his duties are arduous and trying. When oily Ely shrieks at stolid Sidney that his “system” is in a tailspin, does the brave lieutenant execute a rapid flank movement and order an armistice? It is true that the atmosphere in the proceedings is hostile. Indeed, it calls for battalions and legions, for marines and dragoons. All credit then, say we, to the solitary provost marshal who preserves order there—and prevents any blood letting. Like Wild Bill Hickok at Abilene, as officer of the day, ho threatens by his ominous presence kitchen police for the transgressor of orders and rules. And if he manages to conduct 150 rubbers of contract without the spilling of gore, he should be decorated with the Congressional medal. * n n NEVERTHELESS, all this leads the ignorant proletariat to wonder whether the lieutenant has nothing to do up at West Point. Taxes are a little stiff out our way and the army appropriations lead all the rest. We realize that we must have a certain amount of this “squads right” stuff and perchance some target practice, but it is not quite clear why we should be paying for half backs, saxophone players and bridge referees, and further the wonder grows about the farflung use of “smiling lieutenants” to act as gigolos for plump matrons of the official circle whose husbands no longer dance. The embittered two-bit wheat farmer is speculating as to whether bridge is a part of the currriculum at West Point, and how many hours of it are required for a commission. Will the United State army be able to utilize a “no trump” bid during the next .wjttZ

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E. Tracy SAYS:

Without Falling Back on the Ridiculous Policy of *Splendid'■ Isolation,’ We Should Devote Next Year to Our Own Problems. By United Prtte NEW YORK, Dec. 30.—The year comes to a close with much unfin - lshed business on hand. There is the debt conference for January and the disarmament conference for February. Congress has yet to approve a tax plan and shape a relief program. The Seabury investigation grinds merrily on, with plenty of work ahead, despite the enormous amount of crookedness it has already unearthed. Prophet Gandhi warns India to prepare for starting the row all over again, and though Japan appears to have cleaned the Chinese out of Manchuria, it is reported that Washington intends to continue opposing her campaign. * m Suppose Europe Balks SENATOR JOHNSON advises Europe and the White House that American debts must net be tampered with. Assuming that the White House will give him no trouble in this matter just what would he do if Europe proved recalcitrant? It is said that France and England have reached a tentative agreement for extending the moratorium on German reparations. Some people have taken this to mean that they intend to ask an extension of it with regard to American debts. Suppose they do and merely default on payments in case of our refusal to accede? Whose turn would it be to move next, and what kind of a move would it be? 0 0 0 More Antagonism IT’S always easier to start a row than to finish it. Europe needed only four days to get into war, but it took her four years to get out of it. We are in a position to drive the civilized world into wholesale debt repudiation, but oughtn’t we to think twice before doing so? We already have lost much foreign trade by overplaying the tariff game, and it won’t take a whole lot. more of such nonsense to develop a real anti-American coalition. Let’s Not Be Cocky THERE are those who think we could whip the whole world, whether with doughboys or dollars. Back in 1914 the kaiser had a similar delusion regarding Germany’s prowess, and see what happened. Why take in so much territory when it isn’t necessary? 000 Jobs Come First IT would be just as well for all concerned if we saved more of our heat and indignation for home consumption. We need several billion dollars with which to make work for several million people. Can we hope to get it by quarreling with European governments over $250,000,000 a year? Further than that, we need a general housecleaning, not only because of political corruption, but because of crime conditions. Even the most conservative estimates place a money value on our annual losses through crime at ten or fifteen times the amount Europe would pay us if the debt settlements were faithfully observed. 000 Morals and Money WITHOUT playing ostrich in any sense of the word, or falling back on the ridiculous doctrine of “splendid isolation,” we should devote next year to our own problems. The restoration of prosperity is linked definitely to the restoration of good order and common honesty. How can our people hope for better times with all the misconduct in public office, all the lawlessness, all the mismanagement of finance, all the crookedness and corruption. No matter what the cause, our record of law observance and lawenforcemmt is disgraceful. The task we face includes morals, as well as money.

People’s Voice

Editor Times —I wish to commend your paper upon the editorials for a reduction of utility rates for the city of Indianapolis. I wonder why the other daily papers in the city do not fall in line and assist in the movement, but they seem to have no interest in the matter. The people are being gouged and robbed by the utilities and forced to pay rates for service altogether out of reason, especially during these hard times. The negotiations now going on undoubtedly will result in some reduction in rates, but I fear not enough to give satisfactory relief. The only fair basis for rates would be a revaluation of the property of the utilities on the present cost of material and construction. Why should the water company be permitted to charge a minimum of $1.50 a month whether a family uses a drop of water or not? This charge gives a poor family no chance to economize and save on its water bill. The company only installs the service to the property line and the consumer must pay for the extension into the house. The installation of a meter certainly should not entitle the company to $1.50 a month. The people receive no concessions from the company for the use of the streets for the laying of its mains, but the city is compelled to pay the peak rate for fire plugs and other service. The public service commission, it seems, has played into the hands of the public utilities ever since it was established and against the interests of the people, who can expect no relief from that source. This is a serious condition and the slogan for the next campaign should be “abolish the public service commission.” Every city in the state should have the right to negotiate for a contract or franchise with the utility companies and obtain the best terms possible in the way of rates and concessions. That is the only real solution to the problem. By the way, what has become of the “Home Rule Movement” for the city of Indianapolis? The people voted for it overwhelmingly. A city of this size should have absolute control over its own affairs, without interference from state bureaus or C. E. R

He’s Forgotten an Old, Old Lesson

* ■■ ■ - - . J \\oo -R.O.eeßfeA 1

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE Anti-toxin Combats Scarlet Fever

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hyeeia, the . Health Magazine. IN some scarlet fever epidemics the condition is so serious that a considerable number of those who are infected die. In most epidemics, however, the disease is relatively non-fatal. In the United States an average of about 2 per cent of those who have the disease during epidemics die of either the disease or the complications. During 1926 and 1927, approximately 2.5 people out of every 100,000 population died of scaret fever. The person who has scarlet fever should be confined at home or in the hospital and should be kept from contact with others except those who are responsible for the care of the sick. Those who have been in contact with the disease should be quarantined for at least seven days after their contact with the case in order

IT SEEMS TO ME <** h ™od

AFTER each Christmas we are likely to read in our favorite newspaper, “Preachers Implore Americans to Turn Away From Materialism.” It seems to me very bad counsel. I never knew a better time for the growth of a widespread and intelligent materialism. But it might be well to define terms in the beginning. Most of us get into the habit o? antithesis, and we think no one can be spiritually and materially inclined at the same time, which is all nonsense. Moreover, every time I defend some individual right, or even whim, I am told that I can’t be socially minded. And I don’t believe that, either. It is not necessary to make a robot world to bring about co-operative commonwealth. I suppose that the familiar saying, “Man does not live by bread alone,” has been twisted a little more than any other sentence in our language. People often seem to believe that it reads, “Man does not live by bread at all.” And that is a different proposition. tt u u The Very Necessary Roof TO my mind, it is far more important that Russia has improved housing than that it has destroyed churches. I am not irreligious, but certainly I would not want to see another brick employed in the building of cathedral, church or chapel as long as man goes hungry and without shelter. Gravely do I doubt that organized Christianity has a firm hold on spiritual fundamentals when I read that Gandhi may not be received because he wears a loincloth. That same ruling would bar John the Baptist and some others whom the church delights to reverence in its prayers. As far as bread goes, I like it best when twinned with circuses. I mean that a complete individual, like a complete society, demands security and excitement. This requires a delicate adjustment. The most carefully considered economic program in the world will not of itself solve all the problems of mankind. But certainly a tremendous start will have been made in that direction when the fear of privation has been lifted from the minds of us all. Though .some have romanticized about it, going hungry does not fall within the realm of pleasurable adventures. n u a Answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ IT is a great pity popular psychology demands that all opinion be reduced to such meaningless words as “yes” and “no.” Anybody who ever has been in a courtroom must realize that the truth generally is distorted when it is restricted to simple affirmation or deniaL I am thinking of that question which will be increasingly pressed upon every land and every individual, “Are you for or against Russia?” The Communists in particular .hold to the formula that “he who

to determine whether or not they have been infected. Formerly scarlet fever was treated merely by putting the patient to bed and giving him the best type of nursing care. Nowadays a specific remedy has been developed in the form of antitoxin, which is used in cases that are severe or that tend to develop complications. In very severe cases it is customary to administer by injection the serum from the blood of the person who has recently recovered from the disease. Drs. George F. and Gladys Henry Dick have developed a test of the skin which determines whether or not a person is susceptible or likely to have the disease when exposed to it* If the person is found to be susceptible in time of epidemic, he may be immunized against the disease or given increased resistance to it by the injection of small doses of the toxin properly neutralized until resistance has developed.

is not with us is ag’in’ us.” And that formula also lacks the full force of scientific logic. ‘ And so for my part, I will answer by saying that I hope with my whole heart that Russia succeeds and that in succeeding it will broaden the base on which its impulse rests. I want to see an even more radical Russia—a Russia revolutionary to the point of abandoning all belief in coercion, either physical or mental. In the New York World-Telegram Saturday I read an article that said: “In spite of the great convulsions to which it has led, all the woe and suffering it has brought about, we still maintain blind and uncompromising faith in the existing system. The higher we happen to be in it, the more stubbornly we fight for its continuance. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but they only serve to reveal it more distinctly.” I beg to dissent. An exception never proves a rule. On the contrary, it contradicts it or at the very least demands its modification. After all, an exception is not a miracle. It is a logical event. I knew John Reed at Harvard, and he was a pleasant, mildly snobbish and conventionally collegiate young man. He became, before his death, a Communist idol and hero. According to the ideology of Russia, Reed deserted his class and was regenerated into true proletarianism. But, though his free will conversion is applauded by Communists, they seem to continue in the belief that nothing like it can ever happen again. They insist that the well-to-do

M TODAY a - > / f IS THE- Vs ' WORLD WAR A ANNIVERSARY

THIRD RAID ON PADUA December 31 ON Dec. 31, 1917, enemy airplanes made their third raid in four days on Padua, Italy, destroying the facade of the Padua cathedral and damaging the bascilica of the Santo and the municipal museum. Five persons were Injured. None were killed. In the two previous raids sixteen were killed and sixtythree were injured. French infantry, aided by British and Italian artillery and airplanes, successfully stormed Monte Tomba positions between Osteria di Monfenera and Maranzine. British forces occupied Beitin, El Baulua, El Burj, Janieh and Ras Kerker in Asia Minor. The British reached Kuleh on the coastal sector. In the negotiations at BrestLitovsk between the central powers and the Bolshevist government, a hitch occurred when the Germans refused to withdraw their troops from the occupied portions of Russia Which Wight inripncnriunrA.

During a time of epidemic it is well that all the children in the schools in which cases have occurred be examined regularly to determine the presence of sore throats or a beginning rash so that they may be removed early from contact with other children. It is not customary to close the schools, because the schools offer a place in which the children assem-* ble and where they can be seen regularly by the physician or by the school nurse—a form of examination that could not be made if the schools were closed and the children permitted to play about the streets, in the playgrounds, or in their homes, in contact with other children. Mothers owe a special duty to the community in preventing their children, in times of epidemic, from having contact with other children during any period when the child has a cold, sore throat, or a similar infection.

fn e^hi al l d i ° Dlnion expressed “ “J column are those of one of America's most interspnO.fi and are Dreapr!,pi I *' i * thout regard to their disagreement Jl'M* editorial attitude of this paper.—The Editor

and even the not-so-very-well-to-do will fight to the last drop of blood for the privilege of riding in a limousine or a second-hand Ford coupe. This theory is based on the false assumption that even a white collar is a sort of coronet. 0 0 0 Riding in the Same Boat IDO not expect people on breadlines to weep their eyes out when told that many members of the ruling class are having a pretty poor time of it and did even before the stock market crash. A man in the municipal lodging house may pardonably be somewhat insensitive to the woes of a suburbanite who watches his roof begin to sag under a second mortgage. But there is a common bond between all of them. Man is a reasonable animal, even though he tries hard to fight against the fact. Collectivism can come out of chaos without a single round of machine gun ammunition being fired. We have one foe, and one alone. Its name is fear, and it also goes under the aliases of pain and hunger, want and misery. Some day these things will be fought by a universal army. An American named Edward Bellamy said all this more than fifty years ago. The people of his age thought of him as an erratic and sentimental visionary. On a certain day he will be recognized as the greatest of our national prophets. (Copyright. 1931. bv The Times) Daily Thought And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.— Mark 15:37. Death is the gate of life.—Bailey.

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: b 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 Indianaoolis 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 , state I am a reader of The Indianapolis Times. (Code No.)

.DEC. 31,1931

SCIENCE BY DAVID DIETZ

Oriented Institute at Chicago University Seeks to Bridge Gap in Early History of Civilization. THE new Oriental Institute is “ laboratory devoted to man,” according to Dr. James Henry Breasted, its director. The institute recently dedicated upon the campus of the University of Chicago, is the largest archeological organization in the world, the new building serving as general headquarters for an army of twelve field expeditions on a 3,500-mile front extending from the Upper Nile Valley to Persia. The institute represents .e realization of a forty-year dream of Dr. Breasted’s. “It is interesting that we find no parallel to this building in any other university,” Dr. Breasted said, “and I mention this fact not by way of gratifying our own vanity but because it lays upon us a great and unique responsibility. “I have lived for more than forty years in daily realization of the need of such a building, and to me the natural question seems to be: ‘Why should science, which builds its laboratories to investigate the history of every other creature from the frog to the horse, never have created a laboratory for the investigation of early man, the most important of all creatures?’ “The investigations centering in this building make it a laboratory devoted to man, to his origins and the evolution of the civilization which we have inherited. The life going on in this building invites you to anew vision of the place of man in a universe out of which he has issued with new and soverign powers to understand something of that universe and his own place in it.” 000 Bridging the Gap DR. BREASTED explains why the work of the “Orientalist,” as he terms the student of the ancient history of the near east, is so important. “Between the paleontologist with his archaic savage on the one hand, and on the other the historian with his account of civilized Europe, stand we Orientals endeavoring to bridge the gap,” he says. “It is in that gap that man’s primitive . advance passed from merely physical evolution to an evolution of his soul, a social and spiritual development which divests evolution of its terrors. “We can bridge this chasm between the merely physical man and the ethical, intellectual man, only as we study the emergence and early history of the first great civilized societies in the ancient near east, for there still lies the evidence out of which we may recover the story of the origins and early advances of civilization, out of which European civilization and eventually our own came forth.” “It was in the near east that man developed the whole material basis of life, such as grain and cattle, wool and manufactured merchandise at a time when Europe was still primeval forest. In the thousand years between 3000 and 2000 B. C.. the merchants of Babylonia created the idea of credit which still binds together the great peoples of the world or leaves them helpless and disorganized when its cementing power breaks down as it now seems to have done.” 000 Business Documents THE Oriental Institute contains five great exhibition halls, devoted to Egypt, Asyria, Babylonia, Persia and Islam, and Palestine and the Hittites. “You can enter our Babylonian halls and see there masses of business documents, some of them reaching back to nearly 3000 B. C.,” Dr. Breasted says. “The commercial and social relations which produced them built up a body of business customs which became inviolable and_ gradually took shape in laws which long before 2000 B. C. were put together by the great Hammurabi, whose remarkable code you may see in replica in the Babylonian hall. “Thus the work of man’s hands in agriculture, cattle-breeding, manufactures, and building merged into more highly developed forms of human organization. Society gained classes and men of gifts gained leisure. “Through the obscuring veil of superstition men looked out upon a mysterious world which they longed to understand as we do today. “The demand to do so was at first a social summons, the need of human suffering, which called forth efforts at alleviation. “The oldest known treatise on surgery, which was written in Egypt nearly 5000 years ago, discloses to us the thoughts of the earliest man who reveals a scientific attitude of mind. “Less than a thousand years later the Egyptians were already writing mathematical treatises of astonishing penetration. They established a value for the area of the circle which differs less than two one-hundredths from the value current at the present day. This led to a formula for computing the area of the surface of a hemisphere, a method rediscovered by the Greeks 1300 years later.”