Indianapolis Times, Volume 43, Number 279, Indianapolis, Marion County, 31 March 1932 — Page 4

PAGE 4

St* / #>* J -HO** AM It

Mr. Hearst’s Sad Plight Opponents of a heavy income tax on great fortunes, led by Mr. William Randolph Hearst, multimillionaire newspaper publisher, are becoming overextravagant and overhyoterical in their arguments. Instead of impressing the people with their claims they arc in danger of making themselves ridiculous. This Is particularly true when Mr. Hearst tries to scare the millions of persons with small incomes into believing that the tax rates recently imposed by house insurgents are aimed at the little taxpayer. We quote from one of Mr. Hearst’s editorials: “'We have got to cut down on the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. “We will have to use the old automobile and wear the old suits. “We will have to relinquish those pretty things in the shops that we would like to have for ourselves and the family. “We will have to get along with the old house and postpone the painting job for another year or two. “We will have to patch up the old furniture and dispense with all luxuries and even comforts.” And why are all these dire things about to happen to the millionaires of the United States? Well, we quote the answer in Mr. Hearst’s own words: “Our star-spangled representatives at Washington arc not interested in diminishing unemployment. “They are only interested in increasing it.” All ot these iniquities and privations, so touchingly pictured by Mr. Hearst, grow out of the fact congress failed to pass the sales tax. The original tax program in congress, you will recall, called for a sales tax falling on all consumers in the United States —rich and poor alike —and for certain tightening up on exemptions to small taxpayers and certain modest increases in the rates paid by great taxpayers. Instead of adopting this plan, the house insurgents killed the tax and placed wartime rates on great incomes, running up to 65 per cent on incomes exceeding $5,000,000 a year. In brief, the big increases are on great incomes. So, presumably, it is Mr. Hearst and other wealthy men who face the prospect of wearing their old pants, driving their old car, letting the front porch go. unpainted, and the like. Some of them even may have to go with an old yacht and shut up one of their country estates. All of which is a very, very sad picture for the dear public, already grieving because it was not permitted to relieve this distressing condition by being permitted to pay a sales tax. Seriously, of course, nobody really thinks that our representatives in Washington are “only interested in increasing” unemployment. That would mean that they wanted to increase suffering and starvation. It would amount to treason against their own country. The charge is so extravagant that it is almost funny. Whether or not we agree with congress, at least its members are patriotic American citizens, most of whom are doing their level best according to their own lights to serve the government which they love. In killing the sales tax, the house did so on the ground that it imposed a disproportionate burden on the poor. For a man, be he rich or poor, can wear only a certain amount of clothing, use a certain amount of articles, eat a certain amount of food and enjoy a certain amount of entertainment. And this law forced the poor man to pay exactly the same tax for those things as it did the rich—violating the fundamental principle that taxes be imposed in proportion to the taxpayers’ ability to pay them. Therefore, the house restored the tax rates on large incomes that prevailed during another great crisis, the World war. That’s what all the shouting is about. Prohibition and the Deficit High moral ideals were not primarily responsible for putting over prohibition. The purposes were not so nobie as they were practical. Great industrialists believed that prohibition might accomplish two things which they desired: (1) It would bring the workers to the factories in the morning—especially Monday morning—sober, rested and capable of putting in a good day’s work; (2) it would insure sober workers, less likely to congregate with their fellows and discuss their wrongs in saloons, thus keeping the laboring class more docile and less likely to revolt. It was the vast financial support of the dry idealists and fanatics by such men which enabled the Anti-Saloon League and other dry groups to organize their unparalleled political propaganda and intimidation which made prohibition a fact in the constitutional and statute law of the United States. But these policies hardly could have been put over so rapidly and thoroughly had there not been a special psychological condition in our country. The World war supplied this. Prohibition was sneaked over under cover of the prevalent hysterical tendency of the people of the United States to save and sacrifice to defeat the kaiser. Prohibition was part and parcel of war idealism, as much as the freeing of repressed peoples, the sanctity of treaties, the battle for democracy, and the like. Prohibition has failed in its aims. It has not produced a dry country. It has debauched our liquor habits. It has led to an appalling increase of drinking among the young of the nation. It has provided fertile soil in which the racketeer has spawned. It has encouraged disrespect for law and order. It has led to most serious infractions of our hard-won liberties. Yet all these things did not suffice to produce any marked governmental revulsion against prohibition. They will not produce militant determination upon revision or repeal by our political leaders. If we get revision, it will be due to hard, practical economic realities which, in a different field, helped to put over prohibition. This time it is public rather than private business and finance which will play the decisive role. It is our federal deficit rather than the desire for private prosperity which furnishes the motive power. We face a $2,000,000,000 deficit in the federal budget. We know that we well might collect from $1,000.000,000 to $2,000,000,000 in additional taxes if we legalized the sale of liquor and collected a stiff excise tax from the sale of lawfully obtained beverages. The situation will do more to promote practical action than the most disheartening exposure of the * Noble Experiment,” or the most irrefutable logic devoted to the issues of liquor consumption. The current depression will supply the same sort of mass pressure which the World war exerted in leading to the enactment of prohibition. Our fear

The Indianapolis Times <A SCRirFS-HOWARD XKWSPAPER) Ownofl and pnbliahod dally (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Timea Publishing: Cos.. 2 H T.’O Wfst Maryland Street. Indianapolis, ind. Price in Marion County, 2 cents a copy; elsewhcrp, 2 rents—delivered by carrier, 12 cents a week. Mail subscription rates in Indiana. s.l a year; outside of Indiana. <55 cents a month. BOYD GURLEY. ROY W. HOWARD. EARL D. BAKER Editor President Business Manager PHONE—RHey 5561 _ THURSDAY. MARCH 31. 1932. Member of United Press, Bcrlppa-Howard Newspaper Alliance. Newspaper Enterprise Association, Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations. “Give Litfht and the People Will Find Their Own Way.”

of crushing direct taxation, our anxiety about national solvency, and our hope of returning prosperity through repeal will impel the nation to take steps which never would have been possible in a period of prosperity and governmental surplus. All this is well covered in an excellent article on “Prohibition: Its Effect on Taxation,” by C. T. Revere in the Review of Reviews. He estimates that with a return to legalized liquor—not implying at all a return to the saloon—we might realize a federal revenue Os $1,000,554,899. If we applied the British tax rate and excise system, we should be able to raise between $2,500,000,000 and $3,000,000,000. We need not follow Mr. Revere in his ecstatic prediction that this also would result in rehabilitation of our railroads, the opening of our closed banks, the revival of manufacturing, and the coming of an unparalleled boom in prosperity. Our depression rests upon more fundamental issues than prohibition and a budget deficit. Yet it Is certain beyond peradventure that repeal enormously would relieve our federal financial pressure and allow a very considerable reduction of district taxation. That this would have beneficial economic results far beyond federal financial circles is obvious. Senseless Censorship In 19?0, despite Senator Smoot’s opposition, congress, under the leadership of Senator Cutting, modified the customs censorship by permitting juries to decide what books are fit to enter our uncontaminated land. Now Senator Cutting proposes to finish the job by taking arbitrary powers of censorship from the government. Few realize that the solicitor of the postoffice sits in absolute dictatorship over our reading matter. Fattened on seventy years of unchallenged authority, this otherwise obscure office in Washington is almost supreme in the realm of literature. The solicitor, on the slightest pretext, may exclude from the mails anything he regards “obscene’ or “seditious” or “fraudulent.” Recourse to the courts farely succeeds, since the sender must prove the postoffice to have misused its discretion grossly. Naturally such power vested in one individual often is abused absurdly. First information comes from the local postmaster, whose ideas on obscenity often lag a bit behind the march of science. For instance, an educational pamphlet used by the Y. M. C. A. and others on “The Sex Side of Life” passed freely through the mails for four years, only to be excluded as obscene in 1922. After its author was indicted, tried, and released as innocent by New York’s upper court, the book was readmitted. At one time a report of the Chicago vice commission, headed by Episcopal Dean Sumner, was excluded. While “Three Weeks’’ was being mailed, such scientific works as Melchow’s “Sexual Life,” Butler’s “Love and Its Affinities,” Sanger’s “History of Prostitution’ ’were being excluded. Circulars advertising the book “Rasputin” were barred in 1930, hut the book itself was admitted. Using the political clause, Mooney-Billings pamphlets were excluded as libelous to California, stickers protesting marine rule in Nicaragua were excluded as “false,” an attack on Mussolini was barred as embarrassing to Italy. Under Cutting’s bill, the postmaster must send all matter he believes illegal to the United States district attorney of the district where it was mailed, with the request that libel proceedings be instituted before a jury. The criminal penalty would be limited to matter deposited within five years after the prohibiting verdict. Open records of all excluded matter would be kept. And all non-mailable matter is defined clearly and paragraphed. If we must have censorship, let it be intelligent and orderly. The Cutting bill should be passed. All ten members of the supreme court of Albania were removed for “unprofessional conduct.” Slowly, but surely, American ideas and American customs are conquering the world. Style experts tell us that print fabrics are to be very fashionable this summer. That will get many a girl into print for the first time. A news item says women in Russia get the same wages as men. That’s nothing new. American wives have been doing that for years. And now Chicago presents a “crooner” murder. Well, Chicago has always been first along those lines. Most women don’t go by the newest fashions, an jxchange says. They go buy them! A coin dug up in Italy has been puzzling the experts. They can’t decide which is heads or tails.

Just Every Day Sense BE MRS. WALTER FERGUSON

A CAPTAIN in the aviation corps argues that while we spend $90,000,000 for battleships, we might invest $1,000,000 in aircraft that could sink the entire United States navy. Then he spoils his argument for me with the usual military swagger, when he adds, "America must be supreme in the air! And the American public will have to do its part to see that such a thing is possible.” This may be a normal ambition, but it is not based on common sense or intelligent thought. Why should America be supreme in the air, on the sea, on the land, or anywhere else, for that matter? It would be sane and sensible for us to try to keep peace with the rest of the world, but the consuming ambition to be first in power has been the downfall of many a man and many a nation. It is the ultimate mental disaster—this longing to exceed in strength the bruite force. If we should strive for superiority in learning and wisdom and righteousness, that would be a different matter entirely. * # a BUT the truth is that most people who shout for American might in arms are those who honestly believe that we already have attained command of all the spiritual excellencies. Point out to them our national faults as well as our virtues, and you will get a look that shouts “Traitor.” Yet surely one of the relics of barbarism now in our midst is our present system of military training in the schools. And a large share of the pap that feeds this system is the propaganda about American supremacy in the qualities of the mailed fist. It is nothing at all to our credit as an educated and a self-extolled peace loving people, that whereas one school had military training a century ago, 200 schools now use it. This, at least, is the proud boast of the militarists. It’s high time we were awake to such a menace. Every country has its junkers who scream for “national supremacy.” When enough voices join the chorus, that nation is doomed.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E. Tracy Says:

Prices Are Down Where We Could Rebuild Our Foreign Trade, but the Tariff Stands in the Way. NEW YORK, March 31.—Constant use of the ’ word “depression- ’ has led people to think of recovery as a return to 1928 conditions. The thought has done much to prevent readjustments that were not only wise, but inescapable. Private business has engaged in a futile struggle to retain, or restore prices. Public business has been conducted with the idea that routine expenditures could be maintained ; because the slump in revenue was j temporary. During the last two years, most of us have clung to the hope that a few weeks, or a few months would see us back where we were. The time has come to discard that sort of rubbish. We are not in a hole between two solid levels. We have fallen off a sand pile. Bad as conditions are right now they are nearer normal with respect to prices and values than were those preceding the crash. tt tt tt Tariff a Blight THE United States was hopelessly out of line with the rest of the world in 1928. Business and industrial leaders were logical in demanding protection against foreign competition. Without an excessively high tariff, this country would have been flooded with foreign goods. Instead of adopting such a tariff, we should have lowered our price levels, but human nature made that well-nigh impossible. True to form, we tried to save the bubble, refusing to believe that it could not be saved until it burst. Now we are down where we could compete with the rest of the world, could rebuild our foreign trade, but the tariff stands in the way. Idleness Hurts A LOWER tariff and reciprocity treaties form an essential part of recovery which consists in getting our industries and our people back to work. That buying power on which prosperity depends is not hurt half as much by reduced wages as by idleness. Assuming that the general price level has dropped 25, or 30 per cent, we could stand a similar drop in pay, and still buy as usual, if all of us were at work. Only about three quarters of us are at work, which is the real difficulty. tt tt tt Revision Is Vital WORK can be provided to some extent through activities and enterprises of a makeshift nature, but that will not insure recovery. The real job is to get the mills, mines and farms in operation, obviously it can not be accomplished without opening adequate markets, especially abroad. As far as the federal government is concerned, every effort should be made toward that end, and revision of the tariff is the place to begin. The tariff makes rehabilitation of foreign trade impossible, not only because of the duties we have imposed, but because of the general policy to which our example has given rise. The United States has set a style in tariff-making which is smothering international commerce. There is little hope for us, or other people, until the style changes. tt tt tt 'lsolation’ Overdone WE have carried the idea of ‘splendid isolation’’ to an extreme that virtually paralyzes our magnificent industrial structure. In our craze to throttle the competition of foreign competitors, we have driven them to throttle us. The merchant fleet, from which we hoped so much, is dying for lack of freight. The markets on which we depended for disposal of our surplus are being closed, not from necessity, but in retaliation. The President and congress have power to deal W’ith this particular source of trouble. There is no excuse for their failure to take cognizance of it, or do something about it. They can, if they will, adopt a course which gradually would reopen the doors of foreign trede and give our producers and turers a much better market thair is now. available.

JJ* T ?s9£ Y ‘ WORLD WAR \ ANNIVERSARY

FRENCH, BRITISH GAIN March 31 ON March 31, 1918, for the first time since the great German offensive began, counter-attacks by French and British forces were successful in taking back some of the fruits of enemy advances. British reserves attacked strongly the new German positions near Serre and regained much lost ground. Fresh French divisions attacked on their front and recaptured the villages of Ayencourt and Monchel. Thousands of American troops were ordered to reserve positions just behind the battle front and were ready to go into action in case of another major offensive action on the part of the Germans. News of allied successes was received with great enthusiasm in both France and England, where the morale of the people had been shaken seriously by the early German victories. One dark cloud on the horizon, however, was the rumor that German storm troops had been withdrawal largely from the first battle front and were being concentrated for a second major operation on another sector. About how many calves does an elephant bear in a life time? Very little is known about the breeding of elephants as only a few have been bred in captivity. At Copenhagen, one elephant has had three or four calves in many years. The period of gestation is about 22 months. They begin breeding at thirty years and continue until they are 90 years old.

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE Eye Injuries Need Best of Care

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hygeia, the Health Magazine. A MONG the most frequent injuries to the eye is penetration by some foreign substance, usually part of a metal wheel, a hot spark of metal, or some similar substance. Dr. G. H. Cross has recently analyzed 4,541 injuries to the eyes occurring in industry, of which 2,670 represented substance thrown into the eye by accident. Another common cause is the caustic soda burn. There are many industries in which caustic soda is used. While caustic soda burns do not look severe the first time they are examined, they may seem very serious by the third day of the injury.

IT SEEMS TO ME

MANY ministers have commented on the waning influence of the church, and generally they blame the jazz age. It is held that man today has grown jaded and insensitive to the finer things of life. I disagree. Not man so much, but the ministry has turned smug, satisfied and dowdy-minded. It isn’t true that the community turns a somewhat inattentive ear toward the preachers because they advance a scheme of life too difficult and lofty. The thing they ask for isn’t good enough. They have succeeded in reducing a daring and revolutionary policy into series of dull and petty compromises. Mystics and saints never fail to capture the imagination of humankind in any age. But these men who climb into the pupits of the town are little fellows. In one church you may receive each Sunday a slice of venomous intolerance, which passes with some for religion. One of the spiritual leaders has a gift for nagging, and still a third tempers his discourse with wordly wisdom. tt tt tt Little Less Than Spiritual j WISH to put in evidence a letter sent to Dr. S. Parkes Cadman and his reply, printed in this syndicated column. His questioner asks: “A couple have been married four years, but are mismated, having no love for each other, and under New York laws neither can secure a divorce. Is it not sacrilege for both parties to remain married when they are both so unhappy?” And to this Dr. Cadman replies: “No cohabitation is a sacrilege so long as it is sanctioned by church and state and by the right behavior of the parties cohabitating.” tt tt tt Lowest Common Factor THIS may be good enough for churchmen, but I refuse to believe that the greater part of the

This Man, This Woman Back through the history oi the human race, to its beginnings lost in the ages of antiquity men and women have been choosing their mates, and the institution of marriage, differing in different ages and in different countries, and among different peoples, has been developing and reaching the forms and customs that exist in the world today. The history of marriage is a fascinating study, and throws much light on marital problems of this day and age. Our Washington Bureau has ready for you a condensed, but comprehensive, outline oi the History of Marriage from earliest ages to the present time; from primitive promiscuity down to monogamous marriage. You will be interested and informed by it. Fill out the coupon below and send for it: CLIP COUPON HERE Dept. 168, Washington Bureau, The Indianapolis Times, 1322 New York avenue, Washington, D. C. I want a copy of the bulletin, HISTORY OF MARRIAGE, and inclose herewith 5 cents in coin, or loose, uncanceled United States postage stamps, to cover return postage and handling costs: NAME STREET AND NO .CITY STATE I am a reader of The Indianapolis Times. (Code No.)

Pity the Blind!

It always is advisable to apply at once to the injured eye a solution of glycerite of tannic acid, which neutralizes the burn and checks the burrowing action of the caustic soda. Dr. Cross points out that there still are people who look in the end of a gun barrel to see if it is loaded. These are the same people who look into the end of a frozen compressed air hose, who blow up water pipes, and for whom the fool killer is looking at all times. The removal of a foreign substance from the eyeball is a most difficult process and one of which only especially trained surgeons are capable. Use of the magnet is sometimes helpful, but there are many sub-

pv HEYWOOD BROUN

community will share ar opinion so gross and materialistic. If the good doctor’s words mean what they seem to mean, he is saying that any marriage is good enough so long as it complies with outer forms. He sounds no trumpet call for love and fire and spirit. So long as a union is respectable, Dr. Cadman thinks no more need be de-

Daily Thought

How long halt ye between two opinions?—l Kings 18:21. There is nothing more pitiable in the world than an irresolute man, oscillating between two feelings, who willingly would unite the two, and who does not perceive that' nothing can unite them. —Goethe.

Views of Times Readers

Editor Times —Will you please permit a former soldier of the United States army forces, who served every day of the World war, to express an opinion relative to immediate payment of the adjusted compensation granted veterans by congress? Asa result of our national leadership for the last three years, practically all former soldiers of the World war find themselves in abject poverty and dire need arid at least 98 per cent of all the veterans want the adjusted compensation paid now. They feel that the rank and file of the soldiers of the World war were double-crossed and traded off at the Detroit legion convention for a mass of Republican pottage, largely due to the political efforts of Theodore Roosevelt, General Hines and other Republican poli-

stances which are not attracted by the magnet and which may cause great harm if they remain in the eye. SoGner or later, destruction occurs around the foreign substance; sometimes there is infection and not infrequently complete loss of vision. Flying particles of hot steel are usually sterile. However, when the germs are not carried into the eye with the foreign body, they sometimes are brought to the eye by the blood and localize in the spot which has been damaged by irritation. Eye injuries always must be regarded as serious until they are completely healed. Any such injury which does not respond immediately to treatment should be taken to your physician for treatment.

Ideals and opinions expressed in this column are those of one of America’s most interesting: writers and are presented witboat regard to their agreement or disagreement with the editorial attitude of this paper.—The Editor.

manded. For sanctification, he would substitute sanction. This bears only the dimmest relationship to the gospel which shook the world. It was not respectability that men once upon a time came from their boats and. homes to follow after a great Leader. It Asks too Little AND so I repeat, the church dwindles because it asks too little. Why should anybody be excited by a preacher who pretends that a sacrament may be reduced to the mere business of formal compliance with the custom of the country? “Render unto Caesar” is only the beginning of the exhortation. May I remind the most popular clergyman of our day that even after church and state are satisfied there still is the claim of God to be considered? (CODvrigt. 1932. bv The Times)

'ticians who are using their legion membership as a pawn to advance their own selfish interests. Roosevelt now is holding the important and remunerative office of governor-general of the Philippine islands ($25,000 per annum, I believe); General Hines is holding down a political plum in Washington of director-general of the veterans’ bureau, which carries with it magnificent remuneration, exact amount unknown. Neither of them of course knows anything about the swamps of want and the jungles of poverty and will not know while they remain on the backs of the taxpayers, and could not possibly understand what the poor unfortunate veteran and his underfed children have had to go through during the last three years. If the great engineer, their political leader, did know, I do not think he would turn us down after getting the great bankers $2,000,000,000, and with a spirit of great magnanimity, of his own free will and accord, without even being asked, proposed that we become the big brother of all mankind (outside of the United States) and forgive them the debts they owe the government of these United States, “We think someone has blundered and couldn’t you tell ’em how? You wrote we were heroes once, please write we are starving now.” Senator Watson is WTong if he thinks the legion doesn’t want the adjusted compensation now. Some of the political leaders holding good fat public appointive offices may not need nor want it, but the thousands of former World war soldiers, whether in the legion or out of it, need it and want it badly right now. All these men earnestly will check your paper and the Congressional Record to find out who they shall support when we march to the polls this November. JOHN FOX. Editor Times—“ Hoosiers take care of their own.” This is the last word of Governor Leslie on the relief question. It also is an outrageous lie. No amount of charitable judgment could make it otherwise. We have not heard thta the Governor has lost the use of his eyes, and none but the blind could fail

.MARCH 31, 1932

SCIENCE BY DAVID DIETZ

Atom Is Attacked on Four Fronts by Modern Scicn~ tific Methods. SCIENCE is launching an attack upon the secrets of the atom with an intensity never before equaled. The attack is proceeding along four fronts by widely differing methods. One is by use of intense temperatures, rivaling surface heat of the sun. Another is by use of intense cold, rivaling frigidity of outer space, temperature only a few degrees above absolute zero. The third method is the use of artificial lightning. The fourth is the use of powerful X-ray tubes, tubes so powerful that their energy equals that of a ton of radium. The high temperatures, in the neighborhood of 10.000 degrees Fahrenheit, will be attained with the solar furnace at the Astro--physical Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology. The solar furnace consists of nineteen lenses each two feet in diameter, mounted in a framework with auxiliary mirrors so that the sunlight gathered by all nineteen is concentrated into a spot the size of your little fingernail. That spot will reach the temperature of 10,000 degrees. Metals and other materials will be placed in large vacuum tubes and the spot of sunlight trained cn them. The intense heat immediately will vaporize them. Their behavior will then be studied with the spectroscope and other devices. a a a Huge Magnets FOUR laboratories, located in the universities of California. Cambridge. Paris and Leyden, will use intense cold in the attempt to penetrate the secrets of the atom. The intense cold will be used in connection with huge electromagnets. These electro-magnets, as large as an auto bus and weighing fourteen tons, will be employed in attempts to tear the atom apart by magnetic pull. The cold is necessary to the operation of the magnet. An electro-magnet is a coil of wire wound around an iron core. When an electric current passes through the wire, the core becomes a magnet. The stronger the current, the more powerful the magnet. But as stronger and stronger currents are used, anew element enters the picture. The passage of the current through the coils of wire generate heat. When extremely powerful currents are used, the heat becomes so great that the wire melts. The heat is generated by resistance of the molecules of the wire to the passage of the electric current. Experiments in the low temperature laboratory of,the University of Leyden, one of the world’s most famous laboratories, revealed the fact that at the temperature of liquid helium, a temperature of 452 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit, the molecules of a ring of pure lead had so little vibration that they offered no resistance whatsoever to the passage of an electric current. Asa result of these experiments, conducted by Professor Onnes, the four huge electro-magnets have been built. They so are designed that liquid helium is used to cool them. Consequently, it will be possible to pass currents through them which otherwise could not be used. tt tt u The Atom’s Nucleus IT is to be expected that the magnets will develop such tremendous magnetic fields that it will be possible to pull the nucleus of an atom to pieces. The big problem facing the world of physics today is the structure of the nucleus of the atom. It is believed that the atom consists of a nucleus around which negative electrons revolve. The nucleus in the case of hydrogen, the simplest known atom, is believed to be a single positive electron. In the case of helium, the next atom, the nucleus is thought to be composed of four positive electrons and two negative electrons. While this seems to be true on the basis of pretty good evidence, no one yet has succeeded in breaking up the nucleus of a helium atom. There seems to be good reason for believing that the atoms of heavier elements are composed of consolidations of the nuclei of helium and hydrogen atoms. This belief largely is based on the evidence of radium. The nucleus of the radium atom disintegrates spontaneously, giving off various sorts of rays, one of which, the alpha ray, is composed of the nuclei of helium atoms. Use of high potential electric currents—artificial lightning bolts—and the use of powerful X-ray tubes also have this same objective, the disintegration of the nucleus of the atom. Two methods of generating high electric currents have been suggested recently. One is the generator designed by Dr. Robert J. Van De Graff of Princeton university. It makes use of moving silk belts to concentrate static electricity upon huge metallic spheres. The other method, developed In Germany, uses wires, like radio aerials, strung on mountain sides to concentrate atmospheric electricity. to see the dire want and misery that confronts us on every hand. To say that the penny-pinching charity now sanctimoniously being handed out in this state even begins to take care of the actual needs of the thousands held today in the grip of destitution is to show a. dirty and brutal indifference to the gigantic suffering of the masses. It shows a fundamental incapacity for human sympathy of any kintL It shows how hollow and false are Leslie’s professions of regard for the interest of the people. Like all other politicians, the only interest he knows is the interest of a lot of fatly stuffed money bags. The question is: Just how long will the people—the real people, the people who are bearing the brunt of these fearful times—patiently endure‘the starvation policy that men like Leslie force upon them. How long will it take them to join hands and organize against the intolerable tyranny and oppression that Leslie and the capitalist class represent? EUGENE STANTON. 537 S. West. St. When was the last eclipse of the sun visible in the United States? On April 28, 1930, it was visible as a total eclipse in northern California, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada and western Utah.