Indianapolis Times, Volume 44, Number 143, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 October 1932 — Page 6

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Hoover: Before and After Tariff increases on sixteen classes of commodities virtually were requested by the President in his letter to the tariff commission Monday. In his floundering to escape the tariff boomerang of his own making, President Hoover stoops to the absurdity of questioning our need for foreign trade. At Cnarleston, W. Va., for instance, he said that only 7 per cent of our trade is with foreign countries, and that the important thing was to look out for the 93 per cent constituting our domestic trade. T|e inference was that we could have prosperity without foreign trade. This, of course, is a complete reversal of Hoover’s campaign speeches of four years ago. Then he was going up and down the country warning voters that the 10 per cent of our production sold in the foreign market represented the difference between prosperity and depression, accounted for industry’s profits and gave jobs directly and indirectly to many millions of American workers. That is as true today as it was in 1920—as lead- ’ ing economists just have reminded the President. But, as a candidate for re-election condemned by the trade-killing Hoover high tariff, the President can not be as frank today as four years ago in admitting America’s dependence upon foreign trade and a lower tariff permitting such business. Beer by Christmas There are about 150 congressional districts in which the prohibition issue is drawn—mostly as between outright repeal and Hoover’s impracticable revision plan of federal police for dry states. A Scrlpps-Howard poll indicates there may not be 100 bone drys in the seventy-third congress. But the politicians must not be allowed to forget that prohibition still is with us. It is still a moral, economic, and government, issue of the first magnitude. Had Hoover been smart or the Democrats courageous, repeal and modification legislation W'ould have been passed by congress after the June conventions. The politicians, with their eye on the political campaign, preferred to wait until after election. We have had thirteen years of waiting, and the time has come for action. The lame duck session in December has prohibition far up on its program, and the Democratic leaders have declared for action on a beer tax bill. t The repeal resolution is fundamentally the most Important, of course. It should be submitted before Jan. 1, so that the large majority of legislatures meeting early in 1933 may lay plans for state conventions. There appears little doubt that two-thirds of the country, if not two-thirds of the “lame duck” members, are anxious to have the question submitted. And there should be no hesitancy or controversy over the mere question of submitting the issue of straight-forward repeal to the people. Anew treasury deficit, which may reach another billion dollars, hangs heavy over our heads. Our high income tax rates wil not begin to bear for several months, and some of the new excises are disappointing in their revenues. This deficit, at least in part, can be met with revenue from a beer tax. This, too, is a problem for December, not next May. It has been demonstrated that a law legalizing and taxing beer at the wartime rate will bring in immediate "revenues of large proportions—probably $350,000,000 a year and more, if many of the dry states follow present trends and modify state prohibition. In the present situation, the government needs all the revenue it can get, for unemployment relief and other means of combating the depression. Getting Rougher Maybe it's the influence of the women voters or prohibition or just too much civilization, but where is the. good old Billingsgate of yesterday’s political campaigns? In the old days a political opponent was something to plaster with adjectives.. If a campaign was not well spiced with epithets and a dash of libel, it was a flop. Professor George Schmidt of the New Jersey College for Women, while digging around in history the other day. found how they used to do it. Bryan was called "a mouthing, slobbering demagog," and “a wretched, addle-pated boy, leading a league of hell.’’ Jefferson, whom we have come to consider a pretty fair citizen, .was characterized by a contemporary as “a cowardly wretch" and his followers “rapacious profligates and desperadoes.” Even the immortal George was accused by a colonial editor of having “debauched the country” and “supported nefarious projects and legalized corruption.” In light of the colorful past, the present campaign, until now. has been disappointing. We have had to be content with Secretary Doak calling Senator Norris a “character assassin;” with Wild Bill Donovan dalling Roosevelt “a political faker;” with Senator Hawes calling Secretary Hyde "Artful Artie," and Secretary Hurley "Petulant Pat.” Os course, we’ve still got two weeks to go, and some of the boys are waxing peevish. Big Bill Thompson, for instance, is stirring up anti-semitism in Illinois in the effort to beat candidate Horner for the governorship. v . , In California the Rev' Bob Shuler is saying crude 'things about candidate McAdoo. In other spots the party is getting rough. Perhaps we yet may see the air filled with the kind of mud that granddad used to like with his elections. But we hope not. State Department, Bankers and Loans Governor Roosevelt’s Columbus speech, the debate between the state department and Senator Glass, subsequent reverberations, and revived interest in international finance raise vividly the issue of the relation of the state department to bankers’ loans abroad. To a student of the problem, it is evident that indiscriminate charges that the state department always encourages private loans abroad and blanket denials by the department are both wide of the mark. Usually, the bankers float their own loans on their own responsibility, but at times the state department actually has taken the initiative, as in the case of some loans to Nicaragua and Honduras in 1911-13 and to Cuba in 1922. In the case of the loans in the last decade to German states, the responsibility seems t* have been mainly that of the bankers, the state department being culpable only in lack of backbone. There is an Interesting item contained in the recent “More Merry-Go-Round" on the work of Allen

The Indianapolis Times . (A BCBIPPB-HOWARI) NEWSPAPER) Own*fl and published dslly (except Sundty) by The Indianapolis Time* Publishing Cos., 214-220 West Maryland Street, Indianapolis. Jnd. Price In Marion County, 2 cent* a copy; elsewhere, 3 cents—delivered by carrier, 12 cent* a week. Mail aubscrlption rates in Indiana, $2 a year; outside of Indiana, 65 cents a month. BOYD GURLEY. HOY W. HOWARD. E\RL D B\KF.R ’Editor President Business Manager PHONE—Riley 5551. TUESDAY. OCT. 25. 1833. Member of United Press. Scrlpps-Howard Newspaper Alliance. Newsnaper Enterprise Association, Newspaper Information Service and Audit Bureau of Circulations. “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way.”

W. Dulles in connection with American loans to Prussia. This is contained in the section on “Close-up Men” in-the chapter on lobbying. * Dulles formerly was chief of the Near Eastern division of the state department. He left to join the well known firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, attorneys for J. P. Morgan & Company. The state department became rather skeptical of all loans to Germany after 1925, and S. Parker Gilbert, agent-general of reparations, was especially vehement in warning against more loans to Germany. Now for the story told in the “Merry-Go-Round”: “In the fall of 1927, Harris, Forbes, and a group of associated bankers desired to float a $30,000,000 loan to the Free State of Prussia. The state department, because of the complaints of both S. Parker Gilbert and the reich, held up the loan. “The bankers got worried. After several attempts to get the loan passed, they finally sent Allen Dulles down to visit his former colleagues in Washington. Dulles is a grandson of a former secretary of state, John W. Foster. Also, he was a nephew of the late secretary of state, Robert Lansing. He played a round of golf with Frank B. Kellogg and came back with the state department’s letter passing the loan. / “Today the state department is doing its best to cancel $11,000,000,000 of European war debts ’which American taxpayers will have to pay, to save private loans made by Harris, Forbes and other bankers; and there is grave doubt, despite the state department’s efforts and despite the Hoover moratorium, whether these loans, lobbied through the state department, ever will be repaid.” The Power Commission There have been signs, during the political campaign, that the federal power commission might be undergoing a renaissance, but the peregrinations of its executive secretary between desks at Republican campaign headquarters in New York and his office leaves the matter in some doubt. The commission has, of course, resolved that hereafter employes must not collect campaign funds or engage in certain other political activities. Yet its chairman, George Otis Smith, has announced that he approved McCuen’s absence fpr campaign work and sees nothing wrong in it. The public has had a hard time making up its mind about this cautious power commission. Since the nomination of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the definite injection of power as an issue in the campaign, an apparent change has taken place and many commendable efforts toward regulation have been made. The commission has recommended federal regulation of holding companies, and managed to do so a few weeks before the companies began crying out for the same thing. It has ordered removed from the capital accounts of the Alabama Power Company several million dollars of padding. It has announced that it was misunderstood all along on the New River case, and believes the river is navigable, the point on which Appalachian Electric Power Company went into the courts in an attempt to evade regulation. Finally, it has, for the first time, asserted its authority to regulate security issues, in the attempted transfer of Clarion River Power Company assets to another company. But it has not yet restored to operation the famous Order 28 for general regulation of securities, annulled as the first act of the men who took office under Hoover. These are all steps toward decent, intelligent enforcement of the water power act. Whether they continue in the future may be decided to a great exent by the man selected to fill an existing vacancy. There is nothing in the Hoover administration to indicate that he will encourage vigorous, thoroughgoing enforcement of the federal water power act. There is much to indicate he will not, including letters on the subject written by Hoover and just brought to light. Honest enforcement of the act means hundreds of millions of dollars to the American people, as well as economic and social benefits of inestimable worth. This is one of the most important matters demanding a decision from the public at the present time. Notre Dame has a football player named William Shakespeare. Now we suppose that name will become famous. Speaking of forgotten men, how afiout the fellows who play left guard?

Just Every Day Sense

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

YEAH .” harangued the man in front of us, as we filed out of the hall which had been packed to hear Norman Thomas, “it all sounds fine, but how are you going to change old human nature?” And that, in my opinion, is the most senseless phrase now in circulation, although the man uttered it as if he were giving a gem of wisdom to the world. It is just some more of our mental soothing syrup. It’s the biggest buncombe we broadcast. My mind ran back to the same afternoon. In a very gay teamroom sat a grandmother who had been reared. I knew, in the strictest Victorian manner. She blandly puffed a cigaret. Even fifteen years ago the idea wculd have made her swoon with horror. Today she drives her own car. takes a cocktail, and gets permanent waves in her white bob. Yet, so far as ambition, courage, virtue, good works, pride, affection and temperament go she is the same woman. Only her ideas have changed and I ideas are what we generally mean when we talk about 1 human nature. THE truth is, It is changing all the time. If it didn’t, we’d never get anywhere. Several hundred years ago, if some man had told any Englishman, Frenchman or Russian that the divine right of kings was hooey, he might have been hanged. Their minds could not encompass such a thing. And a seer who tried to inform the ancient leeches that twentieth century doctors would cure people, not by taking blood from their veins, but by putting it in, would have been pronounced crazy. And crazy he would have been, according to the sanity at that time. Probably if we could gaze fifty years into the future, we would see stranger things that we imagine. For most of the social and economic facts of our world were considered impossible by our grandfathers. You can't cure tuberculosis or diphtheria or diabetes. sighed the folks of long ago. But we are curing them. You can’t run schools without beating-the children, said the old schoolmasters. But we are doing it. And you can’t change human nature, we shout, although it changes constantly right under our eyes. The word “can't” has no place in man’s vocabulary, since, given sufficient time, everything can be done. k

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

M. E, Tracy _ Says ’ ——

The United States Hds Taken One Grand Slide Downhill in Twelve Years hf Republican Rule. NEW YORK, Oct. 25.—Cutting down through the junk heap of statistics, stage tricks, inconsequential details, Impulsive promises, and speculative propositions that have come to obscure this campaign, it is possible to find certain basic facts, which any one can understand, and about which there is no controversy. When the Republican party assumed control of it twelve years ago, this government was in excellent condition. It faced a heavy debt, to be sure, but its debt was small compared to that of England, France, or Germany. It had emerged from the war virtually uninjured. Its man power had not been reduced to any noticeable extent, its industrial structure had not been dislocated, its credit had not been impaired. In 1921, the United States was the one great nation that owed outsiders nothing and that seemed to be in an unassailable position from a financial and commercial standpoint. By comparison with European countries, she was preposterously solvent. Circumstances compelled them to recognize her economic supremacy and look to her for world leadership. Look at Us Now MAKING due allowance for the slight depression which occurred in 1921, the United States occupied first place among the nations. Her people were at work, her farmers Jjad markets, her factories were busy and her foreign trade was large. A bewildered civilization looked to her statesmen, financiers, and captains of industry for guidance. Now turn over the pages of history until you come to 1932 and see how the picture changes. Nearly forced off the gold standard, according to President Hoover, afflicted with depression because of what other nations did, though most of them appear to be getting along all right, with income and production down by 50 per cent, and unable to balance the budget in spite of greatly increased taxes. a tt tt So Why Fear a Change? TAKING conditions as they were in 1921, when the Republican party took charge, and as they are today, what great nation has failed to make better progress than the United States? This country is not as well off as it was eleven years ago by a wide margin, but is that true of France, Germany, England or even Russia? Regardless of depression, paper money, or abandonment of the gold standard, other countries have been able to improve conditions. Each and every one of them is in better shape than it was in 1921. Each and every one of them has shown an ability to recoup, while this government has shown lack of ability to hold its own. The only way the Republican party can clear itself of responsibility for such a depressing contrast is by claiming that governmental policy has little or no effeGt on business conditions in this country, and if that is true, why fear a change? tt t Crime on Increase BUT the collapse of prosperity does not complete the record of this country’s decline under Republican rule. Crime has gone hand in hand with unemployment. Indeed, crime was on the increase before the depression began, and every one knows the reason. Volsteadism was as much of a Republican doctrine during this unhappy decade as “splendid isolation.” Since 1921, we have gone through one of the worst periods of racketeering in modern history. Neither was racketeering confined to liquor. If Democrats hadn’t forced a Republican administration to act, racketeers would have gotten away with a large part of the country’s oil reserve. ' Take it from any angle you like —international standing, domestic trade, law enforcement, or general living conditions—and the United States has taken a grand slide down hill under twelve years of Republican control.

People’s Voice

Editor Times—At this time, during the trying period of this depression, Republican newspapers, with their bias camouflage, are trying to deceive the voters of Indiana and the nation. It is their intention to have us think that Senator James Watson is no other than Old Santa Claus, giving the small home owner his first present. Ballyhooing Jim entered the senate in 1916. His record for labor and the small home- owner is a disgrace to humanity. Never has he given them any consideration. But at the eleventh hour, when he felt that he needed 20,000 votes to put him over this fall, he pulled the ruse of a good Samaritan, and railroaded through the home loan bank bill. Why has Watson waited sixteen years to give the poor man, some consideration? Let me take you back to the Republican state convention of June 8 and 9. 1932. ’ A poisonous letter was mailed to ekeh delegate condemning a certain candidate for the governorship. This letter read, in part: “What. Indiana needs today is a Governor wfih judicial experience—one fully acquainted with all the problems of the state government—instead of a farmer which has been yelling ‘lower taxes, farm relief, and protect the home owners.’ “Should not the public utilities ind money interests of the state be

given the very same ( nsideration as a farmer and a small home owner? This lower tax matter and farm relief in a very small matter." Now, Watson says, "the small home owner must be saved.” But in June, when he headed the list of double-crossers, which nominated Springer, the small home owner was a secondary matter. Springer might have been a good judge, but the odor that raised from that nomination had the nauseating stench of Watson and Henry Marshall C. J. CURTIS.

Suicide Increase. Stirs Medical Study

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN Editor Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hygeia, the Health Magazine. THE causes of suicide have constituted an interesting study for psychologists and physicians for many years. About 20,000 persons kill themselves in this country every year. There has been a gradual increase in the suicide rate for some time and statisticians have been trying to analyze the motivation, the methods of suicide chosen, and similar factors, with a view to bringing about a decrease. There are some interesting factors to be considered. For one thing, the suicide rate increases rapidly with age; men commit suicide more frequently than do women, and different races of people have different suicide rates. Statisticians of a large insurance company recently have investigated figures for the policy holders involved. They find that the' suicide rate began to rise as early as 1925 and has risen steadily ever since that time.

" Ideals and opinions expressed * in this column are those of TT* HPO TVTTT R v heywood II olldlrlVlo IvJ 1VII1( BY broun r^ e nt tho ;; with the editorial attitude of ... - this (taper.—The Editor.

ONE night after dinner I sat and listened to Frank Ward O’Malley talk for two hours, and I never said a word, which is pretty unuslal for me. But O’Malley was talking about the old Sun. He felt romantic about the paper, because he spent the best years of his life on it. And I was fascinated because it was the paper I wished to join and never could argue around to my way of thinking. They took my name and address a dozen times, but nothing happened. O’Malley was one of the chief reasons why I wanted to be on the Sun. He seemed to be everything a newspaper man ought to he. My first assignment as a cub took me to a Tammany picnic which O’Malley was covering. It was a traditional sort of story for him, and he had three or four good lines left over which he gave me. The jokes he discarded were my lead. tt a , The Age of O’Malley A YEAR or so before O’Malley’s death in France, I ran into a brilliant young city editor who told me that the familiar story of a golden age of reporting was sheer myth. He said that he had looked into the files and that in his opinion news was being written better today than in the age of the old Sun. I’m inclined to think that may be true, but nobody can judge a news story years or even many days after the fact. Mast of those which get buried into books seem to lose a great deal in the process and turn to dust. A good newspaper story should be just a little damp behind the ears. O’Malley wrote for the age of Jack’s and Rector’s and Churchill’s —for the age of O’Malley, in fact. Naturally, I do not believe that his name has been carved in rock. That’ I think, will not happen to any newspaper man. O’Malley will be remembered as long as there are those who knew him and his stuff at first hand, I

Washington to Hoover The life stories of all the Presidents, brief but comprehensive, are contained in our Washington bureau’s bulletin, THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. Facts about their lives and services, their families, their politics, their accomplishments. You will find this bulletin a valuable reference source during the political campaign this fall. Fill out the coupon below and send for it. CLIP COUPON HERE Department 201, Washington Bureau, The Indianapolis Times, 1322 New York avenue, Washington, D. C. I want a copy of the bulletin THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES, and inclose herewith 5 cents in coin or uncancelled 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.)

‘Loudei —We Can’t Hear!’

DAILY HEALTH SERVICE

Thus there was an increased suicide rate in the midst of what was presumed to be the greatest prosperity that this country has ever had; namely, in 1927, 1928 and most of 1929. There was a very sharp increase by the end of and 1930, then a slight increase in 1931, and now a sharp increase in 1932. It is interesting to note that there was a declining suicide rate during the war years, perhaps because enough people were being killed at that time to make death more horrifying. It is believed that the low figures for suicide during and immediately after the war reflected the great interest which most people had in living. The statisticians are inclined to believe that a considerable number of clear-cut cases of suicide now developing are the result of pressing economic stringency.* The proof is that, the percentage of increase among men has been much higher than among women. Among white men the suicide rate increased 46 per cent between 1925

do not think any reporter should ask for a better epitaph than “He was good once upon a time.” The concern of the craft is with “late last night” or “early this morning.” Not with posterity. And I think that perhaps the satisfaction of having somebody say, “That was a swell story you had in today’s paper,” may quite readily stand up against the dim hope that in some future age your name or fame may be tepidly bandied about in a college class labeled in the catalog as “American Literature 22A—the history of American literature down to 1945.” Frank War,d O'Malley does not belong to the ages, but to us. Let posterity scurry around for its own O’Malleys if it thinks that it can find them. tt tt U One of Great Reporters HE was, I think, one of the great reporters. Os late I have seen much brilliant writing in the news columns of several newspapers. But something has gone out of the word “reporter.” Today when a man writes a good account of a fire, a shipwreck or a football game in Sing Sing, there is the ominous possibility that he is about to take flight and leave the job of turning large words into little ones. The bright young boy will show up presently in Hollywood, or he will be writing stuff for the magazines. I respect the magazines, though somewhat from a distance, and yet I never have loved them. There are not more than two famous fiction writers of our day who seem, to be half as important as a dozen reporters of this generation. Some day I intend to punch a literary critic when he condescends to something and says: “It’s’ good journalism.” What does hd know that’s better? O’Malley himself lived to become a prolific magazine contributor and to leave that small inner room in the old Sun where all who

and 1931, as compared with 40.5 per cent among white women. In an attempt to analyze the causes of suicide, the report states that the people who commit suicide represent a group more easily upset mentally and emotionally than are people in general. They are people with insufficiently developed reactions toward life, who are thrown off balance by provocations. In other words, they break down under strains which other people manage to surmount. Sometimes the strain arises from economic sometimes because of troubles with friends and relatives. Most often, however, the basic difficulty ’s the personality of the individual concerned. Obviously the way to prevent suicide is to develop a proper attitude toward life in the young. This is a responsibility of the entire community. Young people must be given a proper mental and emotional outlook. They must learn to be calm and to react properly toward the difficult situations that invariably arise in the lives of every one.

used typewriters were herded together like-'strange heretics. I am not competent to judge, but it always seemed to me that his magazine work was far less important. And I know that it never commanded his enthusiasm as reporting did. u a Spoke Only of the Paper /'AN the particular night I mentioned at the beginning, I don’t remember that O’Malley ever said a word about a single piece he wrote after leaving newspaper work. It was all of the men who are the wing shots of the craft. Leave it to the novelists to shoot the game which sleeps or strolls Qr swims*upon the surface of the water, so that they'can sneak up on it. I remember we finally took the discussion to Texas Guinan’s, because we wanted to find some late place where there would be enough noise to talk under. And I’m glad that O'Malley lived in the pre-column days. He would have been good at it, and I still think it’s an honorable profession. But something has changed a little in this journalistic age of “by” and “by.” It may be for the better. I don’t know. I have a feeling that possibly a little of the spinal fluid of the newspaper has been drained off. I don’t think that being a reporter is just a means to an end. I think it’s a goal. And that I think largely because I knew and loved Frank Ward O’Malley. (Copyright, 1932. bv The Times)

& T ?s^ Y ' WORLD WAR \ ANNIVERSARY

BELLEAU WOOD CLEARED Pctober 25 ON Oct. 25, 1918, Americans cleared Belleau Wood of Germans and held Hill 360 in fierce fighting. British troops reached the Le Quesnoy-Valenciennes railway on a front of six miles while French attacked on the Serre and the Aisne on a front of forty miles, advancing at all points. British. French and Italian troops pushed their offensive on the Italian front, between the Brenta and Piave rivers, taking 3,000 prisoners. In Asia Minor, British forces on the Tigris reached Kerkuk and the mouth of the lesser Zab.

Daily Thought

For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name’s .sake; because it bath pleased the Lord to make you his people.—l Samnel 12:22. The brave unfortunate are our best acquaintance.—Francis. m

OCT. 25, 1932

SCIENCE

BY DAVID DIETZ

The “Red Shift ” of the Spiral Nebulae May Be Called Confirmation of the Expanding Universe . WHILE Einstein, Eddington, De Sitter, and others are hammering out the details of their theories of the expanding universe, it is important to remember that these theories are based upon certain observational facts. The layman, therefore, must not regard the talk about the expanding universe as theoretical speculation only. Even if the whole notion of an expanding universe should be abandoned, the observational facts remain to be explained. Einstein’s recent address in Berlin indicates that he has returned to the idea of an expanding universe and placed the start of the period of expansion at ten billion years ago. This agrees with the figure which Eddington gives for the age of the universe. -De Sitter and Lemaitre arrived at the idea of an expanding universe from a study of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Eddington arrives at the idea from a study of the equations for the structure of the atom. But the observational fact which may be regarded as confirmation of the theory of an expanding universe is the so-called “redshift” of the spiral nebulae. was discovered by Dr. Edwin B. Hubble, Dr. Milton S. Humason and other astronomers at Mt. Wilson observatory of California, u * Red Shift TO understand the talk about the expanding universe, it is necessary to be familiar with this “red shift.” • Perhaps you have noticed that when a railroad train is approaching, the sound of the whistle rises. This is because the motion of the trains crowds the sound waves upon each other and we get more to the second than we should. This raises the apparent frequency of the sound waves and hence the pitch. When the train recedes from us, the pitch of the iwhistle drops, because we are now getting fgwer sound waves to the second than we should. This phenomenon is known as the “Doppler effect,” after the scientist who first noticed it. We find a similar phenomenon in the case of light. The prism oi spectroscope divides the light of a star into a rainbow of colors called the spectrum. This rainbow is crossed with black lines, which are the identification marks of the various chemical elements in the star. What (he spectroscope really does is to sort out the star’s light according to frequencies of the light waves. At one end of the spectrum is the red, which is the light of lowest frequency. At the other end is the violet, which is the light of highest frequency. Now. if a star is moving toward us, we get an effect similar to that noted in the case of the locomotive whistle? The light waves are crowded upon us by the motion of the star. We get more waves to the second than we should. Consequently, their apparent, frequency goes up and we find all the lines in the star’s spectrum shifted toward the violet. If the star is receding from us, the opposite effect is observed and the spectrum lines are shifted toward the red. Consequently, the shift, of the lines in the spectrum of a star indicates whether the star is moving toward the earth or away from it. Spiral Nebulae NOW at vast distances from the earth are the spiral nebulae. These are very much farther away than the stars of our own Milky Way or galaxy. The nearest spiral is 250,000 lightyears away. A light-year is six trillion miles.) Many spirals are more than 1,000,000 light-years away. The Mt. Wilson astronomers attached an extremely powerful spectroscope to the 100-inch telescope, the world’s largest telescope, and began a study of the spectra of these distant spirals. Some of these spirals, apparently, are great masses of gases, while others are galaxies of stars like our own Milky Way. The Mt. Wilson study showed that all the spiral nebulae indicated a shift of their spectrum lines toward the red. This is what is meant by the “red shift.” The study also indicated another peculiar fact. The farther away the spiral, the greater the red shift. If we interpret this red shift in the usual way. it means that every spiral is moving away from the earth and that the farther away they are, the faster, they are moving. the case of spirals about 25 million light-years away, just about at the limit of visibility of the 100inch telescope, the speed comes out at the incredible speed of 2,400 miles a second. It is difficult to assume that our earth is some center of repulsion from which the rest of the cosmos is fleeing. But this state of affairs is just what one would observe in an expanding universe. If the universe was growing, like a balloon into which air was pumped, no matter where you were in it, everything else would seem to be receding from you.

Questions and Answers

Are aliens who have their first papers declaring thetr intention to become American citizens entitled to the rights and privileges of citizenship? No. Which American high school has the largest student enrollment? De Witt Clinton high school In New York City has an enrollment of approximately 10,000. Give the number and value of half cent pieces issued by the government in 1835? What is the present day value of one of these coins. Sixty-three thousand coins were issued, having a value of $315. Half cent coins of that date now have a catalog value of 5 to 10 cents.