Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 11, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 May 1934 — Page 13

ft Seewto Me HEWOOD BtOUN ARMONK. N. Y., May 24.—1 t was at first no more than a drizzle, but then the rain poured down in such torrential frenzy that the road became impassable. Night had fallen and we were in for it. There seemed to be no house in sight, but suddenly I caught sight of a light moving somewhere along the meadow' to our left, which was shielded by a thick grou'th of stunted trees. "That could be a house,” I suggested. ‘‘Let’s run for it.” We pressed through underbrush and long grass and come upon a road, but it now was pitch black and the friendly light had disappeared. We stumbled ahead and through some sort of nameless terror began to run. Before we had raced as much as a mile I suddenly was checked in my stride and thrown back upon my heels by a voice which rose

not ten feet in front of me. The tone was deep and dignified and an infinite sadness. It said: “This is the National Broadcasting Company.” tt a tt House of Varied Voices BY now I could tell that we stood within arm’s length of a pretentious colonial house. A short flight of steps led up to an inclosed porch. The unidentified voice continued: "See your dentist twice a year,” and after that the conversation became more general. I got the impression that four or five men were talking together and that all of them were, for some strange reason, imitating Negro dialect.

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Heywood Broun

And there was not the slightest sign of any illumination. Lightning was crackling all about, but it revealed nothing except this apparently deserted house, which was the home of voices. Out of sheer terror I cried: “Be they gods or devils I’m going in!” We pushed through the screen door and found shelter from the elements on the porch, but the main door to the house and both windows were locked. From within I heard a woman scream and this was followed by an incredibly deep voice saying: ‘Tse regusted.” With both hands I beat upon the locked door, and then I kicked it. Suddenly we were blinded by a blaze of light. Every room was thrown into illumination and on the threshold stood a man in faultless evening attire w : ith a gardenia in his buttonhole. "Come in out of the storm." he said politely, and moved aside to let us pass. Crossing the room swiftly he turned off his radio and paused for an instant at the foot of a stairway which led to the upper chambers. "You will find whisky and glasses on the table,’ he drawled in a rich baritone deeply scarred by a southern accent. In a trice he bounded up the stairs and disappeared. tt tt * Fast for His Weight HIS agility was remarkable, for I should have set him down as a man weighing upward of 240 pounds. His build was that of a man of great physical prowess who had allowed indolence and wild living to take its toll. Naturally I took a stiff drink of whisky. Now he was with us again, garbed in overalls and a dirty sweater. Without any introduction he picked up an old Hearst newspaper from the center table and read from an editorial demanding that New York teachers take an oath to support the Constitution. "What would these protesting teachers think,” he read, "if they were citizens of California, a truly advanced and enlightened state, which requires not only the oath contemplated by the Ives act, but the further requirement ‘to promote, by precept and example, respect for the flag and the statutes of the United States and the state of California, reverence for law and order, and undivided allegiance to the government of the United states?’ ” tt tt tt Back of the Golden Gate OUR host smiled a crooked smile. “The land of Mooney,” he said. “ ’Reverence for law and order’ in the commonwealth of Uncle Jimmy Rolph!” He paused and a look of horror came into his eyes as he saw something through the window in the blackness outside. "And they said.” continued the big man slowly, ‘‘that at any rate there never would be another kidnaping in the great state of California. And there wasn’t—for almost four' months.” He shook himself and turned back to us. “I’m forgetting my guests. What can I do for you?” "Two things.” I answered. "Another drink and an explanation of this mystery. It’s none of my business, but I’m a newspaper man. Why do we find you in this lonely house in evening dress and then in overalls, and why do you talk like an editorial writer instead of a farmer?” ‘‘Please keep my secret,” said our hast. "I'm neither a farmer nor a newspaper man. I’m a col/ umnist. I've been assigned to travel across the country to California, and I can t seem to get started. This is my hideaway. Without hesitation I responded: "I read your column every day. Os course, I don't always agree with you.” "Shake, comrade.” replied my host holding out his hand. "You’ve proved it. We are both in the same racket!” (Copyright. 1934. by The Times)

Your Health BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN

AS soon as your doctor diagnoses a sickness in your home as diphtheria, you will find that the very first thing he does is to inoculate the sick person with amitoxin. This is of utmost importance, for a delay of two, three, or four days in giving antitoxin may mean damage to vital organs in such manner that they never recover completely. Moreover, the first dose of antitoxin should be large enough to control the disease. This antitoxin is usually injected in the back, below the shoulder blade, but sometimes into the thigh or under the breast. In very severe cases, it is forced into the muscles; in the milder cases, under the skin. In the vast majority of cases, a striking improvement is seen short’y after the antitoxin is injected. The improvement is demonstrated by a fall in the fever and a favorable change in the general condition of the patient. a a a USUALLY within twenty-four hours after a sufficient dose has been injected, the membrane in the throat stops spreading, becomes softened, loosens, and the swelling goes down. If you delay treatment for diphtheria. • the antitoxin may be of little help, but even in such cases it exercises a tremendously beneficial influence in comparison with the effects when no antitoxin is given. In an occasional case of diphtheria there is sensitivity to the antitoxin, so that the patient may have a severe eruption or a reaction. These are exceedingly rare, developing perhaps in one of every thousand persons. So far as is known, death from severe reaction to the serum occurs in only one out of 70,000 persons. These reactions occur more often in persons who have had severe asthma or who have developed sensitivity to horse serum following a previous injection. a a tt THE heart is subjected to a severe strain in diphtheria. so that the patient should always be at rest in. bed. Moreover, the heart must be watched carefully for several weeks after the patient recovers, to make certain that it has not been damaged. There was a time when it was customary to wash the nose and throat of a person having diphtheria with all sorts of gargles and sprays, usually of some alkaline solution. Nowadays it is customary to leave the nose and throat alone. In most instances when there is a foul odor in the throat, a mild wash or gargle may be desirable. In the very severe cases of diphtheria, when the patient teems to be strangling from lack of air, it may be necessary to pass a gold tube into the larnyx to permit breathing. In the still more severe cases, an emergency operation sometimes is performed, the physician opening the tube that leads to the lungs so the patient is. able to breathe..

The Indianapolis Times

Full Leased Wire Service ol (lie Uuited Press Association

THE WINNING OF THE EAST

Famed U. S. Drive Duplicated on Vast Scale by Soviet

This is the fourth of a series of stories on Siberia, where the Soviet Union is lavishing billions of dollars in a huge colonization plan to check Japan’s westward expansion. In this series. William Philip Simms, now touring the world for The Times, shows how Russia is duplicating America’s “winning of the west in the far WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS Scripps-Howard Foreign Editor (Copyright. 1934, by NEA Service, Inc.) BAIKAL, Siberia. May 24.—1f Soviet engineers are righ*. and nothing upsets their plans, titanic forces now in play in and about this region will change the whole face of the far east. In front of the railway station here rise mountains rivaling the Alps. Behind spreads Lake Baikal and the source of the Angara river, said to be the most limpid in the world. Fuily harnessed. Russians claim, this stream will cultivate a series of power stations surpassing Niagara Falls, Muscle Shoals, Wilson and Boulder Dams combined. Lake Baikal is 380 miles long. It is from twenty to fourty-five miles wide. In places it is a mile deep. It is now frozen over. I saw a regiment of troops maneuvering on its solid expanse. , Trains have crossed on tracks laid along its stone-like surface. And this, it seems to a layman, might interfere with power development, at least in winter.

ft ff # HOWEVER, the Angara is Baikal’s only outlet. And, being high in the mountains, Baikal’s waters, racing hundreds of miles down this stream to where it drops into the mighty Yenisei, will yield more “white coal,” it is said, than any other known river. Russian engineers, some of whom were associated with Colonel Hugh L. Cooper, American consultant for the world-fa-mous Dnieprostroi, south Russia, claim the Angara will develop forty-four times the power of that project. And Dnieprostroi is second only to Niagara Falls. Full expansion of the Dnieprostroi plant will give 756,000-horse power, or 535,000 kilowatts with an annual output of energy totaling 2.800,000,000 kilowatt hours. Full utilization of the natural reservoir of Lake Baikal, it is claimed, would yield more than 30,000,000-horse power, or better than 22,000,000 kilowatts, with an annual output of energy surpassing 120,000,000,000 kilowatt hours. an a TO the man in the street these figures mean little. But what all this electric energy and horse power would mean to Siberia’s industrialization project can be easily understood. Here, in an area bigger than the United States east of the Mississippi, Soviet geologists assert, are stupendous reserves of iron, coal, copper, silver, lead, and raw materials of all kinds—all that it takes to convert Russia’s former penal colony into one of the world’s most pulsating empires. In the heart of it lies Baikal, about half way between east and west, waiting to give this region almost unlimited electric power. New Railway lines are not only being surveyed, but some of them are under construction. The

-The DAILY WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen ———— WASHINGTON, May 24.—The Wall Street drive against the securities act has not abated a bit. But as congress draws toward its close, the fight has takert a more subtle turn. The latest was a move mkde through the unsuspecting and sometimes slightly gullible Henry Morgenthau, who, while heartily for the securities act, doesn’t want to see the flow of private capital curtailed. So last week, young Henry invited Senator Fletcher, Rock-of Gibraltar chairman of the banking and currency committee to lunch. At lunch also were various New York bankers. The strategy the bankers outlined briefly was this: To relieve underwriting houses from any liability under the securities act. This would mean that a big underwriting house, as for instance J. P. Morgan & Cos., would underwrite an issue but not distribute it. The distributing houses would be liable for losses under the securities act. but not the underwritng house.

The catch, however, is that salesmen of the bonds immediately would whisper: “This is underwritten by the house of Morgan,” which might carry real weight. Old Senator Fletcher, listening carefully to the plan, proved the granite wall he has been ever since the banking investigation started. He said: “No.” u b a IT'ARM-BORN and reared, Henry Wallace makes no pretense at being a Beau Brummel. Employes of the agriculture department over which he presides never are surprised to see him with his tie askew, a forelock hanging over his nose, and clothes disheveled. But they were astonished the other day when the secretary of agriculture calmly padded in his socks through the corridors of their building to his private office. Wallace had not gone “native.” What had happened was that he hed spent a part of his lunch hour playing tennis on a public court in nearby Potomac park when a messenger hurriedly called him to answer a ’phone call from the White House. His tennis shoes hurting him, Henry had removed them, walked the short distance in his stockinged feet. BUB ROOSEVELT’S friends view The Literary Digest poll was about the luckiest thing that could have happened to the new deal. Those friends who have their ears to the ground are convinced —and it looks as if they are right —that Roosevelt still has overwhelming support throughout the country. He may have slipped a little, but not much. The Digest poll began by showing this, and chances are it will continue to do so. With such concrete evidence before voters and candidates this fall, a big boost is given to the campaign slogan of “Support the President.” Most politicians are sheep. They go with the flock. BUB SPEAKING of chips from the old block, consider the case of Eugene Vidal Jr., 12-year-old son of the commerce department director of aeronautics. Since Eugene was 4 years old he has been flying in airplanes, but never has his father been willing to do any stunting with

Trans-Siberian, sole transcontinental railway, is far from sufficient. Anew one, to be called the Great Northern, will run from Archangel, on the White Sea, to somewhere near Rukhlovo, on the Trans-Siberian, where that line reaches the peak of the salient north of Manchuria. tt it a ANOTHER line under construction will run from around Tomsk to the Pacific port of Okhotsk. Both this and the Great Northern will pass north of Lake Baikal, where, for some hundreds of miles, they likely will use the same tracks. The Great Northern, it is said, will shorten the time between Moscow and Vladivistok about two days. Most of these lines will be electrified, according to Soviet plans. In addition, Soviet engineers have conceived a hard-surfaced highway through this region, from the easternmost tip of Chukotski peninsula, right under the Arctic Circle, to European Russia. An American motorist could get in his car and step on it all the way from Maine to Moscow—or, for that matter, to Berlin, Paris, and Madrid —with only one sea voyage of thirty-six miles across Bering strait. This, it is needless to say, will hardly be ready for the reader’s 1934 vacation. HUB UNLESS the Soviet Union’s vast colonization and Siberian industrialization scheme falls through, a total area larger than the entire United States will be converted into a whole series of Garys, Pittsburghs, Niagara Falls, Muscle Shoals, and Boulder Dams. This means that for the first time in history a colossal Euro-

him. However, at the ripe old age of 12 he finally persuaded Director Vidal that he was old enough to try some fancy stuff. They went for a brief hop over nearby Virginia, did some minor maneuvers. Young Eugene came back looking blase. Fred Roper, son of the commerce department secretary, asked Eugene junior whether he had done a vertical turn. “You mean that thing where you turn on one side?” inquired the youth. “Sure, but that’s nothing. I tried to get him to fly

SIDE GLANCES

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“I’m older than I look. I have a almost as big as you are.”

INDIANAPOLIS, THURSDAY, MAY 24, 1934

pean power would intrench itself along the whole northern frontier of China and Manchuria and rub elbows with the Japanese. The significance of this can not be exaggerated. Up to now neither China nor Japan has had a western power for a neighbor. Siberia, nominally Russian, has gone almost undeveloped and uninhabited by white men, save for the felons in exile. Even the number of these has been grossly magnified in the public mind. From 1825 to 1905 less than a million were sentenced to prison camps there. ft ft tt WHAT effect the transformation of Siberia will have on the Chinese, and what Japan will do to meet the challenge, is already being asked in world chancelleries. But Tokio has given more than

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a hint as to her policy. It is, bluntly, "hands off China.” In the event “a third power threatens our position there,” a

upside down, but he wouldn’t do it.” Then, very confidentially,—“l think dad’s a sissy.” Note—Vidal Sr. is a veteran army air corps pilot, once flew the air mail, and is a stunt flier of no mean repute. B B B FRIENDS of Controller of the Currency • “Jefty” O’Connor are still joshing him over a recent embarrassing experience he underwent in Jackson, Miss. . . , “Jefty” and RFC Chairman Jesse Jones were speakers at a large gathering in the southern city, with Jones as the first orator. . . . “Jefty” didn’t arrive until after Jesse finished. When he unfolded his manuscript and began speaking, the startled audience discovered that it was word-for-word the same speech Jesse had just made. . . . Both officials got their addresses from the canned-speech factory of the Democratic national committee. . . State department archive officials say that President Roosevelt is continuing longer than any of his recent predecessors in signing his full signature. . . . Usually after a few months, chief executives start abbreviating their names, but not Roosevelt. . . . Although he signs official papers for at least half an hour each day he still writes: “Franklin D. Roosevelt.” (Copyright, 1934. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)

By George Clark

- , —— ———

foreign office spokesman said in Tokio, “we shall intervene.” And to Japan any power which lends itself to the conversion of China into a unified, strong na-

TODAY and TOMORROW b a a u a u By Walter Lippmann

FOR forty years the Clergy Pensions Institution, an organization undei the supervision of the Church of England, has owned some $50,000 worth of stock in Vickers. Ltd., the largest armament company in Great Britain. The profits of the armament manufacturers are rising sharply owing to the feverish increase of armaments in Europe, and there is now a powerful protest among the clergy against participating in these

profits. This is one among many signs of the moral revulsion now evident in Britain. American and iff, a few other countries against international free trade in munitions of war. During the last week the President has shown that he shares this feeling: He has indorsed the senate investigation of the private armaments traffic; has urged the senate to ratify the international convention of 1925 to control the traffic; he has asked for power to stop the sale of munitions to Bolivia and Paraguay, now at war in the Chaco. The problem is opened for study by a statement made by the Bolivian minister to Washington, Senor Finot, who objects to the embargo and points out that it is an injustice to Bolivia. His argument is as follows: Bolivia has no seaport; Paraguay, on the other hand, has access to salt water; Bolivia does not possess a munitions plant; Paraguay does possess one. An embargo against both countries, therefore, means that Paraguay can obtain or make weapons, whereas Bolivia can not. For even though the embargo against Paraguay is effective, that country still would be able, presumably, to obtain the raw’ materials out of w’hich arms are made and then manufacture her own weapons. BUB IF THESE are the facts of the case, then, theoretically, the effect of an embargo designed to step the Chaco war by discouraging both belligerents would be to give the victory to Paraguay. Whatever may be the actual effects in this South American quarrel—and that of Secretary Hull and his advisers are the best judges—the question raised by Senor Finot is of very wide importance. Suppose that there is no world-wide treaty limiting armaments. And suppose that the international sale of armaments were stopped. What would be the effect? Broadly speaking, the nations would fall into three groups. There would be those, like the United States and Great Britain, which have a highly developed industrial organization for making munitions and have, either within their own territory or through their command of the sea, the necessary raw materials. There would be those, like Japan, Germany and France, which have the industrial organization, but lack the raw 'materials unless thay can command the sea. There would be those countries, like China, or say Bolivia, which lack either the industrial organization or the raw materials or both. B B u IN a world w’liere armaments count so heavily it w’ould follow, would it not, that the nations which w’ere not self-sufficient in armaments would have to build

The dam, shown above, with Russian workmen marching across in celebration, part of Dnieprostoi. world’s greatest hydro-electric plant, in south Russia, will be dwarfed by another project in Siberia, if Russia completes a program now being drafted. This mammoth undertaking would be carried out on the Angara river, a view of which is shown at the left, flowing out of Lake Baikal, near the important city of Irkutsk. The Angara, say travelers, is the most limpid river in the world.

tion thereby becomes a threat to be dealt with accordingly. Next, Russia divides vast area into four huge “compartments,” to be prepared for war.

up munitions industries, make alliances with countries that had them or had raw materials, develop navies to protect the imports of munitions, or sink under the domination of the nations which can arm themselves? To stop the international traffic in munitions, when there is no treaty limiting armaments and no reliable system of maintaining peace, is not likely, therefore, to prevent war. It is almost certain to intensify the competition in naval armaments, to promote military alliances, and to stimulate armament manufacturing in the industrially backward countries. In spite of all this there are few students of the question who would not agree that the munitions traffic, promoted by the quest for private profit and operating in secret, is a very serious danger to the peace of the world. How much there is in the charges that munition makers in Europe work up international suspicion and obstruct movements to relieve the tension, I have no way of knowing. But where there is so much smoke there is probably some fire. In any event, it is profoundly disturbing to think of a great industry operating across frontiers and dependent for its prosperity upon wars and rumors of wars. (Copyright. 1934 SCIENTISTS ASSEMBLE AT DUNES STATE PARK Dr. Ray C. Friesner of Butler Among Speakers. Dr. Ray C. Friesner of the Butler university botany department will be on the program of the annual spring meeting of the Indiana Academy of Science at Indiana Dunes state park today, tomorrow and Saturday. Dr. Friesner will conduct two park trips for the visiting scientists. One trip will be to the mineral springs bog in the park and the other to the Furnessville blowout. Five members of the Butler faculty are on the program committee for the state meeting. They are Dr. N. E. Pearson, chairman; Dr. J. E. Pitzger, Dr. H. G. Nester, Dr. K. S. Means and Dr. S. E. Elliott. MUSICAL PROGRAM SET Universal Luncheon Club to Hear Soloists Tuesday A musical program by Miss Helen Louise Titus, soprano; Mrs. Clyde Titus, soprano, and Miss Maxine Moore, contralto and accompanist, and a talk on “A Common Sense Health Program” by Dr. Thurman B. Rice will feature the Universal club’s luncheon Tuesday.

Second Section

Entered as Second -Claps .Matter at rostoffice, Indianapolis, Ind.

Fair Enough NEW YORK. May 24.—The other night, during the cotton carnival in Memphis, when my guardian and friend. Shifty Logan, the retired pugilist, had retired sine die, his friend Mack, the parttime Hawaiian ukelele picker, sat across the room for quite a while discussing the pitch business. The pitch business is that section of the meandering tent show business which has to do with paddle wheels, ring the cane fakes, cancer cures, stuffed neckties, stuffed desperadoes, snake charmers, tatooed men and those frightfully tragic

imbeciles, the pin -heads, who sit counting their fingers and moping their lives away in sweaty pits with canvas side walls, as lecturers dwell upon their halfwittedness and yokels titter and gape. Mr. Mack, the friend of my friend Shifty Logan, was in there trying and making good with a measure of Arkansas hootch. He had played his last rendition for the evening of the Hawaiian dance numbers which went with the Hawaiian Hula, had removed his horse-tail wig and grass skirt, and turned American again until time for work on the lot tomorrow.

Mr. Mack was not inclined to betray the secrets of a mysterious profession but he let go a few remarks which suggested the existence of realms which most of us know nothing of and. when he. too, subsided for a while, there tumbled from the side-pocket of his rained-upon and shrunken jacket a trade journal of a fascinating craft. a u A Little Advertising T ALWAYS turn a magazine from back to front and, -*• turning the page of this one in that order, I first came upon a section of advertisements directed to retailers, as it were, in the slot machine trade. I never had thought that the slot machine people had a defender in the fourth estate and it was a. revelation to find an ad reading, "Look—Mysterious gold award vendors, all equipped with special disc and reels used for testing location,” and citing prices, f. o. b. Richmond, Va. Richmond is a city which, being the headquarters of Bishop Cannon, I always had thought much too priggish for that kind of thing. The ad did not take me into details as to the mechanical principles of the disc and reels "used for testing location,” but I have had some expensive personal experience with slot machines and I am entitled to my guess. It is my guess that the special disc and reels are adjustable so as to control the action of the slot machine. At any rate, I have seen slot machines so equipped and it sort of shocked me to read in open print that such devices could be obtained in a public market. I had always had a vague idea,that Satan made them and that some sinister force called racketdom. or the underworld, controlled them. On another page of this delightful document my widening gaze perceived that the Hotcha punchboard, obtainable in Chicago for $2.75 a copy, was arranged to take in $75 and pay out $37.50 in merchandise. This tempting opportunity was displayed close to another advertisement offering candy giveaway packages, 1,000 for $11.25, or a little over 1 cent a package. I have no idea why merchants should give away packages of candy, even at a cost of a little more than 1 cent each, unless it could be to meet the requirements imposed by captious police officials in cities where the courts have held that the slot machine may operate provided that some article of value, however trifling, be awarded the, customer for every two-bit piece deposited in the slot. Such ornery officials have been experienced in many localities from time to time, although their orneriness usually yields to the proper sort of inducement, tactfully proposed.

Marriage for Profit FROM the inner world of the slot machine and punch board, the pages, reading from right to left, led me over into much more Startling and disenchanting revelations. I read, for instance, of a press agent for a dance marathon who was achieving distinction in his specialized line by recruiting couples to be married in public and with malice aforethought at a dance marathon in a western community. It never had occurred to me to doubt that the couples who get married at dance marathons had to be recruited. I had heard of such matches but presumed that they weie made in heaven and never suspected that the principals might agree to wed for $25 a wedding, divided down the middle. It seemed just a taste vulgar but, on later inquiry among friends in the tent show business, I was assured that there were parties who made a practice of getting married to one another over and over for reasons of sordid gain. In the live stock division of the trade journal. I discovered opportunities to acquire standard assortments of large, fat, mixed snakes, circus mice, bats and even a came spider. I read the trade journal for a long time as Mr. Mack, the part-time Hawaiian, slumbered gently beside my guardian and friend Shifty Logan, and came, finally, upon an “In Memoriam” notice, done in verse, from a clown to the memory of his father, which said: “ ’Twas my youngest son's birthday. May 12. one year ago, today, I got the message you had passed away. Your children have all married, Left mother alone, She is brave, just waiting, for God to take her home, When the circus plays the old home town I’ll see her and visit your grave.” (Signed) “Your Son, Just a Clown.” My friend’s friend. Mr. Mack, the intermittent Hawaiian, stirred about then. “How about a little crock of drinking liquor?” I suggested. “Okay.” said Mr. Mack, grabbing his ukelele and whanging off a few bars of “Yaka-hula-hickey-dula. Okay by me, Poddner.” (Copyright. 1934, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.) Today's Science BY DAVID DIETZ AS United States senators argue the relative merits of gold and silver the Smithsonian Institution is arranging an exhibition of strange forms of money that range from woodpecker scalps to razor blades. The collection Will be put on display this summer as part of the Smithsonian exhibit at A Century of Progress exposition in Chicago. The display, which was arranged by the division of ethnology of the institution, includes shells, bright feathers, axes, spear heads, fish hooks, blocks of salt, skins, blocks of pressed tea and tobacco, glass bottles, cocoanuts, eagle feathers, cacao beans, whale teeth, porcupine quills and teeth, tails of animals, beads, red hair from behind the ear of the flying fox. millstones, hoes and spades, crosses of copper, ingots of iron, buffalo robes and other articles. While many of these articles seem weird choices to us now as mediums of exchange, the Smithsonian ethnologists point out that their original use was always connected actually or symbolically with the daily needs of the people who used them. A good sample of this is the old Chinese “razor money.” The iron razor, because of the skill that went into its fashioning, became an object of value. Hence it became a natural medium of exchange. In time it became symbolic, and razors fashioned of bronze or cut from precious jade were used for money. As the result of a process of simplification, the blade was eliminated, leaving only the round handle with a perforated center.

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Westbrook Pegler