Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 97, Indianapolis, Marion County, 1 September 1934 — Page 7
SEPT. 1, 1934.
h-Jeemr io Me HEWOOD BROUN IT has been argued frequently, and not very intelligently, that the world needs a leisure class for the protection and propagation of culture. Among the millionaires of America some few have undertaken to foster painting, sculpture, the drama, and allied arts. On the whole this patronage has not been conspicuously helpful. There are a lew conspicuous exceptions, but the very phrase "a fashionable portrait painter ’ carries with it an inevitable sense of condemnation. Maecenas is a mug. He has almost a genius for endowing the second and third rate practitioners in ail the arts. Os course, occasionally he hits upon a good one. Even a bloated
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Heywood Broun
co'.er every case, but by and large great wealth in these United States is very apt to go hand in hand with groat vulgarity. No manager with a play of delicate values would ever think of trying out his piece in Newport, Rhode Island The music lovers at the Met" are not often found along the rim of the ’ Golden Horseshoe.” a a a (inod Old Spirit of Coney Island IWILL grant that the money barons should have the credit of financing some superb office buildings in both New York and Chicago. But by some curious quirk these same gentlemen hit upon monstrosities when they undertake to build themselves private homes. Whenever the local taximan from the suburban station points in the direction of some manor which he refers to as a ’show place” you may be prepared to see something begun in the spirit of an old French chateau and finished off in the spirit of Coney Island. I give you Palm Beach, Fla , as a spot where vast sums have been spent in t. e effort to burlesque the architecture of the Spaniards. And aprpos. perhaps of nothing in particular, I was extremely interested in what the ship news men learned from Mrs. Edward B. McLean, but lately a visitor in Russia. “Mrs. McLean.” according to the story in the Herald-Tribune, “told of her great passion for jewels and her pleasure at displaying the Hope diamond for the first time in Russia, since it was owned by Catherine the Great. She played with looped strands of diamonds on her arm rattled the four bracelets of the same precious stones on each wrist, and playfully moved her diamond-studdpd fingers, reflecting the sun’s rays, as she told of the two Soviet secret police and two members of the American consulate who followed her protect ingly to the Moscow night club.” ana The Wrong Word, Dear Lady AND in the same account of the doings of the same fastidious lady I read. "She said her curiosity was satisfied that the Russians ‘hated me, for I stood for all that women who wears jewels represent.’ " ■ 1 what do they represent? I have heard it n manv a patriotic oration that no man should try in free America to arouse class antagonism. This is the land of equal opportunity and any individual who has amassed rare jewels, which glitter in the to flaunt theae Symbols of her service to the community right in the eye of all who may pass by. "There was no envy of the gems in the eyes of those who saw my jewelry, only hate,” Mrs. McLean explained. "And I seemed to revive for them the memory of old Russia, and often during that interesting evening in Moscow. I could almost feel the blade of the guillotine at my throat.” Mis. McLean added that she was perhaps, “the only living person who has given poor, dismal Russia a thrill t n the last decade.” I am afraid the lovely lady chooses her words with less care than she bestows upon her diamonds. Is she sure that what she gave was a thrill? Isn’t it remotely passible that "a pain” would be a little more precise and in much better taste? • Cbpynght. 1934. by The Times)
Today s Science BY DAVID DIETZ
BOYS and cirls who have trouble with their arithmetic lessons will welcome with joy the suggestion of Dr. David Eugene Smith, emeritus professor of mathematics at Columbia university, that much now taught in arithmetic be dropped from the curriculum. Their joy. however, will be tempered by the fact that Dr. Smith thinks it will take at least half a century to arrive at an ideal curriculum. No doubt many adults who remember their own struggles with arithmetic will be inclined to agree with Dr. Smith's opinion of the necessity of revising the teaching of arithmetic. "Common fractions.” Professor Smith says, "have beet me relatively uncommon in use. Aside from halves, thirds, fourths and eighths, the average person has little use for these antiquated forms. In subtraction or division their use is almost negligible. "The real uses for such topics for the vast majority of people are easily defined and the pretended uses may well be cast aside.” man FOR the average pupil. Dr. Smith believes, it would be well to discard in geometry all but about thirty propositions relating to plane figures. At the same time, he would stress the exercises and emphasise the fact that the great purpose of geometry is Its skillful introduction to logic. "In trigonometry.’* he continues, “we shall recognize that the initial stages are far easier than those of our present algebra and that the chief lesson for most pupils Is that of indirect measurement.” It would be unfair to Dr. Smith to leave the impression that he Is interested in teaching less mathematics to students. In fact, his real purpose is just the opposite. He is interested in clearing useless timbers from the present structure of school mathematics in order that they can be replaced with useful ones. 9 9 9 DR. SMITH knows some of the objections which will be raised to his ideas and so proceeds to answer them in advance. “There may be some who say that I advocate superficiality.” he says. But Ido not. There will be others who say that I am overlooking the value of drill. I am not. But I object to spending time on drills in the domains of uselessness." Tradition, race habits and fashions are the forces which perpetuate useless customs. Dr. Smith says. “These are what account for the uselessness of things in every walk of life.” he says, "in every school in the country, in every course of study, and consequently in every textbook, whatever the subject. in every country in the world "
Questions and Answers
Q—How many disputes have been settled by the League of Nations since its organization? A—Since the organization of the league, thirtytwo disputes have come before the council and have been handled wuh varying degrees of success. The majority of disputes submitted have been' traceable to the World war. and the provisions of the peace treatiea Which city now stands on the ancient site of Babylon? A—No city now stands on the site. The Babylonian plants are dotted with enormous mounds, often Inclosed by vast ramparts of earth, which are all that remains of the great walled cities.,the palaces and the temples of the ancient Babylonians.
bondholder can’t be wrong all the t.me. But, unfortunately, the lad or lass with just a touch of genius all too often is anchored by the very gifts which are intended as inducements. I am not romantic enough to think that high talent should take itself to tall garrets and proceed to starve but I have watched merit moult and wither under the deadly influence of twelve rooms and four baths. I have no desire U> pitch a blanket indictment. No generalization is precise enough to
‘WHITE HOUSE BABY’ NOW BRITON
Cleveland’s Daughter Holds Fond Memories of Childhood Days
Pu SEA Ptrrica REDCAR, England. Sept. 1 —The only real White House baby, bom the daughter of a President in the White House itself, is today a British citizen, wife of a distinguished English soldier, and mother of two fine young girls. She is Mrs. W. S. B Bosanquet. and forty years ago her arrival at the White House as Esther Cleveland set thousands of Americans to humming a popular song whose refrain went: "The pride of the White House Is Grover's ba-bee!” Her proud father was Grover Cleveland..then serving his second term in the presidency, and so fully occupied with the press of national affairs that he had to leave his wife's bedside shortly after the birth, with the doctor's assurance that all w'as well with mother and child, to receive the Japanese ambassador in the blue room. Ten children have been born in the White House in the 130 years of its existence, but Mrs. Bonsanquet is the only one who was the daughter of the President himself. Most of the others have been grandchildren. Now she is mistress of a very old manse near this seacoast town of Redcar England, far up in Yorkshire in a district which, appropriately enough, is known as Cleveland. Her husband. Captain William Sydney Bpnce Bosanquet, Is general manager of the Skinningrove Iron and Steel Company, into which business he went after long and distinguished service with the Britsh army in some if its hardest fighting on the western front during the World war.
Little Esther Cleveland was only 3*5 when her father left the White House at the end of his second term. But she still keeps little fragmentary impressions of that day. a a a “FT'S queer what things stick in -■-a child’s mind,” she says. “I can still remember where we used to have our supper, and the general plan of that part of the White House where we were allowed to play. "I can also remember our last day there, when we w'ere waiting for the carriage to convey us to the railway station. "I remember the satisfaction with which I wore my little gloves in preparation for the journey. "There is one thing I do not remember, but which members of the family have told me. I was sitting there very primly, waiting to leave the White House, when one of the attaches said, teasingly: “ ’Why are you leaving us?’ "I am supposed to have replied: ’Cause there can’t be two Presidents !’ ” a a a 'T'HE Clevelands mo'ed to Princeton, N. J., where the ex-President became a trustee of the university and of a great life insurance company. Esther Cleveland went to a private school in Princeton, and, on the death of Cleveland, to Switzerland with her mother and sisters. Then she went to a finishing school, made her debut in 1912, and returned to Europe with her mother just when the war broke.
■The ■
DAILY WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen
WASHINGTON, Sept. I.—The staid senate has received no one in many years with as much curiosity as it would receive Rush Dew Holt, 29-year-old phenomenon, who has a good chance at being elected Democratic senator from West Virginia. Rush Holt is rather a wild-eyed youngster of sloppy dress and unkempt hair, who talks fast and gives the impression that he doesn’t always know what he is talking about. He has a great facility for mastering facts, and an even greater facility for spieling them off at top speed without giving very much philosophic interpretation of their meaning.
MUNICIPAL BAND WILL GIVE SUNDAY CONCERT Herman Arndt Group to Play at Garfiield Park. The Indianapolis Municipal band Herman Arndt conducting, will play at 3 Sunday afternoon in Garfield park. Its program will include Waters’ march, "The I. B. A.”; selections from Friml’s ‘ Firefly” a cornet solo by Frank Kessler Herolds “Zampa” overture selections from light opera by Herbert and Lenar; Strauss’ "Blue Danube” Hayes’ "Southern Melodies”; HufTines “Them Basses” and O’Keefe’s currently popular "Man on the Flying Trapeze.” REHEARING IS GRANTED Street Car Cos. to Resubmit Plea for Mars Hill Bus Line. The public service commission yesterday granted the Indianapolis Street Railway Company a rehearing on a petition to abandon street car service on the Mars Hill line, and substitute bus transportation. The commission recently denied the petition. Date for the new hearing has not been set. BAPTIST MEETING SET Executive Committee to Assemble on Wednesday. A special meetting of the executive committee of the Federated Baptist Churches of Indianapolis w as called today by Eugene C. Foster, president of the federation, and the Rev. F. W. Buckner, moderator, for noon Wednesday in the Board of Trade dining room. Persons participating in the annual Baptist gathering on Sept. 11 and 12 will attend. HOLDUP STORY-DOUBTED Employe Is Held for Grand Jury on Embezzlement Charge. William Alley of this city was held to the grand jury yesterday on embezzlement charges by Municipal Judge Dewey Myers. He is alleged to have gambled away $42 belonging to his employers and then told them he had been robbed. Alley has a criminal record, police say. LIQUOR MEETING CALLED Dealers Summoned to Meet With Administration Chief. Federal alcohol control administration officials will confer with all state liquor, wine and beer wholesale dealers at 8 Thursday night in the Clay pool, j. A. Langan. Indianapolis, liquor industry* state chairman, announced today. A discussion of the *’by-the-drink” fight is not anticipated. Mr. Langan asserted. Code problems will be under consideration at the meeting.
the White House in the 130 years % it is the only one who was the w ' LjjjgfeML Jtetvjy st ° f thC ° thCr * haVe grand " hed service w ith the Britsh army g&||j|j|j| , ~
At St. Moritz she met her future husband, just out of Cambridge. Then the war came, and Bosanquet rushed home to join the colors. He went to France as an officer of the famous Coldstream guards. Miss Cleveland and her mother managed to get home, but the young girl was afire with the wish to do war w’ork. and in 1916 returned to London to serve the war-blinded soldiers at St. Dunstan’s, where they were being cared for in a house given by Otto Kahn, another American. a a a Young bosanquet came back from the front in 1917, badly wounded, and when he went
Holt’s father was an atheist, and suspected by the people of West Virginia for that reason. But at the age of 85 he ran as candidate for mayor of Weston. And, although his name was squeezed off the ballot, enough people wrote it in to give him the election. All of which proves either that West Virginia no longer worries about atheists or that the Holt family is endowed with unique political acumen. Suffering from no inferiority complex. Rush Holt has sublime faith that he will be seated in the senate despite the provision that a senator must be 30. “I can’t believe.” he announced, with Henry Clay enthusiasm, ‘•that a Roosevelt senate would refuse on a technicality to seat a senator supporting the Roosevelt policies.” The technicality, in this case, is fixed by the Constitution of the United States. a tt tt FERNINAND PECORA, the terror of Wall street, tells this story on Huey Long, which occurred during the senate investigation of the money-changers last year. After a committee session, Mr. Pecora was invited into the office of Bob Reynolds, thrice-married senator from North Carolina, to meet Peggy Hopkins Joyce, multimarried stage celebrity. Huey also came in to meet the lady, but upon entering the room appeared busy with other things. A mere female, apparently, was beneath his notice. Finally, however, Huey came over to the other end of the room and was introduced. Peggy, who by this time was slightly miffed, eyed him icily. “Oh.” she said, after a long and stony pause, “aren’t you the senator they call the goldfish?” tt tt a THOSE inside the treasury predict that the next congress will see a sweeping downward revision of liquor taxes and tariffs. Private sentiment in favor of this is general throughout high administration ranks. Joseph H. Choate Jr., federal alcohol administrator, is making no secret of his sentiment. He is saying openly that if the flourishing bootlegger traffic is to be killed, it can be done only by drastically slashing federal taxes and tariffs. Unless this is done. Secretary Morgenthau’s aids admit that his intensified drive against bootleggers will be futile. To illustrate what Morgenthau is up against, look at these figures. Before prohibition the annual United States whisky demand was 65.000.000 gallons With a population greater than in 1919, and with no decrease in consumption, licensed distillery withdrawals now average only 30,000,000 gallons a year. Note—Alcohol seizures by the customs bureau in July were almost as much as tfc? total confiscated during the wnole of 1933.
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
back to his regiment, he and Miss Cleveland were engaged. In 1918, during another leave for the young officer, they were married quietly in Westminster Abbey. A week after the wedding, he w r ent back to the trenches for the last few savage battles that closed the war, winning the coveted Distinguished Service Order. Then he came home, and the two settled in Yorkshire, the captain turning to the iron and steel business, and the president’s daughter to the rearing of Marian Frances, now 14, and Philippa Ruth. 13. Today, at 40, Mrs. Bosanquet is a tall, slender, youthful-looking woman with a mass of chestnut hair and gray-blue eyes. She has
DR. GLASS AWARDED TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP Huesmann Honor Is Conferred on City Specialist. Dr. Robert L. Glass, 34, Indianapolis specialist in nervous and mental diseases, today was appointed to a traveling fellowship provided by the $60,000 Louis C. Huesmann foundation for research and educational purposes at the James Whitcomb Riley hospital for children. Announcement of the appointment was made by Hugh McK. Landon, president of the foundation and of the James Whitcomb Riley Memorial Association. Dr. Glass, a graduate of Michigan university in 1924, will spend the major part of a year at that institution and will make additional studies at Johns Hopkins, Harvard and other institutions offering notable research achievements in the field of neurology.
FOUR CONVICTS TO ASK PAROLES FROM STATE Pleas to Be Placed Before Indiana Clemency Commission. Four inmates of the s.ate prison and penal farm sentenced from Marion county will seek paroles when the state clemency commission meets next week, it was announced today. The men are Eddie Terry, sentenced to life imprisonment, Jan. 29. 1920. Cecil Ruff, sentenced to ten years, Oct. 5, 1929. for burglary; Carl Scherer, sentenced June 13, 1934, for six months on a vehicle taking charge, and John Trushell, sentenced Feb. 26. 1932. f -> a three-ten-year term for bur: y.
SIDE GLANCES By George Clark
. ! i iir j m iji u jij ••• *n ' .-i . j-. .-:•>. • j < V - S f - ■ <*r ... ~ • L
“Now, let’s pretend Tra young Mr. Carson, calling on you for the first time.’*
much of the charm and warm, human friendliness that made her mother so beloved a White House hostess. a a a epHis summer there will be a X reunion in Yorkshire, with a visit to the Bosanquets by the former Mrs. Cleveland, now the wife of Professor Thomas Jex Preston of Princeton. Mrs. Bosanquet takes no active part in politics, devoting herself to her home, her family, her gardens, and to personal service work among the unemployed of Yorkshire. Nevertheless, she is a loyal, if passive, supporter of the conservative party. She muses thoughtfully over this apparent change from the democratic politics of her distinguished father. "Yet I don’t think father would mind,” she muses. “After all, ivhat did he stand for? Sound money, a dollar’s worth of governmental
ROUNDING ROUND TUT? A 'IPTTDO WITH WALTER 111 11/r\ 1 ilf IVO D. HICKMAN
''"T'HERE is music in the air and it certainly is when the operator is projecting "She Loves Me Not" on the screen at the Indiana. It is conceded that all a picture or a stage show needs is one wow tune to make it a success. Os course, other things are necessary but one hot tune can put it into the big money class.
Those responsible for “She Loves Me Not” went one better and placed two hit numbers in this one. The numbers I am referring to are “Love In Bloom,” which is one of the most tantalizing tunes I have heard in many a moon and the other is “Straight From the Shoulder.” Another reason for this picture’s appeal is that Bing Crosby, Miriam Hopkins and Kitty Carlisle head the cast w’hich has the fine work of young Edward Nugent. Bing is in on both of these numbers and the way he and Kitty Carlisle develop “Love In Bloom” proves that Crosby is the best singer of that particular type of song we have on the screen. While singing, Miss Carlisle is a marvelous surprise. She not only has a good voice, but she has poise and showmanship. She does a great deal to keep this smart farce on high-toned univer-* sity life down on earth. She is cast as the dean’s daughter who is not too surprised to learn that Paul Lawton (Crosby) and Buzz Jones (Nugent) have bobbed the hair of Curly Flagg (Miriam Hopkins), put her in men’s clothes and secreted her In the men’s dormitory.
The only real white House baby • . • as she looked (center) when she was little Esther Cleveland, 3', years old, and was about to leave the White House where she was born. . . . Above, as she is today (Mrs. W. S. B. Bosanquet), and at left standing with her own two daughters before the Old Hall, their home in England's Yorkshire, in a district known, oddly enough, as Cleveland.
service for a dollar's worth of taxes. "He insisted that public office should be a public trust. The best of British conservatives stand for the same things. And though the conservatives are a protective tariff party, while he gave us the slogan ‘tariff for revenue only’—well, if he were alive today, he would probably change his mind, a a a “V\7" Irr H the whole world fightVV ing for trade, with every country trying to keep its own people employed, he would probably agree that in 1934 theories of free trade have gone into innocuous desuetude—to use his own celebrated phrase,” she said. But the woman who as a little girl sat on the lap of the daddy a nation knew as President Grover Cleveland, and smudged ink on the papers in his study, turns now not to politics, but to her gardens, her soldier husband, and her own two bonny daughters. The peaceful, 200-year-old mansion known as "The Old Hall,” seems, somehow, a lovely setting for the mature years of the only real White House baby.
AND whether she is wearing men’s clothes, or clad in a pair of Paul’s pajamas (which are three sizes too large for her), Miss Hopkins is able to make you laugh most of the time. Henry Stephenson is just the right choice for the dean who finds a “revolution” on his hands when he discovers that Curly is a girl and not a boy. Curly and her press agent, Gus McNeal (Lynne Overman), use some high pressure and nearly gangster methods on the poor old dean to make him come across. I nearly fell out of my seat at the end of the picture when Curly throws herself out of the window and lands astride the dean’s shoulders. This story is both rowdy and nice, and tuneful to boot, and they make a good combination when properly handled. And the story has been well handled. It’s a mighty smart and tantalizing yarn. This picture will please ninety-nine people out of a hundred, and it might please everybody. That’s just how “surefire” this one is. Now at the Indiana. tt tt tt INDIANAPOLIS will be all “ga-ga” next Tuesday from 6 a. m. to noon if Dick Powell, star of “Dames” and other musical movie hits, carries out his plans to visit his '‘home town.” Dick is scheduled to arrive at the Indianapolis airport at 6 a. m. next Tuesday from Hollywood and then leave for New York at noon. The Indiana theater management is anxious to show Dick how much the city thinks of him. If Powell and Warner Brothers agree there will be a breakfast with Powell as guest of honor, where he will meet again the men and women who write about him on the screen in Indianapolis. If Warner Brothers agree, the Indiana hopes to have Powell appear at the first show next Tuesday morning and receive a loving cup from his friends. As soon as these plans are confirmed they will be announced officially.
103,225 INCREASE IN U. S. JOBS REVEALED Thousands Added to Pay Roll Under Roosevelt. Bit United Presn WASHINGTON, Sept. I.—An increase of more than 100 000 in the number of persons on the federal pay roll since President Roosevelt took office was shown today by United States civil service commission figures. At the end of July, the commissioner set the number of civilian employes both temporary and permanent at 666.612. a gain of 103.225 over February, 1933, shortly before the present administration took office. During July the number of federal employes gained 5,518, mostly in the department of agriculture and the farm credit administration. Despite the huge increase in federal employment under the present administration the level was still far under the war time peak of 917,760 reached on Nov. 11, 1918.
Fair Enough KWOK MB! RAYMOND HOOD used to drive downtown through Central Park and gaze at the immense block of Rockefeller City rising like a mountain to shut off the view of the other big buildings in the distance and dwarf all the little big builidngs in the foreground to the proportion of foothills. He liked the view driving down through the park for he had been garret-poor only a dozen years ago and now he had had a hand in the designing of the biggest peak in the Manhattan range. He was a modest little fellow, not much bigger
than a jockey, but he did enjoy his success as an architect and he must have acknowledged to himself that he was a somebody, although he never was heard to admit as much tn anybody else. He had tackled the biegest. toughest town in the world, where the competition Is hardest, alone, broke and handicapped by personal shyness. Before he died two weeks ago he had shown the whole world. There hardly was a spot in the middle part of Manhattan but that he could look out one of the high windows, pick out
some big building and say to himself. "That is one of mine: I did that.” Ray Hood was no mere celebrity. Celebrity is made of little lines of type, day after day in the papers. Celebrity is made of dialect jokes, bought or stolen from somebody else, and delivered over the air. It is made of crying out loud about love, of pretty profiles and furious lefts and rights to the face and body. He was more than a celebrity, but hp could have been that, too, if he had had it in his character to strut and chuck his weight. a a a Chooses Saloon to Salon BUT the strut was a gait he never learned. One night he went to a party with Eliel Saarinen, the Finnish architect, at which both of them were to be celebrities. It was what Ray Hood called a sticky party, with society and artists of the modernist type milling around the cocktail trough. One of the modernists sang and when the hostess asked Mr. Hood what he thought of that he said, "Lady, you asked for it; I think it resembles modernist painting, which I think is horrible.” At this point, Mr. Saarinen, who could not be led around by a nose-ring either, looked at his wrist, clapped his hands for the butler and demanded his hat and stick. He had to catch a train for Kansas City right away. Only fifteen minutes. Hat and stick, quick, and come on. Hood, see me to the train. Mr. Saarinen’s habitual hat was a derby and he had a trick, when exuberant or annoyed, of kicking it along the sidewalk. He often had to replace the hat. Once outside, Mr. Saarinen placed his derby on the sidewalk, kicked it, picked it up and put it on his head, dent and all. "Now, Hood," said he, "we go someplace and drink like men.” "I always liked saloons better than salons,” Mr. Hood said, and took Mr. Saarinen down to Mori's in Greenwich Village, the first of the pretentious speakeasies of the prohibition era. a a a A Pair of Real Fellows RAY was amused when people shuddered at the thought of an earthquake in New York. Wouldn’t his tall buildings fall down and kill a lot of people? “The buildings .wouldn’t fall,” he said, "but the shell of brick and stone would shake off into the streets. It might kill a million people or so. But what of it? If one person dies we don’t consider that a disaster. If a million are killed that is just so many individual deaths. Consider them one by one and there is no disaster.” One of his best friends was the late Josef Urban, an architect, who was best known in this country, however, as a designer for Florenz Ziegfeld. He was fat and jovial and he. like Hood, designed a beaAti,ful speakasy in the time of prohibition. It was the" old Park Avenue Club, operated by a group of Broadway underworld characters, who were supposed to have laid down SIOO,OOO, in currency on his desk to pay for the job in advance. The town really believed that. Mr. Urban laughed about the legend. "I spent $9,000 of my own money decorating the Park Avenue Club," he said. “After a long time they paid me $3,000, little by little. I will never get the rest ” Ray Hood was buried close to Joe Urban in Sleepy Hollow. There was some cemetery architecture of the conventional, gates-ajar pattern near the grave and the widow of Joe Urban said to the widow of Ray Hood as they turned away, "Can’t you just hear the boys laughing and joking tonight about the benches and limestone angels around them?" (Copyright, 1934, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)
Your Health —BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN—^
'T'HE question of inheritance of disease or of mental defects, and its relationship to life, is more prominent in the public eye today than ever before in history. The great social experiments being made in many countries, including human sterilization in Germany, have served to focus attention particularly on heredity. There was a time when scientists believed that acquired characteristics could be transmitted. Now this view has been largely abandoned because of the lack of any experimental evidence to support it and also because it has been shown that the reproductive cells are separated from the rest of the growing child at an early stage in its development. It was thought at one time that leprosy was hereditary; now we know it to be infective. a tt a HOWEVER, there is good proof that human characteristics—both mental and physical—may be transmitted. For example, musical memory may run in families and, in fact, good memory altogether may be inherited in certain families. The color of the eyes may be inherited, the shape of the chest, and the size of the body. However, so far as concerns sterilization of the human being to prevent the passing on of mental and physical defects, the actual knowledge is so deficient and so exceedingly uncertain as to cause considerable doubt on the rightfulness or usefulness of human sterilization on a large scale. a tt a EXPERTS estimate that the lower one-fourth of the population is producing one-half of the next generation and that, therefore, there is a tendency for the lower half to multiply until it swamps the upper half. The situation is complicated by the fact that the mentally defective strain may be transmitted by those who are not themselves mentally defective, so that one authority estimates that even the complete elimination of all the feeble-minded in the United States at one time would not eliminate feeble-mind-edness since there would be more than 190,000 cases in the next generation resulting from normals who transmitted feeble-mindedness. In the United States twenty-seven states now have laws for sterilization of insane, feeble-minded, and epileptic, and in some states criminality is included. There seems to be a great deal of difference in opinion as to inclusion of criminality, and there is also much disagreement as to what types of feeblemindedness and mental deficiency ought to be considered. Woman was probably the first beast of burden. The American papoose frame, the Eskimo hood, the Kaffir skm bag. the New Guinea net, the Andaman sling, and the Chinese yoke, all baby carriers, tend to bear out this conclusion. • • • Scientists have discovered, with a high-speed camera, that lightning flashes ‘‘bounce back and forth” between the same points of cloud and ground as many as ten times.
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Westbrook Feglef