Indianapolis Times, Volume 47, Number 293, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 February 1936 — Page 10

PAGE 10

The Indianapolis Times (A SCKirrS-HOVFARI) NEWSI’AFBR) ROf W. HOWARD President LUDWELL DENNT Editor EAUL 1), BAKER ......... Builncsi Manager

srmpp* - HowAjin Gi' P 14'jht and the People Will pin'l Their Own Wo y

Member of United Press. SerippsHoward Newspaper Alliance, Newspaper Enterprise Association, Newspaper Information Service and Acdit Bureau of Circulation!. Ownpd and published daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolia Times Publishing Cos.. 2H-220 W. Marylandst. Indianapolia. Ind. Price in Marlon County. 3 centa a copy; delivered by carrier. 12 cent* a week. Mail subscription rates in Indians. $3 a year: outside of Indiana. AS centa a month. rhnn * RI kVil

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1?3. NEW HOMES FOR OLD /"\UTLINES of the proposed new Wagner bill hold out promise of a cohesive program heretofore lacking in the New Deal's ambitious rehousing plans. It is proposed, first, that the Federal government withdraw from the field of slum clearance, except through low-interest loans and grants to cities for this purpose. Instead of the earlier grandiose project of spending a billion dollars at once for this purpose the new program contemplates Federal loan-grant subsidies covering a 10-year program, spending possibly $300,000,000 a year. For speeding up private home-building in the middle brackets it is proposed that governmentguaranteed first mortgages cover 90 per cent of the building cost for houses under SSOOO in value, instead of 80 per cent as now. This should enable more small-income families to build than now find it possible. Under the plan a man wanting to build a SSOOO home would need only SSOO cash, borrowing the rest from his bank under a 20-year amortized loan. To continue aid for modernization and repair work the new bill will extend the present act's mortgage guarantee provisions, expiring April 1, for another year. Most important from a social viewpoint are the plans for slum abatement. With the best intentions in the world the Administration has made precious little progress in rehousing slum dwellers. Vainly it has tried out loans to limited-dividend corporations. Almost as vainly it has sought to rebuild slum areas directly. PWA is now busy on 50 tenement projects to rehouse 25,000 families. The mountain has labored, a mouse is born. The new formula—Federal subsidies to cities—ls, we believe, the answer to the problem of large-scale slum clearance. Private capital isn't interested in really low-cost housing. It is quite as futile to expect Uncle Sam to act as landlord to millions of tenement dweller. Cities alone can do the job. To prepare the way for utilizing Federal grants and credit the states should see that their laws permit the creation of city housing authorities. It is estimated that there are six million substandard homes in the United States. These wretched dwellings are hazardous from every social viewpoint, for they breed communicable disease, delinquency, crime and danger of fire, it is not only morally right that public dollars go info their destruction; it is economic horse sense. The millions we spend in decent housing for our multitudes will pay big dividends in lowered health, police and fire budgets as well as in a better type of humans in the generations to come.

WHO'S IN THE WOODPILE SENATOR TYDINGS read in the newspapers that Secretary of War Dern was “not especially interested” in the Tydings-McCormack military disaffection bill. That being true, the Senator wrote in a letter to the secretary, "Neither am I, who originally introduced the measure.” This affords an interesting sidelight on how our laws are made. Somebody representing the Navy Department handed the bill to the Senator and told him the War and Navy Departments wanted it passed. So the Senator introduced it. And in due course. v’hen no one especially was paying attention, the bill was passed by the Senate and sent to the House where, fortunately, it still rests. Now the Senator finds that the head of one of the military establishments is not interested in the measure, and apparently never has been. So the Senator withdraws his support from the bill. So far as that branch of Congress where he sits is concerned, the Senator closes the barn door after the horse has been stolen. We suggest that the Senator, who has been made the goat, pursue this interesting matter further, and find out just who is back of this measure which would make it a penal offense for any one to criticise the Army or Navy. Is it the proposal of some group of swivel chair military and naval attaches who have been so unmindful of military rules as to mix into the politics of lawmaking? Or, perhaps, some officers who think they need something more than autocratic military authority over subordinates to maintain discipline in the ranks? Or is it just the product of some executive secretary of a super-patriotic society who has to manufacture red scares to keep his job? WHO PICKS THE COURT? A QUESTION which William Howard Taft in 1920 called “the most important domestic issue” is expected to be raised early in the 1936 presidential campaign. It is this: What man shall be given power to fill the several Supreme Court vacancies anticipated in the next few years? Taft, whom Harding later made chief justice, pointed out that the four justices were past the retiring age of 70. Today five c i the nine are past 70, and a sixth. Pierce Butler, will pass it March 17. President Roosevelt in three years has had no vacancy to fill, but politicians expect his opponents to urge that voters consider the type of man he would like to appoint once the opportunity came. The conservative Taft made his declaration during the 1920 campaign in a Yale Review article expressing fear of possible appointments by the Democratic nominee, James M. Cox. Harding was elected . and in his two and one- half years named not less : than four justices, all conservatives, two of whom ; (Sutherland and Butler) are the most steadfast of the present conservative majority of the court. The Taft article charged that Woodrow Wilson “appointed many persons of socialistic tendency to office and power,” and concluded: "Mr. Wilson is in fa or of a latitudinarian construction of the Constitution to weaken the protec- > tion it should afford against socialistic raids upon S property rights, with the direct and inevitable result 'of paralyzing t} initiative and enterprise of capital .'necessary for the real progress of all. He has made three appointments to the Supreme Court. Hp is un--derstood to be greatly disappointed in the attitude lot the first of these {Mcßeynolds. who still is on the ;bench] on such questions. The other two represent -A new achool of Judicial construction, which, if al-

lowed to prevail, will greatly impair our fundamental law r . [One of these was Justice Brandeis.J ‘Four of our incumbent justices are beyond the retiring age of 70, and the next President will probably be called upon to appoint their successors. There is no gitater domestic issue in this election than th< maintenance of the Supreme Court, as the bulwark to enforce the guaranty that no man shall be deprived of his property without due process of law. •'Who can be better trusted to do this—Mr. Cox, the party successor of Mr. Wilson, or Mr. Harding, the standard-bearer of the Republican Party?” The first 24 justices of the Supreme Court left the bench, either by death or retirement, at an average age of a little past 60. But the next 24 justices averaged just past 70 when they departed. The 20 just preceding the present tnemb rship averaged a fraction under 7C, and the present nine average a few months over 70. Justice Brandeis is 79, Van Devarter 76, Mcßeynclds 74. and Sutherland and Hughes 73. THAT “DEATH SENTENCE” 'T'HREE ways in which utility companies may •* comply with the ‘‘death sentence” of the Holding Company Act without harm to investors are outlined by Roger W. Babson, business analyst and statistician, :r the current Public Utilities Fortnightly. “Holding companies can swap entire properties, so that each company will have not more than two disconnected and separate units,” he says. “If utility managements would spend more time in studying the game of chess . . . and less time with attorneys, the common stockholders, in my humble judgment, would be better off. There is nothing in the Holding Company Act to hurt the value of any operating company.” His second suggestion: “Holding companies can continue to own 10 per cent ot any number of companies. For instance Electric Bond & Share owns only about 30 per cent of one of its largest subsidiaries. It could sell 10 per cent to two other holding companies. . . . “A group of public utility officials could sit around the table and carry out this program if they have the righ. spirit. The result would be that a holding company, instead of having 100 per cent of 10 companies would have 10 per cent of 100 companies. . . . From ar. investor's point of view a holding company owning 10 per cent of 100 companies would have better diversification and be a better investment.” The third suggestion: “Holding companies can continue with their present holdings providing they give up the voting control. This could be done very easily by turning the common stock into two classes of common stock —a Class ‘A’ common which the public would hold, carrying voting privileges, and a Class ‘B’ common which the holding company would retain, carrying no voting privileges. . . . This would be perfectly satisfactory to the government, it. would need to cause no loss to stockholders .. . and the subsidiaries might be just as well off.” All these suggestions were made by government officials while the holding company bill was pending in Congress. Mr. Babson adds: “I fear that some of my utility friends have got so excited and disgusted in their reading of the new act that they have thrown it down and have not read it wholly through.”

BOULDER DAM /~\N March 1, Secretary of the Interior Ickes announces, the United States is to accept Boulder Dam from the contractors. In less than five years this giant structure will have been completed. Already its benefits are rolling in. This year’s deep mountain snows will melt in the spring and pour down the granite canyons in great yellow floods. Instead of wreaking havoc -as heretofore on the fanners of Imperial Valley the waters will be held back in Mead Lake, to be let down for irrigation purposes gradually in the summer. In 1934 $10,000,000 was lost in crop failure due to water shortage. In a few years the power houses will be installed and begin grinding out power, already contracted for, that will pay every cent of the structure’s cost. For a decade private power interests fought the building of tins dam. But Coolidge signed the Swing-Johnson act under which it was built, and even Hoover wanted the dam named after him. What a terrible thing is “government in business!” A WOMAN’S VIEWPOINT By Mrs. Walter Ferguson jp\lD you ever notice that women who busily are pursuing their own careers always are bursting into print with advice to the homebodies? We have an over-supply of such experts, w r ith no experience whatever, who are ready to expound their theories on domesticity and child training and love. Any wife has a right to feel irritable when some career woman in an office sets out to tell her how to manage her husband and family, especially when the career woman has neither. We can excuse that, however, because there is always the good intention behind the deed. It’s when the moving picture stars (object, publicity) begin handing out matrimonial advice that we feel revolutionary. For example, this sweet little bit from Miss Bette Davis, who writes: “Having breakfast with your husband is equivalent to committing matrimonal suicide.’’ Yes, the editors print that, giving it big display, too. For what reason, heaven alone can tell, unless they aren't interested in the home, or think anybody’s going to pay attention to Miss Davis anyway. It seems to me Hollywood's stars have done enough to disrupt manners and morals by their screen antics and divorce court behavior without turning into domestic oracles for the lay woman. In this respect the American wife is subject to insult. It is presumed that she know r s nothing whatever about her job, whether it be cooking prunes, washing babies or managing husbands. A thousand half-baked theorists are after her with fool rules, few of which will ever work this side of heaven. By the time you've lived with the same husband for 20 years you're so tired of hearing such advict that you hope Miss Davis and all her jejune amateurs will go take a walk with A1 Smith. FROM THE RECORD Rep. Cross iD., Tex.)—l am afraid of this tender solicitude now’ being displayed for the rights of the states. For whenever a state enacts a law to protect its people from monopolistic depredation these w’ho are now showing such tender solicitude for the rights of the states run breathless into the Federal courts waving the national flag, and shouting thai such state law violates the “due process of law” clause of the Federal Constitution. And with an unconstitutional construction of that clause by the court, the act is declared unconstitutional. (Laughter.) On the other hand, if Congress attempts to protect the people of the states from monopolistic greed, this same group, employing the ablest of lawyers and who have the cunning to “make the worse appear the better reason.” rush into the Fedeal courts with tears streaming down their cheeks, waving a state flag, and shouting that such law infringes upon the sacred rictus of the states. (Laughter.) And straightway the court, being tender-hearted and sympathetic, with another unconstitutional construction, holds the act unconstitutional, (Applause.) *• , . Ur iiv, ,v ' -I:-,-j- V*. • V

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

Squaring The Circle With THE HOOSIER EDITOR

'T'HE other day, Mr. J. J. Liddy ■* was walking down the main corridor of the Indianapolis Union Station, of winch he is superintendent, and a man carrying a traveling bag stopped him. “Where's the Union Station?” the man asked. “Right here,” said Mr. Liddy, and walked on. an a CURTIS LAUGHLIN, Dili town. Ind., settled this 1936 advertising business once and for all when he distnbuted a supply of calendars advertising his combination garage and lunch stand. On it he had printed, besides his name and a pretty girl holding a dog, this legend: “Ritzy Food” “Classy Garage.” a a a ONTRIBUTIONS: A- 4 in the days before “Marse Henry” Watterson relinquished active control of the Louisville Cour-ier-Journal, the famous Kentucky editor was traveling throughout the Southwest. At Oklahoma City, "Marse Henry” met Will Rogers in the railroad station. After an exchange of greetings, they compared notes and found that each had more than an hour to wait for their respective trains. It being early in the morning, they decided to have breakfast together. After they had been seated at a table in the main dining room, “Marse Henry” said to himself—- " Now here is this Will Rogers who has gotten a good joke on practically every important person in the country—l am going to watch him carefully and see if I can get something on him. If I am able to I will publish it in my paper when I get back to Louisville and will, perhaps, shine in reflected glory.” Finally, “Marse Henry” thought that he saw a. good opening because he noticed that Will Rogers was eating oatmeal. After one swallow had gone down, “Marse Henry” cleared his throat in order to make Will look up and said in a very sarcastic tone of voice: “Mr. Rogers, I notice that you people down here in Oklahoma eat oats; now back in Kentucky, where I come from, we feed oats to our horses.” Will Rogers sort of chewed that over for a second, and then replied : “Well, sir, I expect that is the reason Kentucky has the best horses and Oklahoma the best men.” Ed Sullivan. a a a ONE of these days I must run up to see a farmer named Herman in Freelandville, Ind. He’s Dutch and frugal. He bought a wagon once, and as he was hitching up the team he had walked to town to get it began to rain. He left the wagon and walked the team home. Too much mud for anew wagon. Then he bought a car. Several years later he decided he would like to trade it in. He produced the car. It shone as it did the day it was bought. “It’s in good shape,” said the salesman, “for being six years old.” Herman seemed surprised. “Yah!” he said. “It ought to be. I never made but one long trip in it—to Vincennes ” Six miles to Vincennes. a a a I TOLD you so note: So printers aren’t grouchy old guys? They don’t badger you unnecessarily, and make your life miserable with incessant queries on addresses and names? And sometimes they don’t go off the deep end to catch a fellow up? Well, I just heard this about the Union Printers’ Home, Colorado Springs. A great number of aged printers are gathered there—through with work and the grind of forever keeping editors straight. But they aren't allowed to have pencils in the library. Why? Because authorities have found that when they do have pencils they spend then* time sitting around correcting the books of some of our very best authors for punctuation and style. All around are signs reading—" Please don't read proof on books.” They say some of the penciled corrections are pretty good, though! a a a YOU don’t remember when the Old Steam Mill was built, because it was back in 1831. But at j that time it created quite a to-do. One historian of the time says: “One hundred men worked two | days in raising its heavy frame, and no liquor was used, a fact which excited much comment at the time, for serious doubts had been entertained whether so large a building could be raised without the aid of whisky.” OTHER OPINION Public Credit [Senator Yandrnbrrjc <R., Mich.)] I think a balanced Federal budget with least possible delay is essential to the preservation of the public credit, and therefore essential to national recovery itself. Courageous economy (without deserting essential relief) and courageous taxation can do it. The people will j accept the latter if (will practice the former.

, - ' - iNTUipncrins atwitN || ,5,E os /worm ■ V i/-' y Atfcew IT T© B£ TUTTgRtP > .... ....

The Hoosier Forum 1 wholly disapprove of what you say—and will defend to the death your right to say it. — Voltaire.

(Times realer) are invited to express their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Make vour letters short, so all can have a chance. Limit them to 25 0 words or less. Your letter must be signed, but names will be withheld on reouest.) a a a POINTS TO BENEFITS OF “BUY AMERICAN” By A. Warren Jacobson The 5 and 10-cent stores of these great United States of America do an annual business of many millions of dollars. This would all be good and well if American products were sold in these stores. American workmen receive but a small percentage of these millions taken in every year by the 5 and 10-cent stores. Made-in-Japan stamp is found on boxes of matches, vases, ash trays, jewel boxes, tie racks, candy dishes, a thousand and one different kinds of bridge prizes, Christmas tree lights and many other articles too numerous to mention. Every one of the mentioned articles can be made, in the United States. Japanese workmen are poorly paid, live in shacks, eat cheaply and their morale is very low. United States buys from them 'Japan), pays duty and several other costs, and floods our stores with goods from a nation that carries on war in cruel, ruthless manners. Why should American dollars go to the support of Japan? Millions of American workmen are idle, and millions of dollars worth of Japanese goods on American counters. It surely doesn’t make sense. Why not have a real “Buy American” movement. Rather than buy an ash tray made in Japan at a 5and 10-cent price, we as patriotic citizens of the U S. A. should be perfectly willing to buy an ash tray made in the U. S. A. at a 10-ana-20-cent price. Surely the American workman is worth twice that of a Japanese w'orkman. a a a GUARDSMAN ANSWERS MILITIA CRITIC By National Guardsman Please allow a member of the Indiana National Guard to answer the Ex-Soldier and Union Man of Westfield. The Times’ editorial. Ballots versus Courts, stated that in 1876 a majority of the Supreme Court said, “For protection against abuses by Legislatures, the people must resort to the polls, not the courts.” Would this not go to show that “for abuses against the working man, resort to the polls,” not to condemning the militia? When the National Guard is called out on local duty it is only to prevent

Questions and Answers

Inclose a 3-cent stamp for reply when addressing an - '.aestion of fact or Information t<- be Indianapolis Times Washington ’ ice Snreau, 1013 13thst. N. W., W ,s: .ngton. D, C. Legal and medical advice can not bo giycn, nor can extended res-arch to undertaken. Q—What is a classic in art or literature? A—Any book or work of art that may be regarded as a standard or a model. * Q —From whom car. information about the service record of a man who served in the World W'av in the British army be obtained’ A.—The British war office, London, England. Q —What is the source of the following: “Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia”? A—lsaiah xviii, 1. Q —When does the cotton ginning season begin ind end in Brazil? What is the language of that country? A—ln southern Brazil the cotton ginning season usually begins in March and continues until August. In northern Brazil the ginning season begins about Sept, l and ends in January- These periods are variable according to the crop. Portuguese is the language of Brazil. Q —Are Martin and Samuel Insull American citizens? A—Martin Insull is a British sab-

NO SHACKLES!

“rough stuff.” The National Guard merely uholds the law of the state in such cases as the New Albany trouble; if it was an injustice to you and yours it was still the law. Now' it stands to reason that if you do not favor such activities, change the law'. If you think that the members of the National Guard delight in w'orking on the working man you are mistaken. Furthermore, you w'ill find that in any strike the trouble never starts until the “strike breakers” enter. There is the solution —eliminate the strike breaker. You say that it is a disgrace to the United States Army for the N. G. to w'ear the uniform of the Army. A large number of the officers and enlisted men of the N. G. are men with service in the World War. By that I mean service. I don't mean a couple of months in some camp in the United States. Furthermore, without the National Guard the defense forces would be inadequate. Perhaps you are hot aware of the fact that the National Guard is part of the Army in case of war. a a a NATIONAL, NOT PARTY, LOYALTY MOST NEEDED By Emmet J. Foley, Columbus In the interest of free speech and freedom of. conscience, I would like to say a few words for the benefit of the ardent New' Dealers who have wasted so much of their spare time and so much of your space in trying to analyze A1 Smith’s Liberty League dinner speech. I would not deny them this opportunity to disclose the extent of their knowledge of political propriety. That seems to be a Hoosier prerogative. But why all this w'ailing now about party loyalty? Let the Hindus have their sacred cow. As for me, I refuse to bend my knees to either the Republican elephant or the Democratic jackass. I prefer to take my stand among those who still place* national loyalty above party loyalty. , Unless my memory fails me. quite a large herd of the loyal little jackasses grazed eagerly in Republican pastures back in 1928. In fact, so many of them “took a walk” that the poor old donkey passed out in 40 of the 48 states, and would have mired in the “solid South” except for the loyalty fff the Atlanta Journal. Was that party loyalty? H “taking a w-alk” is a crime, certainly A1 Smith is not the father of the crime. The New Dealers had the support of A1 Smith during the 1932 presidential campaign, and thus W'on many votes for Roosevelt that would otherwise have gone to Hoover.

ject, and Samuel Insull is a naturalized American. Q —Are murder and assassination synonymous? A—They have the same meaning except that the latter term is generally applied to murder of public or eminent persons, treacherously undertaken under the impulse of partisanship, or secret assault. Q —When and how did Terence McSwiney, lord mayor of Cork, Ireland, die? A—Oct. 25, 1920, in Brixton prison, after fasting for 74 days. Q —Give the figures for the male and female Negro population of the United States? A—The 1930 census enumerated 5,855,669 males and 6,035,474 females. Q —What is the annual consumption of anthracite and bituminous coal in the United States? A —ln 1934 the estimated consumption was: Bituminous, 346.070.000 tons; anthracite, 55,400.000 tons. Q—What does picaresque mean? A—Pertaining to picaroons, or rogues; said of a style of literature dealing with rogues popular in Spam in the seventeenth century. Q —What is the weight of the obelisk in New York known as “Cleopatra’s Needle”? A—Approximately 200 tons. i

When the battle was won A1 Smith w r as rewarded with a kick in the pants that unseated his brown derby. More party loyalty! A1 Smith was a loyal Democrat in 1928 and again in 1932. He stood the test, but his party failed him. I don’t pretend to know' w'hat lie is now. If he has had to seek companionship among strangers, that is a tragic indictment of his own party, for no man has worked harder for the Democratic machine than has A1 Smith. Politics made strange bed-fellows in 1928. Is it so surprising that this phenomenon should be repeated in 1936? It wasn’t so much w'hat A1 Smith said, or w'here he said it. What shocked the New Dealers w'as that the words came from a man who always has worshiped at the donkey’s shrine —right or w'rong. It may be that A1 has grown up since 1928. Surely he has had ample opportunity to see political gang rule in its w'orst form during these years. Perhaps he has decided that it is more patriotic to be a good American than to be a blind follower of the jackass. Why not give him the benefit of the doubt? After all, professional politicians, with few exceptions, wear the same service stripes, and as long as our elected representatives in Washington genuflect to the bankers and big business and thumb their noses at the taxpayers we need not hope for relief from LibertyLeague plutocracy or New Deal bureaucracy, regardless of who sits in the White House or who speaks at w'hat dinner. What this country needs is more loyal Americans and fewer selfish politicians. WISH BY HARRIETT SCOTT OLINICK For all the wispy, unborn poems That hover close to earth; Too beautiful for rhyme or words, Too fanciful for birth. I wish this little wish for them— That they remain a g.eam; A misty substance and a light, A rapture and a dream. DAILY THOUGHT As the Father knoweth me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.—St. John 10:15. LOVE, and you shall be lovedall love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.—Emerson.

SIDE GLANCES By George Clark

"■ *| y 5 ' \V': '■'/ l ' / " - ,v -i - -**>*>V - SM ?: >*

“Madam, what did you say I might do, if he began to make, a nuisance of himself Y*

FEB. 15, 193(5

Your... Health By dr morris fishbein

THE smooth diet usually is recommended in cases in which the stomach or the intestines do not seem to act normally. This type of diet, for instance, commonly is recommended for persons convalescing from infectious diseases or childbirth. Since 1832. when Dr. William Beaumont made his study of the stomach on Mackinac Island, it has been known that some foods pass out of the stomach quicker than others. Dr. Beaumont was able to look into the stomach of a man whose side had been shot away by a shotgun charge and to see how this organ worked. Pure carbohydrates or sugars pass out of the stomach more quickly than do proteins, and much more quickly than fats. Gruel leaves the stomach more rapidly than dry carbohydrates or cereals. Large lumps of meat stay in the stomach much longer than minced meat. Liquid meals start to leave the stomach as soon as they are swallowed. A soft diet moves along more rapidly than one with much cellulose or roughage. If you have trouble with digestion, make sure that there is no serious disease present before adopting a smooth diet. Your doctor should make certain that you do not have heart disease, ulcer of the stomach, or tiiverticuli, little pouches in thA walls cf the stomach or the intestines. a a a DOCTORS know that danger or mental distress will cause loss of appetite and difficulties with digestion. Many a man suffers from indigestion because he leads a cat-and-dog existence at home and always wrangles at mealtime. Sometimes a rest or vacation will serve much better than a soft diet to cure this kind of stomach trouble. Stout men, once athletic, who have become flabby and fat due to sedentary occupations, frequently will improve their digestion by fair amounts of exercise. It Is better to bring about that kind of improvement than to coddle the trouble by eating baby food. We do know that many foods irritate. Foods with fibers or fats do so mechanically. Foods such as vinegar, horse radish, pepper, mustard, pickles, spices and condiments may irritate because of their chemical qualities. Sweets—candy, icings and fcostings—because of their concentration, will also irritate the delicate mucous membrane of a sensitive stomach. Fried and greasy foods, and hot bread, are handled with difficulty by so-called “weak stomachs.” Salads containing celery, tomato, cucumber, and pineapple may cause trouble. Beans, cabbage, onions, green or red peppers, cucumbers, and peanuts may be associated with what is I called a gassy condition. These are some of the foods that should not be eaten by those who know their digestions are delicate.

TODAY’S SCIENCE BY DAVID DIETZ

ONE of the most familiar sounds of modern civilization, the click or snap of the electric switch, is destined to pass into the realm of unnecessary noises. The General Electric research laboratory has perfected a noiseless switch. Not only is the new switch noiseless, but it is no larger than a marble. It utilitizes mercury to make and break the electric contact. While it sounds somewhat complicated to describe, the General Electric engineers say that its manufacture is extremely simple, and that it is practically impossible to w’ear it out. The switch consists of two shallow chrome steel cups about threequarters of an inch in diameter. These are sealed together with a strip of lead glass to form a hollow compartment. Separating the cups is a disk of ceramic material in which there is a small hole, located near the edge of the disk. ana THE air is evacuated from the switch and enough mercury put in it to fill about one-fourth of the interior. The switch is then filled with hydrogen gas at atmospheric pressure and the hole through which the air was withdrawn and the mercury and hydrogen inserted is sealed. The two steel cups constitute the two sides of the switch. It is in the “off” position when the hole in the disk between the two cups is at the top. In this position the circuit is open, since there is no contact between the two steel cups.