Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 26 March 1937 — Page 22

Vagabond FROM INDIANA

ERNIE PYLE

ASHINGTON, March 26.—I de not know what most men in penitentiaries think about. But I do know what my friend, whom I have just visited, thinks about. His own plight, and almost nothing else.

If his sentence were limited, he could think about the far day when he would get out. But mv Prison. He'll be nearly 70 before he's eligible for parole. His mental projection can't extend that far. His miserable conception of the future is circumscribed by the little phrase “from now on.” If vou have to be in a penitentiary, then life is much easier for vou if you're an experienced criminal. Then you can make acquaintances, you can discuss old cases, and other jails, and gas and gabble and plot and become a part of the ceaseless intrigue that goes on in all prisons. In other words, there's something there to hang your interest on. if vou've never been really a criminal, then wou shun the prison intrigue; the gabble intrudes upon your solemnity. There's no companionship; there's no mutual interest; you want to be alone-—and you can’t even be alone. Your mind races back and forth over your own plight a million times a day; it runs through your head, over and over, like an old tune, Physically, there are worse things in life than prison (at least this prison). “Oh sure, we Kick,” my friend says. “The only way you can keep a mule from kicking is to tie his legs.”

Mr. Pyle But,

» He's Been in Worse Places

UT T've been in lots worse places than this. I've had worse food in the Army. I've slept in worse places. But there's nothing here vou can do. Just march to your meals, march to the shop, march to che picture show, whether you want to go or not. When I have to go across the grounds, a runner always goes with me. I'm never alone a minute, I like to be alone sometimes.” We talked for two hours about my friend's past: about his health, We spoke of all the little subtle complexities that pile up in a man’s life and mature into the tragedy that brings him to a place iike this. My friend did not smile once. He is deeply melancholy, and nervous, and manv times he shook his head and stared off at the wall and said, “And to think I'd wind up like this.” But I did notice he less nervous than when he was in jail awaiting trial. Some little composure must be creeping into his svstem.

” ”

= Nn n

Spoke of Friends and Wife

WE spoke of his friends at the place where he used to work, and how good they had been. We Epoke of his wife, faithful and loyal to him. We spoke of his little needs, such as cigarets and spending money. He is supplied with these. He has all that any prisoner can have . . . all except mental dullness. We even discussed his mental state, It was then I tried to tell him that he must give vp, resign himself to the prison machine; chuck all hope, and chuck despair along with it; stop thinking; just exist, He says he tries, I think it will come, as months wear down the instincts of hope. My friend has done one little thing on the road toward adjusting himself. He has taken up a hobby. It 1s paimistry. It is a faint hope of interest for him. He is now on his second book of palmistry., He can fell vou all its history. He believes in it as a science He reads : the characters of the other prisoners by their hands. He showed me his own hand. “There's the life line, and there's the line of destiny. ... “Look,” I said. “Do you believe that our lives are destined ahead of time?” He hit his fist on the table, and swung his “Ab-so-lutely!” he said. “I certainly do. me iell you, . « “Seventeen years ago I went to Palisades Park in New Jersey one Sunday afternoon. It's sort of like Coney Island, you know. We stopped in a place to have our palms read. “The fellow was an Indian, a. Hindu Indian. with a turban and a beard about a foot long. He read my palm, and he told me then, 17 years ago, that in my earlv 50s I would be in bad trouble. And now look at me.”

Mrs.Roosevelt's Day

By ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

Kone, Tenn, Thursday—After the lecture ast night, we had a delightful party at Governor White's house where two Negro colleges brought some of their singers to entertain us. The first group from Pineyridge School came to sing for me, because their quartet had sung for the President at Warm Springs and they wanted to be in on some of the entertainments, The next group came from Jackson College. Both groups sang very well. I've certainly had an opportunity in the past few days to compare the various wavs of singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” because every aroup I have heard sing has sung it. When I last came to Knoxville without the President, T was driving my own car and I skirted the city by a roundabout road, bat today I have been quite official and everyone has been most cordial in their walcome. I went out at once to visit one of the women's WPA projects-——their main sewing room. It is a good sewing room, and, judging from the exhibition of work, they must be turning nut really skilled workers. They have comparatively few women doing handwork, but some of the baby things are as finely done as one could wish, I feel sure the woman who made the little dress with fine tucks and feather stitching which T examined, could make a living at that kind of work. Rack at mv hotel room I met a little girl who had come 400 miles by bus to see me. and a girl who wove a piece of material and sent it to me some time ago. Now we must get readv for tonight's lecture and after it we start for Washington,

New Books

PUBLIC LIBRARY PRESENTS—

“EW of us can withstand the call of far places or F the vicarious romance engendered by a well-writ-ten book of travel. In THE LAND OF THE WHITE PARASOL (Dodd-Mead), Sidney J. Legendre, his wife, and another man journey into the hinterland of IndoChina for the purpose of collecting faunal specimens for the American Museum of Natural History. They travel by foot and horsesack through long leagues of jungle heat and precipitous mountain trail; in flimsy native boats they cover miles and miles of rushing torrential rivers; they come to know intimately the mongoloid inhabitants of the interior; they hobnoh with the French residents who carry the white man's burden to the far-flung outposts of the Republique. They are beset by strange jungle fevers and dangerous jungle beasts; they learn to eat—and like— stewed monkey and extremely “high” fish; they hunt by night for strange and noxious animals,

the

head. Ernie, let

” » Ed

ASSNER, prominent leader in Fascist Germany's illegal Communist party, has been sentenced to a concentration camp. During the nine days—THE DAYS OF WRATH (Random House) —of solitary confinement, his courage and endurance are taxed to the breaking point. However, his awareness of fellowship with millions of similar sufferers within and without prisons saves Kassner from terror and insanity and gives him courage to face future horrors, Fortunately, through false confessions of an unknown comrade, he is granted his freedom. His precipitant escape from Germany almost results in a fatal airplane crash. Yet for all his tragedies he is ready to continue his political activities. This is the first of Andre Malraux's novels dealing | with the European scene, In it he attempts to define the type of heroism that is appropriate to and valid for the times, 5

friend is a lifer, and he was 53 when he went, to |

vou're lonesome, and yet |

. ular

1 ONDON, | By

| ant about, | insurance against war,

| say

The Indianapolis Times

Second Section

FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 1937

Entered

as Second-Class Matter at Postotfice, Indisnapolls, Ind.

PAGE 21

Finding

” »

DETROIT-TEST TUBE OF SIT-DOWN

Ractetoers Among Str hers Strain City’s Good Humor

(Last of a Series) BY WILLIS THORNTON

NEA Service Staff Correspondent DETROIT, March 26.—A backfire against the sit-down strikes, fanned by the discovery in strike-bound plants of certain unsavory characters better known to police than

to the legitimate labor movement,

daily. “Law and order”

1s gaining force here

elements, stunned at first by the

suddenness and scope of the sit-downs, gradually are rallying to action in the effort to formulate rules for the newest industrial relations game. The discovery that Louis (Whitey) Miller was one of the chief organizers in the Frank & Seder and CrowleyMilner department store strikes and that Louis Fleischer was active in the Newton Packing Co. strike, showed labor

a weakness in the too rapid spread of the sit-down,

and

furnished employer groups with excellent ammunition. Miller is a tough who served a prison term for kid-

naping,

troit’s notorious Purple

Gang, served a 10-year term for interstate trans-

portation of stolen goods. “The public wrath is rising,” declares Harvey Campbell, secretary of the Board of Commerce. “People are getting nice and mad, especially wives who miss those regpay checks. This thing is going to fall eventually of its own weight.”

» »

DEFINITE policy toward sitdowns has been adopted by Mayor Frank Couzens, who has ordered police to eject any and all outsiders from sit-down plants. Out-of-towners, or even local professional organizers, clearly have no right on plant property, Couzens believes, no matter what kind of a case might be made out for real employees. Out of a string of shoe stores along Woodruff Ave., out of seve eral cigar plants, out of two large department stores, and one packing plant, “outsiders” have been driven by police. They report that 60 “outsiders” were in the Frank & Seder store, though only two were caught. j The presence of shady characters in sit-down plants suggests the possibie development of rackets, In no case, however, has there been a direct shakedown, a direct demand on any employer for money. Police have been ordered by Mayor Couzens to look into the sources of income of known racketeers connected with sit-downs. Only two excuses would seem to account for the presence of labor racketeers in the sit-down strike “movement’——either they were hired simply as plug-uglies to intimidate employers and hold plants against police, or they embarked on projects of their own to seize control of newly organized or potential unions for the sake of what, could be gotten from them later. The former possibility drew this bitter retort from Homer Martin, head of the United Auto Workers: “We thoroughly oppose and repudiate the use of gangster elements in labor disputes by unions, just as we have always fought the well-known use of armed thugs, professional strikebreakers and spies by employers.”

”

xn o ” N places like the department stores and packing plant mentioned above, only the most shadowy organization, if any, existed before the sit-down. The arbitrary conduct of “out-

| | | 1 | | | { |

lone knows that

and Fleischer, reputed a former member of De-

siders” like Miller and Fleischer while active in those strikes, suggests the possibility that they were trying to seize on leadership of the embryo unions for their own purposes. Meanwhile Governor Murphy's “law and order commission” is wrestling with the double problem of settling the minor strikes while arriving at a formula for machinery to settle others. A subcommittee has met with Frank X. Martel as head of the Detroit Federation of Labor. and representatives of the Board of Commerce to set up a mediation board which in the future will undertake to meet with representatives of employers and unions who find themselves in conflict. This is an effort to institute machinery to which appeal may be made before a strike is resorted to. Revelation of the criminal records of various sit-down leaders has already led to the summary discharge of Herman KierdorfT, alias Herman Richards, bv the United Automobile Workers’ Union. Richards (or KXierdorfl) had served 18 months in prison for impersonating a Federal officer, but he was impersonating a labor leader when he appeared before the U. A, W, with an already completed organization of some 500 auto salesmen. Impressed, the U. A. W. took him on as a regular organizer. When his background was revealed, the union fired him. Martel also repudiates hoodlum elements within the A. F.L., whose unions have been the basis of most of the hotel, department store, shoe store and small retail sit- ‘down Strikes, Martel called

HEARD IN CONGRESS Senator Bone

(D. Wash.): Everyinternational law

| did not amount to anything in the |

| last war. voke it?

Why talk of it? It is as dead as Tophet. ; . We asked, | Britain to respect international law during the last war. Great Britain told us, in the chaste language of diplomacy, to “forget it.” Belligerent nations are interested in international law just like a hog

| terested in trigonometry.

| a Democrat all my

| even considered altogether Yr. 4 Memocra

# (D.

” Pa.)

n Rep. Gray life, when it wes not convenient, not politic, not beneficial socially or financially, not sane, to t in Pennsylvania,

Why in- |

we begged, Great |

is in- |

-I have been

POSES

Were they all genuine department-store employes?

out, when they

on police and public to aid in rooting out racketeers. = un ” S to specific cases revealed by A police action, Martel defends the individuals concerned, and denies any knowledge that they were undesirable as labor leaders. Further dangers incident to sitdowns were revealed by a fire in the Dodge plant which burned fiercely several hours in a tunnel containing steam, electric and power lines. Hamtramck police were refused admittance by the sit-downers, though city firemen were allowed to put out the fire. The plant fire department had been ejected by strikers, leaving the plant unprotected from fire, Hamtrameck's assistant fire chief, Charles Smith, said Introduction at Lansing of new drastic laws to curb strikers is a further reflection of the growing backfire against sit-downs. These laws, ostensibly backed bv legislators from rural districts of Michigan, are known to have the quiet, support of powerful Detroit business interests. One proposed measure would outlaw sit-downs by making it a felony to take part in them. Another measure sets up mediation machinery, and provides a fine of £2500 and five years in prison for striking without first resort to this mediation machinery. » MONG business men, deepseated dissatisfaction with Governor Murphy—apparent since the General Motors strike and his refusal to use the iron hand at Flint—has been growing. The Governor is in a very hot spot. He scarcely can lean far enough labor's way to please that element, and he has already alienated all die-hard elements of the employer class and many who, having no direct interest in the strikes, nevertheless favor a more uncompromising “law and order” stand. Neither Lewis’ C. I. O. representatives in Detroit nor Martel's A. F. L. leaders will admit any clevage between them due to recent revelations of unsavory leadership. But those relations scarcely can have been improved. Initial good humor is rapidly waning among all elements as Detroit grasps desperately for a solution that will be fair to all.

REARMAMENT BRINGS HEAVIEST PEACETIME TAXES TO BRITAIN

BY MILTON BRONNER

NEA Services Staff Correspondent March 26.a dollar,

it. you know.”

The British Government will not |

it in so many words, but that

til have entered agreement, the Mediterranean. Government is like the elephant—it

war and British points of support like Malta and Cyprus.

” 5 ” HE dangerous tension between the two countries eased off (unrecently) and since then they upon a gentlemen's about their interests in But the British

| some time this year or | every taxable subject in the United |

| peace with the world.

| never forgets. It has been brooding { about that Italian threat and the | | answer was the necessity for more | ships and more airplanes. This need was accentuated by the enormous armament expenditures made by Nazi Germany. Hitler, too, pulled some things that did not sit | well with the British Government. | His actions with regard to Spain, | | his anti-Communist agreement with | | Japan, his close recent relations | with Italy, all were bothersome. But there was something that hit | éven closer to home. That was HitFollowing Stalin's famous five- | ler’s noisy demand for colonies; his | | vear industrial plans for Russia and | The British lion will have to talk of having returned to GerHitler's four-year rearmament plans | scratch deep into his income to | many the lands of which she was for Germany, the Baldwin Cabinet | meet the big armaments bill. | robbed.” The English did not like | has decided on a five-year plan for | the sound of that verb. Nor its im- | Britain which will cost $7,500,000,000. | | | plications. Nor its veiled threat. Of this sum. $2.000.000.000 will be | Man in the street knows that, if he | " % 4 raised by loans and the balance out | wants to cuss anybody for that ENCE England is feverishly | of direct taxes. | quarter-out-of-his-dollar tax, it will | completing a 1936 naval pro- | In explaining the matter Neville | pave to be Adolf Hitler, boss of Ger- | gram which will cest $250,000,000 | Chamberlain, Chancellor of the | | Exchequer, said it was an unprec- | Many, and Benito Mussolini, boss | edented sum, but it was necessary | of Ttaly. | because of the unprecedented condi- | Last fall when Ttaly was angry | tions of the time. He was also very at England, alleged to be the lead- | | careful to say: [er in the sanctions movement be“Our program is not directed cause the Italians made war on against any particular power or | Ethiopia, the British Cabinet sud- | group of powers,” | denly realized it was up against | something more than a mere theory | or even a mere bluff. Mussolini was BY. that fooled nobody. Every- really in a position to challenge Brit- ! body inside Parliament knew |ain's clear and free way through | that Britain was not threatened by the Mediterranean to India and the Duchy of Luxemburg nor by the | Australia. { “navy” of Switzerland. Russia, far | The Duce had a very modern on the other side of Europe, has, | na all concentrated in what might | enough to do to worry about Ger- | | be called Italian waters. He also comes, | many and Japan. France has only | | had a very powerful air force, which, | Despite the doleful prophecies of one big political desire and that is | | basing itself upon Sicily, Sardinia some, the very facet that Britain is | to have Britain at her side, if a war | and the Dodecanese Islands, was in | arming ‘on so gigantic a scale les- | starts in aoe a splendid strategic josion for | sens the chance of war, instead of | The result is that the average quick attack upon h ships of bringing & definitely closer.

| will be the real low-down of it when, | early next, |

has decided to expend upon its | {armed forces. Never before has Brit- |

lain spent so much when it was at | \

{gram which will cost as much or | more. The army is being supplied as rapidly as possible with tanks. armored cars and other mechanical things. The air force is to be increased by hundreds of the fastest fighting and bombing planes in existence and there are to be 75 new airdromes. But, over and ahove all this, the | Government has decided to accumiilate vast stores of muntions, guns, | airplane parts, ete., so as to have a reserve which will last months, while the factories catch up—if war

un un n

~ Often Flout Law—Sullivan

| |

| more important

| directing

| purpose,

| treated,

hour. downers did not quit.

would not

Mayor Couzens, and Order Committee”

Detroit police were faced with the problem of finding met this group guarding a door to one of the closed stores.

ne 8

right, meets with a subcommittee of his “Law seeking a sit-down

solution. Left to right

are Charles B. Van Dusen, Father Frederick Seidenburg of Detroit

University, and Couzens,

Both Sides | IN Sit Downs

By MARK SULLIVAN

ASHINGTON, March 26.—In what occurs about the Chrysler strike in Detroit, the thing to watch than any other is what happens to the courts. Conceding the very great interest attaching to other aspects, it is the

now

effect on the courts that will have |

deepest bearing on the kind of country America is to be, That the judicial system as an institution under attack everyknows. In the preservation of

body

this system the people have at stake |

{the heritage of seven centuries. Yet few realize how tragic would be their loss if they lost this. Preservation of the authority of law administered by courts, is, to the public, the fundamental issue in the Chrysler strike. Yet there is danger it may be lost sight of in the more dramatic interest attaching to other aspects. Let, us look at the relation of the courts to the Chrysler strike: Some 5000 men ‘sat down” in the Chrysler factories. barred out pany officials who represent the owners, and provided themselves with the means to use force in resisting eviction. factories, the Chrysler Corp. went to the Court and asked for an order the sit-downers to cease illegal occupancy by a given The hour passed. The sitThey declared public statement that they obev the order of the then they have quit

their

In Aa

Court. Since

the plants, > >

T present the head of the Chrvsler Corp., Mr. Chrysler, and the head of the sit-downers’ union, Mr. Lewis, are in conference. In this conference, Mr. Lewis has | his purposes, Mr, Chrysler has his. | There is no one present, unless it | pe Governor Murphy, to stand for |

”

the interest of the Court that has | ion

| been flouted, and the people whose | paramount interest is the preserva- | tion of respect for the authority of courts.

he purpose of Mr. Chrysler is |

| Murphy

had to have to carry out the Court's | Governor | Instead, | between |

To this request made no reply. he conducted conferences

order.

[the heads of General Motors and

the heads of the sit-downers’ This conference ended ment, ”

un ”

N the agreement General Motors blandly recited that it would ask

the Court to drop the proceedings | | goes to visit upon other parents the same hideous

which General Motors had initiated.

General Motors added that it would |

make this request dependent upon “the will of the Court.” In effect, General Motors, having come to an agreement with the union, promised it would ask the Court to do whatever is the legal verbiage for “just forget it.” In accordance with this promise,

| General Motors’ lawyers asked the

the com- |

| amounted The owner of the |

| liable for contempt citations.” said that such flouting of the Court, |

| by could not be allowed to pass without | | penalty—the spectacle was subver- |

Court to dismiss its action against the sit-downérs, But General Mo-

tors’ lawyers appear to from the they could hardly have anticipated. Judge Gadola told them what to saying that they couldn't, use him as a mere strikebreaking agency. He told them that they couldn't get a writ from him, use that writ to bring about agree-

ment with the sit-downers, and then |

ask him to “just forget it.” Judge Gadola tors’ selves perilously close to contemp?, that they “might find themselves He

and the law as had been practiced the leaders of the sit-downers

| sive of the authority of law,

| |

to end the strike on his terms. The |

purpose of Mr. on his terms. In both are likely to treat the Court, as democratic everywhere in the world are being | with an indifference that |

Lewis is to end it | that common |

| weeks.

amounts to contemptuous flouting. |

{and is contemplating a 1937 pro- |

| nored.

The relation of the courts to “sitdown" strikes can be more clearly seen by turning away from the Chrysler strike to a different strike in which the events are now over. In the sit-down at Flint in January and February, the owner of the property. General Motors, got from the Court an order directing sit-down strikers to leave the plant. When the Court's officer, the Sheriff, read this to the sit-down-ers. they “booed.” Thereupon General Motors called

the attention of the Court to the making himself worthy to

fact that its order was being igThe Court then issued a ‘writ of body attachment” directing the Sheriffl to arrest and re- | move the sit-downers. The Sheriff asked the Governor of the State, Mr, Murphy, for the assistance

| supremacy of law,

5 » =

LREADY,” Judge Gadola said, |

“we are beginning to see the results of their contemptuous acPeople who are being served with papers in less important lawsuits are laughing at the Court officers and pointing out that the Court was impotent to enforce its will upon the strikers and to punish them for nonobedience.”

Judge Gadola said that “the court | institutions | system cannot be treated as Gi

men have treated it in the last few

appear before him,

tions.” This declaration made on Feb. 17. What has happened since, if anything, has not ap-

the peared in the newspapers, so far as (It is from newspaper |

I have seen. accounts that I take the facts and quotations cited here.) court in a small Michigan city is | with the great judges in American 'and British tradition who have made the centuries-long struggle for the Judge Gadola is the judicial system

defending : the

| . thing

| suppertime,

{ to us in the nave

| was now pitch-dark.

didn't

union. | in agree- |

| little children

sit-downers’ |

have got | judge a reception which |

told General Mo- | lawyers that they were them- |

; { eern animals particularly, ” He said that he had no de

Judge Gadola |

It looks as | | though this obscure judge of a local |

stand |

Our Town

By ANTON SCHERRER

HAD spent the whole day prowling around Cologne's crooked streets, It was the only thing left to do, because every= with the possible exception of the

churches, had been closed that day. It was

Good Friday. Toward duck, T again found myself in front of the Cathedral, wondering what to do next until A procession of possibly 200 priests, led by acolytes, crossed the open square and entered the church by way of St. Ursula's door. For want of something better to do, I followed them, The priests passed down nave and entered the recesses of the dimly lighted sanctuary. 1 took a chair beside a kneeling nun, I remember. She was a very lovely nun, and I still recall how a light from a tracery window nearby picked its way through the a settled on Wi face Mr. Scherrer Except for the black and white of the priests’ vestments and the flickering vellow lights of two immense candelabra, the sanctuary was bare of any color. So was the rest of the church, for it was be= ginning to get dark outside.

Presently a chant began and stole its way down A heavenly tenor voice rose and seemed to wing its way toward the reaches of the arches far above. Every once in a while, it was answered by a boys’ chant hidden away in one of the galleries, When the chant was ended, an acolyte walked over and extinguished a candle on each of the two candelabra, after which there was a moment of penetrating silence,

the

” ”

Another Chant Begun UT only

for a moment, because almost diately the priest began another chant. That done, the acolyte snuffed another candle. This con= tinued for an hour or so until only two candles were

immes

{ burning in the sanctuary.

When the next and last chant was finished, the two remaining candles were extinguished. The church It was silent, too, except for the kneeling nun beside me who was crying as if her heart would break. I hurried outside, vaguely cone scious that something had happened to me. A year or two later, T happened to be in Father Gavisk's study over in St. John's rectory. He was telling me of a recent trip to Europe, of his beloved Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, of the Ambrosian chant still sung in Lombardy, and I don’t know what all. ” =»

Told of Haunting Beauly

HIS gave me an opportunity him of experience in the Cathedral of Cologne. 1 him everything except the part about the nun who had given way to ner feelings. At any rate, I told him of the haunting beauty of the scene, and how the music had stayed with me, despite the fact that 1 know anything of its meaning or significance. I'll never forget what happened next. Father Gavisk rose from his chair; I. too. With folded hands he began chanting. It was the opening chant of the Good Friday service I had heard in Cologne.

He finished and I said: “That's it.”

“Ah!” he said, “vou were listening to the Tene= brae—the singing of The Shadows.”

A Woman's View

By MRS. WALTER FERGUSON

EW LONDON, Tex. a peaceful country coms munity, has had a little taste of modern war. It isn’t called by that name, of course. No enemy was responsible for the catastrophe which killed hun=dreds of children. But the results are the same. Why isn’t it borne in upon our souls that when we spend a billion dollars for “national defense” this year we are manufacturing the same awful death for somewhere? Our tears flow for the heartbroken Texas parents, yet a large part of our energy and entirely too much of our money now

to tell my

told

woe, It was like this that men died in Europe 20 years ago and it is like this that men, women and children will die in the decadent Europe of tomorrow when the new war finally arrives. Mothers in our country who stand aghast at the thought of a community whose children lie mangled and dead may very well stretch their imagination a bit more and encompass the aw= fulness which is inevitable in our own and other lands the minute another big war gets under way. The generation which prepares to make war, as our generation is now doing—we are pleased to call such preparation “defense,” although it is no more defense than was the priming of his guns by the Kentucky feudist—is making ready to murder its children. Or it will be sending its young men out to murder other people's children. Contemplate the thought for a moment--the thought that a “civilized Christian nation” with deadly deliberation and serious forethought iz now preparing to commit that which fate perpetrated in Texas last week. Is it not enough to fill your whole being with horror unspeakable? Yet, it is possible for nations to keep the peace, Even in war-sick Europe it has been done by Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland. For, says the Good Book, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” So long as a billion dollars and a large part of our energy and thought go into the making of war— we shall not have peace.

Your Health

By DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN

Editor American Medical Assn. Journal

EFORE 1927 undulant fever was regarded in the United States as something of a medical curiosity. During 1929, however, cases of the disease were ree corded in practically every state.

This does not mean that there was any sudden increase in cases of the disease. It was simply the result of a new focusing of interest on the condition, with an understanding of the fact that it was much more widespread than had previously been thought. When interest is focused on a disease, or when methods of diagnosis are improved. a great number of cases suddenly appear. This, for instance, partially explains the apparent increase in cancer cases during the last few years.

Undulant fever is another of the diseases that conbut, which may occasionally affect man. It is caused by a germ called the micrococcus melitensis. The condition originally was called “Malta fever,” or “Mediterranean fever,” because early cases affected people in that area. Some 3000 cases were noted in the United States in the years 1931 and 1932. After the British army surgeon, Bruce, discovered the cause of Malta fever, a Danish veterinarian described a condition in cattle called “contagious abors tion.” Now it is believed that both diseases are caused by a similar organism. When undulant fever attacks man, the disease is usually contracted by drinking milk from an infected cow or by contact with an ailing animal. The germ, however, may get into the body through a wound as well as in food and liquid. The germs naturally are expelled from the body in the ordinary excretions. There are other ways in which undulant fever may be transmitted. A boy in England, for instance, got the disease by using a thermometer that had just been used to take the a of his father, and

had not beet, &