About Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920 | View Entire Issue (March 13, 1917)
4 THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL ATLAMTA. GA., 5 MOBTH FOBSYTH ST. 'A Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail Matter o the Second Claas. JAMES R. GRAY, President and Editor. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE. Twelve months Six months Three Months ‘' C The Semi-Weekly Journal is published on Tues day and Friday, and is mailed by the shortest routes for early delivery. It contains news from all over the world, broug t by special leased wires into our office. It has a stat of distinguished contributors, with strong depart ments of special value to the home and the farm. Agents wanted at every postoffice. Liberal com mission allowed. Outfit free. Write R. R- BRAD LEY. Circulation Manager. The only traveling representatives we have are B. F- Bolton. C. C. Coyle. L. H. Kimbrough, Chaa. H. Woodliff and L. J. Farris. We will be responsible only for money paid to the above-named traveling representatives. , NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS. The label used for addressing your paper shows the time your subscription expires. By renewing at 1-ust two weeks tie tore the date co this label, yon insure regular service. In ord. ring paper changed, be sure to uwntlon •• well as your new address If Jo a route, please give the route n imher. eBW subscription* to begin with back number*. Remittance should be sent by postal order er “‘‘‘l Address all orders. «ikl notices for this Department xo THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOt H.XAL, Atlanta. Ga. • The Country Applauds The President's Course* The President’s order that American' merchant ships be armed for defense and thus enabled to re sume transatlantic voyages relieves a situation which has been both humiliating and injurious. For more than a month the greater part of our merchant fleet has been blockaded, by L -boat ter rorism. The avowed purpose of Germany’s unre stricted submarine warfare was to close and lock English ports, but its actual result has been to rloee and lock American ports. A great deal of British tonnage has been destroyed but English vessels, duly armed and protected, have gone on sailing, carrying cargoes and mail to and from their home ports. During the same time only one or two American vessels have ventured across the Atlantic. Mail service between the United States and Europe has been disrupted and virtually broken down. The United States Government has had to entrust to vessels of foreign flags its diplo matic correspondence to European points. Our ‘ships have been barred from transatlantic com merce as effectually as though a fleet of German war vessels rode in triumph just outside our harbors. It was unthinkable that this condition of affairs should be suffered to continue. The damage to the country’s material interests was great and was growing more and more distressing. Eastern piers ‘ were congested with merchandise awaiting outlet, and the interior from whose factories and farms that merchandise came was suffering consequent hardship and peril. The cutting off of mail com munications alone was enough to disturb American C. business seriously and. if prolonged, to cause heavy losses. But infinitely more deplorable than the material damage was the injury to the nation’s rights and honor. In disregard of our Government’s neutral ity and the plainest principles of international equity. Germany threatened to destroy American ships and American lives if they dared to exercise their simple rights on the high seas. Not only did she threaten but, in the case of the Laconia, car ried out her threat by sending three Americans, two of whom were women, to death. Unless the United States were ready to surrender all claims to sovereignty and to abandon all pretense of prbtect ihg its citizens, it could not endure such injuries and insults; It could not allow the U-boat blockade of its ports to continue. The only remedy short of war was what the President described as “armed neutrality.” That policy involved a number of defensive measures, but most important among them for immediate needs was the arming of merchant ships, followed if necessary hy naval convoys. Our merchant ships have clung to their harbors, not because of craven scruples but because their owners were quite natur ally unwilling to send them forth to incalculable dangers without any means or instruments of de fense. The captains and crews have been ready and eager to go; and now that arms are to be fur nished by the Government —the only agency cap able of furnishing them in present circumstances, the ships will sail. The country approves and applauds the Presi dent's action. He has ample authority as well as extreme provocation for the course he has taken. He had sufficient authority before he appealed to Congress, authority Implied beyond question in his Constitutional duties. He went to Congress mainly for moral support, and he received its moral sup port in unstinted measure, despite the filibuster of a little group of little men in the Senate. How stanchly the country indorsed his policy was evi denced by the nation-wide denunciation which over whelmed the Senate obstructionists of the Armed- Neutrality bill. Good Work for Georgia. Whatever locations may be selected for the Government armor plant and nitrate plant, Geor gia’s efforts to secure those industries will prove abundantly worth while. The resources of Rome and its surrounding territory have been brought to the entire nation's notice through that city’s vig orous and thoughtful campaign in the armor plant contest. , In the same way the resources of the Chattahoochee river both for water power and navigation have been studied more closely and heralded more widely than ever before, through the co-operative work of Atlanta and West Point and other cities in behalf of the Chattahoochee region as a location for the nitrate plant. Sim ilar results, it is a pleasure to note, have been accomplished by Augusta in presenting the claims of the Savannah river. There is good reason to hope that one or both of these great Government Industries will be established in Georgia: but how ever that may be. it is certain that the Georgia communities will profit richly by the self-knowl edge and the valuable publicity they have gained. The attention of keen-eyed capital as well as that of the Government has been drawn to their re sources, and their development by one means or another is assured. THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 1917. i tic t uture ui uur luercuuiit i net ■ui »»icusiulluliig iuv .eUirtiivautc aciivii.* *•* American shipbuilding, the number of vessels now being constructed or acquired for our foreign trade appears altogether inadequate to serve and safeguard our interests in the commercial struggle w hich is certain to follow the war. Mr. Charles M. bchwab recently said that the Betnleheiu Steel Corporation, of which he is chairman, is completing every week one ten ihousanu-ton merchant snip, fully equipped, besides smaller craft and war ves sels. This record, multiplied by that of our other shipbuilders all of whom are taxed to the limit of tueir energy and resources, is truly .remarkable. But it shoul i be noted, as Mr. Schwab points out, that more than half the ships building in the United oiates tuuay are for foreign owners. That is a tact to take the w ind out of our proud enthusiasm. At the beginning of the European war more .nan ninety per cent of our exports was carried in foreign bottoms. Since tneu lue American mer > chant marine has increased by something less than a million gross tons, partly inrough Hie construc tion of ships but chiefly through the transfer of ships from foreign to American registry. Os the tonnage built during that period for American use, a large portion is intended for the Great Lakes and for coastwise commerce, so that tor the maintenance and development of our foreign trade —the great arena of the years ahead —we are not very much better off than at the outbreak of the war. Ger many, according to trustworthy reports from that country, has outbuilt us in tonnage of merchant vessels during the last two years, despite the tre mendous war strain on her industries. England undoubtedly has outbuilt us. Japan has been, and still is, building with wonderful vigor and efficiency. Thus the United States faces the prospect of enter ing the maritime struggle which is certain to follow the war, with a third-rate —or as some observers lear — a fourth-rate merchant marine. This is a matter of material concern to every section and every industry in the United States — the interior as well as the coast, the farmer and small merchant as well as the manufacturer and large exporter —because our future prosperity de pends to a great extent upon the strength and the expansion of our foreign trade. As our population increases and our manufactures grow in number and productiveness, we shall have a more and more pressink need of profitable outlets for our products. Our export business is incomparably greater now than ever before in American history; and the country as a whole enjoys unexampled prosperity. The high prices the South receives for its cotton are due largely to the foreign demand for cotton and cotton goods; and so with hundreds of other com modities and industries. There is no hope, however, of the United States advancing or holding its own in the markets of the world if it depends, as heretofore, on its competi tors for the ships in which to carry its goods. It must have an adequate merchant marine of its own, if it is to stand a chance in the most stressful and far-flung trade contest the world has ever witness ed. The fact shipbuilding has reached such great proportions and such efficiency in this country is heartening, for it shows that our resources and en ergies in that field of enterprise ‘are being organ ized for great results. It is painfully evident, how ever, that not enough ships are being built for our owb foreign trade. All that the Government can do rightfully to encourage and aid‘private enterprise in this matter ought to be done. But if private enter prise proves unequal to the task, the Government well may go further than it has gone in the estab lishment of the Shipping Board and a ship-purchase fund: the Government well may undertake the con struction. ownership and operation of an American merchant marine. An Extra Session of Congress. It was a foregone conclusion that the President would call a special session of Congress to deal with the issues of great moment now pending and likely to arise. The purely legal and administrative problems of armed neutrality could be handled easily enough by the Executive Department. There is no debatable question concerning the President’s authority to provide merchant ships with arms for defense and, if need be, to give them naval convoy through the U-boat danger zone. But these and othar measures of protection for American interests re quire special funds which only Congress can pro vide. Furthermore, it is not improbable that Ger man piracy and ruthlessness, in their aggressions upon American rights, may commit some outrage so unbearable as to demand instant and conclusive action from Congress. Besides matters of pressing import in problems of immediate defense, there is a mass of sorely needed legislation which failed of passage in the stormy eleventh hours of the preceding Congress. Vitally important appropriations for the Army and Navy remain to be passed; for the time being the preparedness program is held in abeyance, or at least is threatened with delay. Vitally important bills to extend the powers of the federal Shipping Board and to provide additional facilities for the national banking system remain to be passed. The Webb bill, designed to protect and promote our foreign commerce, in the stressful years that will follow the war as well as now. was lost in the last hours of the preceding Congress. These and divers other measures in which the country’s well-being is involved demand legislative attention; together with the critical foreign situa tion, they made an extra session of Congress un avoidable. The only question in the country’s mind was the date for which the session would be called. The President had convincing and conclu sive reasons, no doubt, in deciding upon April the sixteenth. The new House of Representatives presents problems of keen political anxiety, but the President acted true to himself in subordi nating politics to public interest. Editorial Echoes. William J. Stone of Missouri is disqualified for the chairmanship of the senate committee on for eign relations by his own admission. When he was instructed by that body to report favorably the bill empowering the President to arm merchantmen, he performed a certain lip-service, but announcing that he could not urge the passage of the measure, he intrusted its legislative fortunes to the guidance of Senator Hitchcock. This was the moment when Mr. Stone in honor and decency should have re signed his chairmanship. He was not in sympathy with the United States. He was in sympathy wflth a nation denying the rights of the United States. Under disguises as transparent as any assumed by the innumerable agents of the Kaiser’s propaganda in this country, he has been revealed time and again as one who, in the presence of Germany, would equivocate, abate and even sacrifice American rights.—New York World. THE SECRET OF INFLUENCE ♦ By H. Addington Bruce THE secret of influence is not money, as many of us imagine. Money, to lie sure, does con fer some influence on its possessor. But as an influence producer it ii weak compared with personality. Get this truth firmly fixed in your mind. You are young and ambitious. You rightly de sire to become a man of real consequence, to win success and happiness, and to be of influence in your generation. To this end you mistakenly think that the one essential is to make money, lots of money. The more money you can get, you argue, the more influential you are sure to be. But reflect for a moment. Recall the lessons in history you learned when a boy in school. Summon back in memory the names of the men recorded in your history books as having been most influential in their time and country. Few of them, you will find, were men of great wealth. Look about you in the world of your own day. Again you will find few millionaires among the recognized leaders and shapers of public thought and action. This certainly is a fact worth pondering. Cer tainly it indicates that the possession of great wealth is no guarantee of great influence. That must come from something else. What it does come from is personality. In his just published “Religion for Today,” John Haynes Holmes defines personality as “that, peculiar spiritual power which leaps like flame from soul to soul, and makes a man a leader of his kind.” He further enumerates as the dis tinctive marks of personality, thought, feeling, and unity. This means that personality is'something which can be cultivated. For. obviously, though unity admits of no division into more or less, thought and feeling do. A man can think much or think little, feel much or feel little. And in proportion as he thinks and feels he is a man of strong or weak personality. It follows that to cultivate personality a man must make himself an active, vigorous thinker. He must also make himself an enthusiast. Whatever task he undertakes, he must throw himself into it °nthusiastically. He must likewise be sincerely ardent in his dealings with other men. Wherefore lie needs to develop a high degree of human sympathy. Thinking only of himself, feeling only for him self, he may wfln wealth but he cannot grow in per sonality. He will merely be a self-centered, cojd, spiritual ly deficient individual repelling instead of attracting other people, hence quite incapable of truly in fluencing and leading other people. And, I would add incidentally, he likewise is certain to be an unhappy individual. For he can not escape the consciousness that he stands really alone in life, friendless and uninfluential because he has developed no capacity for sympathy with his fellows. your main endeavor, accordingly, be effort to enlarge your personality, not effort to amass gold. If you-happen to amass gold, well and good. But don’t make material wealth your goal in life. Aim rather at gain of mental and spiritual riches. (Copyright. 1917, by the Associated Newspapers.) PRIZES By Dr. Frank Crane \ - UPON the subject of prizes 1 am a foaming radical. No good work was ever done for a prize, especially no good creative work. A prize may have its place when offered to the contestant who can run fastest, the drinker who can hold the most beer, or the pupil who can spell down the class; but the poem, picture, statue, play, or book that is created for a prize contest is in variably poor. The reason is inherent in the nature of the case. Competition is one of the world s dearest delu sions. It seems to bring out the best work. As a matter of fact, it fosters mediocrity. The great, constructive works of human prog ress, as David Starr Jordan has so conclusively demonstrated, are due to the co-operation of men, not to their competitions. • War, for instance, never did any good that could not have been better attained some other way. War is necessary only because of the ignorance, stupidity, egotism, and blind passions of men. With a little patience, with co-operation an intelligence every earthly conflict might have been settled at infinitely less pains and expense than by war. If two parties in our Revolution or Civil war or in our Spanish war could have calmly and decently met together they could have achieved the same results without the terrific cost. Frank, courteous, sensible discussion and de bate might have saved Europe her present destruc tion. To revert to our subject, no man can do his best work when he is trying to outdo another. 1 will, therefore, enter no contest. I will not compete with any other workman. Ido not want to beat anybody at anything. I want to do my work well. And my joy and reward lie in the perfection of it. If any one can do it better let him go to it. The law of the struggle to survive which exists among the lower orders of creation properly ceases when we come to man. The principle of evolution takes a new turn. Animals produce the best by contention. Man produces the best by co-working. The desire for pre-eminence, to excel, to sur pass, is low. It is natural, of course, as anger, lust, and selshness are natural; it is a part of our inheritance from the beast. But man’s glory is not in conquest nor dom inance. It is in service. It is in doing well his work, and in helping, not hurting, others. Civilization means getting together. Competi tion is the lingering spirit of barbarism. “Let dogs delight to bark and bite, for ’tis their nature to,” runs the old rhyme. And let all dog natured people, all fevered, welt-macht Oder nieder ; gang people, claw, and scratch and kill and destroy. It is simply a reversion to type, a lapse into the animal plane, and is a mighty expensive and mad experiment. Let us pursue excellence “some other way.” For we gain nothing by competition that we could not gain much more effectively if we had sense enough to co-operate. (Copyright, 1917. by Frank Crane.) Georgia's Food Crops. “It is safe to say that no South Georgia farm will be complete in 1917 without a sweet potato patch; and it is, perhaps, just-as safe to say that on very few farms in this section will the potato patch be missing.”— ; The Al bany Herald. This is another pleasing reminder of the en thusiasm and thoroughness with which Georgia has turned to the production of foodstuffs. On most of the farms in this State the last two years have witnessed an increasing diversity of crops. Hun dred of planters who once staked everything on cot ton have liberalized their interests until now they raise at home all the corn and meat and many of the vegetables they need- Commonplace though it appears, this change is working a beneficent revo lution in Georgia’s economic affairs. It is develop ing a system of agriculture that is scientific in its principles, businesslike in its methods, self-sustain ing in its results and independent in its character. | ENGLAND AT WAR. Vll.—The Daily Life—By Frederic J. Haskin LONDON, Feb. 4. Life in war time in London and throughout England is serious, but not altogether somber. The reflected fire of the heroism of the trenches lightens even sorrow and gives a sort of shining spirit to the people at home. * • * More than this, the men and the women of England agreed at the outset of the conflict that the outward evidences of the tragedies which were certain to come should be minimized so far as possible. London and England never have gone to the extreme of the outward manifestations evident in Paris, and in France gener ally. of the dread realization of the horrors attendant on the conflict, and of the fear of a remotely possible national defeat. • • • It is not meant to say that the French people have shown evidences of depression of spirit or of doubt concerning the final outcome of the struggle in which they are engaged. It is true, however, and England knows it, that in France, by common consent, the women all dress in somber colors and largely have fore gone attendance even at such little social gatherings as are known in England and America as afternoon teas. England has kept up some of its social activities, although, like France, she has closed down largely on elaborate affairs of whatever kind. • • • At the outset of hostilities England, because she ’s girt by four seas, felt an aloofness from the war which prevented its actualities from striking home as deeply as they struck into the heart of invaded France. For a while on this island things went on much as usual. Then there ,caine a pause and then almost a full stop. England was exultant In heart at the conduct of her troops at Mons, wheije meager battalions for hours held at bay five times their number of assailants. The tragedies came home, and Mons marked the beginning of the serious heart-searching time in England. • • • The spirit of the English people, like the spirit of the French, is high. The eye speaks confidence and determination when the voices are hushed. • • • London is not as lively a city in a traffic sense ae once it was. Many of the buses are doing service, or have done service and met their fate, on the roads back of the lines from the Belgian border to the trenches in front of Peronne. The shops are open and for the most part are seemingly doing a lively business. The streets are in no wise deserted, and if a foreigner who never before visited the city should come here ne probably would think it as bustling a metropolis as there exists on earth. Only the Londoner who was here before the war is sharply conscious of the differ ence in the swelling tide of city life. i ‘ • In the homes and hotels of London, where the women, the children and the men who can’t go to war are gathered, there is a sadness of a strong kind. There is a bearing up, however, under all the elements which make for depression of body and spirit. The dead, wounded and missing lists are read in the closet. Emotion is expressed there. In the open the people are brave. • • • Englishmen as a rule, and Londoners in particular, are not emotional. A few men and women in this town, quicker pulsed by nature than the majority of their neighbors, have been writing to the newspapers ever since this war began asking why it is that so few cheers are given for the passing regiments. At the outbreak of the war, when every soldier was a volun teer, there seldom were cheers for the recruits as they passed along the streets on the way to the rendezvous in the rear of the horse guards. Englishmen blamed their fellow countrymen for a lack of appreciation of the response to the call of duty. The chances are, and a study of conditions seems to prove, that the stolid Britishers who stand on the London corners and see the soldiers go by are just as full of cheers as any emotional American or French man, but they are kept from giving vent to them by that something in their nature which some have called conservatism and others coldness. Qne Londoner, when he heard his people rebuked because they did not cheer the soldiers as the people of the other natTßns would cheer them, replied with a touch of resentment that "the shallows murmur while the deeps are dumb.” • • • The feeling of sympathy and sorrow must be re served in the main by London people for expression in [senate SMASHES HOARY OLD PRECEDENT— By Ralph Smith | t ■■—_■ ll.——l I I ■■■■■ ■ WASHINGTON, D. C., March 12.—A hoary old precedent was smashed when the senate agred to modi fied cloture. For more than a century there has been no limitation on debate in the American “House of Lords.” Free speech and unrestricted debate have been among the dearest prerogatives of the senate. But in recent years there have been accumulating evidences that sooner or later the senate would be compelled to adopt some form of cloture. The filibuster against the president’s armed neutrality bill was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It helped to expa dite the reform of the senate rules. There is reason to believe, however, that had not the dishonorable filibuster precipitated the issue, an ef fort would have been made very soon to adopt a modi fied cloture for the senate. It/is a fact, established by the Congressional Record, that the senior senator from Georgia—Hoke Smith —months ago began the agi tation for the amendment of the senate rules whereby debate might be limited, it is worthy of more than passing comment that the modified cloture finally adopted by the senate substantially was in the form and language of an amendment proposed by Mr. Smith months ago. The Hoke Smith proposed amendment to the senate rules was referred to the rules committee, and there agreed upon as furnishing a solution of the vexatious problems presented annually by the absence of cloture in the senate. The rules committee did not press the Smith amendment during the short session of congress, because of apprehension that it would precipitate a prolonged debate that would interfere with the regular legislative work of the senate. The plan was to defer consideration of the amendment until the regular, long session. Between the modified cloture finally adopted by the senate and the amendment proposed by Senator Smith several months ago there is only one minor and incon sequential difference. The rule adopted provides that on motion of sixteen senators to limit debate, the ques tion shall be submitted without discussion and if two thirds of those present vote in the affirmative, debate shall be limited. The Smith amendment provided that the motion should be submitted at the instance of thirty-two senators, instead of sixteen—one-third in stead of one-sixth of the senate. It is understood that President Wilson, in conference with the senate committee, concerning amendment of the rules, favored the adoption of a majority cloture. Members of the committee would not hear to this, how ever, and finally convinced the president that a two thirds cloture rule was 1 all that possibly could be ob tained. The rule means simply that when two-thirds of the senate feel that the exigencies of the occasion require it. debate shall be limited and the matter before the senate moved through the regular parliamentary stages to final disposition. Had the rule been in effect during the last congress, the armed neutrality bill would have passed the senate. Two-thirds of the senators would have voted to limit debate, and the twelve "wilful” men would have been powerless to have prevented a vote. • • • Since two-thirds of either house of congress have the power under the constitution to override a pres ! - dential veto, it seems only fair that two-thirds of the senate should have the power to limit debate —to gag a recalcitrant senator. To persons not in the senate it seems that any sen ator should be able to say his say about any piece of legislation in one hour. and. viewed in this light, the new senate regulation is not a gag rule, since after two-thirds vote to limit debate every senator shall be the seclusion of the home. A wounded man is seen in a bus. His left arm is in a sling, and there is some kind of a surgical strap about his shoulder. A cherry cheeked young woman guards his arm from jostling. There are other passengers in .the bus. They look, at the wounded man sympathetically f when he enters and they avert their eyes. The Englishman is loath to speak his sympathy in public. He feels it and he will give generous expression to it at what he considers to be the proper time, and in the proper way. He is perhaps fearful that he may be considered imperti nently curious if he asks questions in a public place even of a man who undoubtedly was wounded in the cause of his country and who might not be averse to letting the fact be known. • « • London and England have given over in these serious times of war the sports which they love. The war has crippled racing, has abolished the Oxford and Cambridge boat races, the Eton-Harrow cricket match at Lord’s, and other of the great national amateur and professional sporting events of all kinds. ‘ • • • The London streets at night in war time have a charm of tfieir own. Half lights have a charm which glare never has. London is less than half lighted, but there is enough light to enable the night traffic to go on and to keep the feet of tqp street passers from stumbling. London’s skyline Is more beautiful than ever. • • • When one looks at the roof of Buckingham palace and sees a huge steel net covering its entire length and breadth, he knows that authority has Its anxious moments, its anxious months and its anxious years. The common people, like royalty, also have their anxious time, yet It is to be doubted from the general demeanor of all classes whether anxiety ever has or ever will become nervous apprehension. The darkness of London streets and the precautionary measures taken against attack from the air seemingly have done nothing in the way of depressing the spirits of the Londoner or of the metropolis-visiting Englishman. • • • The theaters of London are open. The people attend them. They do not do it In a spirit of desire for amusement for amusement’s sake. The Londoner has a well-fixed feeling that the semblance of things of normal times should be maintained in order that neither he nor his fellows may become overpowered by the fact that these are not normal times. The people of London in away are acting a part. They want their tragedy flecked with comedy as an aid to upholding the heart and soul. • • • The people go to church more in these war days than they did in times of peace. Men who have studied I this matter say that London simply is doing what all cities have done in the past when the nations of which, they were a part were at war. The war has pene trated the churches. There is no religious service which has not its suggestion of the tragedy on the continent and of the sorrow in the Island home. • • • The prayers for the men at sea, and for the men in the field, never are omitted from any service, whether of the Church of England or of the dissenting organiza tions. No sermon anywhere tn any church but has its words of courage for the nation and of comfort for the mourners. * « s London knows how to laugh even at war thne. The Albert Memorial never has been a favorite with any Londoner who has the smallest sense of the artistic. Not long after the war broke out this Albert Memorial was enclosed by an army of working men in a great pine board scaffolding. No one seemed to know why the memorial’s magnificent ugliness thus was protected. Finally one man conjectured that the encompassing lumber had been put about the structure to protect it from bombs. The instant reply was that any man who would destroy the monstrosity would be consid ered a stanch friend of the English people. ?•• • , The Londoners are. going about their business They are not light hearted, but they are high hearted. They take their darkened streets, the restrictions on their personal liberties, the enforced rules and regula tions of this kind and that kind, and everything else which comes, with true British stolidity, and if they would speak the word of truth they would say “we are proud of it.” allowed one hour to address himself to the pending legislation and all amendments. • • • It is estimated that the average senator. In debate, talks at the rate of about 150 words per minute. Some may talk a trifle faster, some a bit slower, but 150 per minute is a fair average. That means, under the 1 new rule, each senator will be allowed time In which, to deliver a 9,000-word speech on the pending question. Since the rule allows one hour to each senator caring to avail himself of It, and there are ninety-six sen ators, It would be easily possible to exAaust 854.000 words in a senate debate even after the cloture rule had been invoked. Os course, it Is hardly probable that every member of the senate will accept the oppor tunity, since application of the rule would mean that at least two-thirds, or senators, were anxious to shut off debate, so that discussion would be reduced to a minimum, of which the maximum would be 288,000, words, assuming that the "gagged" minority , repre sented one-third of the senate, and each of them used his hour. • • • The possibilities of debate under the modified clo ture'rule. when reduced to hours and compared to the average daily sessions of the senate, abundantly refute the suggestion that it is in fact a "gag” rule. If the rule is invoked against a third of the senate opposed to a given piece of legislation, it is possible for each of this third —thirty-two senators —to speak for one hour. The average daily sesion of the senate continues not over five hours, so that the minority by exercising its rights under the rule might delay legislation for nearly seven days, unless the majority held their feet to the fire in one continuous session. f QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES > '■—' Mark Hambourg has had many compliments paid to him over his brilliant Coliseum performances, but none nicer than that handed to him by one of the stage hands, who went to him the day after the first night, and said: "Mr. Hambourg. my wife has always been considered to be a fine pianist; but she was in the house here last night, and—well, we have decided to sell the piano and buy a gramophone.” •• • • The managers of a certain mission hall in a mining district where * great many soldiers are now quartered are very kind to the Tommies and get up all sorts of entertainments for their benefit. The other week-end the following notice was posted upon the door of the hall: "On Saturday evening a potato pie supper will be given to the soldiers In the district. Subject for Sunday evening, ‘A Night of Agony.’ ” • • • judge You weren't satisfied to eat a dinner at the complainant’* restaurant without paying for it, but you went off with hla forks and spoons besides Prisonerl know, yer honor. But 1 took them from honest motives. I wanted to pawn them to raise money to pay him for the dinner. Benjamin Birdie, the famous jockey, was take.n suddenly ill. and the trainer advised him to visit a doc tor in the town. "HeTl put you right in a jiffy." he said. The same evening he found Benjamin lying curled up in the stables, kicking his lees about in agony. "Hallo, Benny! Haven't you been to the doctor?” "Yes.” “Well, didn't he do. you any good?” “T didn't go in. When I got to his house there was a brass plate on his door —‘Dr. Kurem. Ten to one’— and T wasn’t going to monkey with a long shot liko that!”
