Newspaper Page Text
4
THE TRI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail
Matter of the Second Class.
Daily, Sunday, Tri- Weekly
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE TRI-WEEKLY
Twelve months $1.50
Eight months SI.OO
\ Six months 75c
Foui - months 50c
Subscription Prices Daily and Sunday
! (By Mail—Payable Strictly in Advance)
IWk.lMo. 3 Mos. 6 Mos. 1 Yr.
Daily and Sunday 20c 90c $2.50 $5.00 $9.50
Daily 16c <oe 2.00 4.00 7.50
Sunday 7c 30c .90 1.75 3.25
The Tri-Weekly Journal is published
on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and#
is mailed by the shortest routes for early
• delivery.
It contains news from all over the world,
brought by special leased wires into our
office. It has a staff of distinguished con
tributors, with strong departments of spe
cial value to the home and the farm.
Agents wanted at every postoffice. Lib
eral commission allowed. Outfit free.
Write R. R. BRADLEY, Circulation Man
ager.
The only traveling representatives we
have are B. F. Bolton, C. C. Coyle, Charles
H. Woodliff, J. M. Patten, Dan Hall, Jr.,
W. L. Walton, M. H. Bevil and John Mac-
Jennings. We will be responsible 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 least two weeks
before the date on this label, you insure regular service.
In ordering paper changed, be sure to mention your
old as well as your new address. If on a route, please
give the route number.
We cannot enter subscriptions to begin with back num
bers. Remittances should b e sent by postal order or
registered mail.
Address all orders and notices for this Department to
THE TRI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, Atlanta, Ga.
Georgia's Waxing Prosperity
IN the course of a well warranted tribute
to the resources of Fulton’s fertile neigh
bor just across the Chattahoochee, the
Cobl County Times remarks that while the
farmers of that region are enjoying the largest
prosperity of their lives, “they have not yet
scratched the surface of the stores of wealth
which lie in their soil.” For,
“With purebred stock upon their pas
tures, with the best seeds and with up-to
date methods of farming, the can pack
the banks of the county with their profits.
And they don’t have to depend on cotton
for this prosperity. Corn, wheat and live
stock thrive coo well in Cobb for us to
trust to the uncertainties or the cotton
crop and the activities of the boll weevil
< and worm. Vegetables, strawberries, fruits
can be sold at excellent prices.”
While Cobb county has its particular ad
vantages and is distinctly one of the garden
spots of the South, the general conditions
which the Times has described prevail in the
> greater part of Georgia, making the State a
veritable empire of agricultural opportunity.
Unquestionably, too, the rich veins of soil
treasure which weave their network from the
mountains to the sea are yet hardly more than
touched. It is only of late years that science
has been given a fair chance to show what
she can do byway of developing these re
sources and diversifying their products. The
fetters of an all-cotton system have but recent
ly been struck off, and the State’s wondrous
possibilities in t nimal husbandry but recently
realized. The progress of the last decade in
these fields, heartening as it is, marks a mere
beginning of the achievements that are to be.
No longer a land of a single crop, and that
a precariously uncertain one; no longer a land
dependent upon distant markets for food sup*
ply and upon crude or antiquated methods for
solving its soil problems and developing its
soil wealth; but a land of multiple harvests,
filling the four seasons with plenty, and of all
the aid and quickening which science can
giye,—Georgia will wax in prosperity as never
before and in serviceabieness to America and
the world.
The Tale of the U-Boat.s
NO aspect of the war, during its prog
ress, was so shrouded in secrecy as
that pertaining to U-boats, their num
ber, their scope of operation, their fortunes
and their fates. The British Admiralty dis
covered much, but for good reasons kept
reticent. The German Admiralty knew much,
but likewise divulged little, even to its own
public. Occasionally there would break
through the veil some such romantic epi
sode as the voyage of the U-2 3 which in the
spring of 1915 sped from Wilhelmshaven to
the Dardanelles, where it sank the battle
ships Majestic and Triumph; or some such
dark crime as th’e assault on the peaceable
Lusitania; or some such marvel of nauti
cal prowess as that of the cargo-carrying
submarine which swam the Atlantic depths
and bobbed suddenly up in an American har
bor with its precious dyes and chemicals.
But apart from these striking incidents, the
world was left largely to conjecture how
many U-boats were being built and sunk,
what their dimensions were and their de
signs, whether they were making serious
headway or were being subdued.
Much light on these questions is shed from
a recent report of the German Admiralty
to the Berlin commission charged with in
vestigating war responsibilities. Piecing
this information to that previously acquired
by the British naval authorities, the Ameri
can Review of Reviews presents in its cur
rent number an interesting summary of the
latest disclosures. These controvert the
idea that at the beginning of the war Ger
many had a swarming fleet of U-boats in
readiness. In fact she had but twenty-eight,
and in those her sea lords placed no great
faith. Admiral von Tirpitz, it seems, “had
repeatedly expressed his skepticism as to
the value of submarines” and most of his
associates “still hesitated to spend large
sums of money on an untried weapon.” The
largest of the 1914 U-boats was of six hun
dred and seventy-five tons, and none of them
mounted guns. “It was not until the third
year of the war that the thousand-ton mark
was reached.” . The Engineer, a London
publication, from which the last quoted re
mark is taken, adds that in 1917 was
launched the gigantic U-139, having a ton
nage of 1,930, mounting a pair of 5.9 inch
guns and carrying a complement of eighty
three. Further, “During the final year of
the war the output of submarines com
prised a variety of types, and a month or
two before the armistice a new and huge
Drogram of submarine construction had
been drawn up by Admiral Scheer. No fewer
than four hundred and thirty submarines
were being built or were on order at the
date of the armistice.”
It was thus by degrees that Germany
came to stake large hopes on a sea wea
pon which she first took up as a dubious
experiment. From a total of thirty-one sub
mersibles completed in 1914, she advanced
to sixty-two in 1915, ninety-five in 1916,
and to one hundred and three in 1917. In
the ten crucial months of the following
year, she turned out eight-one; but, as the
records show, many times that number were
then under construction or had been or
dered. Evidently, it was the intention of the
German Admiralty to press ruthlessly on
with its U-boat-campaign, despite the heavy
losses from Allied guns and bombs and nets.
I
THE ATLANTA TRI WEEKLY JOURNAL.
Near the end of the year 1917 the undersea
craft were being destroyed more rapidly
i than they were being built. Apparently,
however, they would have been mustered
for a redoubled onslaught had not Hinden
burg’s lines cracked and broken.
First and last, Germany launched three
hundred and seventy-two U-boats, carrying
among them some four hundred mounted
guns, nearly fifteen hundred torpedo tubes,
upwards of twenty-three hundred mines,
and eleven thousand, six hundred and sev
enty-three officers and men. Tnough dis
playing great tenacity and at times great
courage, the U-boat adventure was fated to
defeat by the same law that brought an
empty and inglorious end to Prussianism’s
fling on land. No nation can defy, save for
a season, the statutes of civilization, hu
manity and the moral order. Against these
the mightiest and most cunning contrivances
are but as dust against the wind or sparks
against the stars.
♦—
Urban and Rural Growth.
GRATIFYING as census increases are
generally considered by the towns
and cities to which they apply, the
Columbus Enquirer-Sun sensibly remarks
that if our centers of population grow at the
expense of our farms, ‘‘it will not be long
before we shall be shown that such growth
is not as profitable as it would be otherwise.
The city must have something in the coun
try to back it up. The farm can be pros
perous without the city, but the city cannot
be as great as it would be unless farms are
yielding their abundance.”
Urban and industrial development, which
commonly go together, cannot be too rapid
if there is corresponding advancement on
the rural side. The trouble • and danger
come from lack of balance and co-function-
Ing between these two great provinces of en
deavor. A progressive town, with a market
for diversified crops and a citizenry duly ap
preciative of the value of good roads, good
schools and liberal co-operation, is a rich
asset to the country about. It is from such
towns, indeed, that much of our agricultural
progress has drawn its chief incentive • nd
sustainment. But when the town is mainly
a sapper of rural strength, offering .ittle or
no service and showing no neighborliness in
return, its growth in population profits the
common interests nothing. In fact, this is
not so much growth as it is swelling. It
is a congestion of quantity at the expense
of quality, an unhealthy misadjustment of
production and consumption, a forerunner
of ill to things urban as well as rural.
In Georgia we are in the main happily
free from such conditions. Our farms and
smaller communities still predominate in
population, while our towns and cities as
a rule are cordially concerned in the welfare
and upbuilding of the surrounding country.
Hold Your Liberty Bonds
LIBERTY bonds are not worth, intrin
sically. a penny less toda? than they
were when their owners bought them
as an act of patriotism and of good business.
They are still the soundest securities in the
world, and they will yet prove to be among !
the most profitable. All the resources of the
United States Government, all the wealth
and power and good faith of the American
people are still behind these pledges that
supplied so many of the sinews of war.
The fact that their present market price
is below par is merely a passing consequence
of generally disturbed financial conditions
If one is compelled at this juncture to sell
his Liberty bonds he does so, of course, at
a disadvantage. But if he has means where
with to buy Liberty bonds he is indeed for
tunate. As the Pensacola Journal interest
ingly sums the situation: ‘‘When an ex
perienced investor finds some of his favorite
securities selling below what he first bought
them for, does he sell the lot, and turn to
something else? Not at all. He buys as many
more as he can at the lower price in order
to “average his cost.” He does this, be
cause he always desires the book values of
his securities to be close to the actual mar
ket values, so that if forced to sell at any
time, his loss, if any, will be small. The
present prices of all issues of Liberty bonds
offer the most favorable opportunity for
averaging cost. A hundred dollars . worth
bought at par, another hundred bought at
s9l and you have two bonds costing only
$95.50 each. Long before maturity date you
will be able to sell either or both at a profit.”
Only imperative need should constrain one
to part with his Liberty bonds at this time.
For every owner whom emergency forces to
sell, there are thousands who can hold to
their securities, and all who do so will reap
the reward of steady judgment and farsee
ing patience.
This is the counsel of the country’s ablest
financiers; it is the counsel of patriotism; it
is the counsel of common sense. Let none
be deceived by transient depression and part
with a birthright for a mess of pottage.
- 4
The Treaty's Only Hope
O'JE of the few constructive notes sound
ed in the dreary aftermath of the
Treaty’s wrecking is from the New
York Times, which declares: “The Senate,
we are sure, has learned much in these
months of strife. Certainly the President
must have learned something. Confronting as
we do at this hour a great peril, let animosi
ties be laid aside, let both departments of
the treaty-making power join in an effort
to put the Treaty and the League Covenant
into effect. Reservations there may be and
will be . . . but to say that the great
instrument of liberty and peace cannot be
saved would be indeed a counsel of despair,
unworthy of a nation which cherished the as
piration of ending a World War in away
to make its repetition impossible.”
This is an all-worthy hope which the coun
try shares and which can be realized if facts
are faced and wisely dealt with. The prin
ciples and main structure of the Treaty can
yet be ratified so that America may take her
proper.place among the upholders of inter
national peace and justice. But this cannot
be accomplished by the President alone nor
by the Senate alone. It cannot be accomplish
ed by partisanship nor by unbending pride of
opinion. It can be accomplished only by an
earnest union of purpose on the part of the
President and the Senate to bring about a
reasonable settlement. Had there been «uch
a union of purpose heretofore, the Treaty
would now be in effect; not indeed in pre
cisely the form in which it cairte from. Ve
rsailles but in substance and essentials.
This is not an issue to be fought out by
stump speakers in a prolonged and bitterly
partisan campaign. It is an issue to be work
ed out in cool and patient counsels by men
more concerned over serving a principle than
over carrying a point. If this spirit takes
charge of the situation, we may yet have a
Treaty worth while; otherwise we never
shall.
*.
The water supply has been cut off in Ber
lin. Supposing that were to happen in the
United States!- —-Detroit News.
President Ebert manifests one character
istic of the true democrat. He holds on
tight to his job.—Chattanooga News.
♦
The German troops had a clash with the
workmen. That German army is deter
mined to beat somebody.—Columbia State.
CURRENT EVENTS OF INTEREST
From the dust of more than 1900 years
a studious modern Roman has rescued a
pen-portrait of Jesus Christ. It was
drawn in one of the letters that Publius
Lentulus, who was a Roman Pro-Consul In
Palestine and knew the Saviour in Nazareth,
wrote to a friend in Italy.
“There has appeared here a man of
strange virture,” Publius Lentulus drote.
“His disciples call Him ‘The Son of God.’
He cures the sic kand raises the dead to
life. He is a very handsome man and
worthy of all our attention. His hair is
blond and covers His shoulders in* separate
curls and is parted in the middle, after the
fashion of the people of Nazareth. His fore
head is smooth and serene, without marks
or wrinkles; His countenance is pink; His
nose is well formed; His beard, of the same
color as his hair, is parted in the middle.”
The advent of Christmas brought the let
ter quoted to the. mind of an old profes
sor in Rome. He translated it into modern
Italian and sent it to some of his learned
friends as a historical curiosity. It seems
to verify the belief that the Saviour had a
very light complexion - and light hair, as
many old artists depicted Him.
Expert antiquarians and students of his
tory pronounced the letters of Publius
Lentulus to be entirely genuine. For cen
turies they were forgotten save by students
of Latin and ancient Rome.
Net earnings of the American Tobacco Com
pany for 1919 amounted to $15,922,687, a de
crease of $1,574,046 compared with the pre
vious year.
This left $31.83 applicable to dividends on
each share of the common stock, against $33.42
in 1918.
Total sales amounted to $146,023,730, an in
crease of $1,553,662. The company’s total in
come of $18,722,128 shows a decrease of $312 -
633.
Though scores of towns have this winter
voted “dry” for the first fifties in' decades,
the town of Newbury, Mass., shattered all
records recently when it cast a “wet” ma
jority for the first time since it was incor
porated 285 years ago. The vote was: Yes,
51; no, 45. Last year, - which was closer than
the average, it was: yes, 50; no, 74.
Paris reports the yacht belonging to Na
poleon 111, which for some time has been a
pontoon has been sold to Marseilles for
130,000 francs. It will be dismantled. This
yacht bore the name of Eagle, and upon it
Empress Eugenie sailed to inaugurate the
Suez canal.
Subsequently the boat passed into private
hands and was renamed the Rapid, and it is
now known as the Swallow.
According to a dispatch from Adana, Asia
Minor, the Armenians here have closed there
shops and informed the French that they
will send armed Armenians to the relief of
Hadpin, northwest of Marash, where the
Turks are reported terrorizing the populace,
if the French do not dispatch troops there.
The village of Romlo and Yerebaker have
been overrun and the Armenian inhabitants
have flew to Hadjin.
A telegram from Miss Edith Colt, of Cleve
land, Ohio, one of the American relief work
ers, says all is well there, but that the popu
lace expects to be cut off from communica
tion shortly. Both the French and the Turks
say the Americans will be safe in Hadjin.
- ■ (•
Advocates of the abolishment of the death
penalty for capital crimes overwhelmed oppo
sition at a hearing before the joint codes com
mittees 'of the legislature at Albany, N. Y.
on the Boylan-Pellett bill, which would do
away with the electric chair.
The abolition measure, according to Sen
ator Boylan, who introduced the bill will be
reported later. That there is little chance
of it being enacted into law is indicated by
the fact that while the hearing was going on
men in the state architect’s office were pre
paring plans for a new death house at Sing
Sing prison.
Scores of officials of civil and humanitarian
interests appeared before the committee in
favor of the Boylan-Pellett measure. Only
one person, James Holl Long, representing
the Massachusetts. Civic Alliance, appeared
in opposition. Women took an active part
in the hearing.
One suggestion made was that the pardon
power, now vested in the governor, be trans
ferred to the court of appeals.
FEVER AS A CURE
By H. Addington Bruce
IT seems incredible to be told that a fever is
sometimes .a blessing in disguise. Yet
every once in a while incidents occur in
medical experience indicating this unmistakably.
Even fever-causing diseases of fatal possi
bilities may, when mild, have beneficial rather
than baneful effects. Impressive instances in
proof have been reoorted in connection with
the terrible influenza epidemic.
Take, as an illustration, a singular case re
cently communicated bv a French physician,
Dr. Demaye. It concerns a young man of
twenty committed to a hospital for the insane
because of an attack of mania.
This attack had followed a violent quarrel
with a friend. For weeks the irrational ex
citement thus caused continued. When at last
it subsided the unfortunate young fellow passed
into a state of melancholic apathy, with marked
enfeeblement of intelligence.
He had no idea of where he was. All day
long he would sit mutely inert, interested in
nothing. Thus he continued for a year, by
which time all hope of his ever regaining men
tal health was abandoned.
Then he fell ill of influenza of the gastro
enteric type. It was not a severe illness. At
no time did his temperature rise above 100.4
degrees. He was convalenscent.
And coincidental with his convalescence the
attendants saw to their surprise that he had >
gained mental vigor. His apathy left him. He
could reason calmly and coolly. Within a
month he was discharged as sane.
Compare an observation by another, phy
sician:
“A very stupid young man, who could not
be made to comprehend even the relation of
an adjective to a noun, happened to become
affected with a fever. A few days later he
was able to speak Latin without too much
thought, and in conversation developed ideas
such as never came to him before.”
Cases like these arc, of course, difficult of
explanation. Probably the theory nearest the
truth is that offered by Arnold Lorand:
“What characterizes fever is an elevation
of the blood circulation, an augmentation and
acceleration. High temperature and a quickened
pulse are its most important distinguishing
features.
“A greater flushing of the tissues with blood
in fever may be considered a useful arrange
ment of nature to meet the invasion of the
tissues by minute organisms or any other harm
ful substance.
“When, therefore, in patients affected with
mental diseases, associated with depressive
symptoms, an improvement of the thinking
power is observed, this can very well be at
tributed to a better flooding of the brain cortex
with blood.”
There may be in this curious phenomenon
of fever cure an important hint for treatment
of certain types of insanity. At any rate, it
raises a question which medical investigators
will doubtless make earnest effort to answer.
. (Copyright, 1920, by the Associated Newspapers.)
Historians of the Hawaiian Islands assert
that a Hawaiian monarchy was the first gov
ernment in the world to put absolute prohi
bition into effect.
Kamechameha the Great, first king of
United Hawaii, in 1795, after having con
quered all the other islands, issued an edict
imposing prohibition. Its penalties were
drastic. An offender was stripped of his
property, real and personal, and was driven
from his village clad only in a loin cloth.
In later years foreign nations forced liquor
on the Hawaiians, and its sale was general
in the islands until the great war, when, with
the opening of the army training camps in the
islands, prohibition went into effect.
Word from London stares that sunken
treasure worth 50,000,000 pounds has been
raised since the war began around the Brit
ish Isles.
The Restorer and the Reliant, two salvag
ing vessels that were bought by a British
concern from the American navy, have a new
device, an oxyacetylene flame, which is
worked under water for cutting holes in the
isdes of submerged vessels.
Each ship has twenty-five electric pumps,
capable of pumping 1,000,000 gallons of
water an hour, and carries two divers, search
lights, line-throwing guns, electric welding
plants, rock drills and Stner accessories.
Each diver is equipped with a, telephone.
The Restorer last year recovered 1,000,000
pounds in gold from the Laurentic off Lough
Swilly, and both vessels are now operating off
Newhaven, on the channel coast.
The ascendancy to power of the old pro-
German Nationalist party in Turkey, which
has resulted in the present crisis, is described
for the first time in confidential reports re
ceived in Washington from Constantinople
by Professor der Hagopian, of the Armenian
national delegation of the peace conference.
Copies of the reports have been submitted
to the state department.
The Nationalist party was supposed to have
been crushed by the operation of the armis
tice terms, but its present movement under
the leadership of Mustapha Kernel, the
famous defender of the Dardanelles, is de
scribed as rivaling that of the “Committee of
Union and Progress,” which in 1908 de
throned Sultan Abdul Hamid and proceeded
to the systematic repression of the alien races
in the Divan-Cushion Empire.
According to reports from Bucharest, it is
understood that the Hungarian Royalists lay
revolt in Germany to the allies. One of the
leading Royalist party is quoted as saying:
“The recent uprising demonstrates conclu
sively the allies are going on the wrong track
in suppressing natural inclinations of peo
ples. We will have to wait the result of the
movement.
“Sooner or later the German people will
doubtless restore the dynasty to the place
where it legally belongs.” That Socialist re
publics are incapable of surviving in coun
tries where for centuries the people have been
accustomed to monarchies.
John Kelly, fifty years old, said to be
the shortest man in Illinois? is dead ot
apoplexy at his home, Macomb, 111. Kelly
was forty-four inches in height and weighed
150 pounds. In his younger days his legs
were doubled-jointed, enabling him to move
as rapidly backward as forward. Kelly used
a stepladder when harnessing his horses.
The Italian government, according to advices
to the department of commerce, is overlooking
nothing in its plans for smoothing the way for
prospective American tourists. A big influx
of American sightseers, it is held, would go
far toward rectifying the present exchange dif
ficulty and because of the premium on the
dollar. Americans would find prices in Italy
but ft little higher than before the war.
New hotels are planned for various sections
and official attention is being given to train
schedules.
A French decree prohibits the exportation
of raw, green and dry hides and skins; raw
fur skins and prepared hides and skins of
horses, calves and heifers (vachette), tanned,
tawed oi - curried, except under special license
from the ministry of finance. Exception is
made with respect to foreign hides and skins
that are certified to have been imported with
a view to re-exportation.
THE DISEASE OF INTENSITY
By Dr. Frank Crane
It is good to be in earnest. But the dan
ger to intensity is that it is likely to make
us narrow.
Everything in this mundane sphere has its
drawbacks. Cows have lumpy jaw, horses
pink eye, hogs cholera, men appendicitis,
every organism has its peculiar disease. As
the poet says:
“Fleas have other fleas to bite ’em,
And so on ad infinitum.”
Hence, as aforesaid, intensity often runs
to narrowness.
Whoever knows all about something rarely
knows much of anything else. Expertness
is bought at the price of all-aroundness.
I know a man who understands everything
about autmobiles, and can fix any gas engine
in creation with a pair of nippers and a screw
driver; and he couldn’t tell you whether Bot
icelli is the name of a cheese or a violin.
Some women are so virtuous, in the com
monly accepted meaning of the term, that
there is but One Virtue, that they are petty,
mean and unbearable in all other ways.
So there are men so temperate they are
offensive, and so honest they are indecent.
There is a diseased patriotism, which in
its single aim to be loyal, becomes selfish,
intolerant and hateful.
Sometimes religious conviction is so in
tense that it gives no helpful light and heat,
but just burns.,
I often think of that motto of Socrates,
“Nothing too much.”
And of the Frenchman’s quip, “Our vices
are our virtues carried to excess.”
Os course, on the contrary, there are those
so broad they are exceeding thin, so gentle
they are mushy, and so tolerant they are
quite willing to discuss the advisability of
burning up an orphan asylum.
Once President Grant removed a postmaster
from office in North Carolina. When the sen
ator from that state remonstrated at this
interference with his perquisites, and asked
the President why he the man, Grant
replied: “Oh, he was too unanimous.”
The fact is that life is very much like walk
ing a rail of the railroad; it is hard to keep
one’s balance.
What everybody needs is a little of some
thing else. Efficiency generally lacks par
allax.
This narrowness has many names and
shapes. We call it selfishness, intolerance,
bigotry, fanaticism. It undoubtedly smells
as sweet by one name as another.
Youth is impatient with age and old peo
ple are harsh with young; religionists de
nounce scientists and the latter pooh-pooh
right back at them; alas that everything en
thusiasm must have its seamy side, and that
•men fighting for a noble cause must use the
same bitterness, violence and intolerance
other men use in fighting for lust and loot!
(Copyright, 1920, by Frank Crane.)
THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1920.
THE TRI-WEEKLY EDITORIAL DIGEST
A National and Non-Partisan Summary of Leading Press Opinion on Current
Questions and Events
“If Admiral Sims is right,” says the DE
TROIT FREE PRESS (Ind.), “not even the
war department with all its blundering was
as slow about utilizing its resources as was
the navy department.” It had been assumed
that the Navy’s part in winning the war was
accomplished with efficiency and dispatch
until the charges of Admiral Sims burst on
the country like a 14-inch shell and started
people wondering whether the war was won
in spite of the Navy rather than because of
it.
“But Germany was beaten, anyhow,” Mr.
Average American is likely to say. “Why no,t
be satisfied with, that? Why try to unearth
scandals?” To this the PITTSBURG PRESS
(Ind.) replies: *
“We are not so secure from the possi
bility of future war but that it is the part
of prudence to understand just where we
fell short this time and adopt precautions
to prevent a repetition of the blunders ot
which Admiral Sims complains.”
The substance of the Admiral’s complaint
is that the Navy Department tried to direct
the strategy of the campaign from Wash
ington, and that instead of co-operating with
the Allies in a common plan against the
enemy it pursued an individual plan of its
own. His “three basic charges,” acocrding
to the CHICAGO DAILY NEWS (Ind.),
are:
“That during the early period of the war
the navy department violated fundamental
principles of warfare and thus caused need
less and costly prolongation of the fighting;
that the policies of the department during
the last half of the war were identical with
those recommended by him and rejected
during the first six months and that the
department either did not have suitable
plans when the nation entered the war or
else did not make use of them in a timely
manner.”
“A painful picture of confusion and de
lay,” the NEWS comments, and the SEATTLE
TIMES (Ind.) puts emphasis on the Admi
ral’s opinion that these conditions “cost half
a million lives, $15,000,000,000 in treasure
and 2,509,000 tons of shipping.” The SAN
ANTONIO LIGHT (Ind.f thinks all this
“sounds bad for Daniels,” and it points es
pecially to the original policy of the secre
tary in keeping our warships in home wa
ters because of the submarine menace,
whereas:
“The department should have understood
enough of naval strategy to know that the
damage they could inflict on this side ot
the ocean was negligible compared with
what they could do on the other side, and
that the best way to keep them from our
coast was to conduct euch a forcible offen
sive against them that they would have been
obliged to remain on the other side of the
Atlantic.”
“And it turned out,’’ adds the BUFFALO
EXPRESS (Rep.), “that after we sent our
patrol boats to those European waters, we
had no more trouble from submarines off
our own coast.” The NEW YORK TRIB
UNE (Rep.), however, calls attention to a
Daniels telegram to Sims, saying that “the
future position of the United States must
in no way be jeopardized by any disintegra
tion of our main fighting fleet,” and it thinks
this “boldly indicates that, instead of co
operating whole-heartedly for the prompt
defeat of a common enemy, we were to con
serve our main fighting fleet intact for post
bellum conditions.” “In this,” thinks the
TACOMA NEWS-TRIBUNE (Ind.), “the
navy’s head seemed to fear the English navy
as much as he feared Germany.
However, as the CLEVELAND PLAIN
DEALER (Ind. Dem.) remarks, we should
“hear the othej - side before finally condemn
ing the one department of the government
reputed ‘ready’ for the German peril in
1917.”
“Admiral Sims judges the navy by its
failure to reach a standard which was in
fact unattainable,” says the SPRINGFIELD
REPUBLICAN (Ind.), and “allows too little
for the natural and inevitable slowness and
indecision of democracy in the first stages
of a war. It is in the last stages that de
mocracy is apt to shine.” The DAYTON
NEWS (Dem.) reminds us that “the appro
bation of the Allies followed America’s
naval services,” asks “Why need Admiral
Sims consider our part so insignificant and
poorly conceived?” It appears to the MEM
PHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL (Dem.) that
“the egotism of the admiral has run away
I CLIPPING THE FLAPPER’S WINGS—By Frederic J. Haskin
NEW YORK, Marchh 21—The day of the
overjoyed, overdressed dear young thing,
full of sentiment and illusion, is drawing
to a close. “Gladness” and glad rags are going
out of fashion.
According to Miss Jane D. Rippin, national
director of the Girl Scouts, within the next ten
years women are going to abandon all creative
attempts at illusion, and live a peaceful, thrifty
existence, like men. They a’e going to wear
plain business suits and severe hats, adjure high
heels and cosmetics and exercise a restraining
influence on their exuberant gladness, espe
cially while at work. Miss Rippin herself is
doing all that she can to bring this admirable
reform about.
“Every day,” she says, “we are teaching the
girl that her body* isn’t a Christmas tree on
which to hang a lot of ornaments. The young
scout becomes accustomed to the wearing of
her own simple uniform and sees its value.
Os course, she cannot wear it always, but she
is taught that the next best thing is a plain
one-piece dress with a felt. Her scout shoes
are big and broad with low heels, and she
knows the dangers of high heels. As for cos
metics, every one of our girls comes to know
that girls who wear artificial things on their
faces have artificial things in their characters.”
By taking them while they are youn , this
way, and inculcating in them a wholesome re
spect for grim and, even occasionally homely
reality, it is hoped that the “too-glad” outlook
can eventually be stamped out. Miss Rippin
is aided and abetted in this useful campaign
by various women’s clubs, including the Wall
Street club, the Irene Thrift club, an organiza
tion of chbrus girls,, and A. Mitchell Palmer,
whose interest is in squelching not so much
gladness as extravagance.
While the campaign is invading even our
drawing rooms, with the idea of clothing them
a little more fully and less fancifully, it is
particularly directed at the modern working
woman. Young women who wear distracting
clothes to the office, and who monopolize
business telephones for protracted, mirthful
conversations with their various acquaintances,
and who insist upon joyfully vamping the boss
when the poor man is anxious to get through
the dictation and out to his golf, are not ex
pected to occur in the future. The Wall Street
club is taking these species of gladness under
its wing in the hope of definitely saddening
them.
Miss Elizabeth Sibley, p.-esident of the or
grmzauon, has Aery decided views on the sub
ject, which she confidently expects to impress
upon thousand; of young women employed in
the Wall street district du“ : ng the coming year.
“Not everything that it is necessary to know
if one is to succeed in a business office is
taught in preparatory schools or business
courses,” declares Miss Sibley. “There are
questions of dress and deportment which are
,most important. Older women who have gone
Did Mere Luck IT in the War
with any discretion or judgment that he may
have possessed,” and that the whole discus
sion “has resolved itself into a political at
tack upon the present authorities.”
As for “what might have happened” if the
Sims advice had been followed from the be
ginning, this “is quite beyond the mind of
man, to eay,” declares the MILWAUKEE
JOURNAL (Ind.). “Our. naval participation
in the war,” says the ARIZONA REPUBLI
CAN (Ind. Prog.), “was not vital. The Brit
ish navy had proved itself to be sufficient.
There were no naval operations since some
time before our entrance into the war that
would have given opportunity to our capital
ships . . . We probably could have done no
more toward ending the war quickly if we
had had every American battleship and
cruiser in European waters from the spring
of 1917.” Further, the NEW ORLEANS
STATES (Dem.) attacks Admiral Sims’
statement that if the Navy Department had
taken his advice from the beginning as to
convoys it could have put 1,000,000 men in
France by March, 1918, before the German
drive began, forced Germany’s surrender
July 1 instead of November 11, and saved
500,000 lives and $15,000,000,000 treas
ure.”
“If we had tried to do what Admiral Sims
now says he wanted,” says the STATES
“we would have put in France by March 1
an army of 1,000,000, the bulk of it entire
ly green and only fit for cannon fodder; and
if this army had been put behind the front
to support the British and French when the
tremendous German drive began on March
1, the chances are that instead of 500,000 al
lied lives being saved, several times as many
Americans as were killed in the war would
have been sacrificed and the war prolonged
a year longer than it was.”
The CHARLESTON NEWS AND COU
RIER (Dem.) comment son the effort of
“Admiral Sims” sympathizers ... to get
Mr. Hoover to say that the navy depart
ment did not come in strongly enough,” but
“very properly and cbrrectly Mr. Hoover re
plied that he did not consider himself com
petent to testify regarding technical naval
and military matters. With respect to the
navy department’s course he said he sup
posed ‘everything was done that could be.’ ”
“It is a safe assumption, at least,” con
cludes the KNOXVILLE SENTINEL (Ind.
Dem.) “that the naval authorities did what
they believed to be for the best . . . We
are at a loss to understand the use for Ad
miral Sims’ thrilling post-mortem as to what
might have happened and what* narrowly
escaped happening, but didn’t.”
TURNING SHIPS INTO HOMES
That bombastic announcement by an emi
nent individual whose name is now lost in
obscurity, about bridging the Atlantic ocean
with wooden ships as a preliminary to win
ning the w - ar against Germany, typifies the
sort of wildly imaginative theorizing which
characterized much of the reckless expendi
tures for ships, airplanes and the business ot
war preparation generally. As we now know,
billions of dollars, were wasted in such fool
schemes as the proposal to build thousands
and thousands of cheap wooden ships. The
Idea was to scatter the contracts for these
ships promiscuously along tne Atlantic and
gulf coasts, along the 2,000-mile stretch of
the Pacific, and to give orders for ships at
every lakeside town that wanted a piece of
the huge three-billion-dollar emergency fleet
enterprise. Several hundreds of these wooden
ships were actually built, and some of them
are seaworthy, but others, as it seems, are
just junk on the shipping board’s hands.
Philadelphia is discussing a plan to utilize
about thirty of these discarded ships as hotels
for workers, or to remodel them as depart
mental houses for families. Baltimore is in
urgent need of homing facilities, and no City
has a better water frontage for anchoring
useless ships in deep mud and making houses
of them. Roofing the upper deck would be
simple, cutting windows and doors in the
first, second and third deck levels would also
be comparatively easy. There are eleven dis
mantled wooden ships now in the Patapsco,
but by putting in an early claim Baltimore
may possibly obtain a half-hundred Tnore.
There would be some poetic charm about such
a home, and Baltimore needs a quick supply
of homes. —BALTIMORE AMERICAN (Rep.).
through the stage of office work, which these
girls are just now entering, can give them a
word or two of advice, which we feel should
be of some value.”
As it is, conditions are so shocking, accord
ing to Miss Sibley, that one woman, the head
of a large banking house, recently became so
embarrassed at the diaphanous attire of the
other feminine workers that she raised all the
windows in the office and then tactfully sug
gested that the girls put on their coats so
that they would not take cold.
At the recent convention of the National
Federation of Business and Professional Women
here, where the subject of dress reform re
ceived a great deal of discussion, Mrs. Christine
R. Kefauver, supervision inspector of the Bu
reau of Industrial Hygiene of the New York
department of health, created a mild stir by her
assertion that “many a wife becomes unduly
susp’cious of her husband it he has in his
employ a gill who dolls up. like a fashion
model.” In her opinion it was up to the mod
ern ousiness girl to suppress her glad appear
ance in order that the boss’ wife might rest
in peace ;.nd comfort. Mrs." Kefauver is not
especially interested in the welfare of the boss’
wives, except in so far as they interfere with
the success of business women.
“The business woman may not realize it, but
it is not fair to herself to dress for the office
in unsuitable clothes,” she says. “The dme has
come when entering business with a woman
does not mean merely the filling of a gap
between school and marriage. It means as
much today to a- girl as it does to her brother.
She must therefore avail herself of every op
portunity to make it a success. What would we
think of a man who wore a dress suit tc the
office in the morning? And yet women go
into offices in gowns suitable for tea or din
ner.”
If the present reform campaign were con
fined to the dress and manners of office work
ers, one would not attach so much importance
to it, but even chorus girls have become in
fected by the desire to be sober-minded. It
is not unusual to find whole companies of
chorus ladies diligently knitting while waiting
for the cues in the wings; while one *co|rmany
playing here in New York has organized the
Irene Thrift club, which is an organization for
promoting the wear of sensible, muslin lin
gerie. These girls have repudiated all friv
olous apparel of this type, and have espoused
the coarse, practical and economical garments of
their grandmothers’ days.
Thus, with even the stage developing an
antipathy to frivolity, the future holds much
hope for the extinction of gladness. With so
many reforms under way and gathering furious
momentum, there will soon be nothing left to
be glad about. , Yes; there would be much
hope for the weary in the future were it not
for one disquieting posibility. Suppose every
body went right on being glad, anyway?,