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THE TRI WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
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The Saving Vision
THE decline of Rome has been made to
do service so often as an analogy to
the social ills of our own and preced
ing generations that it has lost something of
its erstwhile scariness. Nevertheless when so
eminent a historian and philosopher as
Guglielmo Ferrero revives the comparison
are bound to take notice. In his latest
the "Ruin of Ancient Civilization,” the
Italian scholar argues that the past sheds a
"dismal light” on the present. Between con
ditions and tendencies today and those that
culminated in the slow death of imperial
Roman power, he finds more than chance
resemblances —and accounts them, not a
reason for despair, but a challenge to action.
From the days of Septimus Severus, in
the closing years of the second and the open
ing of the third century, the Empire’s
authority suffered a cumulative crisis. "The
gods disappear; (we quote from a summary),
•' the best no longer rule; violence, that is to
say, brutal force, sways under different
forms. There is no discipline, and there is
absence of moral restraint in the masses.
There is feverish quest of gold and amuse
ment, and a letting loose of unscrupulous ap
petites. At the time of the fall of the Roman
Empire a new ideal of Christianity arose.
What ideal arises for us?”
That last question strikes to the heart of
the matter, for always it is for want of
vision, rather than for this or that ill doing,
that a people perish. That the times now
upon us are indeed lacking in discipline and
self-control, that pursuit of wealth and
lower forms of success is feverish as of old,
that multitudes are possessed with craving
for the sensational, and that the rarer loves
and deeper reverences of the human spirit
burn all to'o faintly, is not to be denied. But
if through these shadows and futile hurry
ings there shine a truth to which the rest
less times will turn, how haltingly soever;
if beneath the tinseled grime and barren
bluster there stir some faith that can be
quickened upward into flowering; if the light
that is within be not darkness; then will this
age, resembling though it does those that
trod the way to ruin, find a fairer ending.
Boy Radio Inventor
PARIS announces with evident pride the
invention of a radio receiving set of
such small size that it can be mounted
in an umbrella, and so light in weight that a
lady can carry it, lifting her dainty parasol
to produce an "aerial,” and listening in on
the Eiffel Tower music or the latest French
gossip sizzling through the ether.
" But the Literary Digest remarks, in its
radio department, that the Paris umbrella re
ceiving set is made to appear enormous and
cumbersome when compared wit’ll an outfit
invented by Kenneth R. Hinman, a thirteen
year-old boy of Plainfield, New Jersey, whose
is the size of a safety match box, and yet who
is able to hear Morse code, music, news an
nouncements and all other kinds of radio
transmission for a distance of thirty miles
or more.
"The youthful inventor,” says an interest
ing description of the boys’ outfit contained
in the Literary Digest, "has reduced his min
iature set to the simplest possible form. All
•the apparatus except for the head phones is
confined within the dimensions of a regular
safety match box.
“With it he is able to receive not only tele
graph signals, but music, stories, sermons,
and news items given out by the broadcasting
■stations twenty and thirty miles distant.
Wrapped around the outer shell of the match
box is a coil of wire, which serves as a tuning
coil. In the drawer of the box is a crystal
detector of the cat-whisker variety; the draw
er is provided with a spring finger which
bears against the coil of wire; the insulation
;is scraped off along the path of the spring
slider, which is moVed in or out of the shell
more or less. Inductance is thus introduced
into the circuit, thus tuning the instrument
for different wave-lengths. No battery is
necessary. The instrument is provided with
spring clips which may be connected by
lengths of wire to a brass bed or a fence
wire.”
As Unsafe as —Gibraltar?"
FOR how many years—how many gener
ations—have we referred to substan
tial things as being “as safe as Gibral
tar?” Now are we to have to unsay the
old comparison? The Saturday Review sug
gests it.
The late war, it is said, has taught us,
among other things, that the great fortress
perched on the vast rock overlooking and
supposedly commanding the Strait of Gibral
tar is not impregnable.
; If Spain were hostile, it now is pointed
but long range guns could dominate the situ
ation so far as the dockyard is concerned,
and blow it off the map at leisure.
And then the air attack.
The only effective defense against bomb
ing by aircraft is to set up an aircraft de
fense. Without an efficient aircraft base—
and Gibraltar has none and can arrange none
»—an enemy with a base within one hundred
miles could bomb the fine old fortress nightly
to an inevitable doom; and even the enemy
who could slip an aircraft carrier, possibly
submersible —within that radius could do the
same thing.
In the late war the Straits were used freely
by enemy submarines, mainly because defen
sive aircraft were lacking.
TIIK ATLANTA T’/JY/WW'.GY JOURNAL
Extorting Tariff Billions From
American Consumers
r-7—i RE the American people ready to shoul-
S der from three to four billion dollars
of additional taxes in order that
special interests and special allies of the
Republican party may have "protection?”
Are they ready to see the cost of living in
creased and the economic readjustments now
helpfully under way upset in order- that
profiteering may be revived? Are they ready
to sacrifice the larger good of industry and
commerce both at home and abroad in order
that reactionary politics may pay its debt
to reactionary business and claim therefrom
its future rewards?
These are all practical issues in the pend
ing tariff bill. The import duties which that
measure proposes to levy, and which in the
main are higher than were those of the
Payne-Aldrich act of ill memory, must be
paid, as Senator Simmons declares in his
minority report, “by all the people and not
by the beneficiaries who have demanded and
got them.” Moreover, the people must pay
“not only the import duties which go di
rectly into the treasury, but also the result
ing increase in the prices of all things they
buy and consume.” The same high tariff
wall that shuts competition out will enable
the “protected” interests —that is, the privi
leged and favored ones —to charge the Amer
ican consumer well-nigh what they will,
certainly as much as they can collect. Thus,
just when he begins to feel relief from ex
cessive living costs, he is threatened with a
new and twofold burden—a tax from the
tariff makers and a price advance from their
clients and patrons in whose behalf that tax
is levied.
If the vast tribute which it is proposed thus
to extort from the rank and file would be
unjust and unwholesome, still more so would
be the reaction upon our foreign commerce
and the wide range of interests thereon de
pendent. A tariff barrier that keeps the
products of other countries out of American
markets will keep American products out of
other countries. Especially is this true at a
time when those countries, struggling to re
cover from the great war’s waste and im
poverishment, must sell to us if they are to
buy from us. Many of them are indebted to
the United States in sums which aggregate
billions of dollars, and their only present
means of payment is in services and goods,
for already the larger portion of the world’s
gold reserve is in our vaults. Business pru
dnece and economic wisdom demand there
fore that we take these circumstances into
account in framing our policies, and that we
seek to alleviate rather than to make more
acute a world condition which bodes ill to
all. Yet, in spite of the warning facts and
the pleas of far-sighted counselors, the Re
publican tariff clique proposes a bill that sets
them every one at naught.
That bill was bad enough as it came from
the House, but it is, if anything, worse as it
now issues from the Senate committee with
the Republican majority’s approval. It ex
cited no great alarm at first because, as
Senator Simmons, speaking for the Demo
cratic minority, observes, the public "took it
more as a joke than as a serious attempt at
tariff revision,” and “felt sure the Senate
would rewrite it, as they expected from that
body saner action in their behalf.” But how
sorely misplaced that confidence has been,
the measure now reported bears audacious
witness. That it will be resisted to the utmost
by the Democrats of the Senate goes with
out sayings But will enough Republicans of
true foresight and regard for the common
interests join them to prevent its enactment?
Only the event can tell. t
Conserving Child Life
A WELFARE worker was asked the ques
tion whether he thought the state
should assume the parental relation
ship to children. Or, if it should assume that
relation at all, to what extent should it go?
He promptly replied that welfare agencies
for the conservation of child life are cheaper
than jails, reformatories, chaingangs and
prisons. Not to mention insane asylums,
schools for the feeble-minded and other re
lated institutions tracing more or less direct
ly back to juvenile delinquency.
Recently there was given in the city of
Chicago an interesting demonstration of the
dividends arising from welfare work among
juveniles having little, if any, parental care.
On the southwest side of the city was a no
torious resort of the old era known as Pistol
Inn. In the heyday of its glory It was the ac
knowledged center of "the valley,” where po
licemen travel in pairs by day and platoons
by night.
A year ago Judge Landis closed the place
by injunction for violation of the prohibition
law. The Union League bought the old.
liquor-stained and bullet-scarred inn and
transformed it into the headquarters of a
boys’ club. The organization started with a
substantial enrollment representing eleven
nationalities.
Soon the tough young gutter snipes con
ceived the ide'a of presenting a play. They
got an abbreviated edition of Shakespeare’s
“As You Like It,” cast the parts, rehearsed
indefatigably for several weeks under ama
teur direction, and gave a play whose excel
lence astonished qualified experts who saw it.
In fact, a famous actor told the boy who
played Rosalind that his interpretation was
the most beautiful he had ever seen, and
promptly engaged him. He is now preparing
for a dramatic career.
That single experiment in welfare work
within a few weeks revealed a genius.
"Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
"The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean
bear .”
This welfare institution, it is true, was not
financed or operated by the state, but is a
private institution.
Nevertheless it supports the proposition
that welfare agencies for the conservation of
child life are cheaper than jails, reformato
ries, chaingangs and prisons.
If the state can justify the polciy of con
serving plant life, forest life, and animal life,
both wild and domesticated, certainly it can
afford to invest an equal amount in the con
servation of child life.
The Stray X-Ray
NOT so very long ago, yet since the
strange Roentgen Rays were put to
work, it was discovered that constant
exposure to them worked disaster to the ex
posed parts of the body, usually the hands.
More than one gallant pioneer of science lost
his hands by amputation to save his life;
more than one lost his life itself.
So they learned to protect the operator
by encasing the ray-producing part of the
apparatus with heavy glass of a certain for
mula.
Now in the highest power X-Ray rooms,
such as the new one in the Montefiore Hos
pital, New York, it has been deemed wise
to encase the entire room in lead sheathing
as a precaution on behalf of other occupant?
of the building—for stray rays from the ma
chine slip through ordinary flooring and
walling and ceiling with the facility of sun
light through glass.
The office of the director of the hospital
was directly above the new X-Ray room, and
i to protect him from the baneful influence
iof the beneficent rays—beneficent when
j rightly applied and of incalculable value .in
• modern surgery and diagnosis—the floor of
' his office was ripped up the other day and
i a sheeting of lead was placed under it, lead
I being one of the few materials able to deter
I the poignant rays in their flight.
VOICE CULTURE
'By H. Addington Bruce
YOU appreciate that a good voice is a per
sonal asset of no small value. You
are regretfully aware that your own
voice is not so good as it might be. And you
wish that you could improve it.
Well, you can do much to improve it, even
though you perhaps lack the means or the
opportunity to place yourself under the direc
tion of a competent voice teacher. There are
certain principles which, if you but faithfully
apply them, should work wonders in. the bet
tering of your voice.
Underlying all these principles is a law
formulated years ago by the best voice teach
er I have ever known, the late Dr. S. S. Curry,
of Boston:
"The voice is dependent upon the body,
and both voice and body upon the mind.”
If your voice is a weak voice, it may be
weak chiefly because you are d|eficient both
in physical energy and in mental energy. Per
haps you have let yourself become indolent,
perhaps through faulty living habits you have
become more or less “run down.”
You know, as I do not, the ~tate of your
health and your energy rate as regards think
ing and doing. Take steps to improve your
health if it is in need o: improvement, train
yourself to be more energetic mentally and
physically. All the while you will find your
voice gaining in strength.
Or it may be that instead of being too in
ert physically and mentally you are overac
tive, keeping both mind and body in a con
stant state of tension. In that case your
voice is likely to be unpleasantly harsh or
shrill.
Learn to relax. Cultivate poise. When
ever you catch yourself hurrying, slow down.
Try earnestly to conquer the worrying ten
dency that in all probability afflicts you.
In proportion as you do conquer it, in pro
portion as you free yourself from undue ten
sion and acquire poise, the quality of your
voice is sure to improve. The improvement
may be so great as to astonish you.
Harshness of voice, again, may result from
selfishness, from a chronically hard, unsymp
athetic mental attitude, from undue absorp
tion in material as compared with spiritual
realities.
Even to think habitually in too impersonal
and abstract away may harden the voice. If
you do think this way—and especially if you
have to admit that you perhaps are deficient
in human sympathy—you need no longer won
der that your voice repels rather than at
tracts people.
And you have the remedy within yourself.
It is wholly a matter of becoming more kind
-1 ly, of broadening out, of cultivating the pre
cious quality of imagination, and —through
study, meditation, the reading of good litera
ture, association with people who themselves
see life clearly—of gaining clearer insight into
the meaning and purposes of life.
Always, remember, the law holds true. "The
voice is dependent upon the body, and both
voice and body upon the mind.’ The finer
the thinking becomes, the better the voice
will become likewise.
(Copyright, 1922, by The Associated News
papers)
THE CASE OF HAWKINS .
By Dr. Frank Crane
Middlesworth, the President of the Bank,
sat in his private office across the desk from
Eastman, who was his righthand man.
They were discussing the case of Hawkins.
Eastman’s face was pale and his hands
trembled as he fumbled his papers.
"I Wouldn’t have believed it,” he said to
his chief. “Why, Hawkins has been with
us over twenty years. He is a model bank
clerk in every respect. His life is an open
book and above reproach.
"He has no bad habits. He does not drink.
He does not even smoke. He never goes to
the theater. About ”11 the amusements he
gets is to slip over to a free lecture at the
school house once in a whilq. He is wearing
the same clothes he has had for four years.
"And there is no use looking for a woman.
He is an old bachelor and never speaks to a
woman if he can help it. He has no relatives
that I know of except a perfectly respectable
brother who is in the lumber business in Chi
cago.
"And yet he has been swindling us for
years. By one of the cleverest systems I ever
saw he has milked this bank of almost $500,-
’OOO.
"There is no doubt about it. I have gone
through the books. I have been down here
every night for two weeks and the proof that
I have is overwhelming.”
President Middlesworth opened a drawer,
took out a cigar, clipped off the end, and lit it.
“Hm!” he observed.
Just then the telephone rang. Middles
worth took up the instrument and held it" to
his ear. “Hello!” he said. "Yes, this is Mid
dlesworth —What?—Oh, all right, all right.
—No, but you may bet $5,000 on ‘Checker
board.’ —You are mistaken. Checkerboard’s
! a sure winner.—Oh, all right, let it go!”
He hung up the telephone.
Eastman said: "I suppose there’s only one
thing ’to do and that is to call in the police.
It’s a pity, though; I feel infernally sorry for
old Hawkins.”
"No,” said Middlesworth. "We’ll not call
in the police. And we’ll not arrest Hawkins.
We’ll let him alone.”
"Let him alone!” exclaimed Eastman. “Let
him go on stealing?”
"Sure!” calmly replied the President.
“I’ve known for a long while what ho is
doing. The trouble is, Hawkins is an old
miser. He is saving up every cent he steals.
And my trouble is that I’m a gambler. I
can’t help gambling any more than he can
help saving. Some day I will probably lose
my pile. I know where Hawkins has his
money and I’ve fixed it so I can lay my hand
on it any time. You see, Hawkins is looking
out for my old age. He doesn’t knows it, but
he is.”
And that was the case of Hawkins.
(Copyright, 1922, by Frank Crane)
QUIPS AND ’QUIDDITIES
4
An invalid who had spent a long time over
his convalescence in hospital, where he was ex
tremely comfortable, was warned that soon he
would have to be removed. So he conceived a
plan by which his retention in such pleasant
I surroundings could be secured.
| While his temperature was being taken and
the nurse’s attention was centered on the next
patient, he removed the thermometer from his
mouth and rubbed it hard on his sleeve.
The nurse, returning to him, looked at the
thermometer, murmured: “Poor fellow,” and
went to report. Later she returned and an
nounced that the patient would have to leave
that day.
“But, .nurs£,” protested the man, “my tem
! perature was up again this morning.”
j In a sweet voice, nurse answered “Yes, that’s
; right; up to 140. That’s why they’re moving
you; you’re dead.”
A scenario writer experienced great difficulty
in getting his plots accepted. As a rule they
were so uninteresting that a complete hearing
was seldom granted. At last he managed to
persuade a weary producer to listen to the
j synopsis of his latest play.
“Imagine,” he began, “midnight, all silent as
;the grave.
| “Two burglars force open the library win
, dows and eventually commence/ operations on
I the safe. The clock struck I—’
i “Which one ” yawned the producer.
DOROTHY DIX TALKS—MAMA’S PET
a BIGAMIST who has just been thrown
ZA Into prison for having thirty-five
x *■ wives scattered about in various and
sundry parts of the country, explains his
mania for marrying by saying that he loved
to be petted, and just had to have some
woman to baby him.
It seems to me that this muchly married
man has turned a bright light on one phase
of the masculine psychology that has always
been a dark mystery to women. He has ex
plained why men seek wives, and why they
leave wives. He has solved the riddle of why
so many brilliant, beautiful, attractive wom
en have grouchy and disgruntled husbands,
while so often ordinary, commonplace, un
interesting women have husbands who purr
like tomcats under their hands.
Men want to be petted and babied, and
some women have intelligence enough to
sense this, and feed their husbands on sugar
plums while other women live and die under
the delusion that no man is born with a
sweet tooth, or ever yearns to hear a word
of affection, or tenderness. And that’s that.
The truth is that men are just as heart
hungry as any old maid, and as gullible and
ready to swallow down without investigation
any sentimental dope that is handed them.
More than that that, Inside of every man’s
soul there lives, as long as he lives, a little
boy who wants the woman he loves to treat
him like mama’s little blue-eyed, golden
haired pet.
No matter how big and strong a man is,
nor how great and famous, nor how many
other men he bosses, he wants his wife to
treat him like a baby who is petted, and cos
seted, and chucked under the chin. He
may keep up the bluff of being self-suffi
cient abroad, but at home he wants to be
babied.
There isn’t a man living whose secret
ideal of the perfect wife is not the woman
who puts the buttons in his shirt, and lays
out his collar and tie in the morning, and
has his slippers toasting by the fire of an
evening, and who makes with her own
hands, the particular pie he likes best.
And it isn’t because the man really wants
his wife to wait on him, either. That does
not enter into it at all. He is just like the
three-year-old ■who howls for mama to put
on his shoes, or butter his bread when there
are seven nurses standing around to do it.
Men are babyish in wanting their wives to
show them off. Common (Jecency forbids that
a man should trumpet aloud his own ex
ploits, and call attention to how great and
wonderful he is, but there is nothing to
hinder his wife from acting as his press
agent, and if she knows the wife business,
she does. The expression on the face of lit
tle Tommy while his proud mother is telling
the smart things he did and said, is exact-*
ly the same expression that is on Tommy’s
father’s face while his wife is bragging about
how he cornered the cotton market, or or-
A Remedy for the Railroads —By Frederic J. Haskin
WASHINGTON, D. C. May 5. —Differ-
ence of opinion regarding the ad
visability of consolidating the rail
way systems of the United States in ac
cordance with the provisions of the Trans
portation Act is making itself felt. This plan
was devised by Congress, with the aid of ex
perts, as one of the most feasible solutions
to the American railroad tangle. Senator
Cummins, of lowa, is one of the chief cham
pions of the plan and expresses the opinion
that unless the railroad systems are con
solidated, the nation cannot escape Govern
ment ownership and operation.
The general plan is to consolidate into 20
or 30 main • systems the hundreds of rail
road companies now operating in the United
States. The American railroad system de
veloped as the result of independent projects
of individuals or small companies. In fact,
the railroad systems that now exist, such as
the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore and Ohio
and the Southern, are nothing more than
consolidations of a number of smaller lines.
These consolidations have been the result of
acquisition of additional mileage by lines
which desired to extend their scope. It was
a natural development with no statutory dic
tation behind it.
The Transportation Act plan would merge
about 800 lines into 20 or 30 general sys
tems and the consolidation would not be as
the companies want it particularly, but as
the Interstate Commerce Commission,
charged with enforcing • the laws governing
railroad transportation, wants it.
The consolidation theory and plan have
had careful study by many experts. The lat
est study to be made is that of Dr. Jean Paul
Muller, an attorney and economist of Wash
ington, who specializes in railroad and in
dustrial investigation. Dr. Muller’s study has
caused him to oppose the consolidation plan
because of the method adopted for putting
it ipto effect.
He declares that the plan will not reduce
rates but is more likely to increase them to
even more burdensome levels. He does not
oppose the general principle of consolidation
but contends that it should be a natural de
velopment on the initiative of the owners.
Muller Combats Cummins.
One of the chief arguments advanced by
Senator Cummins and his adherents in fav
or of the Government consolidation plan is
that it will unify railroad rates and place
the whole country on the same operating
TURNING THE PAGES—By E. W. Osborn
BY E. W. OSBORN
Little painted, wooden gate,
Swinging in and out,
Crickets chirping in the gra?s,
Honey bees about;
Hollyhocks and marigolds
Laughing in the sun,
Where quiet pools of shadows
Ripple, one by one;
Fiiendly glow of lamplight
Across the window sill.
From the dirk a plaintive voice
Calling, " iVhippcor-w’ll.'’
Moonlight trailing up the path
Draperies of foam.
Spell for me contentment,
And the peace of home.
Might be own-ycur own-home propaganda.
Really is a bit of song from “A Silver Pool ’
Moffat-Yard), a book of verse by Beulah
Ficin.
The Babe in Eskimo Land
Says Lieutenant Commander Fitzhugh
Green, in "People of the Elder Ice,” in the
current Century:
"There are three kinds of love in the world.
For the want of better adjectives let tis call
them free love, platonic love and affection.
"Refrigerated environment has made the
Eskimo physically incapable of the first, at
least to any degree of enthusiasm. Naturally,
he lacks the culture for the second. The
third, affection, the man learns after he has
become a father, or the woman a mother.
"It is the arrival of a baby that seals the
vowless Eskimo marriage.
"It is the choking, helpless plaint in the
igloo’s shadows that first gives the hunter
his sense of home. It is his amazement at
his woman’s unsuspected depths of tender
ness that arouses him at last to realize her
worth.”
Good for the Eskimo triangle—the Hus
band, the Wife and the Babe!
And may its missionaries follow the flag—
our flag. ...
TUESDAY, MAY 9. 1922.
ganized a trust, or won a big law suit, or
was elected judge.
Consider also a man when he is sick, or
thinks he is sick. How then does he desire
to be treated? Like a baby, and a spoiled
baby at that. He wants his wife to sit by
his bed, and hold his hand, and weep tears
of pity over him, and if she doesn’t believe
he is going to die every time he has a head
ache, or a cold, he considers her a heartless
icicle, and feels like an orphan left on a
doorstep.
Most of all does a man want his wife to
treat him like a *baHy when he is naughty.
When he comes home of an evening, and
slams the door behind him, and smacks the
baby and kicks the cat, and is cross and
grouchy, he doesn’t want his wife to talk to
him about the duty of-a man to control him
self, or the sacred obligations of a husband.
He’ll just love her to death if she’s got sense
enough to mother him, and say, "There,
there, did them meanums manums at the of
fice treat my poor ickle bitty boy bad today?
Neer mind, he’ll feel better jes as soon as he
has some dood soup in his little tumtum,
and, anyway, his little wifums knows dat he’s
a dreat big man, dat will des beat ’em to
deff in the end.”
Even when a man stumbles off the
straight and narrow path he still wants his
wife to look upon his faults as those of a
child, that are not to be taken seriously.
That’s why he has the nerve to ask to be
forgiven, because in reality he seldom means
to do wrong. He’s just a boy who couldn’t re
sist the temptation to play hookey, and the
thing he never can understand is why his
wife can’t understand. And in this, perhaps,
is the tragedy of matrimony, that men stay
boys till the end of time, while wives are
always grown up.
Somehow women have got into the way
of thinking that they should have a monop
oly of all the petting in the family, and that
all the fuss should be made over them. They
expect their husbands to be demonstrative
in their affection for them, to arrange little
treats and surprises for them, to praise them
for all of their successes, and condone all of
their faults.
But these same ladies take everything
that their husbands do for them as a matter
of course. It never seems to occur to them
that a man would like his wife occasionally
to strew a few bouquets in his pathway,,that
he would enjoy being thanked for all he
does for his family instead of blamed
because he doesn’t do more, and that he
would dote on being treated not as the fam
ily goat, or cash register, but as the house
hold pet. x
We often wonder why men, who are mar
ried to women who are models of all the
domestic virtues, wander away from home.
Perhaps the answer is that they are seeking
some woman who will baby them.
(Copyright, 1922, by The Wheeler Syndi
cate, Inc.)
basis. Dr. Muller denies this. He declares
that there will be just as much difference of
quality in management, proportionately,
among 20 or 30 systems as between 800
railroad companies. The result will be that
some of the big systems will grow strong
and others weak, just as among the separate
800 railroads. Such a development would
bring about in the course of a few years
the same situation that now obtains, and
there would have to be another consolida
tion so that the weak roads could be ab
sorbed. This process would go on, Dr. Mul
ler thinks, until ultimately there would be
but one great railroad system. Obviously the
result of this would be the total destruction
of competition, the element in business of
all kinds which experience shows is the in
stigator of progress and service.
Dr. Muller’s analysis persuades him that
the principal weakness in the American rail
road system today is the restriction in the
Transportation Act which limits the earn
ings of a railroad to 6 per cent. He points
out that railroads, like all other enterprises,
must pass through periods of prosperity and
depression. He says that in the natural
course of business the individual or the com
pany is able in good times to earn enough
money to permit of laying aside a surplus.
This surplus is drawn upon when hard times
come and earnings dwindle. This is the
policy which kept alive many great corpora
tions and many small firms during the last
year or two of business depression.
Now, Dr. Muller points out, if the law lim
its to a low figure the amount of money
which a railroad may earn, how can it lay a
surplus aside for a period of diminished in
come?
The natural course for a railroad to take
in hard times would be to reduce rates. All
merchants do this. In prosperous times,
they can get high prices. In hard times, they
must cut. By such a course, business is
Stimulated. Bargains are offered and it is
found that trade is enlivened to such an ex
tent that profits begin to reappear and pros
perity returns. The same rule would affect
railroads. If, when times are hard, the rail
loads could cut freight and passenger rates
£nd offer bargain transportation, traffic
would be stimulated. But under the earn
ings restriction rule, Dr. Muller points out,
tne railroads must run counter to the natural
trend, and, in hard times, increase their
rates.
An Open Rond to Efficiency
Sanity and sense frem Edward L. Thorn
dike’s "The psychology cf Labor,” in the cur
rent Harper’s:
"Other things being equal, the American
worker will be eff.c:en* and ha*>pv in propor
tion as the general life tor him. his parents,
his wife and his chi’dven is desiraob’.
"This desirability should, however he such
as fits their actual natures, not necessarily
such as a philanthropist or social philosopher
might choose.
"Model cottages designed to suit the subtle
refinements of highly cultivated tastes may
be less desirable to me than the crude home
which I choose for myself and help to build.
"We should beware of the library full of
unexceptionable books which nobody reads,
and of the high school which only the rich
can afford to attend.
"Perhaps the greatest gains of all are to
be expected from the adjustment of labor to
individual differences in abilities and tastes,
and from such education of individuals as
will fit them for the world’s work.”
An expression, this, for one thing, of la
bor’s inalienable right to its own kind of a
Saturday half holiday.
Taking the Color Out of Words
A reflection by A. B. Orage, in "Readers
and Writers” (Knopf), on the renewed activ
ity of the Simplified Spelling society:
"Literature employs words not for their
rational meaning alone, not even for their
sound alone, but for their combined qualities
of meaning, sound, sight, association, history
and a score of other attributes.
"By reducing words to a rational rule of
phonetic spelling, more than half of these
qualities would be entirely, or almost entire
ly eliminated.
“An exact analogy—as far as any analogy
can be exact—for the proposal of the S. S. S.
would be to propose to abolish the use of
color in pictorial art, and to produce every-,
thing in black and white.
“The color blind would, no doubt, be sat
isfied in the one case, and, in the other, the
word-blind would be equally pleased.”
Simplified spelling in America would turn
the prevalent language into a -verbal monu
ment to Josh Billings.
It's a grand and glorious perishing idea.
Around the World
Tri-Wcckly News Flashes From All Over
the Earth.
Carnegie Medals
Eight of the twenty-three heroes officially
ucognized this week by the Carnegie Hero
Fund commission lost their lives while en
deavoring to save some unfortunate. A pen
sion of $9 60 a year was granted to the de
pendents of one hero and $4,000 will be ap
plied by the commission for the dependents
of five others.
For those who survived their heroic es- ♦
forts the commission awarded $11,200 for
educational purposes, and in six cases awards
aggregating $5,500 were made for pther
worthy purposes. Six silver medals and sev
enteen of bronze, were given.
Among those recognized are Charles H,
Bennett, deceased, No. 69 Swezey street, \
Patchogue, L. 1., who tried to save Mrs,
Louis W. Heath off Fire Island, July 3, 1921,
and Frederick W. Ronbeck, No. 1167 Dean
street, Brooklyn, N. Y., who saved an un- t
identified from drowning at Oak Beach,
N. Y., July 4, 1919.
Prison Terms i
Seventy-two criminals were sent to prison
for a total of 458 years in one day last week
by six judges in general sessions and three
justices sitting in criminal parts of the su
preme court, New York.
That broke all records from the time New
York courts began to function, in 1683, and
it brought a smile of satisfaction to the face
of District Attorney Banton, who announced
two weeks ago that he intended to expedite
justice in New York to break the crime wave.
When the courts opened 119 prisoners
were listed for sentence. Besides the seventy
two who were started on their prison terms,
twenty-six prisoners benefited by suspended
sentences, and action on twenty-one others
was postponed.
The crowds that thronged* the corridors
of the Criminal Courts building were great
er even than those attracted by some of the
famous trials that have taken place there.
The crowds were made up mainly of rela
tives and friends of the men to be sentenced.
The sentences imposed ranged from thirty
days in the Tombs, in minor larceny cases,
to sixty years in Sing Sing.
Nitrates Plentiful
Recent efforts by the war department- to
dispose of a quantity of surplus nitrates in
dicate to officials that there is no
shortage of this fertilizer ingredient.
Secretary of War Weeks, through th#
director of sales, offered 40,000 tons of
nitrates at public auction. Thirty-one fer
tilizer companies took a total of 11,0 00 tons
at an average price of about $43 a ton.
Another company offered $26 a ton for the
remaining 29,000 tons, but this bid was re
jected on the ground that it was wholly un
reasonable. The largest quantity taken, by
any bidder was 500 tons.
The surplus sold from the Morgan general
ordnance depot, South Amboy, N. J., brought
SSO per ton.
Secretary of Agriculture Wallace and Mr.
Weeks likewise are convinced that no real
shortage in nitrates exists, despite recent
reports to the contrary.
MY* FAVORITE STORIES’
By Irvin Cobb
A DETAIL OF FIGURES
Grand Central Pete was a noted bunco
steerer of the old days, but could neither read
nor write. Once he fell upon hard times, and
he and a younger but equally luckless confi
dence man undertook to beat their way on a
freight train to Washington. A brakeman
kicked them off at Trenton, N. J. *
It was getting, late and neither of them had
a cent. Across the tracks from where they
had landed was a hotel and right next door
was an express office. Grand Central Pete
had an idea. He went into the express office,
borrowed one of those large manila envelopes
such as are used for transporting currency,
filled the envelope with pieces of newspaper
cut to the size of banknotes and sealed it
carefully.
"Now, then,” he said to his partner, "you
take your fountain pen and write on the back
of that envelope ‘59,000.’ Then we’ll go
over to that hotel and explain that we’ve lost
our baggage, and I’ll hand this envelope to
the clerk and ask him to lock it in the safe.
He’ll look at the figures on the back —and
he’ll take us for moneyed guys an£L give us
rooms and grub until we can raise l a stake.’*
The scheme sounded good to the younger
man. He got out his pen and obeyed orders.
Grand Central Pete took the envelope back in
his hands and examined it carefully.
"Does that say nine thousand dollars?” he
demanded. ,
“Yep,” said his partner.
"Well, it don’t look big enough to me,’’
said Pete. “You’d better add on some more
of them naughts.”
The younger con man protested, but Pete
would have his way and kept after him until
the educated one had tacked on three more
naughts, making the grand total $9,000,000.
Then Pete marched grandly oyer to the
hotel, registered for himself and nis friend,
passed the stuffed envelope across the desk
to the clerk and called for the bridal suite.
The clerk took one look at the envelope,
another at the soiled faces and shabby ap
parel of the newcomers—and rang the bell
for the bouncer. A minute later the discom
fited pair were sitting on the sidewalk.
Grand Central Pete raised himself painfully
and e’yed his companion with a scornful, an
gry glance.
"There, now—dad gum you!” he shouted;
“I told you you hadn’t wrote in enough of
them naughts”
(Copyright, 1922, by the McNaught Syndi
cate, Inc.)
DO YOU KNOW THAT? 1
If commercially practicable methods can he
devised for extraction, great quantities of
starch can be obtained from the rootstocks
of the common swamp cat-tail.
The silk industry consumes about 1,500
tons metallic tin per annum in the form of
tetrachloride and recovers about 40 per cent.
Consumption of pig tin for this purpose is
about 900 tons.
Thousands of gam birds were needlessly
destroyed every season at Las Vegas, Nevada,
by oil discharged on waters frequented by
the birds, but the Ui.ion Pacific railway has
remedied this condition.
The “slowest” crop in the world is the
giant bamboo of I: dia. It blossoms only
when it reaches its thirtieth year, and then
dies. In the mean'ime it bears an enormous
quantity of seed, which is eagerly gathered
and used as grain by the natives.
Tomato wilt causes an annual loss of more
than 115,000 tons of toitaatoes in the Middle
Atlantic, Gulf, and lower Mississippi states.
Aluminum with 11 to 14 per cent of silicon
yields an alloy which is lighter than alumi
num itself, stronger, more resist-nt, and more
suitable for casting than known aluminum al
loys.