The Indianapolis times. [volume], January 07, 1933, Capital Edition, Page PAGE 4, Image 4

About The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965

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The Indianapolis Times
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SATURDAY. JAK. 7. 193*.
THE BANKER SOLUTION
Members of the legislature should regard with at
least some skepticism the suggestion of the bankers
for the control of rates for petty loans.
The bankers ask that a limit be put on those
who enter into the ghastly business of charging
3’ 2 per cent a month to desperate human beings for
the use of credit.
They ask that those who go into the business
have at least $15,000 of capital. With the rate at
this high figure, just why any large amount of money
is needed to get a start toward millions is not ex
plained, unless there be some desire to participate.
For at least two more years, the bankers-propose
that nothing be done about a matter which has been
of considerable interest in the past sessions of the
legislature and in which corrective measures have
been defeated through the most corrupt methods
employed by any lobby.
The petty loan business is well intrenched in the
politics of the state. Its representatives sit in the
high councils of both the political parties.
What the bankers propose is that the business
be put in the hands of a few. cutting down compe
tition, but still permitting the monstrous rate of
interest to be charged to those who can least afford
to pay for credit.
If it be impossible to get legislation, after the
bankers’ committee has given its pontifical blessing
to the business, the only way that the people can
find freedom is through a larger use of co-operative
credit.
Within the last eighteen months the firemen of
this city have found what can be done by combining
forces. Before that date the pay envelopes of many
of the firemen were tapped each three months by
the high rate lenders. For very many, that tax
meant less food, less clothing and more worry.
A credit union was formed and it is the proud
boast of the firemen that not one member is now
under bondage to these interests. By co-operation,
the firemen have solved their own problem.
At a time when money is excessively dear, when
measured in terms of wages and commodities, the
42 per cent a year boys are getting about twice as
much as they did in days of prosperity.
The banking mind is not the one to solve what
Is essentially a human, not a financial, problem.
THE DEMOCRATIC PROGRAM
The Democratic legislative plan as outlined by
members of congress who met with President-Elect
Roosevelt appears from reports to be promising,
but incomplete.
That Mr. Roosevelt has reaffirmed his policy to
rely on beer and income taxes for new revenue,
rather than on the general sales tax, is all to the
good. The proposed increase of the lower bracket
income to the war-time level and lowering of ex
emptions will mean hardship on the class which,
next to the unemployed, has carried the heaviest
burden of the depression—both through salary cuts
and through support of unemployed relatives. But
it is an emergency which justifies such means.
Even more justified is a similar increase of sur
taxes to war-time level. The little man will pay
extra; as should the man of larger income pay pro
portionately.
Perhaps this is included in the Democratic plan,
and may appear when the fragmentary reports are
supplemented by an official statement of the pro
gram.
Likewise, the plan seems incomplete without ad
dition of some nuisance taxes. Such revenue may
be necessary to balance the budget even with the
beer tax, but certainly will be required if President
Hoover vetoes the beer tax measure, as many believe
probable.
As reported, the plan is even less complete on
the economy side. The proposed $100,000,000 savings
show the Hoover economies are too small, consider
ing that the current deficit may run above one and a
half billion and the cumulative depression deficit
upward of five billion.
Only possible large scale economies are in veteran
and army-navy apporpriations. As has been shown
time and again, the veteran outlay can be reduced
about $400,000,000 without hardship to any men suf
fering from w r ar injuries.
At least half that much can be cut from the
army-navy expenditures without crippling national
defense. Lesser important economies can be made
in prohibition enforcement and in subsidies.
Either the Democrats will come to these econ
omies or they will not be able to keep their cam
paign pledge to reduce expenses 25 per cent and
to balance the budget.
To do this will require courage. But if ever a
party can have courage, it is immediately after an
election in which it has received an overwhelming
mandate of confidence and hope.
From outward apearances. it seems that the
President-elect is more alive to the needs of this
emergency than are some of the old line Democratic
congressional leaders.
UP TO THE STATES
The forty-four legislatures now gathering under
state capitol domes to do the people's business are
charged with the same solemn duties as the incoming
government at Washington.
"States as great engines move slowly,” but now
they must act quickly to prevent widespread suf
fering and injustices. Here are some of the prob
lems that will wait longer for solution:
Relief: Men and women should not starve or live
on 7-cent meals. States that have reached the end
of their resources must demand federal aid. And, of
course, w f ork relief is better than breadlines.
Economy and efficiency: The biggest tax savings
will be effected through reorganizations and consoli
dations of local units. Professor Thomas H. Reed
of the University of Michigan says: “It will enrage
the 1933 taxpayer to think that in his metropolitan
area there are a hundred governments with taxing
and bonding power where one would do.
"If he lives in a rural section where ten counties
eould be joined, he is going to inquire angrily why
there should be ten jails, ten sheriffs, ten clerks,
ten treasurers, where one of each would be gpfficienk
He will want to know why moribund townships
should be kept alive by artificial respiration.
“And if he hails from a state with 5,000 to 10,000
school districts, he is going to mutter in his sleep
about the incubus which the mud-road age has
fastened on him.”
Tax reforms: If legislatures are courageous and
just, they will tax on the basis of ability to pay.
Then they need not curtail humane and regulatory
functions.
Job insurance: Unemployment insurance bills
will be urged upon thirty legislatures, and their
passage is promised by at least six. If work security
is better than charity, this reform is long overdue.
Child labor: To send back to school some 2,000,-
000 child wage earners and give their jobs to un
employed adults, the states should adopt the uniform
16-year school age minimum, and ratify the federal
child labor amendment.
Old-age pensions: Alaska and seventeen states
have old-age pension laws, which are more humane,
efficient, and cheaper than poorhouses. Why not
the other thirty-one states?
Lame duck amendment: Seventeen of the needed
thirty-six states have ratified the Norris amend
ment. The others should do so by summer.
The times call for co-operation and courage. If
the states act in unison through organizations like
the American Legislators’ Association and the com
ing national state tax conference, they can save
time and effort.
FREE TRADE IN BRAINS
The American Association of Universiay Profes
sors, at their New Haven conference, passed two
resolutions that should be repeated loudly and often
enough for every congressman and federal bureau
crat to hear.
One protests the restrictions placed on the entry
into this country of professors who do not come
under the immigration quotas. The other opposed
the ruling of Secretary of Labor Doak making it
difficult for foreign students to work their way
through American colleges.
‘‘There should be no barrier to importation of
brains into America,” Dr. Casimir Zdanowicz of the
University of Wisconsin told the conference. "For
educational reasons, they should be admitted—the
teacher, the student, the book, the educational film.”
The harassment of Dr. Einstein illustrates the
present attitude of our immigration and state de
partment officials.
When this country has abolished poverty and
disease, created the perfect state, and achieved its
goal of a happy race, perhaps it then can afford to
raise barriers against foreign thought. In the mean
time, there should be free trade in brains.
WHEN’S WARFARE WAR?
Among the unpleasant gifts of the new year, the
most ominous seems to be a sudden, violent resump
tion of the Sino-Japanese difficulties. The Great
Wall of China has been pierced, and a steady Jap
anese thrust at Peiping itself is now a possibility.
A situation already dangerous has become more se
rious than ever, and no solution of the problem is
yet in sight.
And one is forced to wonder, too, how much
longer the fiction that this is not really war can
be maintained. As long as the fighting was con
fined to Manchuria, that thesis was at least argu
able; but what becomes of it when the troops of one
nation actually invade the central territory of an
other nation?
In actual fact, of course, a very serious war is
raging, whatever the diplomats choose to call it;
and the menace to the peace of the rest of the
world is exceedingly real. In this particular field,
1933 has got off to a very bad beginning.
The successful man we like best is the one who
attributes his fortune to hard work, perseverance,
clean living, and the SIOO,OOO left him by his late
uncle in Oklahoma.
A1 Smith, on his fifty-ninth birthday anniversary,
said he felt just as good as he did at 40 or 50. It
goes without saying that’s a whole lot better than,
he felt right after the Democratic convention last
summer.
Husbands who took seriously their wives’ re
quests not to get them anything for Christmas are
just getting back on speaking terms again.
A bird in the hand is. worth two in the bush, but
now and then you 11 find a big league baseball mogul
who’ll trade even.
Just Plain Sense
BY MRS. WALTER FERGUSON
TF I were on a jury, I no more could sentence a
prisoner to death than I could go out in cold
blood and kill a man.
This, to be sure, is no argument against capital
punishment. It only happens to be my personal
opinion.
There are, however, a good many arguments
against imposing the death sentence, and. curiously
enough, some of the best ones are received from
proponents of the system. This, for instance:
"Capital punishment ha s not failed as a mur
der deterrent. It only has failed to be applied. A
murderer has ninety-nine chances out of a hundred
to escape the noose. If this chance were reversed,
the argument advanced by Mrs. Ferguson and other
anti-capital punishment propagandists might have
some weight, but not while public records upset it.”
I am still not ready to grant the latter part of
this contention. And it seems to me, if the former
is true, and that ninety-nine out of every hundred
criminals escape—and assuredly they do—it is sure
and certain proof that the death sentence is not
now preventing crime at all.
It only means that the hundredth man is un
justly treated by a society that permits so many of
his kind to avoid any retribution, and this is the
final and ultimate iniquity.
* tt tt
'T'Hls capital punishment thing is like prohibi
tion. It would be perfectly grand if it could be
made to work. But so long as juries are composed
of men and women, and so long as men and women
are emotional rather than rational, and so long as
there remain so many loopholes of escape for the
majority, I claim that it is utterly unfair to take
the lives of the rare few.
Why should Mrs. Judd go to the chair while a
hundred thousand other women commit murders
and escape? Last year one deliberately shot her
husband over such a trivial thing as a bridge game
and went scot free.
Is this justice or plain stupidity? If we were
half as smart as we think ourselves, we could de
vise other methods of punishment that would be
far more effective.
If we can’t kill all murderers, then we should kill
none. I am emphatically against the state taking
human life. If this makes me a sob sister then a
sob sister X am.
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
I It Seems to Me .... by Heywood Broun
I GOT talking to a man in a
train about tragedy. It didn't
just start that way. Neither of us
said, “Well, what do you conceive
to be the essential elements of
tragedy?” In the beginning the
topic of discussion was the Follies,
and from that it worked around to
“Antony and Cleopatra,” and after
that it was no trouble at all to
swing into tragedy.
Perhaps I led the talk In that
direction, because I had a number
of prepared and sincere convic
tions on the subject of tragedy. I
felt and I feel that the classic tra
dition has become ineffective.
There may have been a day and
age in which life was so full
blooded that nothing more appal
ling than death could happen to
any one.
An Elizabethan audience well
might have been moved to pity
and terror when a character
gasped, choked and sped away to
face the threat of hell.
m m
“Weep for the Living ”
BUT tragedy must be recast for
the sake of agnostics, Unita
rians, Universalists and some of
the Congregationalists. We can
not be expected to weep when
some sorely harassed and tortured
character in a play slips from the
clutch of circumstances into pro
found sleep or perhaps into friend
ly awakening.
Our emotions will go out rather
to the figure who must take his
pounding. We can not fully com
prehend the notion that tragedy
consists of madness or sudden
surcease. It is for the living that
we should weep.
Unfortunately, there was small
opportunity for argument with
the man on the train. He stifled
discussion with an overreaching
agreement. Indeed, he took the
theme away from me. Long be
fore I was done, he said, “You’re
quite right.”
That was less than tactful.
There was nothing more for me
to say.
However, he wanted to talk. "I'm
ft tragic figure,” he began.
He seemed hale and prosperous,
but the pause was only a slight
one for dramatic effect. “It hap
pened a long time ago,” he con
tinued. “I was a boy, but that
doesn't make any difference. Peo
ple think that things wheih are
done to you before you are 19 or
20 don’t matter. That’s nonsense.
“I lived in Bridgeton, N. J„ and
we were Methodists. I was
brought up on hell fire and castor
oil. When I was 12 the old doc
tor died, and a young one came
along. He said that castor oil
was fine, but he had anew theory.
He thought it ought to be per
suaded into people instead of be
ing poured down their throats.
* *~ tt
New Minister in Town
“'"J~'HAT sounded a little im-
X moral to my father and
mother, but a doctor Is a person
of authority, like a minister, and
he made them take his ideas. I
don’t know whether he persuaded
them or poured it down their
throats. Anyway, it was fixed up
that whenever I took castor oil I
was to get a nickel.
■ ; - DAILY HEALTH SERVICE ■■■—
Whooping Cough Is Spread Easily
■■ BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN - -=■
Thi is th* second of three special
articles bv Dr. Fishbcin on the nstnre
and treatment of whooping- cough and
precautions to per rent its spread.
'T'HE incubation period in
X whooping cough is the period
from two to ten days before the
child begins coughing. During
this period, the child is infected,
but not sick.
Therefore, the youngster who is
exposed to whooping cough must
be watched carefully for at least
ten days after his contact for
signs of whooping cough.
During this period there may
be symptoms resembling those of
a common cold. After the char
acteristic whoop and the parox
ysms of coughing appear,, the
child is likely to be able to spread
the disease for at least three
weeks longer.
Therefore, doctors advise that
children be kept apart as long as
the cough continues and for two
weeks after tt ends.
The Doomed Battalion!
Along about that spring I had
50 cents. A Catholic kid just
across the tracks told me about
the circus that was coming in a
month. His father was going to
take him. Mine didn’t believe in
circuses, but I had my castor oil
50 cents. In two weeks it was
sixty.
“Four days before the circus
was due, a revival preacher hit
town. I was taken to hear him,
and he preached on eternal dam
nation. We sat in the fourth row.
He scared the life out of me. Then
they took up a collection. It was
for foreign missions. .1 put every
nickel of my castor oil money in
the plate. I didn’t want to burn
forever and ever, world without
end.
So They Say
I only commenced to work when
I was 50.—Former Governor Al
fred E. Smith of New York, on
his fifty-ninth birthday.
We might as well admit that we
are a nation of hard liquor drink
ers. I don’t know who is going
to drink all the beer and wine
that they plan to legalize.—Police
Commissioner Edward P. Mul
roone,y of New York.
Nations and individuals are not
comfortably lifted out of bad
times. They must dig themselves
out. —Harry F. Sinclair, chairman
of the executive committee, Con
solidated Oil Corporation.
If a town has an epidemic, that’s
the worst possible time to close up
the hospitals. Any community
that fails in this depression to
keep open its libraries is making
a grave mstake.—Harry M. Lyden
berg, president of the American
Library Association.
Every Day Religion
BY DR. JOSEPH FORT NEWTON ■■■■ ■■■
A GENTLEMAN has been de
fined as a man who refuses
to take out of life more than he
puts into it. In exposition of this
definition, a friend of mine told
me of a sermon he heard by
Jowett of Oxford. The preacher,
he said, did not put it to 200
healthy young men, as a quite
likely thing, that they might die
the next night and have to give
God, about breakfast time, an ac
count of their doings. What he
said was pointed:
“I find it set down in tables,”
said the preacher, “that the aver
age duration of human life, at the
age of 21, is about thirty-six years.
We may hope for a little more;
we may fear a little less; but,
speaking generally, • thirty-six
years, or about 13,000 days, is the
time in which our task must be
accomplished, if it is to be done
at all.”
tt * tt
MY friend and some others, as
they testified, were so* elec
trified by this quaint piece of pre
Editor Journal of the American Medi
cal Association and of Hvreia. the
Health Magazine.
THE doctor diagnoses whooping
cough not only by the typical
coughing spells, which usually are
accompanied with redness of the
face and development of a thick,
sticky mucus in the mouth, but
also by changes which occur in
the blood in this disease.
Not only do the white blood
cells increase in number, but a
particular form of the white blood
cells, known as the single nucleus
cells, or lymphocytes, increases
even more than do the others.
As has been said, the chief
danger from whooping cough is
not from the disease itself so
much as from the secondary
pneumonia and changes which
may affect the heart and lungs.
mum
THE total period of quarantine
may be as long as six weeks.
In ftttemi&mg to control whoop-
“The money I was going to
spend on the circus was going to
help send S, missionary to China.
That’s what I call tragedy.”
“Didn’t you ever see the cir
cus?” I asked him.
<‘Yes, I did. I don’t know
whether it was the same circus,
but it was one like it. I saw it
when I was 23 old. And it
w-as a bum show. That's part of
the tragedy.”
tt tt u
Optimism Not Alone
LIKE a good many Americans, I
don't get much fun out of
Strindberg, and I wonder why
Ibsen was so consistently gloomy.
Our books and plays are more in
clined to look on the bright side
of things.
From that fact the generaliza
tion arises that America is a
cheerful country, while Scandina
via and all the foreign lands are
tinged with morbid cynicism.
That isn't quite true. Optimism
assays about the same in all coun
tries if you consider enough
factors. After all, plays and novels
constitute a very small proportion
of America’s fictional approach to
life.
Throw the movies in, if you like,
and the best-known imaginative
characters of America are still
outside the list. No figure of
fiction, stage or screen is known
as widely as a half dozen cartoons.
The comic strip is the chief field
in which life is interpreted to the
American masses.
It seems to me, then, that
America is not more optimistic
than other lands. We have simply
reversed the formula which pre
vails elsewhere.
Here we insist on taking joy and
elation solemnly. It is only in our
lighter moments that we are
willing to accept the deadly
disillusion of the cynic.
(CoDvrieht. 1933. bv The Times)
cision, so unexpected from a pul
pit, that their minds were opened
wide and the reception of what
followed; namely, that they would
be a shabby lot of fellows if they
spent any serious part of their
13,000 days in shirking or whin
ing or sponging on the more
rfianful part of mankind.
But it hes another lesson, too.
If we seem able to live •without
God today, it is because our fa
thers were not able to do so.
By their devotion to God, they
left a precious deposit in Amer
ican life, something too fine and
lovely to be lost. It may be that
their view of life was too narrow,
and that this world is more im
portant than they in ’ their other
worldliness thought it was. Yet
what noble things they kept in
their hearts!
We are living on the sacred
legacy which they left us, where
by they made life better for all.
It will be a pity—nay, a tragedy—
if we turn out to be shirkers,
spongers and parasites in regard
to the highest things.
(CobvriKht. 1933. United Features
Syndicate)
ing cough, all sorts of methods of
prevention have been tried, in
cluding inoculation of the blood
from people who are recovering
from the disease, injection of
germs that have been killed, with
the idea that these injections will
stimulate the body to form anti
substances against the germs of
the disease, and many similar
measures.
Use of the vaccines, which
means a mixture of killed germs,
is thought by many specialists in
diseases of children to have value
in preventing whooping cough in
children who are exposed, and
also in diminishing the severity
of the symptoms.
However, there are other phy
sicians who have had little suc
cess by use of such vaccines, and
they do not employ them.
tCobvrisrht. 1933. bv NEA Service. Ine.i
Next—Care of the whooping
cough victim. I
M. E. Tracy Says:
A* , ■— A
WE LIVE IN BANKERS' AGE
IN considering present-day social trends, let
us not forget that philosophy is older than
mechanical power, or that human nature pre
ceded both.
If this were the first time religious influ
ence had declined, or the home had lost out as
an economic center, we would be justified in
holding machinery responsible.
It is .. well-authenticated fact, however, that
ancient Rome, though quite unaware of tin cans
and refrigeration, had few private kitchens.
Even the Russian experiment hardly excels the Incas in substitut
ing collective effort for individualism.
More than 2.000 years ago, such Green savants as Socrates and Plato
advanced the idea that children should be reared and trained by the
state, and we have little ground for supposing that it was original with
them.
We owe more to the front office than the mechanical department
for our philosophy of life, if, indeed, we can be said to have one.
tt n tt
Build Them Big Is Our Motto
WE have been following the promoter, organizer, and financier.
Our educational system is turning out ten bond salesmen for
every expert machinist.
We have been training youth to seek success, not by doing some
thing better, but by building something bigger.
Our motivating thought has been, not to encourage competition
for the sake of improvement, but to kill it for the sake of profit.
What was an industrial age fifty years ago has become a bank
ers’ age.
We no longer are drawipg inspiration from men like Morse. Bell,
and Edison; we are looking to the Morgans, Mellons, Swopes, and
Youngs for guidance.
The machine is becoming an instrument of monopoly and the bulk
of us are becoming slaves to the machine—feudalism in anew guise.
There is nothing wrong with mechanical power, but we are abusing
it to satisfy a craze for organization and control.
nan
Radio Is Outstanding Example
TAKE radio, for instance, not because it Is the most outstanding
example, but because its operation and effect are simple enough
to be understood.
Radio already has been brought under the chain system. Each
day, and particularly each evening, millions of people sit down to be
instructed by one voice, entertained by one orchestra, inspired by one
artist, set into giggles by one wisecracker. Convenient, no doubt, but
what's the answer?
The answer is that you can assemble 10, 20, or even 50 young
people today and not find one who can play an instrument well, sing
a real song as it should be sung, or show much originality in amusing
themselves.
Educators tell us that it is impossible to teach children by lecturing
them, and life proves the theory sound.
We can't be musicians by listening to music, or painters by looking
at pictures, or athletes by sitting in the grandstand.
The only way to develop the body or the mind is by using it.
tt tt tt
Least Government Is the Best
MACHINERY shouldn't interfere with that, and it wouldn't but for
the unreasonable extent to which it has been made the basis of
organized control.
There are cases, of course in which organized control is necessary.
A nation-wide, or even a wond-wide, telephone system would be ideal.
There are more cases, however; in which organized control is un
necessary and undesirable, in which its effect Is sure to be deadening.
As Thomas Jefferson said, the least government is the best, and
that goes for every phase of life, whether official or unofficial.
1
Science Goes Ahead
_____________ BY DAVID DIETZ -
MAN ascended higher into the
sky and descended deeper
into the ocean in 1932 than pre
viously had been done in the his
tory of the w'orld.
The new altitude record was set
by Professor Auguste Piccard, the
picturesque Belgian, who again
sailed into the stratosphere in a
balloon, bettering his record of
last year. Accompanied by Max
Cosyns, he rose to a height of
53,153 feet this year, almost eleven
miles.
The descent into the ocean was
made by Dr. William Beebe, who
went down to a depth of 2,200
feet off the coast of Bermuda in
a diving sphere w’hich he calls
the bathysphere.
But while these exploits were
spectacular, they are not as im
portant in the life of the average
man as more prosaic studies con
ducted during the last year on
the subject of why teeth decay.
A series of studies by Dr. Gor
don Agnew of West China Union
university, showing that lack of
phosphorus, calcium and Vitamin
D are the chief causes of tooth
decay, may turn out to be the
most important scientific event
of the year.
While heart disease and cancer
occupy the concern of the medical
world as two of the chief causes
of death among people of ad
vanced age, it is probable that the
greatest economic loss to the
world is caused by common colds
and tooth decay.
In the realm of pure science,
the most important advances of
the year were in the field of
atomic study. Most important of
all was the confirmation of the
existence of the neutron.
Discovery of the neutron was
announced by Chadwick and his
associates at the Cavendish lab
oratory of the University of Cam
bridge, England.
tt tt it
Atom Study Advances
THE neutron turns out to be a
particle about the size of the
electron, but possessing no elec
trical charge. Electrons, the
fundamental units of electricity,
out of which the atoms of matter
are constructed, are either posi
tive or negative.
Scientists also made important
advances during 1932 in methods
of smashing or disintegrating
atoms.
This was made possible by de
velopment of new high-pow'ered
X-ray tubes and vacuum tubes,
and the development of appa
ratus for developing electric cur
rents of extremely high potentials.
If atomic disintegration can be
done easily on a large scale, it
might upset further the economic
situation of the world, first by
providing immense stores of power
at low cost, and second by turn
ing inexpensive metals into gold.
The scientific subjects which
held the public eye chiefly during
1932 were cosmic rays, the ex
panding universe, the Einstein
theory, the solar eclipse of Aug.
31, and the November shower of
shooting st^rs.
Ihe eclipse and the shooting
stars can be dismissed briefly.
Both were disappointing from the
scientific point of view’.
The November meteors were
neither as bright nor as numerous
as astronomers had hoped they
would be. Only further observa
tions in coming years will clear up
the mystery of what has hap
pened to the Leonids, as the No
vember meteors are called.
Both cosmic rays and the ex
panding universe continued to be
the centers of innumerable scien
tific battles. In the matter of cos
mic rays, the battle is chiefly as
JAN. 7. 1933
1...
j
TRACY
to whether the rays are waves
entering the earth’s atmosphere
from the far reaches of the uni
verse or whether they are elec
trified particles originating in the
upper atmosphere, perhaps as a
result of the sun’s influence.
n a a
Differ on Rays
DR. R. a. MILLIKAN, Nobel
prize-winner and the man
who confirmed the existence ofc
the rays, holds to the view that
they are true waves.
Dr. Arthur H. Compton, also a
Noble prize-winner, is certain,
after a 50,000-mile journey to
study cosmic rays from the high
mountains of five continents, that ~
the rays are electrical particles.
Most students of the subject are
convinced that the universe is
expanding, but each expert in the ~
field seems to have a favorite
model of his own.
At the beginning of the year, *
both Professor Einstein and Dr.
Willem *De Sitter, the eminent
Dutch authority, seemed to have .
some doubts on the subject.
In a joint paper, they stated
that, from the basis of the theory
of relativity, space might have a
positive zero, or negative curva
ture. This was another way of
saying that maybe the universe
was expanding and maybe it
wasn’t.
Important advances in the
of astronomy during the year in
cluded the following:
The conclusion reached from Dr.
Joel Stebbins’ photo-electric meas
urements of the brightness of
stars that the Milky Way or gal-,
axy is only about one-third as
large as was formerly believed.
Reduction of the age of the uni
verse, as a result of the inferences
of the expanding universe theory
from fifteen trillion years to about
ten billion years.
Discovery of two asteroids or
tiny planets, the so-called Rein
muth and Delporte objects, which
approach closer to the earth than
Eros, the asteroid which formerly -
held this honor.
In the field of applied science,
the engineers failed to bring for- -
ward any new product capable of
leading the world out of the de- „
pression.
In fact, the consensus of many •
engineers, as expressed by tech- -
nocracy, seems to be that it is
useless to look for any such in
vention or discovery, the machine
having replaced man-power, once
for all.
Daily Thought I
Even so faith, if it hath not
works, is dead, being alone.— ~
James 2:17.
a a a’
CHARITY is the scope of alh
God's commands. Chrysos
tom.
Questions and
Answers
Q—State the population of 80-,
livia, and the proportion of In
dians to whites. •
A—Estimated population is 2.- -
974,900, of whom 1,586,650 are In- -
dians, 426.200 whites, and 962.000 -
mixed.
Q —How' long must an enlisted .
man in the army serve before he (
can retire?
A—He can retire after an active
service of twenty years, and is
automatically retired after thirty •
years’ service.