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I-;—;-—| EDITORIAL SECTION i-1 Special’ Articles [ ^ Part 2—10 Paget » WASHINGTON, D. C~, SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH ,1, 1936. ” ■■ 1 ■*11 1 ' t 1 **'" """ ■' - i - '* * 11 ... .. 1 in——————‘—I .... ■ .i 11 in i ■" ■— —■ '■■■ ' ■ - ■■■■■ ■■ i ■ TOWNSEND PLAN THROWN TO DISCARD BY CONGRESS Movement Is Denounced as Unsound and Fantastic, and as Medium for Racketeers. BY WILL P. KENNEDY. HE Townsend plan Is out— thrown into the discard even by its original sponsor—de nounced by Congress on two charges: That it is economically un sound and a fantasy, and that it has been used as a racket. By a Vote of 240 to 4 the House voted to investigate “old-age pension rackets’’ through a committee headed by Representative C. Jasper Bell, Democrat, of Missouri, and to find out whether anybody has gotten rich by preying on the credulity of those who hoped to spend their old age in afflu ence through this “crack-brained” scheme. This investigation starts tomorrow, with R. E. Clements, co-organize* with Dr. Townsend, as first witness. The committee has $50,000 for ex penses. But coupled with the practical re jection of the Townsend plan is the sincere pledge of those who have been fighting this “mirage” that Congress will take pity on the plight of its victims and all who might face distress in their declining years by enacting an adequate but practical old age security system, giving greater measure of relief than that approved at the insistence of President Roose velt. The wisest heads in and out of Congress are now giving intensive and concentrated study to devise the best method of old-age pensions. To that extent the Townsend plan has helped by arousing the entire country to a realization that some adequate iocial security system must be adopted. Dimes and dollars, mites to mil lions, squeezed from the poor, have flowed in a silver stream into the pockets of the promoters. But the message from Congress, broadcast through the press and by radio to every community throughout the land, is sincere and dependable—a sensible, sufficient, workable old-age pension system is to be enacted. Leaders in Expose. Among those who have been leaders in exposing the "'heartless hoax,” the unsoundness and destructiveness of the Townsend plan, and in pledging their earnest efforts for real relief are: Senator Arthur Vandenberg, Repub lican, of Michigan: Chairman O’Con nor, Democrat, of New York, of the House Rules Committee: Representa tive Phil Ferguson, Democrat, of Okla homa'; Representative Thomas L. Blanton, Democrat, of Texas; Repre sentative Charles J. Bell, Democrat, of Missouri: Representatives Charles L. Gifford, Republican, of Massachu setts; Representative Clare E. Hoff man, Republican, of Michigan; Repre sentative Richard M. Duncan, Demo crat, of Missouri; Representative Al bert J. Engel, Republican, of Mich igan; Representative Clarence F. Lea, Democrat, of California; Representa tive J. Mark Wilcox, Democrat, of j Florida: Representative Jesse P. Wol- | cott. Republican, of Michigan; Repre sentative Edith N. Rogers, Republican, of Massachusetts; Representative Maury Maverick, Democrat, of Texas; Representative Frank H. Buck, Demo crat. of California; Representative E. E. Cox, Democrat, of Georgia, and Representative P. L. Gassaway, Demo crat, of Oklahoma. The House Rules ‘ Committee—four Democrats and four Republicans—voted unanimously for the investigation. Of the four who voted against it in the House—Repre sentative Vito Marcantonio, Repub lican, of New York, explained he is opposed to the Townsend plan but did not want to see money wasted in in vestigating its finances. The others were Burdick, Republican, of North Dakota; Moritz, Democrat, of Penn sylvania, and Stefan, Republican, of Nebraska. Also denouncing the Townsend plan ! are such noted economists as Dr. H. A. Millis, head of Chicago University’s Department of Economics; Stuart A. Rice, acting chairman of the United States Central Statistical Board; Dr. Henry S. Pritchett, president emeritus of the Carnegie Foundation for the ; Advancement of Teaching; Dr. Ray j Bert Westerfield, professor of political economy, Yale University, and Robert G. Elbert. New York. The original Townsend plan has been discarded. Its cardinal feature was payment of $200 a month to all 60 years of age—with a sufficient tax rate to meet the cost. The Townsend weekly carried the slogan ‘‘We will never compromise on $200 a month” and it is on this basis that the or ganization was built up. That was the basic provision of the bill intro cucea dv itepresenmve jonn Stephen McOroarty, Democrat, of California, on January 16, 1935. But that has “gone flooey.” This original sponsor has a new bill before Congress, intro duced on April Fools’ day, “with many changes and modifications,’’ of which the Townsend Weekly of recent date said: “Our new bill embodies all the salient features of the Townsend plan —optional retirement at 60 years, the transaction tax; compulsory spending and (200 a month when (and if) the tax reaches that amount pro rata, etc.” s (200 Objective Forsaken. It is only recently that the Town send Weekly eased down (and that as inconspicuously as possible) from its original Insistence on (200 a month on which the entire movement was originally founded. Representative McOroarty, more loyal to the Town sendites who built up a great national demand for old-age security legisla tion on a generous scale than the Townsend leaders are to him—still in sists that “this is the official Town send bill.” An invitation recently was extended to Townsendites from the American Commonwealth Federation, headed by Representative Amlie, a Wisconsin progressive, to join their political for tunes in a third party effort. Mean while the Communists had indorsed the Townsend plan. But in fairness to Representative McOroarty it must be said that he repudiated all third party talk. He warned Dr. Townsend that "there must be no third party movement.” He said; “I am a lifelong Democrat. I will stay to the Democratic party, and fight for a Townsend plank in the Democratic party platform. I am not anti-Roose velt If the party won’t do it, I will •till stay to the party.!' He explains » 4 that he is "going into the Democratic primary in California as a candidate for the presidency (which he knows he could not get and doesn’t want) so that the Townsendites can name their delegates to the national convention in Philadelphia. This is done to comply with the State primary law." Big Force in~ Election Seen. Just the same, .Mr. McGroarty boasts that the Townsend movement is ‘‘going to be the big force that will swing the coming election." He says that “Dr. Townsend has built up a vast political organization the like of which has not been known in the political history of the United States—this is what is go ing to swung the election—and the ossified politicians don’t know yet what is going on. This organization has completely overwhelmed the West. The Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast States are almost solidly Townsend. The movement has invaded the East and is going like wildfire.” He points to a picture on his office wall of a vast gathering to welcome him home to Los Angeles last year after he introduced the Townsend plan bill. He says that there were 142,000 persons in that gathering. So much for the change of heart of the Townsend plan and its spon sor—and so much for their scaling down of their demand. Now for the pledge of those oppos ing the plan that they will work for a real social security measure. Senator Vandenberg speaks a quite general sentiment when he says: ’’I believe the Government must make adequate provision for adequate old-age pensions. The Townsend plan is entitled to great credit for forcing this issue to the fore. I do not be lieve the old-age pension provisions in the social security act is adequate, and I expect to join in making it more adequate. It is my opinion that the Townsend plan would not be a step forward in this cause. On the contrary, I believe it would precipitate disaster not only for its intended ben eficiaries, but also for the entire coun try. It would create infinitely more problems than it would solve and do infinitely more harm than good.” iter uses 10 Act tor Two Reasons. Congress is refusing to act upon the Townsend plan for two reasons— many, a big majority, believe it is un constitutional, and there is an almost unanimous conviction that it is eco nomically impossible. As to the constitutionality, Rep resentative Blanton warned his col leagues: “Every good lawyer in the United States knows full well that the proposed Townsend plan is un constitutional and that it would be set aside and annulled by the Supreme Court before it could be put into ef fect. Not an aged person would ever receive $1 from it. Hence it is a de lusion and a snare. It is a fraud on its face. It is deceiving good peo ple. It is taking money from them under false pretenses. It will end In their sad disappointment.” About a score of members of Con gress and many noted economists have gone into detail as to why the Town send plan is economically unsound and impracticable. Dr. Westerfleld points out that “the United States Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Com merce in co-operation with the Na tional Bureau of Economic Research estimates the national income paid out in 1934 at *50.189,000.000. Of this sum, the pensioners, who consitute about 9 per cent of the population, would be deceiving 55 per cent. If the *27,468,000,000 going to pension ers were deducted from the total in come, there are left for the non pensioned population *22,721,000,000. Dividing this sum over the estimated number of persons under 60 years of age (namely 114,797,000) in 1934, al lows *197 per year for the non pensioned as against the *2,400 a year for the pensioned, or about one-twelfth as much.” He refers to Dr. Town send as "a true child of the New Deal spree in Utopian fairyland” and calls upon the American people to “come back to a realistic world and quit chas ing fairies in the land of make believe.” “Emotional Adventure.” Elbert says that the Townsend plan is "an emotional adventure in the field of economics—the Town sendites are looking for the rainbow’s gold. The rainbow is too far beyond the horizon.” After a careful and detailed enalysis of the second McGroarty bill, Repre sentative Engel tells what the trans action tax would mean to the farmer, the merchant, the banker, the manu facturer, and the wage earner, the advantages it would give the chain store and how it would ruin thou sands of independent merchants, hundreds of struggling industries. He shows the tremendous cost in addi tional taxes to Federal and State governments, how the individual would have to pay in taxes “from diapers to coffin.” He explodes the business turnover argument of the Townsendites by showing the fallacy of taxing $1 600 per cent and con cludes that “you would have to cross breed the dollar with a guinea pig to make it produce itself six times a year, and make that one dollar pay $6 in taxes.” More than a dozen prominent mem bers of the House have made speeches giving various groups of statistics and economic arguments against the Townsend plan—far too numerous to quote here. Representative Lea in conclusion says: “The adoption of the Townsend ptyrn would make more people dependent upon each other than any other single act of mankind. The far-reaching and ramifying effects of such a change upon our political, economic and social structure can be measured with no degree of accuracy. If the Nation hastens upon this magnificent folly, it will probably long repent in sackcloth and ashes”-but: “Our American people are the de scendants of pioneers. On the whole they have been a hard-working, self reliant class. In the language of another, I do not expect to see this people sink down ‘to the level of a pension collecting, rocking chair sit ting, money squandering outfit.’ ” The same sort of sentiment was ex ,(Continued on Third Page.), _ * First Southerners Traced r Two New Indian Civilizations Found, One Before Day of Bows and Arrows, in T. V. A. Area. SAPLINGS ANI) MUD: A “TOWN HOUSE” RECONSTRUCTED BY ARCHEOLOGISTS. ONCE HEADQUARTERS OF A PRIMITIVE TRIBE-A SITE NOW UNDER 150 FEET OF WATER. —Photos Copyright by Maj. W. S. Webb. BY GRACE HALLER. UPON the Clinch River, in what today is Tennessee, there was trouble. The green corn dance was only seven risings of the sun away, and the town house was slithering into the river. Seven risings of the sun, indeed! For 10 days the sun had neither risen nor set on the men of Clinch River. Only a grayness, a little less dark than night, had pierced the constant veil of rain. And now the carefully packed clay on the roof of the town house was oozing off in ever-faster streams; the hickory sapling frame was leaning to the westward. The chiefs wrapped their buffalo robes around themselves and sent the young men into the forest. A cedar must be secured to brace it. A large cedar! But it would be no easy task, even for young men, to fell a cedar 2 feet thick with stone axes in the rain. How could the ring of fire be burned around the trunk with the whole sky weeping like a woman-child? And without the fire, the axes would not bite the hard cedar nor, indeed, any other wood. But the young men carried their brands into the forest, a mile away, where they knew of a cedar. They prayed the sacred cedar’s mercy and set to work. Fires Must Burn. Three days before the green corn dance, panting and struggling. 10 of them dragged the giant timber into the cane-thatched village. The cedar had been willing, they told the war riors and the beloved men—the eld ers—to prop the town house back to the eastward. The fires of thanksgiv ing must burn on the holy hearth for the green corn ceremonies. Other wise, the corn might not yield next season—or, worse, perhaps, never again. By the grace of the cedar’s spirit, the sun broke up the clouds, and while the men worked within to set the timber in the floor, the women scooped up dripping clay from the river banks to repair the damage. The fires burned in the four basins of the white clay, and in the great central one. The chief rose from his white clay seat opposite the door, and all the people followed. One by one they wriggled between the saplings of the door into the brilliant sun of the Summer solstice. And on the bank of the Clinch River they made a dance unrecorded by any man. In the Clinch River they washed away sins no liter ature recalls and returned through the sapling door to give thanks for un recorded blessings. Flnrincf fVio finmmhr a vinlont VO storm flattened the town house, cedar prop and all. There was nothing left to do but burn the sacred remains and erect a new building on the dedi cated soil. The village of sapling houses thatched with cane had grown a good deal since the town house was built—so the new one was larger. Such a scene, perhaps, was typical of the strange ‘‘town house” culture unearthed by Maj. W. S. Webb, retired United States Army officer and head of the departments of physics and archeology at the University of Ken tucky. Maj. Webb conducted T. V. A. archeological excavations in the val leys of the Clinch and Tennessee Rivers before completion of the Norris and Wheeler Dams. The territory was to be inundated forever. If any thing was to be found out about the pre-histofy of the country, it had to be done at once. The resulting exca vations comprised one of the most comprehensive and wide-flung arch eological studies ever conducted in this country. Most Primitive People. But the “town house" people were only one of two extraordinary cultures brought to light. The other was found in the Wheeler Basin, 300 miles away, in Alabama, it is the most primitive yet discovered east of the Mississippi River. The earliest people here were so unskilled that they did not even know the use of the bow and arrow; they lived on shell heaps and shell Islands in the rivers that furnished their food. And in this locality Maj. Webb encountered one of the most singular situations ever known to archeology—burial mounds contain ing impressions of skeletons, but no skeletons! Archeology without skeletons! It is almost like printing without ink. And yet the T. V. A. diggings at the outset were peculiarly lacking in this respect. Whereas the primitive peo ple of the Wheeler Basin left burial mounds but no skeletons, the “town house” folk left no traces of burial whatsoever. What did they do with their dead? It is an ancient and US solvable mystery. ■ . These early peoples, living on the k pumpkins, beans, maize, squash, mel ons and wild game of most Indians, occupied a territory of Edenlike fer tility. It was a land in which wild fowl was so plentiful and so easy to catch that Indian children shot birds with slingshots. It was a land where, at the turn of the hoe, the fertile, loamy soil would increase any plant ed thing a thousand times over. This effortless agriculture was consequently considered easy enough for the women to handle alone. This country of rushing rivers, broad valleys and hills of giant for est was densely populated—that is, according to prftnitive notions of den sity. One “town house’’ after the other and one on top of the other was found up the Clinch River. A constant succession of tribes occu pied the shell mounds in the Wheeler Basin. But they all seemed to have vanished before the Cherokees ar rived in Tennessee. To the Indians of this great, enlightened tribe, the Clinch River was only a wilderness inhabited by waterfowl. Not until the T. V. A. took shovel in hand did the once-populous valley tell of these ancient, completely-forgotten inhabitants and their strange, sa cred “town houses.” Intensified Archeology. In the Spring and Summer of 1934 Maj. Webb conducted archeological research in the two basins at once. This was archeology on an in tensified, World-War scale. Super visors, fresh from digging shell heaps in Algiers, pueblos in Mexico and temples in South America, had to learn the technique of earth mounds. And 1,000 greenhorns or a shirting relief personnel had to be taught the rudiments, at least, of scientific ex cavation. Forty-four sites had to be examined in a quarter of the time ordinarily spent on one. And the two main sites were 300 miles apart! Up the Clinch Valley was a string of workmen stretched 85 miles along the river bank over 80 square miles of land. Over in the Wheeler Basin another 500 men were digging on 75 miles of Tennessee River bottom, covering 100 square miles of land. Rain and flood could not stop the work, which must be completed or be forever lost. "Ordinarily, you know,” said the major, "we select a single mound to work on.” But the Government said of the now flooding valleys: "Clean ’em out. Find out all you can, because nobody will ever get the chance again.” And the major did. He was able to see the whole pre-history of the coun try spread out over the entire land, rather than learn it a single page at a time. Within six months it was pos sible to make comparisons that ordi narily would have consumed years of time. Maj. Webb was summoned, on a three-day notice. After making his plans for these wholesale excavations, 22 archeological supervlsers had some how to be snatched out of their va rious capacities in colleges and uni versities, and put into the field. Co operating Tennessee and Alabama re lief authorities assigned 1,000 relief workers to do the bulk of the digging. Approximately $200,000 was spent from the relief funds of those States in salaries and other expenses, keep ing the 1,000 employed for six months. Now these tremendous investigations are completed—one of the many and various social-economic projects spon sored by the T. V. A. At present, while the eventual fate of many of these activities hangs in the balance, and water gradually rises over the scene of "one of my biggest years.” the major is back in Lexington, ad ministering his departments in the University of Kentucky. Traces Prehistoric Men. But his week ends are spent poring over the records of the 22 supervisee, studying photographs and drawings, shreds of pottery, bits of copper. Others he spends comparing sites in Florida, Alabama and various other spots in the southeast with those of his findings, comparing notes with fellow archeologists. Cautiously he ventures the opinion that these “new” pre-historic Norris Valley men may belong to the Yuchi, one of the In dian linguistic stocks. "But we couldn't find their ceme teries!” he exclaims. "Two or three burials, evidently accidental, in the w’hole of the town house country, were the only skeletons we found.” What did these people do with their dead? Nobody knows. Perhaps, like : their successors, the Cherokees, they | threw their dead into the river. Per haps they ascended a ramp of logs to the top of the town house and scat tered crematory ashes to the four winds. Perhaps the dead were placed in trees, to remain there till they were disintegrated by the elements. One thing is certain—they left no bones behind. All this may not seem so startling until it is realized that the whole eastern half of the United States is one vast graveyard of the mound builders, those prehistoric Indians whose earthworks and burials have astonished scholars for the last half century. Somewhat like villages of inverted basket? were the sapling town sites in the Norris Valley. The houses varied in size, averaging about 12 by 15 feet, and were thatched with cane. But the town house, in addition to thatch ing, was also covered with earth. One corner was the door, which must have been similar-to the door ways of the round Cherokee council houses. For these people, according to all the evidence, must have had a civilization similar to that of the Cherokees, although they probably antedated that nation and were cer tainly gone before the appearance ol Europeans. oo tnis doorway, then, was merely an aperture between the smallest sap lings. Then the thatching with grass and cane. After that the piling on of earth. Inside, the imprint of cane matting was found bordering the floor along the walls, delicately exposed with trowel and whisk broom by the relief archeologists. Also on the Inside was a raised seat made of clay, in a different color from that of the ground, and in the center was the raised clay altar containing one central basin and four corner fire basins. For what purpose? No one knows. But whatever the color of the floor, the seat and altar were of a lighter hue. Black floor, let us say, red seat and altar. Red floor, white or light yellow seat and altar. Outside—although this may not al ways have been the case—a ramp of logs ascended to the roof, which was flattened on top, and from which tid ings were broadcast or evil spirits dis pelled as in the similar Cherokee prac tice. The imprints of the logs that formed the ramp were found on the earthen ramps in the remains of these prehistoric Cherokee neighbors. First Actual Prehistoric Date. But the rains in the Winter and age itself caused the town houses to get wobbly. Ancient charred cedar logs, propped against the walls to remedy the situation, were found in place. From one of these a student of tree ages, Dr. Florence Hawley of the Uni versity of New Mexico, will soon be able to report the first actual pre historic date of the eastern part ol the United States. But the earth on the roof has been responsible for the remarkable data concerning the town houses. If the Clinch River men had writ ten in English exactly how these town houses were made, they could not have left a clearer record for the T. V. A. archeologists. Por when the town houses were burned, the volatile gases passed off, but the indesructt ble charcoal remained in the earth. Atfeund the town bouses wen the 4 T. V. A. BECOMES TITANIC ELECTRO-SOCIAL TRIAL Far-Reaching Effect on Nation Seen at “New Deal Laboratory” in Housing, Town Planning and Transportation. Note—Public interest in the Ten nessee Valley experiment, re awakened by the Supreme Court decision favoring the Government’s project, has raised questions con cerning the working out of this gigantic undertaking. What the T, V. A. has already done and how its friends and critics view its work are discussed here by a newspaper correspondent who has traveled throughout the Tennessee Valley and made a thorough survey of this laboratory of the New Deal, (INSTITUTIONAL lawyers may argue over the broadness of the Supreme Court’s T. V. A. decision. Economists may dis pute the soundness of the whole ti tanic electro-social experiment which the government is conducting in the great drainage basin of the Tennessee River just west of the Southern Appa lachians. But for the directors of the Tennes see Valley authority and their still enthusiastic corps of engineers, econ omists and conservation experts, the decision was a punched ticket to go ahead with one of the biggest scientific experiments in history. They have gone a long way in two and a half years of mammoth dam and power line construction, and of efforts to im prove economic and social ways of life. • During this time they have heard a good deal of criticism—some un doubtedly due to of t what they are trying to do, and some due to fundamental disagreement with the whole philosophical basis of their undertaking. Dr. Arthur E. Morgan, who heads the great Federal enterprise, is a com bination of practical engineer and idealist educator who, from the first, has looked far beyond the purely eco nomic aspects of the Tennessee Valley problem. T. V. A. Set-up Yardstick. The T. V. A. set-up has been widely publicised as a “yardstick” of the cost of producing and distributing electric power. After two years of operation, it finds that it can generate and transmit power from Muscle Shoals through the surrounding area for approximately six mills per kilowatt hour on the average. }f this is a fair yardstick, the private utility companies have made a good showing. The Alabama Power Co. has rates as low as five and eight-tenths mills. The Mississippi Power Co. fur nishes electricity for as low as seven mills. Utility company proponents say the government corporation is able to offer the six-mill rate only by a gross mark down 6f the value of the Wilson Dam plant below construction casts—from $60,000,000 to $19,000,000. The T. V. A. officials reply that Wil son Dam was built under war condi tions at grossly excessive costs, as s .(Continued oa Third Page.), 1 BRITAIN INCREASES U. S. DANGER OF PACIFIC WAR Japan Prepares to Fight Either Nation to Expand Southward as Situation Becomes Perilous Powder Key. BY CONSTANTINE BROWN. i INCE the heavy war clouds have i been spreading toward the Pa cific, the Japanese generals and admirals are smiling again— their most innocent smile. Last Pall, when the European war failed to materialize, there was a wave of pessimism in Tokio. The general < staff had hoped that the conflict be tween the League of Nations and Italy would lead to war in the Mediterra- 1 nean. Ammunition and arms factories throughout Japan were placed on a 24-hour schedule; the navy, returning ' from extended maneuvers, was ordered to stand by; the German aviation in structors worked overtime. Then Europe managed to muddle : through. # 1 But the European crisis has been only postponed. The latest develop ments in Paris, Rome and Berlin show that the expected European clash can- j not be delayed much longer. The out break of hostilities in the Old World will be the signal for a war in the Par East. Japan is prepared for it. Several Possibilities. It may take place in the shape of a struggle between Japan and Russia for the possession of the maritime provinces or between Japan and Great Britain—possibly the United States— for the conquest of the Southern Pa cific. It all depends on which forces , will become engaged in Europe. Japan is not seeking room for her surplus population. Her people do not want to leave the narrow confines \ of the islands. Neither Korea nor! Manchuria has attracted the Japanese 1 farmer. Japan wants vast territories for ex ploitation purposes only. It needs new arpas with raw materials for its in- j dustries and large populations to con- j sume the manufactured products. | Of this, the dictator of Japan—the 1 general staff—no longer makes a! I secret. A few years ago the Japanese ; admirals and generals did not object | to having the diplomats camouflage i their intentions. Now this pretense has been abandoned. A Japanese Manchukuoan army of j 380.000 men is near the Siberian bor ' der ready for action should the Soviet Republic become involved in a war with Germany. The Japanese Navy, the strongest in the Western Pacific, and an army of 250.000 is j concentrated in Southern Japan and 1 in Formosa ready for a drive south ward. Awaits China's Prize. That China as far as the Yangtze \ River will fall into the lap of the | Japanese Empire without the army firing a shot is a matter which Tokio takes for granted. In order to expand further south, however, the Japanese may have to ! fight. And the general staff welcomes the idea of such a fight. It will mean a war either with Great Britain or the United States or both. It was two years ago that Ambas ; sador Matsuidara called on the then | British foreign secretary, Sir John j Simon, “just to chew the rag,” as the I Ambassador expressed the object of his visit. Matsuidara indulged in a lengthy discourse on racial psychology, j And he observed casually, “of course, j . your presence in Hongkong might j some day endanger the friendly rela ! tions between our two countries. Sup pose the Chinese nationalist move : .—----... village sites. No matter what the ex tent of the village, every town house I was near the river—a matter of 200 feei, more tt less. This was, perhaps, because of the rites of the green corn dance, which required ablution in the river to signify a spiritual cleansing. The Cherokees had such a rite. Besides these town house people, the Norris Valley had cave dwellers— primitive Indians of Algonquian stock, wh» buried women and children in the floor of their cave homes. And there are traces of a third culture; but it is so ephemeral and distant as to be almost non-traceable. The major thinks, while Tennessee River w'ater covers forever the sites of the town house people, a people utterly different from other pre-his toric cultures of the region, that in six months, perhaps, having compared, digested and thoroughly examined the tremendous amount of material at hand, he may be able to publish the Norris Valley report. But it will be two years or maybe more before the Wheeler Valley material can be simi larly completed. Ancient Shell Heaps. Nevertheless, the Wheeler Valley promises to be equally exciting, though infinitely tedious and difficult. For “when folks go to living and bury ing and clam-baking all in the same hole, it creates a very difficult prob lem for the archeologist.” As at Muscle Shoals, 18 miles down the Tennessee from Wheeler Dam, and as in the whole of the world, an cient shell heaps are the sources of information concerning primitive man. They are the remnants of the fisher man-hunting stage of progress, in which man subsided largely on fish and clams and whatever game he could trap or snare. Being not too adept with weapons, fishing was easier than hunting, and catching clams was the easiest and surest of all. So in the Tennessee Valley, as else where in the world, the human in habitants .lived on the shell beds; made masks of shell, and beads of shell, and utensils of shell—and, in cidentally, raised quite a large heap of shells. The heaps became islands In flood time, but were never quite under water, so that the people could stay right there and keep on living. Periodically, when the hearths be came a hole in the surrounding pile of cast-off shells, they scraped the shells together and moved on top. When anybody died, they simply buried them in the shell heap. Later, "when they dug holes for a clam bake, they as likely as not stirred up the bones of a burial that had been en tirely forgotten. It was this clam baking and consequent "stirring" which causes the problem of the arche ologist. The age of deposit cannot be reckoned by the position in which tt 1* found In the shell heap. I nent reaches Hongkong and there are iisturbances which must inevitably ead to bloodshed. Our people in Japan will see in the death of a score >f Chinese a conflict be ween the white ind the yelow races. I am seriously worried lest my government may not » in a position to prevent a popular wtburst against the white domination )f China. You may have to haul iown the Union Jack.” Matsuidara irew in his breath and, smiling in a nost friendly manner, added, "This ioes not express the views of my gov ernment. I am just thinking aloud.” And by a strange coincidence, when he Japanese minister at the Hague called informally on the Dutch foreign ninister, he discoursed on a number >f questions, but principally on Japan’s ack of oil, and suggested that it might >e advisable for the Dutch government o sell Borneo and Sumatra to Japan. ‘You can write your own check,” said he Japanese diplomat, ”it would really >e much cheaper for her majesty’s government to take a large sum than ;o spend so much more defending hose islands.” Real Move Southward. Japan is waiting only for the out >reak of a European war to “expand” oward the south. The maritime jrovinces are of secondary impor ;ance. The conquest of Siberia to Baikal Lake is important because it would remove a potential enemy from he Manchukuoan border. But the real move of the Japanese must be southward. American diplomacy, weak as it is in regard to Europe, is well informed about the Far East. The trend of the Japanese ambitions became clear the Jay Gen. Honjo’s army entered Muk ien. And Great Britain, which had spurned America's advances in 1932, is making eleventh-hour efforts to co ordinate its policies with those of the United States. The British admiralty abandoned its claims for a small bat tleship, opposed the Japanese naval parity demand and eased Japan out of the London conference with true British erace. The United States responded to the British advances. It strengthened Britain's hand at Geneva, drafted a neutrality bill to prevent the export of oil to Italy, Britain’s potential foe; then dropped it when it appeared to be more detrimental to the empire in case of trouble in the Far East. The United States Fleet, which was trans ferred temporarily to the Pacific, is now there to stay. Furthermore, while there has been no official offer to the American Navy to ‘‘make herself at home in Singa pore,” Great Britain will not hesitate to offer the freedom of the port to American men-of-war should they happen to be around there under dif ficult circumstances. Stanley Baldwin denied emphatically two weeks ago that Great Britain had offered the use of Singapore to the United States Navy in exchange for a compromise on the size of the battleship—and he spoke the truth. It is not for such a futile purpose that Great Britain is willing to offer a shelter to the United States when it is far from home. Roosevelt Watching Early. President Roosevelt was thinking of the possibilities of a dangerous situa tion in the Western Pacific as far back as 1933. When Edouard Herriot came to Washington to discuss debts, they talked Indo-China. Mr. Roose velt was interested in the Saigon naval base and in the new military pbrt of Cape Saint Jacques, north of Saigon. Of course the British interests In the Far East are more important than the American. The total British in vestments in China alone exceed $1 ,— 000,000,000, while the American rep resent barely a fifth of that amount. And the British are worried. The government and the navy in Great Britain see in the plans of the Japanese toward the south a direct challenge to the British Empire. They see a threat not only to their estab lished position in China but to India and Australia. And, reluctantly, the British Imperial Defense Council has come to the conclusion that a show down with Japan may be necessary in the near future. The eyes of Great Britain are once more turned on the United States. During these last weeks there has been an encouraging response, as far as the British are concerned, from Washington. mu« nnt.nl Unilrlinn nenrrrom ic KfiinCf speeded up, This is only natural under the present circumstances. But two speeches have been made recently. In Washington, Senator Pittman de clared Japan a menace to the United States. Coming from the chairman of the Senate's Foreign Affairs Commit tee, this statement was significant. Undersecretary Phillips spoke in Chi cago. The second in command in the State Department is a diplomat by training and by profession. Mr. Phil lips is never known to speak out of turn; quite the contrary. Yet, in Chi cago, the Undersecretary of State, re fraining diplomatically from mention ing Japan by name, sounded a warn ing that this country is determined not to abandon the open door policy in China. Mr. Pittman was irked by the atti tude of the Japanese in regard to the Philippines. Mr. Phillips spoke about the open door because the so-called independent governments created in China by Tokio are levying heavy duties on American and British goods when products manufactured in Japan are admitted duty free. The State Department, conceding that the trade in China is of no great consequence, bears in mind there are 500,000.000 people living in that coun try. Within a generation or two this population may have a purchasing power. The question is whether investments amounting to less than $200,000.00 and the possibility of trading with China remuneratively within the next 60 or 70 years are worth the risks of conflict with Japan. Hie real truth, however, is that when the next European war breaks out, Great Britain will be in serious diffi culties in the Atlantic and in the Pacific. And Cousin John hopes that once more the United States will coim and pull the chestnuts out of the fire. (Coprrisht. 1936.) 4