Evening star. [volume], April 24, 1937, Page B-1, Image 17

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

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I FEATURESi-1
Books Art Music ^||| News of Churches
_ __ WASHINGTON, D. C., SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 1937. PAGE B-l
UNIVERSITY TO MARK DECADE UNDER DR. MARVIN’S LEAD
Real judicial atmosphere is given a moot court session at
George Washington University Law School by the presence on
the bench of Justice Joseph W. Cox of District Court.
Students at ivork in the university's up-to-date physics
laboratory. Dr. Marvin believes a good workman must have
proper tools.
George Washington’s scientific laboratories have undergone
vast improvement in the past 10 years. Here is a fully equipped
chemistry “lab.”
*
Among the university’s many libraries is the biological
science library shown above. Note the Chinese student in fore
ground.
GEORGE WASHINGTON’S GAINS
Faculty Has Expanded and Financial Resources Have Shown Con
stant Growth, While Physical Equipment Has Kept Pace With
Constant Demands of Modern Education.
By George* Maclean.
THE measure of a university
president’s success usually is
his ability to get financial sup
port from alumni and friends.
Money buys land, builds buildings,
consolidates the domain of an educa
tional institution, and the prestige of
e modern and attractive physical
plant is invaluable to a university's
reputation.
Obviously more important than
physical equipment, however, is men
tal equipment, and the better money
raiser the president, the better and
more numerous the faculty.
From this standpoint alone, the rec
ord testifies to the success of Cloyd
Heck Marvin. M. A., Ph. D„ L.L. D„
whose tenth anniversary as president
of George Washington University will
be celebrated next week, principally
by a banquet the evening of April 30
at. the Mayflower Hotel.
Taking the helm at George Wash
ington at the age of 38, Dr. Marvin
has been so successful a money raiser
that the university's endowment has
risen in 10 years from four hundred
thousand to millions. In 1926-27 it was
*804.160. now it is in excess of $2,593.
948. The increase of $1,789,788 is an
Increase of 222 per cent.
Dr. Marvin's academic career is as
Bociated closely with his success as the
university's financier. A business-man
president, he is an economist, a former
professor of commerce.
'J'HE vastly increased endowment ob
• tained under Dr. Marvin’s presi
dency has given the Capital a gen
uinely big university—big from the
standpoint of faculty, enrollment and
equipment.
Since teaching prowess is the chief
measure of a university’s excellence
or lack of it, gains wTith respect to fac
ulty are of primary importance. Dur
ing the Marvin regime the number of
full-time faculty members at George
Washington University has increased
74 per cent, from 77 to 134. Of the
latter, 61 hold Ph. D. degrees. The
Ph. D.’s in 1926-27 numbered only 24.
The part-time faculty has decreased
In the last 10 years from 264 to 258,
Indicating that the university is
placing more reliance on instructors
permanently associated with it. Twen
ty-one of the part-timers have Ph. D.
degrees.
Under Dr. Marvin the scale of facul
ty salaries has been maintained de
spite the depression and consequent
depreciation in university investments.
Not only has the salary scale been
maintained, but increases, in some
grades as high as 20 per cent, have
been made. There have been no sal
ary reductions, although the.se oc
curred in almost every other univer
sity the country, ranging from 10 to
40 per cent.
Dr. Marvin established a system of
sabbatical leaves, which gives faculty
members opportunity for study, re
search and travel. Eight sabbaticals
have been granted for the coming
year.
So much for the faculty side of the
picture. Gains in physical equipment
have been just as imposing. Univer
sity real estate has expanded from
155.988 to 290 598 square feet, an in
crease of 86 per cent. From $1,665.
751, the value of university real estate
has grown to $3,151,765.
piVE buildings have been erected
by the university since 1926-27—
the medical laboratory building, the
engineering laboratory, the biological
science building. Strong Hall and
Social Science Hall. University build
ings now total 26, compared with 19,
two of which were rented, in 1927.
Building area has increased 51 per
cent, from 252,606 to 382,696 square
(eet,
Class rooms now number 81, com
pared with 21 more than 10 years ago.
Their seating capacity is 1,170 more
than the 3,600 which could be seated
In the 60 class rooms of 1926-27—
■n increase made imperative by the
growth in university enrollment from
7,020 to 8,528.
Much of George Washington’s phys
ical transformation was accomplished
In the three months between the June.
1936, commencement and the opening
Df the 116th academic year on last
September 23.
Returning students last Pall found
three new buildings dominating the
campus scene. At the southwest cor
ner of Twenty-first and G streets rose
the Hattie M. Strong Hall for Women,
ft modem dormitory residence with
none of the objectionable features of
dormitories in the accepted sense of
the word. Providing living quarters
lor more than a hundred young
Women, the seven-story building is
f i
I equipped with parlors, reception and
[ reading rooms, a solarium, a recre
ation room and an open-air play space
on the roof.
Near the comer of Twentieth and
G streets is the new Social Sciences
Hall, which replaced the group of old
houses formerly in use. Prom Twen
tieth to Twenty-f.rst street the uni
versity now presents a solid front.
Any of George Washington's 16,000
alumni will consider such improve
ments remarkable, in view of the fact
that a decade ago the whole univer
sity plant was composed of Corcoran
Hall, Stockton Hall, the medical
school and hospital arrd a number
of converted residences along G
street.
In 1930 the medical school build
ing, occupied since 1902, was com
pletely reconditioned and new equip
ment was installed for the depart
ments of biochemistry, pharmacology,
physiology, pathology and anatomy.
JjNIVERSITY laboratories have in
creased in 10 years from 36 to 80.
while offices number 168, as compared
with 82. The number of libraries
has doubled and the number of vol
umes in them has grown from 74,874
to 115.290.
Other milestones in the progress of
the university under Dr. Marvin in
clude the establishment of three stu
dent social centers and the publica
tion of the quarterly George Wash
inton Law Review, the semi-annual
George Washington Alumni Review
ana eight volumes published by the
University Press. The alumni direc
tory is in preparation.
iviuvuig m wit vanguara oi a general
trend in American university organiza
tion, George Washington under Dr.
Marvin has placed the work of the
freshman and sophomore years in the
Junior College, where more attention
can be paid the individual student and
where those who cannot complete a
four-year course can nevertheless ob
tain a well-rounded general education.
The university has attained during
the past 10 years the highest accredi
tation, both for its liberal arts work
and for its professional work. To re
gional accreditation by the Middle
States Association of Colleges and Sec
ondary Schools has been added similar
accreditation by the Association of
American Universities, giving it the
highest possible rating. Similar recog
nition for professional work, granted
by the Association of American Law
Schools and the American Medical As
sociation, has been maintained.
The most recent evidence of the
high quality of the university’s work
and its recognition by the academic
world generally has been the establish
ment there of a chapter of Sigma Xi,
national honorary fraternity in science.
Moreover, the Phi Beta Kappa mem
bers of the university faculty have
been invited to submit an application
for a.chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.
rJ'HE record of the past 10 years,
friends of George Washington feel,
can be taken as an indication of things
to come in the next 10. There will be
a further strengthening of the faculty.
Plans already are in preparation for a
seven or eight story library building
of set-back architecture, to be situated
in the middle of the principal univer
sity block, fronting on G street. With
in a comparatively short time. too. the
university will have an athletic field,
with field house and a gymnasium
equipped for almost any kind of indoor
sport.
When alumni, faculty, students and
trustees of George Washington pay
tribute to Dr. Marvin next week they
will be expressing the thanks of the
whole city.
CLOYD HECK MARVIN, M. A., Ph. D.. LL. D .
Whose tenth anniversary as president of George Washington
University will be celebrated next Friday.
' —Harris-Ewing Photo.
SUN TURNS COOK AND BAKER
Smithsonian Scientist Tells of Ways in Which Solar Rays Serve
Mankind—Solar Engine Interests Agriculturalists in Hot
Lands—Heat-Storing Reservoirs Exist.
' —
! By Lucy Salamanca.
AN the sun itself be harnessed
to light our homes at night,
run our engines, irrigate bar
ren fields and cook our meals?
Impractical dreamers have sought
madly for centuries to boss the sun's
rays, much as they have toiled to
utilize the waves and tides of the
sea for power, and change base metals
into gold.
But today a scientist of distinction.
Dr. C. G. Abbot, secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution, tells of many
ways in which solar radiation does the
bidding of man and asks only if the
expense of the machinery involved
will be prohibitive for general use. and
if such machines can be built on a
j quantity production basis. If these
i questions are ever answered satLsfac
j torily, man for the first time will be
| independent of exhaustible stores of
coal and oil disappearing from the
heart of the earth.
Dr. Abbot sets before us, as the
result of experiments that began in
1915 and have continued to today.
A row of George Washington University’s new ivhite build
ings containing the latest equipment for group study. •
Dr. C. G. Abbot, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
and inventor of the solar machine shown beside him.
PEOPLE ARE LED TO BELIEVE THAT IT PAYS TO BE INJURED
Big Balm Awarded for Bumps and Bruises Suggests That
Juries in District Are Not Ungenerous in
Their Verdicts to Plaintiffs.
By William A. Bell, Jr.
NE MAN among several wait
ing for an elevator snorted
as his eyes glanced across
the front page of a news
paper he W'as holding.
“Look here.” he said, “that head
waiter got 2,000 bucks from Harry
Thaw for a punch in the eye.”
He held up his paper for the others
to see.
“Pretty costly punch,” said one.
“It served Thaw right,” said another.
“Well, I'd take a sock in the orb
for a couple of grand,” said a third.
A fourth said, "You could do both
of mine up for less than that, and my
mouth and ears and nose, too.”
The man with the paper remarked
that the waiter had asked $10,000.
“They never get what they ask,
though,” he added.
He was almost right. They seldom
do. A “census” of damage suits in the
District during the past five years
discloses, however, that juries here
have not been ungenerous in their
awards to plaintiffs.
Unfortunately for this account,
newspaper treatment of such Judg
ments has been cursory, partly be
cause the interval between filing of
damage suits and their final disposi
tion has been a matter of many
months, even years, and also because
it is not within the realm of a news
paper to record the actual “damage”
suffered by the plaintiff other than
to report the claims of the litigant.
The latter circumstance precludes
comment on the "fairness” or other
wise of the jury’s liberality or tight
fistedness.
COME judgments have compensated
for simple fractures and a few
bad bruises more than have others
for permanent injury or death. Injured
feelings or “mental anguish’’ is no
grounds for suit in the District, but
such theoretical—perhaps a better
adjective is “non-bodily”—damage as
“injured professional reputation” has
been the basis for one of the largest
awards made by a Washington jury
in local court history.
The Incident under discussion by
the elevator waiters is one of the
latest of an imposing number of suc
cessful damage suits. Paul Jaeck,
Swiss head waiter at the Shoreham
Hotel, reduced Thaw’s considerable
capital by $2,200 by convincing a Dis
trict Court jury that the slayer of
Stanford White had given him a mo6t
painful “shiner” or “mouse” while
allegedly misbehaving at a dinner
party. The jury was told the blow was
struck while Thaw held a lighted cig
arette in his fist, and it assessed the
damage to Jaeck at $2,200.
In a manner of speaking, more
than $14,000 has been found on the
sidewalks of Washington since 1931.
Although the discovery was painful
—perhaps, in some cases, permanently
injurious—finders have been keepers.
The loser was the District Govern
ment, compelled to compensate in
that amount persons who stumbled on
faulty pavements and stumbled right
Into oourt with demands for damages
on the complaint that the city fathers
r -- ■
' had failed to keep the sidewalks In
a proper state of repair.
The latest instance of a sidewalk
nose-dive was that of a Miss Ada
Tanner, who fell in a depression at
Connecticut avenue and R streets and
last October was awarded $2,400 on
her charge that she had suffered
serious injuries because of the “negli
• gence” of the District Government.
A spill on the sidewalk at Georgia
avenue and Blair road won a judg
ment of $4,250 for Winton E. Disney
in February, 1935.
But these judgments were chicken
feed in comparison with those won by
a visiting Long Island couple in June,
1932. Mrs. Robert H. Leys, who did
the falling, got more than $7,000 com
pensation for injuries received in a
tumble on B street southeast, while
her husband, who paid the doctor's
bills, etc., got a separate award, the
total "take" amounting to $7,700.
one of the most unusual Instances
of falls which have received the
golden sympathies of 12 jurors was
that in w'hich the victim, Mrs.. Susie
K. Ball, toppled into an open grave at
the Cedar Hill Cemetery. Mrs. Ball
set forth that while walking along a
slippery cemetery walk in October,
1932, on her w'ay to place flowers on
the grave of a grandchild, she lost
her balance and plunged into an exca
vation intended to receive a dead body,
not a live one. Claiming internal in
juries and that she had swallowed dirt
in such quantities as to cause “an
ulcerous condition of her tonsils,” Mrs.
Ball went into court. She came out,
eventually, with $3,500. The ceme
tery association appealed, but the
judgment was upheld by the United
States Court of Appeals, extra com
pensation being awarded Mr. Ball for
“expenses and losses” in connection
with his wife’s injuries.
~ ■ ' . i — — ' ■ ■ ii 4
Medical practitioners of one sort or
another have been among the favor
ite targets of damage suits.
Under the heading “Tooth Worth
$1,000,” The Star of December 18,
1934, reports that “a sound tooth was
valued at $1,000 by a District Supreme
Court jury- today.” The “grand” was
collected from two dentists by a Mr.
Percy L. KLse, who charged they ex
tracted the wrong molar when mining
for a low-er wisdom tooth.
One of the defendants, incidentally,
recovered threefold recently on an
Irish sweepstakes ticket drawing.
Earlier that year Dora E. Grubb
was awarded $3,000—she asked $50,
000—on her contention that she was
burned while undergoing X-ray treat
ments. The defendants, an X-ray
firm, fought the case for years. They
won the first verdict, but the final
judgment resulted when the jurors
failed to agree and counsel for both
sides decided to allow $3,000 damages.
The alleged carelessness of one phy
sician cost him $10,000, a patient prov
ing to the satisfaction of a District
Court jury in March, 1934, that the
doctor had left three pieces of tubing
in an incision.
DAMAGE suit similar to the
Thaw case as to circumstances
and the amount of award was that
brought two years ago by Charles
Newman, a taxicab driver, against
former Representative Francis T.
Shoemaker of Minnesota. Shoemaker,
ex-convict, successor to Huey Long
and predecessor to Marion Zioncheck
as congressional “bad boy,’’ beat up
the hacker, it was charged. Newman
said he was assaulted by the ex
legislator while halted at a red light,
blocking the latter’s car. He asked
$25,000, got $2,500. Assault charges
against Shoemaker resulted in a hung
Jury.
Another ease of
More Than Fourteen Thousand Dollars Have Been
"Found” on Sidewalks of Washington Since
1931, According to Legal Records.
which brought a cash judgment for
the plaintiff involved a former lieuten
ant of Capitol police, whom a Mrs.
Elsie Jardine accused of striking her
as she tried to prevent him from
beating her son. A District Court
jury thought Mrs. Jardine's claim was
W’orth $750.
Nearly $20,000 has been assessed
against businesses in the past five
years for accidents to women who
fawn'd dowm and went boom. For a
fractured wrist, sustained when a
chair in which she was sitting col
lapsed in an apartment house dining
room, Mrs. Bella M. Hoefer collected
$2,000. The restaurant concern said
the collapse was caused by a struc
tural defect which it hardly could
have been expected to notice. But the
jury said such faults should have been
observed before Mrs. Hoefer sat down.
Spinach leaves and grapes caused
a $5,000 fall and a toy drum a $12.
000 one. The former amount was
awarded Mrs. Margaret Snead, who
made a ground loop in a Connecticut
avenue store after slipping on the
aforesaid agricultural debris. She
claimed injuries to the nerves of an
arm and shoulder.
Tripping on a child's drum during
the 1933 Christmas season, Mrs. Ida
Lowe Kenney fell on some stairs in a
downtown store, and was severely in
jured—severely enough to persuade
a District Court Jury to award her
$12,000 damages.
r\OOR-TO-DOOR salesmen who
have been pitched out by ex
asperated prospects may find either
encouragement or discouragement In
the case of one Moncure Noble, whose
reception when he called “on business"
at a local agency was anything but ap
propriate to his name. Not only was
the greeting ignoble, averred Mr.
Noble, but he was put upon by em
ployes and his arm broken. Appar
ently feeling that even on mid-August
days such people should keep cool and
not assault visitors, a jury awarded
Noble $11,000 in a judgment against
the company, which contended to no
avail that the altercation was the re
sult of a personal feud.
Frank Bonner, former executive sec
retary of the Federal Power Commis
sion, has been awarded libel judgments
against newspapers amounting to a
small fortune. Suing in the District for
compensation for allegedly libelous
articles which “brought him into dis
grace and seriously injured his pro
fession as an electrical engineer,” he
won $45,000 from the papers, $9,000
for each of the five articles that caused
him grief. Bonner’s basic salary as
secretary of the commission had been
$3,500. His suit was in the courts ap
proximately six years. Therefore, had
he remained with the commission, his
total Income for that period would
have been $21,000, or less than half
what he received from the District .
award alone, to say nothing of sub
stantial judgments obtained against
publications in other cities.
Affirming the $45,000 Judgment re- i
turned for Bonner by a District Court *
Jury, the Court of Appeals refused to :
discuss the reasonableness of the large
(Continued on Page B-3.)
m
such inventions as the solar cooker. .
the solar power engine, the solar flash ]
boiler and the solar distilling ap
paratus, bearing witness to the prac- |
tical and material application of
a unique and intriguing theory.
Not so many weeks ago many of you ]
in Washington may have listened in
to a most unusual radio program that I
went across the country over a na
tional hook-up, broadcast by nothing '
more than solar power. That day the .
sun itself took part in one of the most 1
astonishing demonstrations of modern
times. It beat benignly upon a curious j
contraption set up in the Smithsonian
Institution grounds in Washington. Its
heat was concentrated upon three mir
rors of aluminum products, each about
i 12 feet square. These mirrors were
: cylindrical and concave in form,
mounted upon a frame which defined
an axis parallel to the axis of the
i earth, the axes of the mirrors laying ,
at right angles. The entire frame ro
! tated about once each half hour, keep
ing the mirror axes approximately at
! right angles to the rays of the sun.
Each of the three mirrors focused
the sun's rays upon a glass tube, com
prising three tubes of glass, one inside
the other, with the inner tube contain
ing a black oil liquid which almost to
tally absorbed sun rays and withstood
a temperature of 640 degrees Fahren
heit, without boiling or decomposition.
Hermetically sealed, the inner tube
preserved a vacuum, hindering the
escape oi tne soiar neat tnus couectea. i
All three focus tubes were connected i
to a boiler and with steam raised to a
pressure exceeding 100 pounds to the
square inch, enough power was gen
erated to drive a small steam engine.
This, then, was the solar engine that
sent a conversation out upon the ether
waves from the Capital. The sun had
indeed been given voice.
As a result of this demonstration
letters began pouring in to Washing
ton from the far corners of the earth.
Men in the lands where the sun beat
hot and fiercely upon plowed fields,
men in desert spaces where only irri
gation could bring forth crops, men
far and wide interested in utilizing
the most miraculous agent in the uni
verse—the sun itself—wrote to inquire
Just how this solar engine could be
made to serve their own needs.
Most of the inquiries that came in
to Dr. Abbot were from agricultural
districts, since men who till the fields
are quick to realize that the forces
of nature, such as light and air, are
prodigal and free. If only the initial
cost of the contraption were the price
of its wonder, they wanted to know
about it. Another reason why agri
culturists showed especial interest is
that irrigation can be undertaken at
any convenient time, whereas electric
power cannot wait upon shifting
clouds or the whim of the weather
man, while people remain in dark
ness. Power that can be utilized to
lrigate the fields can be turned to ac
count whenever old Sol decides to
shine.
Prom Hawaii and Jamaica came re
quests with regard in irrigation by
means of solar engines; from Mexico,
Peru. Chile, Italy, Spam. North
Africa. Greece and India letters came
flooding in. Some wanted to know
how they could use solar power for
charging storage batteries; others for
cooking their meals; still others for
heating water or warming their
homes. And Dr. Abbot was able to
reply that actual experiments had
been conducted with a great measure
of success along each of these lines.
There was, for example, this matter
of cooking by the heat of the sun. In
connection with Smithsonian expedi
tions to Mount Wilson, California, *
solar cooker has been employed,
which not only served ail purposes
of daily cooking, but could be utilized
at night as well.
"We cooked all our meals by means
of the sun's rays." Dr. Abbot ex
plained, "and the contrivance was
such that enough heat was stored up
so that we could cook continuously
night and day for weeks at a time.’*
About 50 years ago a solar device
was used in India for cooking pur
poses. but this instrument had no
reservoir for storing the heat col
lected and thus could only operate
when the sun was snming. wnen
Dr. Abbot began his experiments in
Mount Wilson in 1916 he desired to
devise some menas of storing solar
heat in a suitable reservoir, at &
temperature that would permit all
cooking operations, such as stewing,
preserving, boiling and baking meats
and bread. He also wished to devise
an instrument that would permit use
after sundown.
This meant combining a solar heat
collector with a high-temperature
reservoir, into the back of which two
ovens were to be let. In the words of
Dr. Abbot. "It seemed best to con
centrate the solar rays upon a metal
tube communicating to a reservoir at
some distance above the collector. The
scheme is exactly that of a common
bath-w-ater heater, merely substituting
concentrated sun rays for a fire as the
source of heat.
"In this way the hot fluid, expand
ing. rises into the top of the reservoir,
while the cooler fluid at the bottom
flows downward to the heat source in
replacement. A continuous circulation
of hot fluid would thus maintain the
temperature of the reservoir. We
used engine-cylinder oil. as this fluid
can be heated to temperatures some
what above 200 degrees centigrade
without boiling, flashing or strongly
evaporating "
The cost, beyond the initial cost or
the contrivance and the negligible
cost of the oil is nothing at all for
operation. The same oil has been used
for 10 years in the Mount Wilson
solar cooker and will doubtless go
on being used for many years to come,
as the only demand made upon it is
that it circulate.
The problems in connection with
catching the sun’s rays and utilizing
them are interesting. Cylindrical mir
rors were used and these had to be
made to rotate from east toward the
west at the same rate as the earth’*
daily rotation from west to east, in
order for them to follow the sun.
These cylindrical mirrors were mount
ed upon an axis parallel to the earth'*
axis. The mirror had to be mad*
rather long from north to south, to
minimize the seasonal loss of sunlight.
The mirror was made then, 12 y2
feet long and 1'2 feet wride, and
mounted with its long dimension
parallel to an axis pointing to th*
North Star. It was framed on section*
of structural steel to make It rigid.
To make the mirror brightly reflecting
was another problem that faced Dr.
Abbot. At first he tried out strips of
tinfoil, a foot wide, with which h*
covered the steel with the aid of shel
lac. The result was very unsatisfac
tory.
“As the mirror warmed,” explained
Dr. Abbot, "the shellac evaporated
and puffed up the tinfoil, spoiling the
shape of the reflecting surface. We
pricked many of the blisters and
rolled the surface down, but, though
we used this at first, in 1916, the
shape of the mirror surface was not
satisfactory. Moreover the tinfoil tar
nished, losing its high reflecting power.
“This defect was cured when the
(Continued on Page B-l.)