BEGINS to look as if it.

EGINS to look as if it might become a

"Why don't you put some humor into your speeches?" Senator Sorghum, amusing character of the Washington "Star," was asked. "Humor has become a dangerous matter," answered Senator Sorghum. "Once you make an audience laugh, it'll refuse to consider your serious arguments and proceed to criticise you for not being funnier."

They are having so many conventions now in Chicago that they have reduced the matter to an exact science. A series of white ornamental pillars have been placed around the City Hall. At first they were surmounted with plaster-of-paris shields bearing the official insignia of the Eucharistic Congress. Now these shields have been replaced by new ones in honor of the Loyal Order of Moose. The Elks will get the next headline position, and every time a new convention arrives the City Hall will have the shields altered to suit.

The train came to a stop at a small town in Mississippi, and the kinky head of a gentleman of color protruded from the window. Seated with him was a brownskinned maiden. "Does a cullud person by the name of Jim Brown live heah?" he asked of the station master. "I've never heard of Jim Brown, and I've lived here for ten years." "Is yo' right sho' dey ain't no Jim Brown evah been aroun' heah?" "Absolutely sure." "Den," announced the arrival, reaching for his suit-case, "dis is whah his new son-in-law gits off."

Long-distance automobile busses are now becoming very common, but last week we saw for the first time a motor coach which travels between New York and Hartford and which has a section of the car set aside as a diner. In that portion of the car there are four small tables arranged like those in the railroad dining-car.

Little Boy Blue has blown his horn,
But the cattle have eaten all of the corn;
There's nothing left for the pigs to take,
Now Little Boy Blue is wide awake!

For conservation of time the habit of a certain Illinois Central train may be commended to after-dinner speakers-and others.

Pullman Passenger: "Porter, does this train stop long at Nortonville?"

Porter: "Naw, suh, Boss. We departs on arrival."

What you're not up on, you're usually down on.

An automobile is now owned for every seventy-fifth person in the world and for every sixth person in America. There are four cars to every five families in the United States. In a survey of fifty-nine countries made by the Bureau of Commerce it was found that between eighty and ninety per cent of the automobiles owned were of American manufacture.

From the London "Express:"

"This is ridiculous," said the infuriated producer. "Do you realize that in the last scene you actually laughed when you were supposed to be dying?"

"At my salary," answered the actor, not without dignity, "death is greeted with laughter and cheers."

The new dial system which the telephone. company has installed in New York City requires the subscriber to get his own numbers by means of moving the dial. A friend tells us that the only way he can get a number is by flashing the operator

and telling her that broken, that he has

he is blind, and win St voth his arms are

Vitus's dance, that throw himself out of

the window if she refuses help.

An announcement in an Iowa paper: "Owing to the lack of space and the rush of editing this issue, several births and deaths will be postponed until next week."

The following interesting excerpt from a letter of Judge Charles Almy, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Frances Almy, of Buffalo, contains a test for your sharpness of vision.

"Scrutinize carefully the following sentence, and state how many F's (either large or small) it contains:

""The Federal national fuses are the result of scientific study combined with the experience of years.'

"Out of twenty people of intelligence not more than two will get it right the first time, and a large proportion will not find more than three after being told there are more. Professor Walker, of M. I. T., submitted it to seventeen trained scientists used to looking for small things, and sixteen failed. My secretary, immediately

after typing it, found only three. Stanley Cobb [Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School], who fell, was much interested in it and its bearing on mental matters and intelligence tests. I showed it to a man trained in reading proof, who could find only four. It's not a fool stunt, but very interesting as showing how little we see of what we look at."

A joke taken from a current London musical show indicates the English opinion of our American divorce laws:

"I say, I understand that she was married three times."

"Yes, indeed, she was married three times; twice in America and once in earnest."

Can it be that the luscious Frankfurter flourished in good Queen Bess's day? A correspondent has discovered in Edmund Spenser's "Mother Hubbard's Tale" the phrase, "Hot Syrian dogs," and in an adjoining line, "Chafed Lyons," referring perhaps, to the celebrated "saucisson" manufactured in that town.

Newsboy: "Buy a paper, mister, only two cents?"

Man: "Have there been any robberies?" Boy: "No."

Man: "Any lynchings?"

Boy: "No."

Man: "Has anybody died?"

Boy: "No."

Man: "Have there been any divorce scandals?"

Boy: "No."

Man: "You ought to be arrested for selling stuff like that. Think what I might have bought!"

As Henry IV of France entered a small French town, the usual salute was not forthcoming. The Mayor, of this town offered his apology in these terms: "Sire, we did not fire a gun for three reasons. The first is that we have no gun-"

"A father," says the "New Yorker," "had two sons; one went to sea and the other became a vice-president of a bank. Neither have been heard of since."

STAMMERING

If the stammerer can talk with ease when alone, and most of them can, but stammers in the presence of others, it must be that in the presence of others he does something that interferes; and if we know what it is that interferes, and the stammerer be taught how to avoid that, it cannot but be that he is getting rid of the thing that makes him stammer. That's the philosophy of our method of cure. Let us tell you about it.

SCHOOL FOR STAMMERERS, Tyler, Texas

SUMMER SCHOOL

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Tots, 1-12 Special summer accommodations. Good food, happy home atmosphere, sound training, Experienced physician and nurse. (Phone Peekskill 1139.)

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Volume 143

Can the Congressional Tub Stand on Its Own Bottom ?

W

HEN, on the eve of leaving HEN, on the eve of leaving Washington for his summer vacation in the Adirondacks, President Coolidge commended Congress for its work during the recent session, he added some comments which mark a departure from traditions, perhaps from the practices of politics as we have known them in this country for several generations. The President commended, it seemed, with caution and he did not "point with pride" at least not with party pride to anything. He made it clear that, in his opinion, Representatives and Senators, and not the Administration, are responsible for what Congress did. He did not "view with alarm" the activities of the other party. He candidly said that the Democrats in Congress are entitled to a share of credit for what was done.

The White House spokesman method of communication to the public is not, in all respects, satisfactory. It leaves too much to inference, not alone as to what the President means but as to what he

actually says. There is no record of what was said at this particular press conference, except in the memories of the correspondents who were present, and each correspondent has put his own interpretation upon it. Richard V. Oulahan, of the New York "Times," phrased his interpretation in such way that Mark Sullivan regarded it as worth copying. Perhaps the agreement of these two men as to what the President meant is as near an approach as can be made, in the absence of a record, to what he said. He meant, these men say, that. "Senators and Representatives in seeking re-election must take responsibility for what Congress has done or failed to do." If he meant that, he also meant that they must not take credit, even though they are Republicans, for what the Republican Administration has done, and that the Administration will not take either

credit or blame for what Congress has -done.

Can it be that he means there is to be no party appeal to the country on the basis of the party record? If so, there

July 21, 1926

is something new under the elephantine emblem. Heretofore in our political thing good for itself and blamed everyhistory each party has claimed everything bad on the other.

It is true, as The Outlook has been pointing out since January, that no strictly party record was made during the recent session of Congress. Congress enacted somewhat more than half of the

Wide World

General Lincoln C. Andrews, head of the

Federal prohibition forces

important measures that President Coolidge asked for, and it did not pass any bill that he openly opposed. But hardly more than half of the Republican vote was cast as the President wished it cast, and something like half of the Democratic vote was usually cast on the President's side.

It remains to be seen, as the Congressional campaign develops, whether or not the Executive record and the legislative record can be kept separate. But the attempt to do it, whether it succeeds or not, is decidedly an interesting novelty in our politics. Reflecting Wet Sentiment THE

HE wets in the lower house of Congress, they who have shone so brilliantly throughout this session reflecting the preponderant wet sentiment of the

Number 12

country, undertook one afternoon to recommit the Deficiency Appropriation Bill to committee with instructions to strike out the supplemental appropriation of $2,686,760 for the Prohibition. Unit. They did not expect to be able to recommit the bill. They did expect to be able to make a lot of noise resembling the rumblings of a ground swell of public sentiment against the appropriation of extra sums of money for prohibition enforcement. It was to be the final demonstration of the session of the formidable proportions of the wet strength. It

was.

Unfortunately for the showing which the wets expected to make, the thing went to a record vote. It all happened so suddenly. The sensation must have been, to the wets, similar to that which follows sliding on a banana peel or step-ping in front of a swift-moving automo⚫bile.

The wets mustered thirty-three votes out of more than two hundred votes cast. Thirteen of them came from New York. Four came from New Jersey, and included that of the woman Representative. Four came from Maryland, one from Pennsylvania, two from Illinois, two from Ohio, four from Wisconsin, two from Massachusetts, and one from Michigan. Not one vote could be mustered from west of the Mississippi River, and not one from south of the Potomac and the Ohio.

After all of the ostentation of reflection that they have made throughout the session, it would be unkind to tell those men-and that woman- -now that they do not reflect the sentiment of the country.

Andrews Organizes a New Army W HILE General Lincoln C. Andrews, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in charge of prohibition enforcement, is in Europe to negotiate anti-smuggling agreements with Governments there, the work of enlarging and strengthening the enforcement machinery goes on at home. An appropriation of $29,000,000, made in the closing days of the recent session of Congress, will put an enforcement army of 4,000 men in the field.

Part of the new men will be organized

into mobile squads of eighty-one men each to prevent the diversion of industrial alcohol into bootleg channels and to keep the alcoholic content of beer within the prescribed limit. Others will be used in the supervision of drug-store permits in the principal cities. Of these, 100 will be on duty in New York City, 25 in Buffalo, 75 in Philadelphia, 15 in Pittsburgh, 50 in Chicago, and smaller numbers in other cities; 235 of the new men will go on duty in the border patrol, 318 as inspectors, 51 as "under cover" men, 62 for revenue tax assessment duty, and 28 as smuggling investigators. From the collection of taxes from bootleggers and other violators General Andrews expects to turn back into the Treasury a sum equal to at least one-third of the $29,000,000 appropriation.

If General Andrews is to retire early in the fall, as has been persistently rumored and practically confirmed by his own statement, he will leave to his successor a strong army of enforcement officials. Congress gave him no new enforcement legislation, but it gave him money with which to apply the old. It is to be hoped that every possible safeguard will be thrown about the selection. of these new men to secure honesty and efficiency, and that Congress will at the next session pass the bill to provide for placing the entire enforcement personnel under Civil Service regulations.

Selling Our Ships

THE

HE Shipping Board has put out what it frankly calls a feeler in inviting bids to take over the fleet, now operated under its management. Though fine vessels, well managed in every respect as any ships on the seven seas, they do not pay. American shipping laws are drastic when compared with those of other nations, and in the competition the results are unfavorable. That is the chief explanation. Yet Robert Dollar is able to do business on the Pacific and in round-the-world voyages, while the Munson Lines to South America prosper. Our disadvantages seem to apply to the Atlantic lane.

nates are more conscious of danger than support. There can be no enterprise and but little energy under such circumstances. Successful shipping requires a large share of both. It ought to be possible for American capital to buy and

Keystone

Brigadier-General Albert C. Dalton, new head of the Shipping Board sustain an American fleet. The truth is this land has lost its taste for the sea.

Texas Bars Evolution; Let Us Be Calm

THE

HE State of Texas has barred the teaching of evolution from its public schools, not by act of the Legislature, but by a ruling of the State Text-Book Commission. Publishers of books adopted for use in Texas schools have been required to revise the texts, in some cases to delete whole chapters, and generally to make drastic changes in most of the scientific text-books.

These appear from newspaper reports to be the facts. They may possibly appear somewhat differently after the Texas authorities have had their say. No matter what the details may be, however, there can be little room for doubt that Texas has undertaken to limit the

teaching of the theory of evolution. Undoubtedly, there will be raised against this action a cry similar to that which was raised against the so-called antievolution law in Tennessee. There can hardly be, however, a repetition of the hardly be, however, a repetition of the Scopes case, since the greatest punish

teacher for violating a ruling of the Commission would be the loss of his position.

Perhaps we may have become sufficiently sobered, too, by a proceeding which was both tragic and futile to realize that we are in danger of taking too seriously what may look like an unwarranted limitation of the freedom of teaching. We may have learned, in a certain measure, the fact that those who look on from a greater distance see less cause for alarm than do our own devotees of the theory of evolution.

Sir Oliver Lodge, in a book recently published treating of evolution and religion from the standpoint of science, said this of the reason for the Tennessee law: Crudities were not confined to one side of the controversy. Old doctrines of creation were crude; new doctrines of evolution were equally crude; and either side could have their teeth set on edge by the other. Young and enthusiastic teachers, perceiving only one side of the problem, could rush into extremes; could not only uphold their own view, but could pour scorn upon the other. And since the sectarian differences between religious bodies had led to the suppression of what may be called Biblical teaching in State schools, as the only alternative to strife and sectarian controversy -since the freedom of the orthodox was limited and they were prevented from teaching the young their own special and detailed creeds-it had be come obnoxious to allow perfect freedom to the opposition side, who took no interest in sectarian controversy but would gladly sweep away the whole of the doctrine associated in the popular mind with the mysteries of religion. Since sectarian differences had limited freedom on the one side, it seemed right to limit freedom on the other, too. And that, I take it, is the explanation of what otherwise seems an irrational and foolish procedure.

The distant view may not always be the best view, but the fact that a British scientist so distinguished as Sir Oliver does take this view should cause some of our own people to think twice before unleashing their zeal in defense of a science that is amply able to take care of itself.

That Murder Case Again
ONE of the strangest phenomena re-

lating to criminal prosecutions is the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, tried and convicted of murder over five years ago. As we pointed out quite recently, about a dozen acts of violence or demonstrations of anger have occurred in cities in Europe and South America because of this conviction. These two men, although radical agitators themselves, were not accused of any act connected