Kirby in the New York World
A NERVOUS OLD GENTLEMAN

gain recognizing modern specialization, he would work out a plan for stabilizing conditions. He emphasized two points. One was his proposal of a Federal Farm Board with both power and money-not a mere fact-finding body but one clearly administrative. In connection with this he firmly opposed any proposal "to subsidize the prices of farm products and pay the losses thereon either by the Federal Treasury or by a tax or fee on the farmer." The object of the Farm Board would be to promote a marketing organization formed and directed by the farmers themselves. The other point he emphasized was

No Need to Exaggerate

"I WILL bet no explorer will ever find a bigger one," said Roy Chapman Andrews, the fossil hunter, on arriving in Peking a short time ago from Mongolia with some of the bones of a colossal extinct mammal found by the expedition of the American Museum of Natural History. He nicknamed the animal "Woolworth," and newspaper reporters were not slow to describe it in terms of the 792 foot height of the famous Woolworth tower in New York. No such leviathan has, of course, been found or ever existed.

The mammal had a height of about 25 feet, which is somewhat greater than that of the largest land mammal previously known, the giant 20 foot rhinoceros called Baluchitherium (fossils first found in Baluchistan) and a distant relative of the one just found; but not as great as one mammal which still exists, the whale; nor as great as several of the dinosaurs (reptiles) all of which became extinct something like 90,000,000 years ago twice as far back as the days of the newly found colossus.

Today there are ten main groups of mammals. During the heyday of the "Age of Mammals," 35,000,000 years Part ago, there were several more. of these were what paleontologists call the "archaic" mammals. a promise (like that They were already made by Governor Smith) to poorly evolved, meagrely equipped with ask the advice of Governor Lowden and brains and they succumbed in the struggle for existence. The new find other "outstanding farmers." belongs to this archaic group and looked like a monster elephant's body with a long neck and a hornless rhino's head.

He explained at some length the need for reducing the cost of transporting farm products to market and of goods the farmer uses to the farm. At present, he said, because of increased freight rates, "it is as if a row of toll gates had been placed around this whole section of our country."

To reduce this cost which now the farmer bears he would modernize our water ways the Mississippi to the Gulf and the St. Lawrence to the sea (or if Canada will not cooperate, some alternative route).

The pioneer stage, he said, had not passed. "We have to pioneer through economic problems, through scientific development and invention" on to new frontiers as our fathers did to theirs. The object must be the farmer's independence and individuality and "the comfort and welfare of the American family."

Any animal actually the size of the Woolworth Building would at once settle down into jelly of its own weight. This is no idle statement; among biologists there is a well-understood and clearly, almost mathematically, defined reason for it. All animals have three dimensions. Their weight therefore increases as the third power of any one dimension; of height, for example. But their bones, muscles and tendons, which support that weight and move it, do not increase accordingly in strength; they strengthen only as the second power of a given dimension, for a longer muscle is no stronger than a short one, though it be ever so much thicker and wider. Incidentally, this explains why big men are not proportionately stronger than small men. But Roy Chapman Andrews never said the

new monster was actually over 25 feet high, which is quite large enough. Twenty tons!

Direction by the Clock

Most of us have played at some time or other in the comedy of errors otherwise known as 'asking the way'. The rural citizens of Oneida County, New York, propose to substitute for this haphazard method what is known as the clock system.

It provides each country dweller with an addres which gives direction, distance and specific location-all at a glance.

From a given center, such as a town, twelve lines are radiated as from the center of a clock to twelve numbers on the dial. Concentric circles are added, one mile apart. The number twelve then represents north, Six the south, three the east and nine the west.

This is the ground work. The complete address is the code of three numbers and a letter, thus: 4-6-A-19. The first number indicates that the desired farm house is southeast, the second that it is six miles from the center, the letter that it is on the main road, and the last number that it is the nineteenth house on that road.

Admirers of efficiency will applaud. Others will continue to find something charming in the casual inquiry along the road.

Ultra-Violet Rays

MANUFACTURERS who sell special glass for transmitting vital ultra-violet rays have received an unexpected blow from recent experimental research performed by Dr. Janet H. Clark of Johns Hopkins University and communicated to science in "Science."

There is no question whatever among physicists that several kinds of available glass transmit vital rays (if they are present in the source) when one remains close behind them in the sunlight; but a considerable number of banks, schools and business houses have installed this glass in the hope that it would benefit their employees and make them more efficient when working in large rooms, in which they do not receive direct sunlight but only indirect illumination. Dr. Clark has shown that those who sit actually in the sunshine that passes through good varieties of ultra-violet transmission glass may be expected to receive through them from 30 to 50 or 60 per cent of the vital range of ultra violet wave lengths of light; while those who move out of this direct sunlight and those who occupy all other positions of rooms illuminated by north light would require twenty full hours to obtain as much of the vital radiation as two minutes exposure out doors in sunlight at noon would give in similar circumstances. She points out that stenographers get more radiation by going out to lunch, and school children get more by going out to recess, than they could get during a whole day in a room equipped with ultra-violet transmission glass if they did not sit in the direct sunlight.

New, Old or Copied?

DISPATCHES from Berlin tell of a socalled "vest-pocket radio apparatus" invented by Professor Esau of Jena which produces certain striking effects upon living organisms brought near it. The waves from it kill mice, rats and rabbits and, it is alleged, they heal injuries if used properly.

What, then, are we to suppose the German professor has hit upon? Is it another "death ray"; has it any connection with the cathode rays which Dr. Coolidge of the General Electric Company's Research Laboratories, not long ago, found how to bring outside of the tube in which they originate, and which kill small animals; or has it some connection with the short-wave radio

apparatus described in The Outlook in June, whose effect was accidentally discovered when scientists who had attempted to use it found themselves presented with mysterious forces? Of the three suggestions we suspect the last named. The dispatch refers to waves less than three meters in length.

If this is the same thing or a similar thing to the one already known, it illustrates the fact that our newspapers publish quite a number of accounts of "discoveries" made in other lands which are often merely echoes of actual discoveries made here and tried out there on receipt of technical periodicals describing them; and, we must confess, the reverse is doubtless often true. Often, however, these things are independent discoveries. Finally the phe

Underwood

nomena dealt with above have many points in common with what the physician calls "diathering," which is anything but new.

Druids, Ancient and Modern

MIDSUMMER Eve in England has for time immemorial been associated with fairies and pagan rites, as all remember who know their Shakespeare, Hardy and Kipling. This year, as usual, many people went to Stonehenge to see the sun rise on Midsummer Day over the ancient altar-shrine of the Druids.

The sightseers had a novel treat: they saw a mystic company in white robes and scarlet hoods pour out libations, sing weird chants, and invoke the rising sun.

They might have been ghosts of the past. In fact they were members of the Berashitch Lodge of Druids who, the account states, for the first time in many years were allowed to perform their rites within what they consider their own sacred temple.

These claimants to a mystic affiliation with antiquity cannot very well have an actual descent from their namesakes, for their association dates only from 1781-a very respectable age but a mere infancy compared with that of the Druids whom Caesar found in Gaul and whose actual origin is lost in all but prehistoric times. Still the modern Druids have certainly chosen a model for their association that offers glowing suggestions for ritual and ceremony.

New. Animals in old Asia

AMONG the new finds described in cabled accounts of the summer's discoveries of fossils in Mongolia by Roy Chapman Andrews and the other members of the expedition of the American Museum of Natural History which he has been leading, is a "mysterious ancient mastodon of unknown family" having two teeth shaped like flat spades, each fourteen inches long and half as wide. These teeth were used by the animal as scoops. The jaw itself was described as six feet long. This animal would seem to bear affinity with one of the ten known races of mastadonts as classified by Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, noted authority on the evolution of the proboscideans.

About the middle of the Age of Mammals there was a race of mastadonts which were equipped with long and slender jaws of great length-long enough in fact to permit the animal to root in the earth without effort by means of the teeth at their extremity. Dr. Osborn believes they spaded up plants with these "trowels." These longjawed creatures have been "found fossil," as the paleontologists put it, not only in India and China but in Dakota and Nebraska in rocks seven to twenty million years old, while a smaller animal thought to be ancestral to them lived in Egypt ten million years before that.

All the elephant-like animals doubtless originated in Northern Africa, but they spread far and wide. The new find doubtless represents a way house along the course of this earth encircling spread from Europe to New England

Wide World

COL. ARTHUR GOEBEL Descending from the Plane in which he Made a New Coast to Coast Record

which accompanied the many million years evolution of this interesting group of mammals. Of the original ten races only two are alive today-the true elephants of India and the loxodonts of Africa, commonly called elephants.

Last Words

"FROM NOW on I shall refuse to be drawn into any further discussion of these matters" concluded Governor Smith in making formal answer to the saloon-gambling-prostitution charges alternately offered and retracted by William Allen White. The subject is closed, the Democratic candidate makes clear, and will not be reopened for Mr. White, the Rev. John Roach Straton or anyone else.

The Governor's answer to Mr. White was lengthy and detailed and was based upon personal examination of legislative records long since covered with dust. His examination disclosed, he said, that Mr. White had not brought out the real purpose of some of the socalled liquor and gambling bills and had mentioned many which were duplicates of others.

of this bill. It demonstrated, he said, the extreme wetness of the Presidential candidate. In his answer, Governor Smith explained, that the bill applied only to the Hotel Gotham in New York. Under a court decision the hotel was actually serving liquor through the device of renting a house outside of the 200 foot limit. Thus bell-boys, "with cocktail shakers and wine baskets in their hands" constantly walked through the streets.

"I chose to end this hypocrisy," Governor Smith stated in admitting that he had voted for the measure.

The Governor of New York was a "wet" during his legislative days. So, too, were most of the Republican legislators from the city districts. His reply to White demonstrated, by citing the vote, that the G. O. P. delegations had favored, in most cases, the very bills held up as horrible examples by the Kansas editor.

Most emphatically of all did Governor Smith refute the charge (made, retracted and then made again) that he had upheld prostitution. This, apparently, is founded upon one measure; of the 1910 session. It referred to the renting of rooms in hotels and changed in no way, the Governor declared, the provisions of the Penal Law. Moreover, its constitutionality was in grave doubt and the great majority of the Assembly, Republicans as well as Democrats, voted against it.

Triumph and Tragedy

ACROSS the continent from the Pacific to the Atlantic, 2700 miles, without a stop, in nineteen hours, is surely one of the most remarkable of American airflights. By it Art Goebel, who won the Dole air-race from California to Honolulu, and his companion, Harry Tucker, accomplished something never done before, and did it in marvellous time. Previously the non-stop voyage had been made from east to west, but in almost egiht hours longer time. Thus Goebel cut the record by about a third. The feat is more extraordinary in that Tucker is described as a "San Francisco sportsman" so that Goebel seems to have had most of the work and all the responsibility. From Oakland to New York in two-thirds of a daythat is a long ways ahead of the covered wagon!

The same week of aviation recorded The new tragedy and mystery. Hassell-Cramer projected flight from

a

Rockford, Illinois, to Stockholm, Sweden, made its first stage (to Cechrane, Ontario) easily; thence the route lay for 1,200 miles to Cape Chidley on the Labrador coast, from there to Iceland, and thence to Stockholm- -a reasonable and practical plan. But their plane, the Greater Rockford, never reached Cape Chidley, and hope for the survival of the airmen is practically abandoned.

One cruel feature of this disaster was the sending by some one of "fake" radio messages purporting to be from the Greater Rockford. A more vicious or contemptible act

it is announced, $1,500,000. Tickets have been offered at regular prices, with a money back guarantee. They have been offered free. For a time a weekly prize of $500 was offered for the best letter about the 'message' of the play.

All to no great purpose. The theatre-going public continued to pay scalpers' prices for shows depicting life among the gunmen and the bootleggers. Yet "The Ladder' has achieved a kind of distinction. It will be remembered as 'Abie's Irish Rose' is a curiosity of the theatre. And along Broadway Mr. Davis will be long and affectionately remembered as a perfect angel.

A Perfect Angel

A large, expensive newspaper advertisement signed by Edgar B. Daviswho ought to know-brings definite word of a Broadway closing.

"Theatre owners, players, staffs and the public have had everything to gain from our endeavor to widen the scope of the theatre; but a play, like any other business, should pay its own way in order to avoid becoming a parasite on the economic body," says Mr. Davis writing from Warsaw, Poland. "And while I believe we have a powerful play, as fundamental in its philosophy as the plays of the ancient Greeks and with adequate entertainment value, yet if "The Ladder' in substantially its present form at the Cort Theatre, does not give evidence of being self-sustaining by about November first it will be withdrawn."

A prediction, unqualified: "The Ladder' will be withdrawn about November first.

If the law of cause and effect had been permitted normal operation, hardly a playgoer now alive would remember this opus. By the box office test--no mean test of dramaturgic vitality-it was a 'flop' and should have quickly disappeared, leaving hardly a sign that it had ever appeared.

The play opened Oct. 22, 1926. Since that day it has played continuously, barring a few weeks out for alterations. This almost entirely through the faith of Mr. Davis, a big oil well man. His belief in the dramatic possibilities of reincarnation and a great plan of life' has cost him,

as

issuing subpoenas for the night club guests. About 100 of them, many being ladies and gentlemen of wealth and social position, were forced to journey down to the Federal Building there to tell what they knew about the liquor trade. Few, of course, could tell anything, for anyone who buys liquor at a night club is astonishingly ignorant of the source of supply.

The whole matter, however, brought flaring headlines in the newspapers and when the wealthy patrons appeared to be questioned their privacy was further invaded by newspaper persons and photographers. It was most annoying. United States Attorney Tuttle, nominally the officer who would do the questioning, let it be known that Washington, meaning Mrs. Willebrandt, was responsible. He had not directed and did not approve such methods.

It was all very mysterious and for a time it looked serious. But suddenly the special agents have gone back to Washington and it appears that, again, the fervor of enforcement was but a flurry. Perhaps the explanation rests in the fact that Mr. Tuttle would like the Republican nomination for Governor of New York and is aware that it is dangerous, under the circumstances, to be too dry.

I

Governor Smith and the Issues

N dealing with Governor Smith's speech of acceptance, it will hardly be necessary, we believe, to repeat what was said about Mr. Hoover's address; that is, that the voter should read it himself and make his own decision. Such has been the impact of Smith's personality on the country, that we shall have to go back to President Wilson's war message of April, 1917, to find a state paper receiving such careful scrutiny.

Those who have watched Governor Smith at fairly close range will have noticed an increasing tendency to look upon himself as chairman of the board, his cabinet as directors, and the people as stockholders in the corporation of the State of New York. His messages, as a consequence, have dealt more and more with facts and positive statements, simply and forcefully presented, stripped of generalities and platitudes; of what he himself would call "boloney." There is some "boloney" in this first address but in the main it is characteristic-direct, clear, business-like. He is a man of affairs and he does not waste time on truisms. The first paragraphs to be examined, no doubt, will be those which deal with that vexed question which is an issue largely by reason of his nomination and his frank espousal of a personal belief. His remedy for the muddle of prohibition is the good Democratic doctrine of local laws for local needs. He promises enforcement of existing legislation, but he also promises to work for its modification of the Volstead Act. This was to be expected. A new proposal is an amendment to the 18th Amendment which would allow each state, after a referendum, to make and sell liquor according to the Canadian system. This is academic but it will stand discussion; assuming that the miracle can happen, do we want more legislative features in the Constitution?

"When I stated that the saloon 'is and ought to be a defunct institution in this country' I meant it," says Governor Smith. "I mean it today. I will never advocate nor approve any law which directly or indirectly permits the return of the saloon." This just about makes it unanimous.

Here at last is a real basis of discussion. Prohibition is

no longer sacrosanct. It may be discussed, as it will be discussed, without fear of the label of 'traitor' and 'immoralist.' For this service Governor Smith deserves the thanks of the country.

Like Mr. Hoover, Governor Smith refers the final solution of the farm problem to a future board or commission of experts. Like Mr. Hoover, he contributes a graphic phrase.

Said Mr. Hoover, rejecting the remedy of mass production: 'Farming is not an industry; it is a state of living.' "If the buying power of agriculture is impaired, the farmer makes fewer trips to Main Street," says Governor Smith, expressing the belief that the farm problem is in a very real a manufacturer's, a wholesaler's and retailer's problem, as well. Epigrams cannot pay mortgages; they do, however, show an imaginative grasp of a complicated and far-reaching situation.

sense

a

There is one point at which the candidates differ. Mr.

Hoover would create a permanent farm board financed with several hundred million dollars from the Federal Treasury, to build farmer-owned and farmer-controlled stabilization corporations for protection against gluts and surpluses. Governor Smith accepts the principle of distributing the cost of each crop surplus over the marketed unit of the crop benefited.

Otherwise, a comparison of the farm promises of the candidates leads to an identical summary: Neither knows the answer; but each has a genuine interest and an imaginative grasp of fundamentals. Whoever is elected, there will be an end of Mr. Coolidge's do-nothing policy.

Water power is another story. Here Governor Smith far outstrips Mr. Hoover, the engineer, both as analyst and in his attack upon this third paramount task of the next President of the United States. Mr. Hoover is aware of the engineering possibilities, of the interlocking aspect of water power, flood control, irrigation and transportation, and their relation to the citizen as traveler, householder, consumer, producer, and shipper. Here and elsewhere, Mr. Hoover stressed a good many platitudes. Of the real nub he took no notice in his important first appeal to the country. Governor Smith takes for granted the platitudes and goes straight to the heart of the question-power control.

"The government-federal, state or the authority representing joint states--must control the switch that turns on or off the power so greedily sought by certain private groups, without the least regard for the public good."

Governor Smith is, perhaps, at his best here, dealing as he does with a principle of government peculiarly his own— not government operation of public utilities but government control of the source of operating power. The advantage on this issue is clearly with the Democratic candidate.

The tariff statement, like the appointment of Mr. Raskob as national chairman, is shrewdly calculated to soothe big business.

"The Democratic Party does not and under my leadership will not advocate any sudden or drastic revolution in our economic system which would cause business upheaval and popular distress," says Governor Smith. "This principle was recognized as far back as the passage of the Underwood Tariff Bill. Our platform restates it in unmistakable language."

This

So much for the moment. The Outlook proposes, as promised, to continue discussion of the chief issues, the pledges and promises of the candidates, and of their statements of foreign policy, preparedness, immigration, and other important secondary matters. may be said, in conclusion, of the Democratic candidate: His speech reveals a man equipped for the office he seeks. He is nationally minded. He has positive opinions, the courage to air them, and the ability to state them clearly. You can disagree with him, but you cannot misunderstand him.

The Editors