able measure, upon still another: What Congressional action will President Coolidge most loudly demand in his Message?

Those are the questions that Washington is asking over and over and laboring diligently to answer in the last little while before Congress convenes. Much depends, not for Senators and Representatives merely, but for newspaper correspondents and others, on getting the right answer.

That Non-Partisan Miracle

cord may be spilled when actual work begins and old memories are stirred, but Chairman Green, of the Ways and Means Committee, is sufficiently impressed with the genuineness of the accord to make the confident prediction that the Tax Bill will be passed by the House before the Christmas recess.

In the Senate the situation is less certain-not that there is any more violence of opinion between Democrats and Republicans over the Tax Bill there than in the House, but that the Senate has committed itself to prior consideration of

afterwards, unless pressure from taxpayers squeezes off some of the speeches. The Treasury, too, will be exerting some pressure because of its desire to have the Tax Bill finally passed not later than the early days of February, in order that necessary forms may be prepared with the minimum of expense. Even so, there is little likelihood that the Senate will be ready to take up the Tax Bill when the House finishes with it-if the House finishes when Chairman Green thinks it will.

To Fight or Not to Fight CHAIRMAN GREEN, like all political

prophets, runs the risk of repudiation by the event. If the Republican and Democratic accord is such as he believes it to be, there is still the rift between the regular Republicans and their insurgent brethren. These latter, while their voting strength is small, are long of wind and word and may greatly delay the play, not on the Tax Bill alone, but on many measures that would interfere with the Tax Bill. Efforts are making in regular circles to circumvent the insurgents if not to placate them.

A plan has been advanced and, with the approval of Speaker-elect Longworth, tentatively adopted of delaying organization of most of the House committees until the Tax Bill is disposed of. That, necessarily and obviously, would delay by the same length of time determination of whether or not those who voted for La Follette in the last Presidential election are to be kicked off the committees.

It is no secret that many of the regular Republicans, now that their anger has had time to cool and their interest to assert itself, are not nearly so keen about

and Means Committee and as it will

be reported to the House, is a non-partisan measure probably the only such tax measure ever drawn. Will it remain so? Some members of the Committee, while approving the bill as a whole, reserved the right to press for minor changes when the bill comes before the House. Garner and Hull, Democratic members, want to see some changes made. Two or three Republicans are even more insistent than they on some minor but important changes.

On the whole, however, the House is more nearly in a harmonious mood than it has been in recent years so near the beginning of a session. The milk of con

story.

At the extra session of the Senate in March the World Court debate was placed on the calendar for December 17, placed on the calendar for December 17, to continue without interruption until a vote is taken. That debate is much more likely to be long than short. Something less than a car-load of speech thing less than a car-load of speech manuscripts already exist. Practically all of the survivors of the old irreconcilable group and some others will demand to be heard at length, and an equal or greater number of advocates of adherence will want to speak at least as long. Whatever the outcome of the debate, it is not likely to be ended before the Christmas recess or for a long time

last spring. There is not going to be any square backdown from the caucus action, but there may be compromise. By delaying organization of the committees time will be given for observing the attitude of those who have been classed as insurgents. Some of them are thought to be anxious to get back on the reservation. With committee action postponed, they will probably go along with the majority in passing the Tax Bill and other important measures. Those who do will probably be rewarded by reassignment to their old places on committees and the way made easy for them to come back into the regular Republican household. If, on the other hand,

the committees were organized immediately after Congress assembles and the places of the insurgents filled with more regular Republicans, there would be little left for those who were dropped except to continue the old insurgent bloc against majority measures.

Hoover's Shipping Plan

A

PLAN for operation of Governmentowned ships was outlined by Secretary of Commerce Hoover before the Merchant Marine Conference, recently held with the co-operation of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. It is a plan that should meet some of the objections of the two opposing schools of thought. It gets away from "one man control," the objection that Frederick Thompson, former member of the Shipping Board, urges against the President's plan of operation under the direction of the President of the Emergency Fleet Corporation. On the other hand, it would eliminate the objectionable features of divided authority under Board operation that the President and others have pointed out.

Secretary Hoover would reduce the membership of the Shipping Board to three, and would shear away all of its powers except those of a semi-judicial, regulatory character. He would place operation duties on the President of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, whom he would have appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. He would create an Advisory Board to sit with the President of the Fleet Corporation on major questions of policy, such as inauguration or abandonment or sale of routes, sale of ships, and establishment of subsidiary corporations. On this Board would be representatives of the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, Navy, Commerce, and the Postmaster-General. The Chairman of the Shipping Board would sit with it. Mr. Hoover would create, too, a number of regional committees which would work with the Advisory Board on regional questions and generally on the big problem of transferring the ships to private operation. He would transfer to the Treasury Department the machinery for making construction loans, but would have the President of the Fleet Corporation and the Advisory Board pass on applications for loans.

There seems to be in this plan sufficient safeguards against the dangers

which Mr. Thompson thinks he sees in operation by the President of the Fleet Corporation. The chief of these supposed dangers is the "concentration of control in the North Atlantic seaboard," to the injury of the South Atlantic, the Gulf, and the Pacific coasts.

President Coolidge has made no public statement of his position since the rebellion of the Shipping Board against his authority. It is expected that he will deal with the question in his Message to Congress. It is not improbable that his plan is similar to, if not identical with, that outlined by Secretary Hoover.

Uncle Sam's Ships

A

DETAILED report on the operation of Government-owned ships has been made to President Coolidge by H. G. Dalton, whom the President drafted from private life to make a thorough study of the situation. On the main questions of policy and on the means of ending the warfare between the Shipping Board and the Emergency Fleet Corporation, Mr. Dalton's recommendations run parallel with those made a few days earlier by Secretary of Commerce Hoover. The only point at which there is difference-and that difference goes no further than a suggestion to the President of an alternative-has to do with the administrative authority of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, which, Hoover and Dalton agree, should have complete authority in operating ships. Mr. Dalton suggests that, if regional representation is desired, the President of the Fleet Corporation might be supplanted by a board of three men, one representing the Atlantic coast, one the Gulf coast, and one the Pacific coast.

He

ion which forbids railroads to own and operate ships in international trade. He would make consultation with the Department of Commerce obligatory upon the Emergency Fleet Corporation, holding that this Department is best fitted to determine the need of establishing trade routes or of abandoning old ones. finds that there are enough ships in the existing fleet to meet present and immediate future needs, but points out that replacements will in time be necessary and should be provided for. He favors the use of the Naval Reserve, so far as practicable, in the operation of Government-owned ships.

Tornadoes in Court

N

EITHER prosecution nor defense in the Mitchell court martial has thus far succeeded in proving anything conclusively and unequivocally. There has been endless testimony, but little proof. Colonel Mitchell, on the stand in his own defense, answered close to half the questions on cross-examination by saying that he did not know, and was forced to admit that his San Antonio statement was, in the main, his own opinion rather than a statement of facts. But the prosecution fared no better when, introducing testimony in rebuttal, it undertook to pulverize the Mitchell defense. The first material witness introducedGeneral Leroy Eltinge, senior umpire of the Army forces during the Hawaiian maneuvers-testified that some of Colonel Mitchell's criticisms of lack of cooperation between Army and Navy were justified.

But if witnesses have been careful not to say too much, lawyers have not. One storm is not over before another breaks. No trial so swept by waves of passion— perhaps none in which the Court was so powerless to still them-is on record in the civil courts of Washington. Representative Frank Reid, chief counsel for Mitchell, has been cyclonic from the beginning. So long as Colonel Moreland, trial judge-advocate, was in actual command of the prosecution, that side of the case was not violent. Indeed, it was decidedly flabby at times, and the General Staff found it expedient to send Major Gullion in as assistant judgeadvocate, but in active charge of the prosecution. He has been quite as cyclonic as Mr. Reid, but has lackedif a pitching term may be applied to a Mr. Dalton would change the provis- tornado-control. He has blown, but

not always where he meant to. The climax came when he insisted on making a statement of what he expected to prove on rebuttal, was restrained by the Court, and told by his superior, Colonel Moreland, that he was acting without authority and out of order.

This clash within the ranks of the prosecution followed closely upon a flareup between Representative Reid and a member of the court, General King. The General made to another member of the court some disparaging remarks concerning Reid's method of cross-examining a witness. Mr. Reid overheard the remarks, and angrily demanded their insertion in the record. General King later apologized, and Mr. Reid asked that the record be expunged, but the incident has added materially to the record of unrestrained passions, which cannot be expunged from the memory of the public.

Another incident which has left an unpleasant memory was the effort of the prosecution to prove Colonel Mitchell a plagiarist. Major Gullion read passages from Colonel Mitchell's book, "Winged Defense," and had Mitchell identify them as his own. He then undertook to read what he asserted were identical passages from material written before

Mitchell's book, but the law member of the court declined to permit him to do so, holding that the question of plagiarism had no place in the trial.

The purpose of the two sides remains the same that of the prosecution being to prove that Mitchell did not tell the truth in his various statements, and that of the defense that he did tell the truth. The prosecution has some fifty witnesses to refute what Mitchell's fifty said. And still the question is undetermined as to whether all this mass of testimony shall be considered as in the nature of a defense or merely in extenuation and mitigation.

Both Sides Are Wrong

agreement as to topics to be discussed, but upon their proposal that if negotiations fail after thirty days the dispute should go to an arbitration board. consisting of two miners, two operators, and three persons "in every sense impartial" to be named by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United State, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and the Presiding Judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the First District. Thus the objection of the miners to arbitration by a board of three might be met and the public be better represented.

On the other side, the miners, while willing to accept Governor Pinchot's "rough outline," as he called it, as a basis of negotiation, were unwilling to resume work during negotiation on the old wage scale.

It cannot be said that the prospect of hard coal for the consumer is growing brighter as the month of December begins. At the best, the time already lost will make it impossible to fill coal-bins while talk goes on. The use of substitutes is inevitable, and may in the end be beneficial. One writer says: "The public is winning this strike by burning soft coal and thus teaching both sides that they must be reasonable."

The main features of Governor Pinchot's proposals were: No advance in coal prices; a five-year agreement; a compromise on the miners' "check-off" demand, calling for the payment by the company of miners' union dues only when the individual miner has filed a request; arbitration on future wages after full investigation as to the industry's profits and of the question whether wages can be raised without raising prices, to be made by a Board of Award and Investigation in not over six months -two arbitrators to be chosen by miners and two by operators, three others to be chosen by these four.

On one point at least those whom Governor Pinchot describes as "the 40,000,000 whose habit is to warm themselves with anthracite" will heartily agree. That is when he says that "the strike is the direct cause of financial embarrassment, physical suffering, and the most exasperating inconvenience to millions of anthracite users." It is the public's turn to strike and institute a revolt and a walkout against anthracite. The example of St. Louis, which once used many times as many thousands of