and the water flowing from it will be clear.

These proposed parks are the two most conspicuous areas in the East as to scenery, trees, and plant life.

It may be admitted that they are second to the West in rugged grandeur, but they are first in beauty of woods, in thrilling fairyland glens, and in the warmth of Mother Nature's welcome.

When Park roads enable you to motor to the highest points, which our Commission only reached on foot, when you can get an unobstructed view where we had to climb trees to see, you may argue that the vistas from these tops are finer than those of the West.

Dr. Work, being a physician as well as an administrator, thinks of these Parks in terms of outdoor health of Eastern America.

Our Commission, being composed of practical men, thinks with him also of the business, social, and political advantages of the mingling of the North with the South, of the West with the East.

Surely democracy can have no better school-room than a National Park where all meet as equals to learn and enjoy.

Can we get them? Ah! there's the rub. We can if the two classes most interested will do their share:

First, the class which will benefit financially by the tourist travel. Second, the class that travels, especially people of means.

The plan offered by Secretary Work and our Commission is for the two areas to be presented to Congress by the States in which they are located; for that purpose money is being solicited from the people of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Very soon the campaign will be extended to the rest of the United States.

So we are all interested either because we live in one of these National Park States or we are travelers planning to visit them.

If the Congress is confronted with a great free-will offering of these areas, it will undoubtedly accept and develop them. No, it will not lead to the multiplication of Eastern National Parks. From Secretary Work down to the park rangers, there is no desire for quantity. The only call is to maintain the National Park quality. These two proposed parks are three hundred miles apart. They are each about sixty miles long by ten miles wide. They contain no towns, no railroads, no industries of importance. They look down on the surrounding valleys from a ridge elevation of 3,500 feet in Virginia and 4,500 feet in North Carolina and Tennessee. (These figures can both be increased in special places.) They have splendid glens, waterfalls, and rock formations. Their like will hardly be found elsewhere in the East. WILLIAM C. GREGG.

(C) Haynes, St. Paul

P

RESIDENT

CALVIN COOLIDGE in his recent address, in

which he strove to convey some consolation to the farmers of America, urged closer co-operation among them, the building of bigger barns, and the holding of crops for better markets. In short, he wished them to adopt the methods of the trusts and combines. Farmers and workmen being exempt from the operations of the anti-trust laws, there was no impropriety in the advice. Its weakness lies in the fact that it will not work, and that, if it did, great hardship would result to the consumers of the country.

Α'

By DON C. SEITZ

that forced by owners and miners upon the consumers of coal. Nothing more cruel could be devised than an agrarian monopoly. Were it possible to perfect such a thing, the results would be horrible. The usual farmer is not a man of much mercy. The only person who ever refused me a cup of water was a farmer.

Yet without him the world would starve. Synthetic food products are not refreshing. "The same thing" is never as good as the original. We need the farmer, therefore, much more than he needs us, but fail lamentably to appreciate the fact. Henry George fought land monopoly for fear it would become the greatest source of economic oppression. Fortunately, his imaginings have not come true, else we might have hungry hordes pillaging the farms, as has happened more than once in Europe, where the farmer does co-operate and

LL wealth comes from the soil or the sea. Part is derived from the reproductive powers of nature; part from looting the storehouses of the earth. The first is perpetual, the second destructive. We capitalize the mines and oil wells, but their end is zero. Not so the soil and sea. Therefore the farm does not require B

anything in the nature of a sinking fund or amortizing of profits to cover its exhaustion. In this respect the farmer is the most advantageously situated capitalist. He can feed himself, his family, and his stock, and be therefore invincible against economic disaster, to which other investors are exposed. Where the farmer fails is when he neglects this fundamental and strives, as the cotton, wheat, and corn growers do, to make one crop care for all his requirements. This brings him the need of money and all the incidental embarrassments, if prices are low and his necessities high-as they all too often are.

It is to remedy the situation of such as these that farm blocs foment in Congress and fracture the peace of parties. The one-crop men are the problem. That they should, and could, diversify goes without saying. To acquire prosperity, however, means the marketing of a surplus beyond the needs of the farm, whether the crops grown be one or many. The farmer needs a bank account, or feels the need of it, even if bins and cellar be full and the family fat. How can he get it?

Certainly not by the President's proposed method. Seven million five hundred thousand farmers and their families cannot combine to hold up the other two-thirds of the populace, who could be made the victims of extortion beyond

oppress.

UT our farmer has a just grievance that can and should be remedied. To do it requires co-operation, not on the part of the farmer, but of the community. This he seldom or never gets. I mean by this that, instead of asking the farmer to combine and hold up the community, the community should combine and uphold the farmer. It would require actuarial accomplishments far beyond my own to figure out the extent to which overhead is piled upon the products of the soil. There is enough wool in the fleece of the average sheep to make a suit of clothes. For this, at present prices, the sheep grower would receive $3.50. Yet the commonest suit the farmer buys would cost him $35, and the city man, to order, from $50 to $125. The rest is the in-between. This rides the sheep pretty hard.

Of course industrial factors cannot be fairly quoted in support of my suggestion as to co-operation, though there is a chance for improvement here. The big thing for community co-operation lies in handling the food supply. Not long ago handling the food supply. Not long ago I was shocked at the poor showing made in wealth-growing by my old town in Maine. The local bank cashier said that there was nothing strange about it. "I sent away from this town last year," he said, "$189,000 for stuff that could have been raised here."

He meant by this money expended for

grain, fruit, vegetables, meat, milk, and poultry products; or, briefly, the things required for daily food.

A

LL the co-operation in the world would have done the farmers of the town no good. It would probably have made their plight worse, and certainly have added immeasurably to their unpopularity. There are just about 189 farmers in the town. Supposing the community had co-operated and by a decent merchandising system distributed the $189,000 among the farmers of the town. What would have happened? For one thing, the vast friction of handling and financing would have been avoided and one hundred per cent of the money remained at home. Instead of skinning his wood lot to get ready money, the farmer would have it for his products, now miserably marketed, and, to a considerable extent, sent away at low prices. One thousand dollars per year per farmer, plus the living provided by the farm, would make him the most prosperous and contented of men.

This is true co-operation, the kind that should be studied and worked out. The affluent agriculturists of Berks, York, and Lancaster Counties in Pennsylvania are not rich because they are "Pennsylvania Dutch," but because the communities of Reading, York, Hanover, and Lancaster support the adjacent farms. The morning markets in Lancaster are something to behold. Here the choicest food products are offered at moderate prices. Pocketbooks and stomachs are alike distended. The community cooperates with the farmer to his great advantage and its own. What is done here could be done elsewhere.

But I do not urge that it be through street markets, but by the merchants. How easy it would be for these gentlemen, instead of roaring as Lions or whizzing as Rotarians, to get together and decide to treat the farmer decently, to give him real money instead of "store credit" for his products, if they only would, and how amazingly beneficial the results would be all around!

How easy it would be for such cooperators to get together and check up their requirements-how many pounds of meat; how much milk, butter, and cheese; how many bushels of wheat, corn, oats, potatoes, beans, peas, pears,

peaches; how many dozen eggs; how much poultry, the town requires, and apportion this by requisition among the

T

What

greater guerdon of prosperity could be given than such a process of co-operation? What finer form of civilized life is there than prosperous towns centered amid prosperous farms, linked up by good roads and motor transport? The social isolation of the farmer is gone. His economic isolation should follow. The task belongs to the community,

and not to the tiller of the soil. It will in the end be the greatest gainer, but he in turn will have a just reward. Let us away with the quack remedies of tariffs, legislation, farm banks, and other forms of so-called aid that only perpetuate peonage. Let the Chambers of Commerce and Boards of Trade quit talking to the farmers through their hats. and do it through their pockets. Then, and then alone, can the soil be given its due and the community remain even more secure in its own.

NO her alarm, Switzerland saw recently how war could deprive her of coal.

Unfortunately, Switzerland has no coal mines. To get this commodity she has to pay every year immense sums to foreign countries, chiefly to Germany.

Henceforth so far as most of her railway fuel is concerned those sums will remain in Switzerland. The utilization of water power in hydraulic force, developing electrical energy, is replacing coal, and is thus a savings bank for Switzerland.

One of the latest enterprises of this sort is that of Barberine, east of Mont Blanc and just this side of the French frontier. Barberine lies above Châtelard, on the Martigny-Chamonix line.

The project was undertaken by the Electrical Division of the Swiss Federal Railways. It acquired the waters of the Barberine brook with a view to transforming them into electrical energy by creating a lake and by constructing hydroelectric centers to furnish power for railway transportation.

"Did politics have anything to do with

this?" asks perhaps some critic. The political power in Switzerland-that is to say, the Federal Assembly-discusses and pronounces upon the annual budgets of the Federal Railways. For the Barberine enterprise it was also necessary to obtain authorization, not only from the canton of Valais, but also from the Confederation itself. In such discussion and authorization politics may enter. Happily, no "concessions" were needed to gain political parties or politicians to the Barberine project. All recognized its necessity. Thanks to this, it has been and is a purely technical question, wholly within the domain of engineers.

The work of construction has lasted five years; it was completed in September.

I have been wanting to see it. So, in coming from Italy, I stopped here at Martigny. The good little Hotel Kluser now replaces the old Hotel Clerc, well known to generations of travelers going from Switzerland to Italy by the St. Bernard Pass or from Switzerland to France by the villages of Finhaut, Châtelard, and Chamonix.

This morning I rose at six, so as to be early on the way. I went north by the Rhône Valley to Vernayaz, where I turned east, passing the famous Trient

Gorge, and followed the smaller valley up to Châtelard a superb trip.

As I was too late for the inclined railway, I tackled the little path leading up to Barberine. As one ascends the first sight is of an immense generating powerhouse, a monumental construction, apparently built for eternity.

This plant, covering the Barberine hydraulic forces, is being connected and will be worked with that of Vernayaz. They can be relied on to furnish the chief energy for moving the trains on the now electrified Simplon route-namely, from Vallorbe, on the French frontier at the north, by way of Lausanne, through the Simplon Tunnel, the longest in Europe, on the Italian frontier at the south. This line is a European artery. It forms the shortest communication for England and northern France with Italy and the Balkans.

Later the Châtelard and Vernayaz power-houses are to be connected with the power stations in central Switzerland, at Amsteg in the Reuss Valley and at Ritom on the Gothard. This will suffice to feed the Swiss mileage to be electrified two-thirds of the total by 1929. The Swiss mileage, comprising

standard-gauge, narrow-gauge, and inclined-plane railways, Covers nearly 3,800 miles. About half the whole is represented by the Swiss Federal Railways.

The farther I ascended, the more beautiful were the views. After having gone a goodish distance, stopping every few paces to enjoy some new spectacle, I found myself on a small mountainside plateau, just large enough for a number of houses. As I was beginning to get hungry, I noted by a sign, to my great satisfaction, that one of the houses was an inn. Approaching nearer, however, I saw that the window-blinds were all shut; the little hotel was evidently closed to guests after the season of the warmer months. Fortunately for me, I investigated the other side of the house, and discovered the landlady in the cellar. I persuaded her to give me something to eat-bread, cheese, even eggs, to which she added a glass of Valais-she actually had some Montibeux! At that moment for me the repast became Lucullian!

I asked my hostess, "How much time will it take to go up from here to Barberine?"

"Well, from two to three hours if you

climb easily," she replied, and then added: "There will probably be room enough for you to stand on the open freight car coming down at the end of the afternoon."

I calculated rapidly, and made out that there would be just enough time in

this short day at the end of autumn for the ascent and for a brief visit. So, after half an hour for lunch, I resumed my walk.

The path now became rude and difficult; it was often built up and often hollowed in the rock.

Sometimes it came close to the inclined railway. That railway also had to keep a dizzy grade, reaching 86 per cent. That seems rather close to the vertical!

This transportation facility has made an enormous difference with conditions at the beginning of the work of construction. A first difficulty with that work was the lack of means of access. Transportation of material and food could only be accomplished from Finhaut over the Gueula Pass by mule or human back. Some twelve hundred tons were thus carried up before the inclined railway was built. This reminds one of the labors of the ancient Egyptians. They carried

From time to time a look over my shoulder made me appreciate the valley's depth. I could also appreciate the height I was gaining. I had long since reached the snow level. At first a fringe, the snow had become thick. Though I found it much less chill and wet than the snows of our great cities, my path had become more and more invisible. Finally, I could not make it out. The recent traces, seen occasionally, of chamois feet naturally indicated nothing.

To crown all, near Château d'Eau a snow hurricane reached me. At times, for an instant, the clouds cleared a bit and I caught glimpses of glaciers in the not too far distance, the sun actually shining on them! It was magnificent!

More time was thus needed than my hostess had foreseen to reach Château d'Eau, where the variations of waterpressure are deadened; the water comes from the Barberine Lake by a rock-cut gallery and passes into a forced conduit through a great pipe running down

And now I set forth for the dam, higher still. The dam is a titanic achievement. achievement. It is some 250 feet high, and in shape bends like a bow. At its top it is nearly 900 feet long, but only 10 feet wide; at its base it is 185 feet wide. Fifty thousand tons of cement were required for its masonry.

This colossal affair, closing the Barberine defile, has created an artificial lake extending over more than four hundred acres and with a capacity of almost forty million cubic meters.

Instead of spoiling the scenery, the lake is surely more picturesque than was the large stony and dreary bed of the brook, spreading itself in the defile and above the vegetation line. Around the lake stand some majestic summits of the Mont Blanc chain.

From this point to the Châtelard power-house the net fall of water is prodigious. Sixty thousand horse-power is developed at the Châtelard. The yearly quantity of energy from Châtelard and

Vernayaz will be, it is estimated, no less than two hundred and thirty million kilowatts-it should save at least 350,000 tons of coal a year. And coal comes high here!

All this power is intended for railway use. Any sale of power is not contemplated unless there should be an excess from all the power-houses together. The railways could even petition the Federal Council for authorization to export power abroad. This, however, I feel sure, they will not do.

Near the dam one sees some thirty buildings-forges, repair shops, administrative bureaus, a compressor station, a heating plant, a restaurant, dormitories, a foyer, an infirmary, a clothing and grocery store, etc.

The total cost of this latest electrification venture will reach well over sixteen million dollars.

In leaving its territory up on the heights I saw a freight car, laden, on the inclined railway, about ready to be sent down, and hastened to add myself to its load.