three-mile limit, and holding employers in alcohol plants liable for offenses of employees. Two very sharp teeth the Committee left in the clause providing for a mandatory minimum fine of $500 upon conviction for selling liquor, and the one making redistillation an offense against the law.

But, though the teeth are forged, there is no indication that they are soon to be inserted in the sockets. The House leaders appear disposed to take no action on the Goff Bill at this session, holding it useless to devote time to a bill that has no chance of early passage in the Senate.

All of the wet bills have been reported unfavorably in the Senate.

The drys recently won a legislative victory, such as it was, in the vote of the House Judiciary Committee upholding the President's order concerning the employment of State officials in prohibition enforcement. The Committee, of course, has no authority to pass upon the valid ity of Executive acts. The vote-so close that the chairman constituted the margin came as an incident in arriving at a decision to report unfavorably the Britten resolution intended to prevent Federal authorities from calling State officials to their aid.

With the exception of this incidental approval of the President's effort to aid stricter enforcement, Congress has done nothing about prohibition. The talk about it, however, runs into more pages than Pepys's diary.

Brookhart's Teapot and an Iowa Tempest

F

OUR days after he won the Republican nomination for United States Senator from Iowa Colonel Smith W. Brookhart stirred up a hornets' nest by attending a meeting of the Iowa Federation of Labor and making a speech which some Iowa Republicans, at least, did not understand. One Republican leader declared for repudiation of a nominee who would take "such a Socialistic stand," and another declared that Brookhart "brazenly advocated the overthrow of the American system of government and the abrogation of the Constitution of the United States."

If Colonel Brookhart's speech has been fairly reported in the despatches, these Republican leaders have become unduly excited. The United States Constitution is in no new danger. All that Colonel Brookhart did was to commend

the Rochdale co-operative system as a method of organizing business. There is no indication that he wanted it forced by law upon the country. Since the Rochdale plan was to pay five per cent interest on invested capital before distributing the profits among the members of the co-operative society, Colonel Brookhart's advocacy of it was understood to mean that capital in the United States should not be permitted to earn more than five per cent. What he appears to have said was that "the Rochdale system never paid more than five per cent, and should not pay more."

There are indications that Colonel Brookhart did not himself very well understand what he was talking about, since he is quoted as saying that the Rochdale plan "is the most hopeful sign for agriculture that has gained prominence since the war." Presumably, he spoke of the World War. Yet the Rochdale plan gained a large part of such prominence as it has more than eighty years ago.

So far as it has succeeded it has been virtually confined to co-operative retail stores. It has made no impression upon the general business or manufacturing the general business or manufacturing system of Great Britain, where within its own limitations it has flourished. Colonel Brookhart's expectation that, if "given a chance" in the United States, it would "become the accepted manner of doing business within ten years" dooms him to disillusion.

Secretary Mellon Obliges

SEC

ECRETARY of the Treasury Mellon is an obliging man. Representative Haugen asked him to express his opinion of the Haugen Agricultural Relief Bill. Secretary Mellon promptly did so. His opinion is, in brief, that the principles upon which the bill is based are unsound and that the plan proposed would prove both unworkable and injurious to agriculture. Secretary Mellon's statement is a pretty thorough analysis of the Haugen Bill, but it is more than that. It is, or at least appears to be, the answer of the Coolidge Administration to the renewed demand, following the Brookhart victory in Iowa, for an agricultural subsidy. It is taken in Washington to mean that the Haugen or any similar bill would encounter the veto.

Secretary Mellon told Mr. Haugen that the bill, by its attempt to dispose of American surpluses abroad at reduced. prices with reimbursement of the loss

through an equalization fee, gives an advantage to foreign consumers which must be paid for from the Treasury of the United States and ultimately from the pockets of American consumers, and that such a plan can afford no permanent relief to American agriculture. He called the equalization fee by its proper name, a tax. He pointed out the almost insuperable difficulties in collecting such a tax. "The intricacies of the income tax and prohibition enforcement," he said, "appear simple by comparison." In order to collect the tax at all, he said, it would be necessary for the Government to employ "an enormous bureaucratic staff of lawyers, auditors, and inspectors." In the end, he concluded, the bill would defeat the very purpose which it seeks to accomplish by increasing rather than diminishing crop surpluses.

As much as this of Secretary Mellon's statement may be taken as displeasing to Mr. Haugen and his adherents. The rest of it may be equally displeasing to those who insist that the Government should not do anything. Secretary Mellon thinks that he sees the way out of some of the difficulties in reducing the price spread between producer and consumer "so that the farmer may receive a higher net price and yet the ultimate consumer may not have to pay more." He would extend the benefits of co-operative marketing to producers and consumers alike, and he thinks that it is along this line. "that the Government can be of most help to the farmer."

There are more difficulties here than Secretary Mellon found time to deal with in his statement. The Mellon suggestion is no more a panacea than the others, but it indicates a realization of the fact, pointed out in our editorial at another place in this issue, that the farm problem is a National problem in the right solution of which all classes of citizens are vitally interested.

Rotten Rafters and
Coolidge Economy

International

The Funeral of Meyer London

Budget, for an appropriation of the former sum does not appear to specify whether this shall be inclusive or exclusive of an appropriation of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars already made for this purpose.

The White House has been several times out of repair, which is not remarkable considering the length of time it has served as the residence of the Chief Executive of the Nation, and probably has never been entirely safe since its reconstruction following partial burning by the British in 1814. The thundershower which put out the fire and left a part of the building standing has probably cost the Government hundreds of thousands of dollars. A building new from cellar to roof probably would have cost less than repairs have cost.

ditions since. President Monroe felt the need of an office, and got it at a cost of need of an office, and got it at a cost of $8,000. Later on he also got the south portico at a cost of $18,000. John Quincy Adams, who probably wished to look homeward and northward, just as Monroe wished to look homeward and southward, got the north portico at a cost of $25,000 and the finishing of the East Room at equal cost. Then for a long time Presidents managed to get on with the White House as it was; but in 1902, when Theodore Roosevelt lived there, pretty thorough overhauling and the addition of east and west wings were found necessary. It was discovered, queerly, that James Hoban's plans provided for these things, and actual foundations for one of the wings, forgotten for decades, were found when the old greenhouses were removed for the begingreenhouses were removed for the beginning of work. The cost of repairs and additions made at that time was $475,000.

Nobody knows just what construction work on the White House has cost, first and last. It was originally built without any Federal appropriation except one of $500 to James Hoban, an Irishman, for If the $350,000 asked for by General furnishing the plans. The money for the Lord is to be in addition to the $150,000 building came mainly from Virginia and already appropriated, the man who is Maryland. The sums were never rigidly accounted the most economical President accounted for, but are supposed to have we have ever had will have the distincapproximated $333,000. The repairs tion of spending more money on his resiafter the burning cost $246,490. dence than any other President has Various sums have been spent for ad- spent. If, however, such a sum is neces

sary to put the White House in genuinely good condition, this fact should not

count against the Coolidge reputation for frugality.

Honored by His People

A JEW by race but an agnostic in

belief, a Socialist and a peace advocate but a patriot in war time, Meyer London was beloved by New York's East Side because of his personal sympathy and devotion to humanity. When he died, 50,000 men and women of all ages followed the hearse through the streets, the papers say, and several times that number crowded the streets to do him honor.

To the world at large London was best known as New York City's Socialist Congressman. He was not reelected three years ago because his party split on the question of war loyalty or war opposition. At his funeral former Socialist co-workers of such differing views as Victor Berger of Milwaukee and Morris Hillquit paid him tribute, while Miss Lillian Wald told of his efforts for city improvement and the welfare of the workers. Evidently it was what he did rather than what he believed that endeared London to his great nonpolitical constituency.

One speaker said: "By temperament Meyer London was not a good fighter nor a good hater; every blow he struck at his enemies hurt him, but in a world of injustice he was forced to fight, never for himself but for justice for the masses."

Our Table d'Hôte Newspapers

THE "Editor and Publisher" has re

cently completed a list of syndicates furnishing ready-made material to the American press. It discovers that there are more than one hundred of these in operation, promoting the sale of some two thousand "features" produced by seven hundred and fifty writers and artists, who thus co-operatively feed the two-thousand-odd daily papers in the United States. It will be seen, therefore, that each daily is in a position to receive at least one "feature." Most of them take more. Indeed, so over-featured

have most of them become as to make journalism commonplace in America. Like the food cooked for the table d'hôte and kept warm on a steam table, the flavor, if it can be called that, becomes the same coffee and cabbage predominating. The doctors advise the eating

of plenty of "roughage" as an aid to intestinal digestion. Perhaps the American intellect requires the same treatment. At any rate, it is getting it. When one adds the lucubrations of the press agent to this output, the results become appalling.

The Eucharistic Congress

HICAGO is reputed to be fond of big

CHIC

ness, and the preliminary press correspondence from that city relating to the Eucharistic Congress of the Roman Catholic Church that convened on June 20 did not alter that impression. It would not be fair to quote as an example one despatch which declared that the Congress "is the greatest business boom the city has ever had" under the really shocking caption-for which a New York copy editor was presumably responsible "Chicago Shops Ready for Eucharistic Boom;" but there certainly was in the reports generally a marked tendency to marshal large figures as if for a World's Fair rather than to discuss the spiritual benefits which this meeting is intended to confer. Thus we are told in another despatch that 13 cardinals, 500 bishops, 5,000 priests, 12,000 nuns, and 750,000 laymen will "bow before the Holy Eucharist in Chicago's historic Coliseum," that the altar is 200 feet square and that twelve tons of steel are in the frame of the altar.

What is this Eucharistic Congress apart from its magnitude, splendor, and ceremonial? Eucharist, the Greek word for thanksgiving, is one of the ancient names applied to the Lord's Supper, and likewise to the consecrated Bread and Wine. As defined in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Eucharistic Congresses, of which this is the eighteenth, are "gatherings of ecclesiastics and laymen for the purpose of celebrating and glorifying the Holy Eucharist and of seeking the best means to spread its knowledge and love throughout the world."

They are not, as are œcumenical councils, official assemblies of the Church Universal (in the Roman Catholic sense) for the purpose of acting upon questions of doctrine and discipline subject only to

Vannutelli was the Papal Legate, an office filled this year by Cardinal Bon

zano.

The Pope (Pius X) declared it to be the greatest of all for its concourse of illustrious men, the weight of its deliberation, its display of faith, and the magnificence of its religious functions. No Eucharistic Congress has been held before in the United States, and only one on this continent-at Montreal in 1910.

The Catholic population in the United States is estimated at about 16,000,000. That this gathering of eminent men of the Church from all parts of the world should excite deep interest and enthusiasm is natural and right. That it may lead to a deep appreciation of those universal truths that underlie all Christian faith rather than of specific dogmas or of symbolic splendor is to be hoped. The World's Health

nicable diseases was also arranged. One illustration of the methods to be followed was the emphasis put on the "deratizing" of ships. Rats, it was held, form one of the greatest menaces to health and are constantly likely to spread plagues. Surgeon-General Cumming, of

the United States Public Health Service, urged universal and scientific methods of extermination, and American "rat specialists" may go as teachers of that branch of health science to other lands.

Almost simultaneously with this meeting statistics, reported by the United States Public Health Service, showed that from 1922 to 1924 deaths from tuberculosis in this country dropped from 97 to 90.6 to every 100,000 population. But the decrease in the entire first quarter of this century is much more striking. As we find it given in a table quoted by Mark Sullivan in his book, "Our Times," the ratio to the

tional rather than theological.

The institution of these great gatherings dates back only forty-five years; the first was held at Lille, France, in 1881. A very important and memorable Congress of this kind was held in 1908 in the then new Westminster Catholic

tary conditions is of importance was declared at the World Health Congress, just held in Paris, with fifty-seven nations represented. To that end a convention or agreement was signed designed to place world sanitation on a scientific basis. Systematic exchange of

tween 1900 and 1922 dropped from 201.9 to 97. This extraordinary victory has come from the wide diffusion of information as to the need of early recognition of the presence of the disease and to knowledge of the right ways of conserving and strengthening the general

It appears from the recent report that in deadliness "heart-disease," so called, and pneumonia have now surpassed tuberculosis; the first, with a record for 1924 of 178.4 per 100,000; the second, with that of 98.4. It must be taken into account, however, that heart-disease is often an outcome following other forms of disease, and that where vital statistics are not carefully kept it is not uncommon for "heart-disease" to be given as cause of death too broadly.

An Effective Kind of School "Advertising"

A

GOOD many parents, no doubt, have some idea concerning the kind of

work their children are doing in their

grade penmanship, high school senior mechanical drawing, and so on.

As can well be imagined, that little "Greek Temple," as some call it, is rarely without its interested observers, not only during the day, but in the evening, when it is brightly lighted up. So ning, when it is brightly lighted up. So it is that not only are more and more folk in the Oranges made acquainted with the work being done in the schools,

very texture of state rights, which is the deepest foundation of respect for law and legal acknowledgment of private property," he might still have remained the object of criticism, but he could have hardly raised the feeling that he has. He did not, however, confine himself to this argument; he based his letter on this sentence: "That I, who have spent my entire life in the service of the King of Prussia and the German Kaiser, regard this popular demand first of all as a great injustice, and also a regrettable lack of respect for traditions and crass ingratitude, I need not explain to you further."

Is gratitude to the former Kaiser a controlling factor in the determination of German policies to-day? Evidently the President of the Reich thinks so. By the largest demonstration in the history of Berlin, workingmen estimated at the number of 250,000 have expressed their disagreement with him and have denounced him as well as the Hohenzollerns. It is unfortunate that President Hindenburg has turned this simple issue of the justice of expropriation into an issue of loyalty or at least gratitude to the Kaiser and his régime.

Brazil Resigns

Hindenburg and

the Hohenzollerns

a very hazy memory of our own school activities and imagine that nowadays things are about the same.

Superintendent of Schools Patrick, of Orange, New Jersey, has devised a means, not only for letting his townsfolk know what the children are doing in school, but also for giving the children themselves a much greater interest in their own work. A few feet from a busy corner of his town's busiest street he has constructed a kind of display window, modeled somewhat after a Greek temple, and there, week by week, are exhibited all kinds of school work, from all classes and from different schools. One week there may be seen the best work of a high school class in domestic science. The next week there may be shown the handicraft of some second-grade boys.

has reaffirmed his gratitude to the former Emperor and his family.

That is the significant fact brought out by the publication of the old Field Marshal's private letter to State Secretary von Loebell concerning the forthcoming referendum on the proposal to expropriate the former royal family's properties. It is not surprising that he should advocate a negative vote on that proposal. As President of the Republic, who is supposed to be outside and above all political controversy, he is not supposed to have an official view on the subject; but as a German he naturally has views, and as a bluff and honest German he naturally expresses them. If he had confined himself to opposing the expropriation on the ground that it was, as he said, "a serious attack against the

In the first place, Brazil has made it easier for the League to admit Germany. Indeed, if Brazil had not resigned from the Council she would have probably

had to undergo the humiliation of being dropped from it. It is always more comfortable to resign than to be firedmore comfortable for both sides. Of itself the loss of a non-permanent seat in the Council would not be necessarily humiliating; but Brazil had made such a point of holding on to that seat that failure to retain it would have involved some loss of dignity. The League is therefore saved from the disagreeable consequences that would have followed if Brazil had remained as a candidate.

In the second place, Brazil's withdrawal from the League, which seems now as inevitable as withdrawal from the Council, will, by lessening representation from the American Hemisphere, increase the proportionate representation of Europe. It has become clear that the League is stronger when it is acting as a