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testimony, sometimes supported by figures, to show that prohibition has had certain beneficial results and that in certain places there has been a high degree of law enforcement; but it has not been such as to justify complacence with present conditions.

Propaganda and Opinion

THE

HERE can hardly be any doubt remaining that the purpose of the "wets" is not legalization of a beer "nonintoxicating in fact," but gradual and piecemeal weakening of the law until liquors intoxicating in fact may be legally obtained by any who want them. This, of course, is not the conscious purpose of all those who favor modification of the Volstead Law, not even of all the witnesses who appeared to testify in favor of modification; but that it is the conscious purpose of those who are leading the fight for modification or repeal was clearly enough stated by Colonel Julian Codman, who conducted the case for the

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glaring of Senator Reed's revelations. He proved himself utterly futile in his attempt to put words into the mouths of opposition witnesses, but he left little undisclosed of what was in his own mind.

General Lincoln C. Andrews, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in charge of prohibition enforcement, was four times on the stand. The manner in which he deported himself did much to establish the fact of his capacity for his task. He conveyed the impression of complete frankness. His statements were clear and should not have been misinterpreted. If they were misinterpreted by persons on both sides, it was mainly because those persons were not at the moment in a frame of mind for exercising unbiased judgment.

The effect of the hearings on the public is therefore likely to be good. The effect upon legislation is quite likely to be nothing. Certainly the "wet" bills are not any nearer enactment. If any pending bills have a better prospect as the result of the hearings, they are those which General Andrews advocates for putting more and sharper teeth into the

Prohibition Law.

A Border Patrol Wanted

"The plain fact is that millions of the A

citizens of these United States. . . intend to live their own private lives in their own way, to eat what they please and to drink what they can afford. They do They do not intend to be deterred from the gratification of these eminently reasonable desires because fanatics rave or because cowardly legislatures pass foolish laws." "We must attempt step by step to correct the evils which these madmen have brought upon us, and, while I do not believe that this bill will be a panacea," etc.

The bill to which Colonel Codman referred at that time is the one which would provide that a liquor, to be illegal, must be intoxicating in fact. By the time the hearings approached the end the "wets" apparently had abandoned all their other bills to concentrate upon the attempt to get into the law a phrase which would avoid any definite limit of alcoholic content.

The beautiful and easy indefiniteness of such a phrase was revealed when Senator Reed, arguing with General Andrews on the stand, turned from a defense of 2.75 per cent beer to the statement that 12 or 14 per cent wine would not be intoxicating.

BORDER patrol of from 12,000 to 15,000 men will be necessary in order to enforce prohibition when the illegal. diversion of alcohol has been stopped. This statement was made by Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Andrews before the Judiciary Committee of the House, which conducted hearings on the Hudson Border Patrol Bill while the Senate sub-committee was hearing testimony and opinions concerning the various "wet" measures.

General Andrews had testified in the hearings on the "wet" bills that smuggling across the border is not one of the largest sources of bootleg liquor in the United States, but he told the House. Judiciary Committee that it will become so as soon as the diversion of alcohol into beverage channels is stopped. This would indicate that General Andrews expects genuinely to plug the leaks from the alcohol plants. When that is done, he said, "we think we will have the liquor situation within the country well under control." But, he continued, "it will count for little if we cannot protect the borders."

The Border Patrol Bill was introduced by Representative Hudson, of Michigan, This, however, was one of the least Chairman of the Alcoholic Liquor Traffic

Committee and representative of a district where transborder violations are, perhaps, at their worst. The Detroit and St. Clair Rivers, in the neighborhood of the city of Detroit, afford exceptional opportunities for the smuggling, not alone of liquors, but of dutiable goods, and even of aliens who cannot get in through the ports.

The border patrol, if the bill authorizing it is passed, will have the duty of enforcing, not alone the Prohibition Law, but the Tariff Law. Presumably, it would turn into the Treasury enough money from duties collected to go a considerable way toward paying the cost of maintaining the patrol. Assistant Secretary Andrews has charge of customs as well as of prohibition. Presumably, too, a co-operative arrangement would be made between 'the Treasury Department and the Department of Labor by which the border patrol would be used in the apprehension of aliens trying to enter the country in violation of the immigration. laws.

Treaties Without Law Are Dead To the list of bills already pending for

facilitating enforcement of prohibition one certainly and two probably will be drawn as the result of recent court decisions. The one which is certain to be presented to Congress will be an enabling act for giving effect to the treaties extending the right of search and seizure of liquor-laden vessels beyond the old three-mile limit. The one that probably will be presented will be in the nature of an amendment to the Volstead Act placing alcohol permits on a yearly rather than a continuing basis.

The two decisions which appear to make such enactments necessary were handed down in the Circuit Court of Appeals for the circuit including New York. One was in a libel case against the steamer Sagatind, of Norwegian reg. istry, seized several months ago sixteen miles off the coast. The Court held that, while the treaties are in proper form and were properly ratified, Congress has enacted no law by which the Government of the United States has its own consent to such seizures.

This decision is heralded as bringing "Rum Row" back to the old line three miles offshore. The decision, however, is not final. The Supreme Court of the United States may reverse it. But meanwhile the motley fleet of rum-runners. acting under the temporary immunity of

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Hygrometer devised by the United States Forest Service for showing the amount of moisture in the forest litter

the existing decision, may move close inshore and succeed in landing considerable quantities of contraband of conviviality in New York and other coast cities. In any event, the passage of an enabling act is regarded as desirable, and the office of Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Andrews is said to be moving to perfect it.

The other decision came in the action of William J. Higgins & Co., alcohol denaturers of New York, to force restoration of their permit, which was revoked and a new one refused on January 1. The Court held that, while the evidence against the Higgins company warranted revocation, the proper procedure for revoking a permit is by judicial hearing by the prohibition administrator, as provided in the Volstead Act.

Thirteen denaturers and 250 manufacturers of products in which denatured alcohol is used lost their permits at the same time that William J. Higgins & Co. lost theirs. All of these are restored if the decision of the Court stands. A rehearing has been granted, however. It is estimated that the time necessary for judicial hearings in these 263 cases would exceed two years.

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will be at an end. He made it clear that
the Zenith decision affects not broadcast-
ing alone but amateurs, point to point,
transoceanic and other wireless services.

The importance of radio broadcasting
is probably overestimated by the Ameri-
can public just at this time. But the
importance of wireless telegraphy, par-
ticularly as it applies to navigation and
transoceanic communication, is not over-
estimated. Impotence resulting from
confusion in that field would be disas-
trous. And, certainly, there is danger of
confusion when all authority to regulate
is set aside.

Secretary Hoover believes that the White Bill, if it were a law, would meet the requirements. There are objectionable features in that bill, but it is incomparably better than the present law, enacted in 1912, when even wireless telegraphy was hardly more than a theory and when wireless telephony was a dream. The White Bill was passed in the House early in the session. The Senate, with due regard to its traditional dignity, could have passed the bill within a week after it came from the House.

The public has forgiven the Senate many things. But the public is likely to be quite resentful of the unnecessary jar to its ear-drums as the result of endless interference. Besides, the Senate may have shipwreck and drowned men to answer for if it delays longer in the performance of a simple task.

it are as old as Job, but only during the past twelve years has the United States Government paid out money to further the search for the fact. Next year the ages-old question will cost the Government $20,000 more than it has cost in any year before. That sum has been added in the Agricultural Appropriation Act to the amount available to the Weather Bureau for safeguarding the forests against fire weather-in short, for telling the custodians of the forests when the east wind is going to blow.

For the east wind withers and sears our Western mountains and slopes and coast to-day as it withered and seared the land of Uz while the seven sons and three daughters of Job still disported themselves and while yet the three thousand camels and the five hundred yoke of oxen browsed the scanty herbage. When the wind blows from the desert across the high mountains to the sea, the forests become tinder-boxes and the lighting of a cigarette is likely to set the world aflame.

What the Forest Service and the other guardians wanted to know was when the east wind would blow-wanted to know far enough in advance to make preparation for it, to shut down logging operations, stop the burning of slash and débris, put the fire-fighting units on guard and deploy them to the best advantage. So the Weather Bureau prepared to find out. First, it enlisted the co-operation of the Canadian Meteorological Service in extending the daily Fireweather map to the northward. weather warnings were originally issued only from Portland and San Francisco, The question and the investigation of but they have been extended until they

Coping With "Fire Weather"

"BY

y what way is the light parted,
which scattereth the east wind

upon the earth?"

cover now all the forested regions of the somewhere close to the intent of Concountry.

What is expected of the Weather Bureau is that it will warn the Forest Service and others of the coming of the east wind. Action following the warning ought to be for the Forest Service and the other guardians of woodlands. Still, the old tendency to claim credit to the limit is in the hearts of men, even of Weather Bureau men. One of them says, discussing this fire-weather-warning business, "Not long ago a good-sized blaze in the Olympic National Forest, in Washington, was put out by a drifting fog."

Probably Job knew, when he asked the famous question about the east wind, that wet wood will not burn without coaxing.

National Origins

IT

T is not generally known that the United States will discontinue after this year the plan of restricting immigration by country of birth and will next year, and permanently thereafter, limit the annual inflow of foreigners to 150,000 flat, to be prorated upon a basis of ancestry or national origin of the inhabitants of continental United States by the Census of 1920. This amendment was tacked on the Johnson Bill, now in operation and better known as the Two Per Centum Limit Law, by Senator David A. Reed, of Pennsylvania, and was later adopted by conference, then duly enacted and signed by the President. It is the law of the land, but does not become effective until July 1, 1927.

Little heralded and less understood, the drastic measure has simply been lying dormant as subdivision (b) of the American Immigration Act of 1924. True, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Commerce, and the Secretary of Labor were designated jointly to make determination of immigrant quotas attributable to modern geographical areas upon this basis of the ancestral blood of the American people, but nothing has been done in the matter thus far except the appointment by these Cabinet heads of an interdepartmental committee of experts to study the origin of the modern American homo and make a list of quotas according to their findings. Even such a man as Dr. Joseph Hill, population expert of the Census Bureau, who is a conspicuous member of this committee of experts, admits that about the best that can be done will be to come

gress. Because of the official confusion that has arisen and the woeful lack of understanding of the law by the general public it may be well to quote here the Reed amendment to the Johnson Bill:

(b) The annual quota of any nationality for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1927, and for each fiscal year thereafter, shall be a number which bears the same ratio to 150,000 as the number of inhabitants in continental United States in 1920 having that national origin (ascertained as hereinafter provided in this section) bears to the number of inhabitants in continental United States in 1920, but the minimum quota of any nationality shall be 100.

The amendment then proceeds to tell how. It says that "such determination shall not be made by tracing the ancestors or descendants of particular individuals, but shall be based upon statistics of immigration and emigration, together with rates of increase of population as shown by successive decennial United States censuses, and such other data as may be found to be reliable."

Where New Americans Come From

NA

ATURALLY, even the experts have found themselves up to their ears in the quicksands of dilemma. Perhaps the man who has gone farthest thus far as a pathfinder is John B. Trevor, described as a master of arts; a former captain of the military intelligence division, U. S. A.; a chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur; an expert on population and a man to whom a book of logarithms would be far more diverting and more romantic than the personal memoirs of the Countess of Cathcart. Through its "InCountess of Cathcart. Through its "International Conciliation," the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has caused to be printed and distributed a very excellent analysis of the American Immigration Law of 1924 written by Mr. Trevor. Since this treatise has been quoted by members of Congress in debate over the proposed plan of restricting immigration by national origin, it would seem proper to rely upon Mr. Trevor's figures as the best thus far arrived at.

He says that the population of the United States as enumerated in 1920 is composed of 58,421,957 white native born of native parentage; plus an element characterized by the Census Bureau as "foreign stock”—that is, foreign born, native born of foreign parentage,

and native born of mixed parentage, one parent native and one parent foreign born, amounting to 36,398,958; and a balance of "predominately native born of Negro descent, some American Indians, and a relatively small proportion of Asiatics, amounting in all to 10,889,705." After figuring out the proportions, it is interesting and important to note that Mr. Trevor finds that under the new plan Great Britain and Northern Ireland would have the lion's share of our national immigration under the proposed plan of permanent restriction, with a quota of 85,135. The German annual quota would drop from 50,000 to 20,028. The Irish Free State would have only 8,330 a year, losing heavily from its present quota. Scandinavian countries would suffer great losses, and southern and southeastern European countries would dwindle to quotas of the 100 minimum class, excepting Italy, which would have an allotment of 5,716, a slight increase over the Johnson Bill quota of 3,800.

It seems like going back to Plymouth Rock and Jamestown for a basis of restricting immigration to this great country, much of whose greatness has been wrought by immigrants since 1885.

A Half-Century of Legal Aid THE scope of the work of the Legal

Aid Society of New York, which has just celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, is indicated by a remark in its latest annual report: "The Legal Aid Society does not compete with lawyers but co-operates with them. Except for the Legal Aid Society the legal profession has no institution such as physicians have in hospitals to serve as a clearinghouse for charity cases." It does not give doles of food or money or act as an employment agency; it gives legal aid and advice from a corps of experienced lawyers to those who cannot enforce their rights for lack of means. It requires a retaining fee, but fixes it at twenty-five cents and remits it in case of inability to pay.

The Society largely owed its inception to the energy of Arthur von Briesen. In its early days Joseph Choate, Carl Schurz, Henry Ward Beecher, and Theodore Roosevelt supported the idea and the work; to-day Elihu Root, Secretary Hughes, Chief Justice Taft, and other eminent men approve and indorse it.

How the work has grown is shown by the fact that in 1876 the Society handled 212 cases; in 1925, it had 29,502. Most

of the cases are on the civil side, but a Volunteer Defenders Committee in certain circumstances (usually when assigned by the court) defends indigent prisoners; in 1925 there were 602 cases on the criminal side.

One service of notable value rendered by the Legal Aid Society has been to reduce the extortion of disreputable installment men and to improve thereby the reputable installment business. Another has been to secure payment of wages or rightful debts where the employer or debtor relied on the poverty of the person wronged to secure immunity. Deserted wives also form a numerous class of clients.

In view of a certain sensation now in the public mind, it is interesting to note that the Society's Attorney-in-Chief, Mr. Leonard McGee, very much doubts the wisdom of the proposal to forbid by law the marriage of a minor under sixteen. He believes that such a law would invite disrespect and disregard, and he comments: "The time has come for those among us who have vision to oppose the many attempts being made throughout our land to accomplish by inhibition that which experience has taught cannot be accomplished aside from education."

The Long Arm of Trade
TIED up at Pier 11 on the San Fran-

cisco water-front there lay, a few weeks ago, a huge freighter of the United American Lines. She was the steamship Sachsen, and she was taking on a cargo destined for Germany. A correspondent of this paper passing that way stopped to watch the gangs of stevedores loading into her giant holds big consignments of the famous canned sweet corn from Alameda County, prunes from Santa Clara, boxes of dried and canned fruit from the valleys of Sacramento and San Joaquin. But this was not all. After the fruits of the earth came bale after bale of old clothes, and after the old clothes ton after ton of scrap iron, tin, wire, and brass.

It seemed a strange medley, and our correspondent stopped to discuss the matter with one of the officers of the Sachsen. The corn and the fruits were understandable enough; but the old clothes? Well, it seems that the old clothes are processed and made sanitary. The apparel in good condition is sold in Germany for use, the balance, after a time, comes back as rags, to be bought

by American manufacturers of roofing sonal, and occupies little more than four and pulp products.

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THE hardships of life in the two thou

sand outports of Newfoundland and Labrador have been amply stressed by the books, lectures, and appeals of Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell, who has raised and expended large sums in relief work during thirty-five years he has given to his medical-missionary service. Public response in England, and especially in the United States, has been liberal, reaching, it is said, a grand total of $5,000,000.

Newfoundland itself has now taken up the work in practical form, under the initiative and leadership of Lady Elsie E. Allerdyce, wife of Sir William L. Allerdyce, Colonial Governor of the island.

Poverty is not the worst of the evils the people in the outport hamlets have to endure. Their wants are few, their lives simple. But for the most part the main occupation is fishing. This is sea

months of the year. A poor catch is, of course, a creator of misfortune when no other occupations are available for the rest of the time. The lumbering operations of the two great paper companies at Grand Falls and Corner Brook now give winter work to some five thousand men, and the early development of the Reid properties at Gander River for paper and artificial silk making promise further opportunities. But at the best there is much idleness, especially among women and girls. Many of the latter leave for the States, where they become admirable trained nurses. Largely of Scotch ancestry, they possess a stability of character that fits them for this important and exacting occupation.

It is to the women and girls that Lady Allerdyce has devoted her plans, which took shape in June, 1924, in the form of an association, of which the initials of its objects have been made to, form the name "Nonia." It was devised just as a cable address, and grew to be both a trade-mark and an appellation. The Reid Newfoundland Company gave the society room in its building. From this point industrial centers are operated over the outport areas, distributing supplies and bringing home-made manufactures to market. Mr. T. V. Hartnett, an American, head of the Imperial Tobacco Company, took over the administration of the finances. Local staff members have built up what is already a promising and prosperous organization. The industrial factors are knitting work and rug making, much of which has to be taught through printed patterns and directions. The women and girls have responded nobly. December sales before Christmas in 1925 amounted to $1,800-no great sum, but $1,800 more than the workers ever had for themselves before. The receipts for the past year from sales were $7,621, but there was a further return in payments to the nurses sent to outports, and a liberal support from friends, so that altogether in the first year $20,000 was kept in motion. The knitters earned $5,301. Small as this seems, it went far and did a world of good.

Samples of the work sent to Boston, where 45,000 Newfoundlanders form a valued part of the population, met with much favor, and there are signs that a wide and successful market is being created. "Nonia" is becoming known as a. trade-mark.

It may be noted that in the last year

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the women and girls of Porto Rico sold $5,000,000 worth of embroideries and drawn-work in the United States, and those of the Philippines $6,000,000.

Hawaii's Perpetual

Advertisement

HAWAII's two spectacular volcanoes, AWAII's two spectacular volcanoes,

Kilauea and Mauna Loa, are almost as continuous in their performances as the electric signs on Broadway, and much less expensive. Kilauea, which is always more or less active, achieved its last big feat of publicity in May, 1924, when a series of tremendous explosions sent up clouds of dust and rocks to a height of 30,000 feet. Less than two years later, on April 18, 1926, the neighboring crater took up the task of keeping the Hawaii National Park on the tourist map of the world. This recent exploit consisted of a big lava flow, such as occurs from Mauna Loa, on an average, every five or six years. The fiery streams pouring down the mountainside to the sea are said to have presented the finest spectacle that the world's largest active volcano has afforded since it has been under the observation of white men.

A volcano subject to violent outbreaks,

however much it may conduce to notoriety, is not, as a rule, an asset to the region where it is located. Volcanic eruptions rank among the afflictions of humanity. Since the year 1500 A.D. 98 eruptions of 57 volcanoes have destroyed about 190,000 people and property of colossal value. Eruptions of the Hawaiian volcanoes have been singularly free from casualties. In the Kilauean explosion of May 18, 1924, one spectator was mortally injured by falling rocks while taking photographs on the rim of the crater, the only case in which anybody has been killed or badly hurt at this volcano since the year 1789. The recent lava flow from Mauna Loa wiped out a small village, but took no lives, and the previous eruptions of the same crater have been equally devoid of untoward consequences. Though it would be rash to predict that the two volcanoes will always maintain their present reputation for "tameness," their record up to date is extremely reassuring.

Meanwhile, besides advertising the otherwise fascinating isles in which they are situated, the Hawaiian craters furnish science with unique facilities for studying volcanological phenomena at

close range. The observatory on Kilauea, which its indefatigable director, Dr. Jaggar, has made, in proportion to its size and resources, one of the most productive scientific institutions in the world, ought to be supplemented by a similar establishment on Mauna Loa. At present this loftier and less accessible volcano is under only intermittent observation. millionaire with a taste for encouraging science might do worse than invest his surplus shekels in a volcanological observatory on Mauna Loa, to be maintained as a branch of the one that has been in successful operation for the past fourteen years on the neighboring vol

cano.

Germany, Russia, and the League

A

A

LARMISTS have been warning Eu

rope that the treaty just negotiated between Germany and Russia was intended to draw the German Republic into a military alliance with the Soviet Union against the Allies of western Europe. The text of the treaty, as signed in Berlin, removes these fears. It is, first of all, a neutrality accord strengthening the German-Russian treaty of Rapallo and re-emphasizing their economic understanding.

Russia is a natural market for German production, without which the working of the reparations program might well become impracticable. This is a fact to be read in the history of two centuries of German commercial and industrial activity in Russia.

The new treaty, which is to be registered with the League of Nations, obviously is not designed to interfere with Germany's entry into the association of Geneva. It simply specifies that "should one of the contracting parties, despite its peaceful demeanor, be attacked by a third Power or several other Powers, the other contracting party shall preserve neutrality throughout the entire duration of the conflict." A similar provision applies to economic boycotts.

Germany is left free to co-operate with other nations against Russia if the Soviet Government should be found guilty of an aggressive war upon another state. Germany simply reserves the right that other League Council members have, to make such action subject to her own agreement and consent.

Great Britain has welcomed the new German-Russian understanding. If the

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