at The showing of distinctive Linens McCutcheon's is like an exposition of the linen-weaver's art. It is an assemblage of Linen masterpieces from the most famous centers of art and industry abroad. And the entire showing is characterized by that purity of texture, beauty of design, and general superiority which is traditional with McCutcheon Linens. No matter what your Linen needs may bewhether few or many, of utilitarian or more fanciful character-you may supply them at McCutcheon's, secure in the knowledge that Linens obtained here are not only the finest in quality, but also most moderate in price. JOHN magazine writer and a native of Wisconsin. He did newspaper work in that State for several years and was later a correspondent in the Northwest for New York and Chicago papers. While engaged in that capacity he began to make a study of the radicalism that has steadily steadily gained strength in the granger States, and from 1920 to 1922 he was engaged in making investigations and writing on the subject for the American Constitutional League of Wisconsin. His chosen work, however, is that of a writer on outdoor life. RECOULY is one of the most dis M.tinguished publicists of France. AYMOND Ꭱ RAY S. SPEARS, a freelance writer, is on the staff of "Adventure Magazine." For ten or twelve years he has specialized on outdoor Question and Answer Departments, and has traveled a good deal gathering material for this work-answers to questions about automobile touring, camping, and regional game, fur, and fish. Local newspaper news correspondence led him into the study of politics, which brought him face to face with the saloon and liquor influence on local politics. COLLIN E. SMITH is a member of Rothe United States Department of Agriculture, in the Bureau of Markets. His first business experience was in his father's country bank and flour-mill office in a southern Minnesota village. In 1898 he went to Minneapolis as managing editor of the "Northwestern Miller," and later was market editor of the Minneapolis "Journal." In 1904 he bought a membership on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade. He has spent six months in Europe, visiting and studying all the important grain markets, and crossed southern Russia to Asia through the great wheat region. DESTROYING A NATIONAL ASSET W HEN is conservation not conservation? The answer seems to be that it is not conservation when it attempts to make poor farms out of good fishing and hunting territory. Will H. Dilg, president of the Izaak Walton League, has apparently done a great service in bringing to the attention of the country the project to drain the upper Mississippi bottoms. In the "Izaak Walton League Monthly" Mr. Dilg writes: The upper Mississippi bottoms are America's most prolific spawning grounds for black bass and for all warm-water game and food fishes. From this section, during the lowwater season, millions upon millions of baby bass are annually saved by the Bureau of Fisheries rescue crews from the thousands of landlocked ponds, lakes, sloughs, etc. And if this section were properly protected, billions upon billions of game and food fishes would be annually spawned in these bottoms. In truth, here mother nature has set down the greatest natural hatchery for game fishes in the whole world, and it runs without cost to the States along the river or to the National Government. If this region were made into a National Preserve, the Federal Government could annually supply billions of six-inch baby black bass to stock our lakes and streams everywhere, and Heaven knows all of them need twenty times more stocking than they are now getting. The War Department, we believe, has already given consent to the drainage project, which would destroy the value of the territory from Lake Pepin, Minnesota, to Rock Island, Illinois, for purposes of recreation without an assurance that it would be suitable for farming purposes. An agricultural expert, Mr. A. L. Bakke, the plant physiologist of the Iowa Experiment Station, made a personal investigation of this region with Mr. Dilg, and states his opinion of this project in the following words: In view of the fact that the reclaiming of the Winneshiek Bottoms is economically unjustifiable, on account of the prohibitive cost, and at the same time will produce farm land of little value, subjected to overflows, and at the same time increase flood damages to sections below, will destroy the breeding-place of water fowl and fur-bearing animals and THIS IS ONE OF THE PLANES WHICH TOOK PART IN THE TRANSCONTINENTAL MAIL CAR- spawning grounds of fish, and erase IN the establishment of a new coastto-coast mail service the record for crossing the continent has been lowered by thirty-six minutes. The record which was broken was made in a non-stop flight. The new record was made by a relay of pilots. The new flight is the forerunner of a regular mail schedule by which letters may be delivered within thirty hours of their being posted a continent away from their destination. Preparations for this service have been making for more than a year. The plains country along the selected route is dotted with air-mail lights. At each of five fields-Chicago, Iowa City, Omaha, North Platte, and Cheyenne-two 600,000,000-candle-power arc lights have been installed. At each station one of these leviathan lights is used for flood lighting and the other as a beacon. At twentyfive-mile intervals all the way from Chicago to Cheyenne emergency landing-fields are illuminated with beacons and "outlining lights." At intervals of three miles all along the route, smaller beacons are flashing. The planes themselves-specially designed slow-landing planes-have been provided with emergency lights. All flying-fields along the route have been improved. Pilots have undergone long training in night flying. The value of such a service to business, to the press, to the Government itself, cannot be calculated. telegrams were first delivered on 26 the Pacific coast in eight days from the Mississippi, people by the thousands turned out to welcome the Pony Express that carried them, as the article in a recent issue of The Outlook recounted. That was within the lifetime of living men. Now letters can go over the same space in less than a day. THE ECLIPSE NEXT WEEK TO BE OBSERVED FROM AIRPLANES E CLIPSES of the sun have been studied, more or less scientifically, ever since man began to be curious concerning the facts of his environment. Yet at the end of so many centuries they have many secrets unrevealed. Opportunities for studying them, after all, have not been great. The shadow of a solar eclipse is, usually, not large. The portion of the earth where it falls is frequently inaccessible to the centers of astronomical investigation. Astronomers gather, to be sure, in the region where an eclipse is visible, but their journeys are likely to be for naught. For a few minutes a wisp of cloud blows across the sky. The trained eye, the scientific instrument, are useless. The eclipse comes and goes beyond their reach; science is baffled by a bit of haze. Thus it has been through the ages. Now comes to the aid of astronomers a new branch of science-aeronautics --and eclipses henceforth will be observed from above the clouds. observations will be made for the first time of the eclipse which will be visible in southern California on Septem Such by the moon coming between the earth and the sun. It has no connection, apparently, with this deep shadow of the eclipse proper. No man knows the cause of the preliminary shadow. By means of aerial photographs, the scientists hope to discover something of its nature. After all, the oldest of the sciences is still in its infancy. Our knowledge of the heavens, wonderful as it may be, is a fragment compared with what remains to be learned. Its progress is always a matter of intense interest. Some extreme utilitarians object to the expenditure of public money for astronomical observations, on the ground that astronomy is of no practical value. Yet the fact remains that but for astronomy no ship could cross the ocean. The very watch that we consult a score of times a day is a product of astronomy. And, conceivably, the hoped-for clue to the nature of the mysterious shadow preceding the eclipse may mean a discovery of the greatest practical utility. chot to force a settlement shall have proved quickly successful, on Labor Day the threatened strike of over 150,000 hard-coal miners will have be-.. come a fact. Not even arrangements for keeping the mines from flooding have been made as we write; each side claimed that the other ought to make advances to that end-a typical example of the futile skirmishing that has been going on. Leaders of the miners have intimated that if the operators would accept the "general principle" of an advance in wages an agreement might be reached. probably the consumer will have to pay the cost in the price he pays. If so, It is known that forty-five per cent of the 90,000,000 tons of hard coal used annually is now available. The miners are said to have about $5,000,000 in their National and local union treasuries and to expect to be able to assess their workers $3,000,000 a month if necessary. These figures, especially as following a strike year, do not point to great poverty among miners at present wages. They do suggest, however, the desirability of compelling miners to incorporate, so that, as with other business concerns, their funds may be liable for organized violation of law and other responsibilities. The reports of the Federal Coal Commission have provided ample and excellent material for arbitrators or Government use, if action by the President or enabling legislation by Congress is needed. In any event, the next Congress will hardly be allowed to side-step the coal question by stifling bills without adequate hearing. A FIGHTING PEACEMAKER s he sat at the head of a long table, ready to listen to questions pertinent and impertinent, the press correspondents at the Armament Conference in Washington met a master diplomatist. Admiral Baron Kato never let those correspondents know what he thought should be kept secret, but he disarmed the antagonistic and earned the respect of the friendly in spite of his reticence. The whole cast of his face, the expression in his eyes, gave plain warning to those who might have anything to do with him that he was wise and shrewd and might possibly be subtle and crafty; but at the same time there could be no mistaking his imperturbable humor and good nature. He was dignified without being grave; he was quizzical without the least loss of dignity; there (C) Harris & Ewing TOMOSABURO KATO was something about him of astute benignity that reminded one of a certain type of priest. Perhaps this quality was accentuated by his physiognomy that suggested something of the ascetic. Russo-Japanese War. In the World War he commanded the Japanese fleet that attacked the Germans at Tsingtau. With this record as a fighter he came to the Washington Conference and, under circumstances of great difficulty, thousands of miles from home, in an atmosphere charged with suspicion if not hostility, he conducted the negotiations on behalf of Japan in such a manner as to bring honor to his country and himself. He lived to see the treaties which he had negotiated in force. Returning home, he found it necessary to defend his course before his own countrymen, and this he did so effectively that he became Prime Minister. Traditionally the army and navy of Japan have been virtually independent of the civil Government, and in the civil Government itself there has not been what is elsewhere known as party responsibility. This Admiral and Baron, so far from increasing the militarism and the aristocracy of his Government, made his influence felt for the subordination of the military to the civil power and for the development of responsible party government. A great fighter, a great diplomatist, a great leader in popular self-government, Admiral Baron Tomosaburo Kato should be held in high esteem in this country, as he is sure to be in his own. LORD BIRKENHEAD AND N his speech at Williamstown, identified which concluded the sessions of His death in Japan on August 24 ends a life of patriotic service to his country and lasting benefit to the world. Son of a Samurai, and thus coming from that class in which the privileged fighters were with the gentry of Japan, he yet became distinguished for his services in the cause of both peace and democracy. By temperament and habit reserved and undemonstrative, he yet did as much as any man, perhaps more than any other, to promote relations of candor and good understanding between his country and America. Shrewd and diplomatic, he yet was destined to be Japan's agent in proving to this country Japan's good faith. Born sixty-four years ago, the youngest son of a large family of small means, Tomosaburo Kato began his naval career at twelve years of age. Successively midshipman, captain, professor at the Navy Academy, construction supervisor in the Navy Department, and Chief of Staff of a standing squadron, he became internationally famous in his daring and effective attack upon the Russian fleet in the decisive naval battle of the the Institute of Politics, Lord Birkenhead, former Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, was, it seems to us, well within his rights and well within the bounds of personal and international courtesy in criticising a former President of the United States. The words which occasioned adverse comment, some of it lacking in the courteous terms which Lord Birkenhead's own statements employed, are contained in a passage which began as follows: President Wilson, indeed, came with a noble message of hope, but, unhappily, in the sequel, hope proved to be his principal equipment. It is a fascinating speculation whether, had he been given health and strength to pursue the campaign which he contemplated, his idealism and personality could have affected the forces of the world. I am bold enough, even at the moment when I pay the highest tribute |