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THIS gentleman's before-breakfast temper, resulting from baths with sinker-soap, used to give his wife the impression that his favorite breakfast menu would be a rasher of crisp nails and a couple of hard-boiled padlocks on toast.

The temper would develop by stages. No sooner would our optimist exert his first strenuous effort at lather-culture than the shy here-and-there soap would flee his grasp and scuttle to the vast uncharted tub-bottom, defying recapture.

Now notice the change. How beneficent the smile! How charmingly effective the neat little

wing arrangement, registering virtue and lovingkindness. Nails and padlocks are no longer on our gentleman's menu-the grace of his company at breakfast is now matched only by the engaging softness of his three-minute eggs.

This magic was achieved by wifely intelligence cooperating with a cake of the rich-lathering, quick-rinsing white soap that floats. Men who have changed to this soap for their morning baths tell us that they never knew before what a jubilant luxury bathing could be. You can always find Ivory when you want it—at the grocery or in the tub.

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This power has never been completely and authoritatively recognized since the Constitution was adopted. On the contrary, it has been frequently disputed. Laws requiring the consent of the Senate for the removal of inferior Presidential appointees have been passed during the past half-century and more. Now, however, it has been decided that it is beyond the power of Congress to limit the President's power in any such way.

The decision was not unanimous. Justice Holmes, Justice Brandeis, and Justice McReynolds dissented. In his opinion Justice McReynolds wrote: "Yesterday we supposed we had a Government of definitely limited and specified powers; to-day no one knows what the powers are."

It is clear that the majority of the Court rested its decision upon the fact that the Constitution does not enumerate the powers of the President, but vests in him without qualification the executive power.

In this respect the Constitution makes a sharp distinction between the powers of the President and the powers of Congress. With respect to the President the Constitution says: "The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." On the other hand, the Constitution says with regard to Congress (the italics are ours): "All legislative power herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States." It mentions certain powers of the President specifically, and definitely or by implication limits certain of his powers; but it enumerates the powers granted to Congress and reserves all legislative power not thus specified.

By this decision the United States Supreme Court has added another chap

November 3, 1926

ter to the many chapters it has written in American Constitutional history.

The Campaign for the Senate

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Is this issue of The Outlook goes to press, the Congressional campaign of 1926, destined possibly to become memorable, possibly to be forgotten as quickly as political campaigns usually are, draws to a close.

Though these pages will not reach many of our readers until after election, a review of the campaign now may help to make the significance of the election clear when the result is known.

The campaign has been vigorous throughout-intense in the latter weeks. The Republicans, faced with the necessity of fighting in more than a third of the States to hold either Senate or important House seats, have called for and received Administration support. The Cabinet have been on the hustings. Of the ten men who sit around the President's counsel table, only Secretary of the Treasury Mellon and Secretary of Agriculture Jardine have remained constantly in Washington. Neither of these is in any sense a spellbinder, neither is inclined toward stump speaking. But there are other reasons for their remaining in Washington. There have been, There have been, from the Republican standpoint, two bad situations, one of which is peculiarly close to each of these men. One is the Pennsylvania Republican primary scandal, which Secretary Mellon may be better able to handle from Washington. The other is the Middle-West farmer revolt over the failure of the Administration to give the sort of agricultural aid that was demanded, and Secretary Jardine has been too busy "riding herd" on the wheat and corn belts to devote his attention to Iowa alone.

The Democrats, apparently concentrating their efforts on capturing the nine Senate seats necessary to enable them to organize the Senate, have stormed the ramparts of Republicanism all over the country. The duty has devolved mainly upon Senators and outstanding members of the House. The Democrats have, of course, no National administrative forces upon which to call.

Number 10

Full-as always-of expressions of confidence, Democratic leaders have been really hopeful of gaining control of the Senate. Republican leaders, while hopeful of retaining control, have admitted Democratic gains. It was inevitable, everybody admits, that the Democrats would regain at least a part of what was lost in the landslide of 1920. This applies to both House and Senate seats, but it is only in the Senate that Republican control has appeared to be threatened. At least, Democratic talk has been mainly of Senate control.

It may be taken for granted that the Republicans will not control the next Senate except, perhaps, in the matter of organization. If the Democrats fall short of gaining the nine seats necessary to give them a clear majority, the Republicans will still be hampered by their group of insurgents who vote with the party only on matters involving organization.

Democratic Hopes

THE

HE Democrats have professed to see in the situation auguries of victory in the Presidential campaign of 1928. Precedent is appealed to. It is said that whenever, in an off year, the Democrats have captured one branch of Congress, they have elected the President two years later. This occurred in 1882, 1890, and 1910, with Democratic Presidential victories following in 1884, 1892, and 1912. It is to be recalled, however, that in each of these instances it was control of the House of Representatives, and not of the Senate, which the Democrats wrested from the Republicans. In all of those years the chief issue was, as it may be in 1928, the tariff. The House is the effective body for dealing with a tariff question. Even if the Democrats should capture the Senate this fall, they will be powerless to do much toward bringing their tariff ideas before the country in concrete legislative proposals. These must originate in the House.

Still, control of the Senate would mean a great deal to the Democrats, and might possibly mean even more to the Republicans—almost certainly to som

Republicans. If it comes after the arduous Administration support that has been given the Republican Senatorial campaign, the fact will undoubtedly be used by those Republicans who desire a new slate as an argument that the country is no longer with the Coolidge Administration.

President and other things. All of these conditions have led the Democrats to believe in their ability to return Walsh to the Senate.

In Ohio the situation has been somewhat similar. Willis, one among the closest Senatorial friends of the Administration and an ardent dry, has been

When it comes to counting noses of opposed by a Democrat, Atlee Pomthe Democratic candidates who are likely to wrest seats from Republican Senators, there is perplexity.

Four States that have been normally and nominally Democratic elect Senators this year-Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and Oklahoma. In all of these, as in Nevada and Arizona, there have been Republican complications which appeared to give the Democrats a better chance than the mere fact of former Democratic allegiance would indicate. If those six were conceded as normal Democratic gains, control of the Senate would hinge upon the outcome in three States elsewhere in the country. The Democrats have professed to see several places where the trick can be turned.

Indiana is electing two Senators, and the Republicans are not happily situated there. Old internal feuds have broken out, and on top of them has come the Ku Klux Klan mess. The Democrats will be genuinely disappointed if they do not capture one Hoosier Senatorship, and they are claiming both.

In New York Senator Wadsworth has aroused antagonisms in his party and has been opposed by an Independent Republican candidate. This fact, along with others, has been counted upon by the Democrats to give them the second Senatorship from New York.

In Iowa the regular Republican resentment against Brookhart, the insurgent rampant who won the Republican nomination, has been the reason for Democratic hope for a repetition of the miracle of the last election, when, for the first time since the Civil War, Iowa sent a Democrat to the United States Senate. In Massachusetts, President Coolidge's home State, the Democrats have had for many years about an even break with the Republicans. Senator Butler, who has been closer to the President than any other Senator, has been opposed by David I. Walsh, who lost two years ago to the then Speaker Gillett. Walsh has had, however, an exceptionally strong rganization. The wet and dry issue

been mixed up with support of the

erene, who was formerly a United States Senator, and who is now groomed as a wet hope for the Presidential nomination. He is not, however, anything like a pronounced modificationist. He has won considerable recent prestige as prosecutor of the oil lease cases. He has always been popular with the people of Ohio, which in recent years has been about as often Democratic as Republi

can.

These have been the focal points of the Democratic aggression. There have been others, in the Northwest and elsewhere, where the chances of Democratic success have been probably just as good. In recounting these situations The Outlook is not undertaking to predict results, but is merely setting forth the grounds upon which the Democrats base their claims of control of the next Senate, and is providing a means by which the election returns, when known, can be measured.

California Learning to Outwit the Earthquake

REAT satisfaction is felt in San

GRE

Francisco and throughout the whole bay region, says our Pacific coast correspondent in an air-mail despatch received just as we are going to press, over the remarkable way in which the city and district weathered the succession of earthquakes which were felt throughout northern California on the early morning of October 22.

The first shock occurred at 4:36 A.M., the second exactly an hour later, at 5:36, and a third of minor intensity at 6:42. At the first shock in San Francisco there was a rush into the streets from hotels and apartment-houses, and several thousand did not return until after daybreak, large numbers congregating in the wide open space of the Civic Center.

Although officially registered as of number two intensity and felt throughout a wide region stretching from Napa in the north southward to San Luis Obispo, at the time our correspondent sent off his despatch no more serious damage had been reported than the

breaking of plate-glass windows, the falling of plaster, and, in certain districts, the interruption of the telephone service.

In San Francisco and other cities in the affected area this satisfactory situation is held to be largely due to the care that has been exercised in building since the disaster of twenty years ago. The almost exclusive use of steel and reinforced concrete, the disappearance of the brick chimney, and the wide use of wire and stucco over frame buildings, the abolition of the overhanging cornice and top-heavy ornamentation, have, it is claimed, resulted in a building code which can successfully withstand earthquake shocks of the intensity hitherto experienced.

Although it is difficult to get an Easterner to believe that such a statement is not merely a euphemism, the reference of San Franciscans to the fire of 1906 rather than to the earthquake is based on solid fact. The damage done by the earthquake, considerable though it was, was negligible in comparison with the damage done by the fire. To-day, with fire prevention most efficiently organized, and buildings adapted to meet every possible contingency, California feels that she has dug herself in against what were at one time her two great enemies.

Conquering Alaska by
Aerial Survey

WITH the fall of the first snow in

our most northern possession, Alaska, there has returned to the States a group of aviators known informally to the "Fleetair" of the battle fleet of the Pacific as the "Polar Bears." The story of their adventures has not been told in the despatches that recounted the flight of the Navy amphibian planes across the lofty peaks of the Alexander Archipelago.

The dash to the Pole was spectacular, but it was also brief. The expedition across the incredibly difficult terrain of southeastern Alaska by the mapping planes was an every-day hazard for three months. It was a feat that had been offered to the Army and turned down, and was one that was scarcely considered possible of achievement by the eleven other Government bureaus that co-operated to master a region that has defied the topographer and timber cruiser for many years.

When the aviators mapped such inac

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This is the lake that was discovered by the expedition and named Lake Grace, in honor of Mrs. Coolidge. The falls seen are 1,500 feet high

cessible sections as the interior of Prince of Wales Island, the mine-sweeper Gannet patrolled Clarence Strait on the east while the Coast Guard vessel Cygan steamed up and down the west shores of the island, with lighthouse tenders, radio plane, and boats of the Fisheries Commission in constant readiness for any emergency.

Thanks to the careful planning of the commander of the expedition, Lieutenant Ben Wyatt, and the executive officer, Lieutenant Wallace Dillon, not an accident was reported from the time the survey landed at its first base at Ketchikan, in early June, until the departure from Juneau, the middle of September, when approximately 20,000 miles had been mapped and upwards of 12,000

feet of film shipped back to Washington, D. C. This is a record that will stand for some time.

As new and important watersheds were discovered on Revillagigido Island, two power mill companies from the States are reported as already negotiating for sites near Ketchikan. The new reservoirs will make possible a delivery of 85,000 horse-power into that town for the production of pulp for news-print, with employment for thousands of men. A large and very beautiful lake was discovered on the same flight over the island, and has been named, in honor of Mrs. Coolidge, Lake Grace. A photograph of it was forwarded to the White House by Secretary Wilbur, who visited the Alaska survey, in August, with his

old classmate, Admiral Charles F. Hughes, Commander of the battle fleet.

New Life for an Old Ray

'HERE is small wonder that the pub

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lic is confused by the recent striking announcement of the development of Dr. Coolidge's new cathode-ray tube. Hardly a year passes without some kind of ray getting into the papers. Last year, for example, it was the cosmic or Millikan ray. There have also been several "rays" of a wholly imaginary nature, endowed nevertheless with real dollar value to quack healers. But there are rays and rays.

The ray of the day is the cathode ray. It was discovered by Crookes in 1875 and is well known to every high school student of physics. Yet during all these years it has been only a scientific curiosity-just as the Hertzian ray was before Marconi's time-until Dr. W. D. Coolidge, assistant director of the Research Laboratories of the General Electric Company, found a way to get it in useful volume outside of the sealed glass vacuum tube in which it is produced. Dr. Coolidge replaced the glass at one end of a Crookes tube with a film of nickel thick enough to exclude the air from the vacuum, but thin enough to let the cathode rays escape. Working under 350,000 volts, this new tube has already exhibited some interesting phenomena. Its rays turn acetylene gas into a solid and make other marked chemical changes. They cause crystals to glow with intense cold light, make hair grow rankly on a rabbit's ear, kill bacteria instantly, and destroy insects, frogs, and mice at a foot or two. Intrinsically valueless in the main, these results are suggestive of both good and bad. For example, several newspapers have already seen in the cathode ray a new "death ray" for "disintegrating" enemies for certain technical reasons, an absurdity. So far no practical applications have been announced. The tube delivers in much greater volume and under better control the same rays (except for velocity) as those of radium. Is it a cure for cancer? No such announcement has been made by Dr. Coolidge. Moreover, The Outlook regards it as contrary to journalistic ethics to publish announcements of untested claims of cures or speculations about possible cures, especially of carcer and tubercu

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