losis. So many years must usually elapse between discovery and the final evolution of safe curative technic that such announcements always give illusory hope to real sufferers, and are therefore nothing less than cruel.

What the Cathode Ray Is

'LECTRONS electric particles-flying

ELE

at about 150,000 miles a second like a rain-storm; these are the cathode rays, and the beta rays of radium are identical with them. We find that most people confuse cathode rays with X-rays, since both come from the same tube. However, the two fall into quite different categories, because one is a shower of particles while the other consists of vibrations of the nature of light. Therefore "X-waves" would have been a more logical term, but the double usage has become too common to amend. Dr. Coolidge's new tube is really a big X-ray tube minus the metal plate against which the cathode rays are shot when X-rays are wanted, and equipped with a thin window to let the cathode rays or electrons out where we can do things with them. As it will produce as many electrons as a whole ton of radium, it does look as if Dr. Coolidge had put a most powerful lever into the hands of the research scientist. In the past such levers have almost always opened unexpected secrets, but what this one will pry up The Outlook will not try to predict.

An Old Mystery Explained
THE

HE agricultural scientist has scored another medical triumph. The cause of "milk sickness" is now known. : "Milk sickness" had been for three hundred years a mystery disease. By By many it was regarded as nothing more than a superstitious fear, and the country doctor who reported an epidemic of it was sometimes looked upon with a measure of suspicion by his professional brethren. Even those who recognized the sickness as real were uncertain as to the cause of it and accepted the name "milk sickness" only because of a belief common among the people.

In its most violent and widespread form, "milk sickness" was a malady of newly settled communities. It followed the pioneer across the greater part of the continent and disappeared, in the main, in communities that had become thor

oughly established. It ceased, decades ago, to be a general terror. In any particular community generations might elapse without the appearance of a single case. But occasional widely separated outbreaks continued sufficiently frequent to keep the name and the dread of it

Underwood & Underwood

Thomas Mott Osborne

alive. Hardly more than a month ago fifteen deaths resulted from "milk sickness" in one community in Illinois.

Some time ago Dr. James F. Couch, of the Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agricul ture, began experiments, supplementing those of early investigators, as to the cause of a disease known as "trembles" in cattle. He has just now announced the results of his experiments. "Trembles" in cattle and "milk sickness" in human beings are the result of one of the three poisons contained in white snakeroot. Even when the poison does not affect the cow sufficiently to cause "trembles," it may so permeate the milk and butter as to cause "milk sickness" in those who drink or eat them.

This discovery is extremely illuminating, not alone as to the direct cause of the disease, but as to why it so long ravaged pioneer communities, with only rare cases in those long settled.

White snakeroot-known also as Indian sanicle and deerwort boneset-is primarily a plant of the deep woods. As fields were cleared and fenced, so that cattle no longer ranged the open woods,

cows came much less in contact with the dangerous weed. dangerous weed. Still the plant persisted. To-day every one whose love of nature has carried him beyond the cleared fields is familiar with its mass of fringy white bloom. It manages also to adapt itself to shady roadsides and the edges of moist meadows. There is always the possibility that cattle will eat some of it while grazing the meadows or eating cured hay. Now that the plant which causes the trouble is definitely known, there is, to say the least, better opportunity of guarding against "milk sickness," though it is perhaps too much to hope that all occurrences of it can be prevented. But with the poison-it has been named tremetol-definitely known, an antidote for it will be found.

One other plant, the rayless goldenrod, is known to contain the same poison and to cause "milk sickness" in certain sections of Texas and New Mexico. The poisonous quality of this plant has long been known, and it had previously been under suspicion as the cause of "milk sickness." Its limited distribution, however, made the explanation of the disease impossible on the basis of this plant alone. Unlike the rayless goldenrod, the white snakeroot-another of its names is rich weed is widely distributed, growing throughout the United States and Canada as far west as Nebraska.

"Tom Brown"

CON

NONVICTS in our prisons are out of the sight of the public. They are likely to be forgotten, or at least ignored. Their crimes have set society against them and seem to justify the public indifference. It was Thomas Mott Osborne's great service to America that he brought the inmates of our prisons into the consciousness of their fellow-men. He was sometimes called a sentimentalist; but, however profound his sentiment was, it was not sentimentalism, for it moved him to action and to sacrifice. Under the name of "Tom Brown," he voluntarily went to jail to find out what the experiences of a prisoner were. He became warden of Sing Sing and aroused the ferocious hostility of the corrupt forces that thrive on the exploitation of convicts. In consequence of this enmity he was indicted, tried, and triumphantly vindicated, and his victory was of lasting benefit to the cause of prison reform. His public service a

Mayor of Auburn, as Public Service Commissioner, and as Forest, Fish, and Game Commissioner of New York was obscured by the much more dramatic service that he rendered later in championing the cause of justice to even the guilty. His last service in office was in command of the Naval Prison at Portsmouth during and after the war. was the son of a well-to-do manufacturer, a graduate of Harvard, and a successful man of business; and devoted his talents and his means to such ends that his memory will be honored. His death on October 20 should mark the beginning of a new public interest in the chief cause which he served.

A Voice of Protest Silenced

E

He

UGENE V. DEBS's stormy career came

to an end with his death on October 20 in Chicago. As leader of the great railway strike in 1894, he attempted to paralyze the railways of the country, was foiled largely by President Cleveland's vigorous action, and was sent to jail. He thereupon became a Socialist. In 1900 he was the SocialDemocratic Party's candidate for President of the United States. During the war he was sentenced to prison for discouraging and obstructing enlistments. While in prison he was a candidate for the Presidency and received a million votes. His personality drew to him many followers, and he was regarded as gentle and unselfish; but his acts and words were sometimes those of a dangerous fanatic. He served a useful purpose doubtless at times in voicing, even though intemperately, protests against social wrongs; but he was not a constructive force, and his theories were out of accord with the institutions and temper of the American people. As a picturesque figure of the first quarter of the twentieth century in America his name will be remembered, but his influence had waned even before his death and is fast vanishing.

Underwood & Underwood

Eugene V. Debs

ton, evince their delight at her appearance by clapping-but check themselves, uncertain whether it is proper to applaud a queen. Both in that hotel and in another in Philadelphia the ballroom is transformed into a throne room, with a sure-enough throne, and hundreds of the more prominent local citizens of the Republic file before the Queen and kiss her hand. And the Mayor of Baltimore is provoked into impassioned self-defense by a despatch to the London "Daily Telegraph" to the effect that on the occasion of his official welcome to the Queen he wore a top hat for the first time in his life. He replies solemnly that he has been wearing top hats since 1910, that he has had four top hats in his lifetime, and that the top hat he wore on the occasion of Queen Marie's visit was bought prior to the Army-Navy football game in 1924, when President Coolidge came there to see the game. He might have left the Queen to think that at least he bought a new top hat to honor her.

If the presence of the Queen has added to the harmless necessary gayety of nations, the publicity of the Queen during her blithe tour of our land has

made her also what we like to call "a human being." She is almost as prolific a journalist as Lloyd George. And as her advance messages to the United States and to each of the forty-eight States and her official impressions of America have spread themselves on the front pages the illusion of majesty has faded. We have gained the impression that Queen Marie is just one of us, after all.

The motto for royalty has been, "Every inch a king." But Queen Marie has modernized it and brought it up to the twentieth-century, American style, to read, "Every column a queen."

Two Internationals

OVIET Russia and the American

SOVIET

Young Men's Christian Association appear to have come into conflict. In consequence, the Young Men's Christian Association has been expelled from Russia.

The news has just been announced that an American Young Men's Christian Association secretary directing physical education activities in Moscow, Mr. Harry D. Anderson, has been sent out of Russia. Following the established Communist principles, his office equipment was confiscated. Since he was the last Young Men's Christian Association man working in Russia, according to the National Council in New York, his banishment means the end of the Association's work there.

The reasons for the Soviet action are somewhat obscure, and probably must remain so until Mr. Anderson-now on his way home-reaches the United States. But a statement issued by the Young Men's Christian Association says that "National Council officials believe the ultimate cause of the withdrawal of permission to continue work in Russia lies in what the Soviet appears to regard as the incompatibility of the two programs-that of the Young Men's Christian Association and that of Communism." The statement goes on to quote from an address before the plenary meeting of the Executive Committee of the Young Communists' International in Moscow this year: "Our comrades in China have a difficult task. They must educate thousands of new members. . . . We have to count with a very strong Christian propaganda, which is particularly represented by the Young Men's Christian Association."

The Young Men's Christian Association has conducted most valuable and varied services in Russia. In addition to other activities, it has distributed about $100,000 worth of supplies to needy students and professors and established free medical dispensaries. It has abstained from political activity of any kind. In the case of the secretary who has just been expelled, it is emphasized that he is a specialist solely concerned with physical education. Just what menace to Communism all this work constituted is a little difficult to see unless it was as evidence of the surplus benefits that a nation organized along other lines is able to distribute.

The explanation probably is to be found in the speech to the Young Communists. Two irreconcilable movements have come into contact with each other. The Communists have run against the Young Men's Christian Association in their propaganda campaign in the Far East, and have recognized its influence. They do not propose to give it any ground at home.

What Did Norway Abolish?

tion on the sale or liquor having over 21 per cent alcohol. Beverages containing 21 per cent alcohol are intoxicating in fact even according to the definition of our own advocates of light wine and beer.

Norway for many years tried out a modification of the Gothenberg system, in which the sale of liquor was under the control of citizens who were not looking for exorbitant profits. Under this system any profits over five per cent went to objects of public utility.

In 1916 Norway abolished the sale of hard liquor and set a limit of 14 per cent on the alcoholic content of wines. Owing to the pressure of foreign commercial interests from countries which declined to purchase Norway's fish unless they could sell their wines to Norway, this limit was raised to 21 per cent. Norway has suffered during the past régime from bootleggers, home distillers, and rumrunners from across the Baltic. Norway has never had prohibition as it is understood in the United States. If anything is to be learned from the Norwegian experience, it is that light wines and beers, even beverages containing 21 per cent alcohol, do not satisfy hard drinkers or eliminate the demand for whisky.

As we point out elsewhere in this issue, there seems to be no possibility of compromise between absolute prohibi

tion and the licensed saloon or its equivalent. The attempt to set a comparatively high alcoholic content to permit the commercial manufacture and sale of wines eliminates none of the serious difficulties existing under absolute prohibition and adds many of the difficulties existing under the licensed system.

Free-Trade America and Protectionist Europe

A

RE the beneficiaries of American protection advising Europe to adopt free trade? That was the natural exclamation when it was announced that half a dozen American financiers, headed by J. P. Morgan, had signed a plea for the removal of European tariff barriers. It is true that there were several score of other signatories besides the Americans; but these other signatories, of various European nationalities, were proposing a policy for their own nations. It seemed, therefore, that the American bankers were either advising Europe to do what they would not have America do or were confessing that the protectionist tariff barrier surrounding their own nation was an injury and should be torn down. In either case their attitude seemed surprising.

A little reflection, however, should have been sufficient to show that in sign

ing this plea a believer in the American tariff system might be wholly consistent.

Every American is in one sense a freetrader. No political party could collect a corporal's guard of Americans to support the policy of erecting tariff barriers along the borders of the several States. It would be ludicrous to suggest that New York be allowed to collect duties on goods brought in from Connecticut, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey; that California and Texas and Michigan should be separated from one another, not only by the intervening miles, but also by a series of tariff walls. It is free trade among the States of the Union that is the economic foundation of their common political structure. America is strong where Europe is weak, not primarily because her natural resources are rich, but because in this continental area trade is free.

The United States is so big and its industries are so varied that with this internal free trade it can be virtually selfsustaining. No European country is in a comparable situation. Every country of Europe depends for its prosperity, and even its life, upon other countries. The tariff walls in Europe to-day are not like the tariff wall about the United States, but are like tariff walls shutting off every State of the American Union from every other State. What the American bankers did was to join European bankers in declaring that what had proved of benefit to America was necessary for the prosperity of Europe.

At present it is possible for industry to pay high wages to American workers, for every increase in the income of American workers means an increase in their demand for American products. The more Americans have, the more they can produce; and the more they produce, the more they will have. This is not so in England, for example. The English workmen's wages may as probably go for the purchase of German as for British goods. No European nation can follow America's example unless practically all European nations. do so.

There is one difficulty which stands in Europe's way which has not been experienced in America. The constituent states of Europe are sovereign nations. Each nation's sovereignty depends upon the power of the purse. To yield the right to levy tariffs is to yield an essential element in sovereignty. The American States surrendered their sovereignty

in this respect before they had the chance to grow into separate nations. The states of Europe could not surrender sovereignty without a sacrifice of national consciousness that they prize. The German Zollverein became the German Empire. A customs union for all of Europe would mean ultimately the United States of Europe. That seems still distant.

If the bankers' plea is heeded and their advice is taken, America will face a new competition and a consequent new stimulus to its enterprise and resourcefulness. It is perhaps not the least service of the American bankers' group among these signatories that they have given to American industry and commerce a fair warning of what may be on its way. Whether a customs union for Europe comes soon or not, there has already arrived among European industrial leaders a sense of Europe's common needs and common interests. When that develops into action, American statesmen will have to consider what National policy in response it will be desirable for the United States to pursue. It may very well be that American interests will then be promoted by the mutual lowering of tariff barriers between Europe and America. Reciprocity, now hampered by the very complication of the necessary negotiations for securing it, may be made more practicable as well as more beneficial than it can at present. In any case, Americans should welcome whatever makes for prosperity in Europe, and therefore should welcome any tendency toward the adoption in Europe of American free trade. In the end, except as short-sighted politics usurps the place of statesmanship, the prosperity of part of the world means prosperity to all.

rising south of the Continental Divide tumble down in waterfalls to form several creeks or rivers that finally contribute their waters to the Snake River in Idaho. One of these is known as Bechler River. Just before it leaves the Park it flows through a broad expanse of grass broken by woods. This is the Bechler Meadow, There is nothing quite like it elsewhere in the Park. It affords a panoramic view of the mountains to the northeast and southeast, circling from the western border of the Park to the majestic Teton Range. It is the natural feeding-ground of Park animals and a source of supply for their winter forage. For botanists it furnishes interesting flora. For campers it furnishes ideal ground on which to pitch their tents. Those who know the Park best and care for it most are inexorable in their determination that this spot shall not be violated.

Just across the border of the Park there are neighbors who look upon this serene and lovely meadow with covetous eyes. In Fremont and Madison Counties of Idaho there are beet-sugar factories and sugar-beet growers who see in this corner of the Park a place where they can turn water into money. Beets are thirsty vegetables, and the beet growers and sugar manufacturers want to give their beets plenty to drink. So they scheme to destroy this beautiful meadow and turn it into a commercial reservoir.

A few years ago this commercial interest proposed to put the reservoir into the Park itself. Since then it has learned a lesson. It knows now that the Nation will never consent to that. So this industry now proposes to take this area of twelve square miles out of the Park altogether and to appropriate it for commercial purposes.

As an inducement to part with this region, this special interest has offered the American people in exchange a so-called game refuge. It has persuaded the Legislature of Idaho to set aside a barren tract of land to be given to the United States provided the United States allows the Yellowstone Park to be broken into and rifled. Obviously, this is a plan to get something for nothing; for this socalled game refuge, worthless as it is for Park purposes, is of no value whatever to the beet-sugar interest.

What a beet wants is, not beauty, but water. The beet grower likes to saturate the ground where he has his crop. In ordinary years he can do this; but in dry years, under present conditions, he needs more water than he can get. Because of a recurrent lack of water there is every five years or so, the spokesmen for this special interest say, a loss of about $5,000,000. Even if that is so, though it may be doubted, the sugar-beet interest of these two counties could then well afford to spend several million dollars for a reservoir site and a dam of its own outside the present limits of the Park; but this would mean to buy its own land and build a more costly dam; to loot the Park would be cheaper.

The people behind this scheme take credit to themselves for not asking the people of the United States to build the dam for them. All they want is to have a National treasure transferred to the coffers of their commercial venture. Could anything be more complacent?

This special interest now gets from the American people a bounty of fortyfour dollars a ton for its product. They get it in the form of tariff protection. They show their gratitude by try

cial interest that the people of Idaho have lent the influence of their State Government.

Ex-Senator Dubois of Idaho has described this scheme frankly-it is a proposal "for the benefit of the favored few at the expense of the good name of Idaho."

If the people of Idaho do not care enough about the good name of their own State to guard Yellowstone Park from spoliation by their own special interests, the people of the rest of the country will have to put their watchmen on guard against Idaho.

Americans, keep the looters out.

the abuse of alcohol. The difficulty lies in the fact that under modified prohibition the same old factors of corruption are present as are present in any legalized system for the distribution of beverage alcohol.

Prohibition in the United States was and is not specifically a temperance movement. It has been a movement to destroy the strangle-hold of distillers and brewers upon Government and politics.

Thus commercial interest is the only element in the problem which can be reached by law and the agents of law. The problems of wine-making and brewing in the home are social rather than political troubles and can be solved only by methods of social education. The forces of Government should confine themselves to the elimination of the commercial liquor trade whether this trade be legalized or whether it be in the hands of unlegalized bootleggers.

When wets hold up their hands in horror at any thought of the return of the old-fashioned saloon-and it would be hard to find wets who would advocate the return of old conditions-ask them how they propose to permit the return of the legalized liquor traffic without at the same time opening the door, not only to the evils which exist under pro