Volume 144

"The Same Smith"

U

PON Frank L. Smith, of Illinois, Senator-elect for a full term and Senator-designate for the filling out of an unexpired term, rests the responsibility of deciding whether or not the question of his right to a seat because of excessive expenditures in the primary shall be precipitated upon the Senate at this short session. Governor Small has

offered him appointment to the position made vacant by the death of Senator McKinley. As this issue of The Outlook goes to press Colonel Smith has neither accepted nor declined to accept the appointment. The opinion has been prevalent in Washington that he will do neither the one nor the other, but will permit the place to remain vacant until the end of this Congress. If he does so, Illinois will be deprived of half the representation to which it is entitled in the Senate, but, from the standpoint of Governor Small and Colonel Smith, something will be gained. By offering Colonel Smith the appointment Governor Small has recorded his belief in the legality and regularity of Smith's nomination and election. And this may constitute some fortification of Colonel Smith's position when he comes to make the fight for a seat in the Congress to which he was elected.

If Colonel Smith should accept the appointment, he will be resisted at the door of the Senate quite as vigorously as if he had waited until the opening of the Seventieth Congress. This became apparent, even before the appointment was made, when Republican Senators urged Smith not to come to Washington with an appointment. As soon as the appointment was offered Smith, the Reed Committee rushed into the Senate a specially prepared preliminary report on

December 29, 1926

soning may be unsound, but its unsoundness would not prevent consumption of much of the Senate's time in urging it. If Smith should present his credentials at this session, business would be delayed and an extra session might become necessary.

Admitting Alien Wives and Children

THE amendment to admit, regardless of quota restrictions, 35,000 wives and children of aliens who came to the United States before July 1, 1926, and who have applied for naturalization, was looked upon by the thirty-seven Senators who voted against it as "the opening wedge in the break-down of the Restrictive Immigration Act." By the thirtynine who voted for it, thereby sending the amendment to the House of Representatives for action, it was considered a humane and practicable remedy for an unfortunate result of immigration restriction.

The amendment's wise specification of the families of immigrants who came before the present Immigration Law became effective justifies its passage. The immigrants affected entered the United. States with the legitimate expectation that their families could follow them. Immigrants since the passage of the law, on the contrary, were able to know that they might not be able to send for their families. It is proper to alleviate the unhappy separations of the first class of immigrants. The separations of the later immigrants are on their own responsibility; and humanitarian considerations must give way to those of policy.

The Menace to the

Federal Reserve System

OMETHING less than a year ago The Outlook published an article which discussed the question, "Is the Federal Reserve System in Danger?" The article was evoked by the present unprecedented spread of branch banking throughout the country. Under existing Federal banking laws, branch banking that is, branches outside the city of the

Number 18

original bank-can be undertaken only by State banks; and for several years the competition of the State banks, with their branches, has gone very hardly with the National banks, confined as they are to their chosen headquarters cities. The article related that, as a result of this competition, many National banks throughout the country were surrendering their National charters and enrolling themselves as State banks, with the consequence that the Federal Reserve System, the foundation of which is the National banks, was being steadily undermined.

It is, of course, to remedy this state of things that the McFadden Banking Bill was introduced, having been designed to accord to National banks the same privileges in branch banking as are at present enjoyed by the State banks. The McFadden Bill has received the approval of both houses of Congress; but the difference between the Senate and the House over the so-called Hull Amendment, which would restrict the branches of National banks hereafter in States which do not permit branch banks, has so far prevented the measure from becoming law.

So serious has the situation become, developing along the lines indicated in The Outlook's article, that the Comptroller of the Currency has made an urgent appeal in his report to Congress for prompt enactment of the McFadden Bill. The Comptroller declares that there is "a steady decline in the relative strength of the National banking system," and insists that some such meassure as the McFadden Bill is requisite as a means of "resuscitation." During the year ending October 1 no fewer than 87 National banks left the National system and took out State charters, carrying with them an aggregate of $560,000,000 in resources. Only 29 State banks, with resources of $235,000,000, obtained National charters in the same period.

Such a state of affairs certainly needs to be remedied. This point will be generally conceded, quite apart from any differences that may exist as to the efficacy of the McFadden Bill in this direc

tion or as to the soundness or the unsoundness of the Hull Amendment.

A Victory for Arbitration

THE

HE involution and complex diplomacy of the various garmentmakers' strikes in New York City are as hard to follow as the doings and talkings of the League of Nations. The strike that has just been settled by an arbitration board consisting of three members of Governor Smith's advisory commission for reorganizing the garment trade called out some 20,000 or more workers employed in several hundreds of contractors' shops. They belonged to the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, and their quarrel was with the American Association of Cloak and Suit Manufacturers. Previously a settlement had been obtained as regards some 15,000 workers of the New York Cloakmakers' Union and their employers. The outlook for general peace accordingly is now better than it has seemed for many months.

The conditions in this general industry are complex because not only workers and manufacturers but also contractors and sub-contractors not belonging to the employers' associations are concerned. The present settlement is said to meet all reasonable demands of the employees which related chiefly to methods of employment, discharge, seasonal conditions, and contractual relations, although it also includes a moderate reduction as to hours of labor and a minimum wage provision. The agreement reads like an international protocol.

The moderate members of the union regard the settlement as a triumph over the "Communists," for better terms are now secured than the radicals had been able to obtain in the previous settlement made for the 15,000 employees as stated above. Diplomacy is better than war even in the garment trade.

(C) Hamilton Maxwell, Inc.

A proposed addition to the New York skyline-it looks more like an engineering feat than an architectural triumph

drafted various New York State labor laws.

The Special Commissioner's investigation found, for New York State, that the purpose of the parole law as an intermediary stage to complete freedom for

prisoners and its potential value as an incentive to reform are largely lost because of improper administration. The basis for parole in New York has become practically the mere failure to violate prison laws, rather than the more difficult standard of reasonable probability that the applicant for parole will remain at liberty without violating the law. But "it is wholly unfair to conclude from the results that parole has been tried and found wanting." Commissioner Alger believes that the parole system should be given a continued trial in New York State under three full-time commissioners, entirely alert to their function, rather than under the present part-time board, and with the paroled prisoners supervised by an adequate force of parole officers.

For prison reform the Special Commissioner recommended principally a stronger central control over the four State prisons and the State reformatory, and a reclassification, by prisons, to keep boys and young men from being confined with hardened criminals.

Babel Outdone

IT

T is announced that a building 1,208 feet high may be constructed on Forty-second Street, New York, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, to accommodate 110 stories.

This is a nearer approach to heaven than the celebrated edifice at Babylon made. If built, it will be 416 feet higher than the Woolworth Building and will contain 50 more floors. It will be 224 feet higher than the Eiffel Tower, which is now the tallest structure in the world.

The need of so tall a structure does not exist, but as an example of human endeavor it is awesome to contemplate. Man will not restrain his energies. An obstacle is something to overcome, and overcome it he will, mainly because it is an obstacle. If he could, he would probably throw the earth out of its periphery just to see what would happen.

thousands of times, there had been no tests on a whole building constructed of such parts. Pure theory, eked out by empirical indications, has therefore had to serve as the basis for their design. The accidents that befell two Miami office buildings, respectively of fifteen and seventeen stories' height, point out pretty plainly that some of these theories of design have been exploded by mere facts.

As a result it is thought likely that building codes will be changed. According to the "Engineering News-Record," which sent Mr. F. E. Schmitt, its associate editor, to Miami to render an expert engineer's report on the effects of the hurricane from a technical point of view, "the Florida storm experience with tall buildings represents a mechanical analysis of buildings under lateral stress. of such a character as to suggest the opportunity for thoroughgoing revision of building design methods."

It is possible to calculate beforehand the stresses to which a great steel building is likely to be subjected, yet engineers know that such calculations are based on rather ideal or theoretical conditions. When things actually happen, the exact train of events previously assumed does not often take place. For example, in the case of another comparable metallic structure, the dirigible airship Shenandoah, it would appear that winds struck the ship unevenly throughout its length, and thus brought enhanced stresses to bear on one part. Similarly, in the recent cases at Miami violent puffs or blasts with a force approaching sixty-five pounds pressure on each square foot of wall tore out parts of the masonry on which the integrity of the steel framework partly depended. Because of the force of the wind on the building the steel columns actually bent. Thus, somewhat like Napoleon, the wind found a strategy to cope with a theoretically stronger opponent: it divided it into parts and defeated each part in succession.

Such tests, made by nature, are of incalculable value. Of course, the suspicion that they throw on existing buildings is not as serious as would be the case had engineers not long known the extent to which they are compelled to rely on theory and allowed what they call a "factor of safety"—that is, empirically made their buildings two to four times as strong as theory called for. It is,

however, "an ill wind that blows nobody good;" and the Miami hurricane did what engineering laboratories are not yet equipped to do-it put whole buildings into a testing machine and gave them what the engineer calls a "destructive test."

Radio Television

FOR

some months scientists have known that Dr. E. F. W. Alexanderson, consulting engineer of the General Electric Company and the Radio Corporation of America, was at work on a "television" projector-an apparatus for seeing at a distance through the medium of electricity. Recently he announced publicly that he had accomplished this purpose. It is now possible to see objects in motion by radio better than has ever been done before.

In its essence, his method is to divide into a mosaic of parts the image to be transmitted, and to transmit this mosaic with such rapid repetition that it fools the eye, taking advantage of the physiological phenomenon of "persistence of vision" that enables us in motion pictures to blend into continuous action the sixteen separate pictures a second of the film. A visual picture of continuous action results from the projection of a sufficiently rapid series of still pictures. Therefore, if we find a practical way to transmit the type of pictures that have been sent for a year or two by wire and wireless-that is, pictures broken up into some kind of mosaic-and to speed up this transmission until we attain sixteen pictures a second, we accomplish the television of moving objects.

How Dr. Alexanderson has done this is, briefly, first to divide the image vertically into 100 strips; then to subdivide each strip into 100 parts by means of a rapidly revolving drum carrying a large rapidly revolving drum carrying a large number of mirrors around its periphery, each mirror receiving a flash of light from the object. In actual practice each light beam is multiple; but this is only one of the several respects in which the new television process is an improvement on some previous methods. The next problem is to convert this mosaic of varying spots of light into radio waves. The photoelectric cell does this. It contains a metal which gives off electrons-electricity-when light falls on it. Thus the electric current is made to fluctuate in step with the many rapidly moving flashes of varying light in each moving flashes of varying light in each

vertical zone. At the distant receiving end these processes are reversed-the amplified incoming radio current controls artificial sources of light, duplicating on a screen the original image.

For years these basic principles have been known, but the main difficulty has been to obtain the desired pictorial detail with the required speed. This Dr. Alexanderson has now accomplished. Some day the interesting chap who describes football games over the radio may find that the televisor has stolen his job.

Our Settlement With Germany

M°

ORE than eight years after the Armistice, we are at last arriving at an arrangement with Germany for the payment of private war damages. The Alien Property Bill, by which claims of American and German citizens against the two Governments are adjusted, has been passed by the House of Representatives and sent to the Senate. It is not an ideal measure. No measure would be likely to be, in the circumstances. But it does offer a compromise acceptable to both parties, reached by a mixed claims commission without modifying any of the National claims of the United States.

Under the terms of the bill, four-fifths of the German property held by the Alien Property Custodian will be returned to the owners immediately, while the remaining fifth will be held as security until all claims of Americans against Germany are satisfied. Provision is made as to the conditions for mutual iiquidation of American and German claims. The measure involves the disposition of some $270,000,000 worth of German property seized upon the American declaration of war-including ship and radio patent rights-and the payment of extensive American claims, including 391 death and personal-injury claims.

The opposition to the bill in the House of Representatives, principally Democratic, has been based largely on the contention that it is confiscatory, because not all of the German property is to be returned at once. The bill which the Administration sponsors, however, does not confiscate. It defers restitution, it is true; but it promises restitution when our claims have been settled. If the measure were blocked, German owners would remain deprived of all their property for an indefinite period

until a new agreement could be negotiated. Four-fifths of a loaf certainly is better than no bread. In the interest of equity without further delay, it is to be hoped that the Senate will pass the bill speedily and allow the President to make it law.

Germany Changing Cabinets Again

G

ERMANY is facing a test whether the reactionary militarists of the Nationalist Party or the moderate Socialists are to control the balance of power. The Reichstag has forced the "Little Coalition" Cabinet of Chancellor Marx out of office. During the New Year holidays there will be a feverish canvass of the political situation. Out of it should emerge a Cabinet which will show which way Germany is really headed.

The Marx Cabinet has been in the difficult position of a minority coalition, commanding only about 170 out of the 425 votes in the Reichstag. With the Opposition majority divided between the Nationalists and industrialists, on the one hand, and the Socialists and Communists, on the other, it has maintained existence by keeping both sides as contented as it could. The overthrow of the Cabinet was caused by Philip Scheidemann, the Socialist leader. He accused the Government of failing to mold the army into an instrument for the protection of the Republic. He also charged that the Defense Minister, Dr. Gessler, was pursuing secret policies in agreement with a monarchist army clique to build up a huge illegal reserve force. The Nationalists shouted "Traitor!" and "Blackguard!" at Scheidemann, but joined with the Socialists in a vote of no confidence in the Cabinet.

The Reichstag then adjourned for a month. President Hindenburg called the preceding Chancellor, Dr. Luther, back from Spain to Berlin for a confer

ence.

He is a non-partisan leader, in sympathy with the point of view and the policies which have been advanced by Chancellor Marx and Foreign Minister Stresemann. If Dr. Luther should become Chancellor again, Stresemann undoubtedly would continue to hold the post in the Foreign Office which he had in the former Luther Cabinet. But the main point is that now Germany must have a Cabinet which can count on the support of a majority in the Reichstag. That means choosing between the Nationalists and the Socialists. And that, And that,

in turn, means a decision between the road back to monarchy and the road ahead for the Republic.

Japan Opens Her Land to
Alien Owners

THE

'HE soil of Japan traditionally has been reserved for the Japanese. Foreigners could lease land, even in perpetuity, in regions not designated as of military or strategic importance. But they could not acquire title to ownership. By a new Imperial decree, making effective legislation passed by the Diet in the spring of 1925, the Japanese Government has now extended the right of ownership to aliens, except within the forbidden areas including territory around fortified areas and naval bases and the islands of Formosa, Hokkaido, and Sakhalin.

From the point of view of the United States, the significance of this decision is in its bearing upon the rights claimed for Japanese abroad. In the Pacific Coast States, for instance, Japan has been condemned for demanding the same landownership rights for her subjects as other foreigners enjoyed, while denying landownership to foreigners in her own territory. The basis for this argument has now been destroyed.

Japan's step may be the first on the way to a revival of negotiations for settlement of the long-vexed question of the landownership rights of Japanese in the United States. The Administration at Washington cannot interfere in the legislation of individual States. It cannot insist, for example, that the land laws of California be altered. But the Japanese action does open the opportunity for a reciprocal treaty, defining the landownership and leasing rights of Japanese

in the United States and of Americans in

Japan. The Japanese law left to the Government the option of bringing into force an Imperial rescript by which American citizens of States where Japanese subjects are prevented from owning land would be deprived of such rights in Japan. So far this has not been done. If the situation in the United States remains unmodified, there could be no objection to it under a new diplomatic agreement.

L'Enfant's Dream

toward Washington these days. For there is good ground for hope that the dream of a magnificent capital city which he dreamed so long ago in the wilderness along the Potomac will be realized within this generation.

ton.

Congress not long ago appropriated $50,000,000, to be made available in five annual installments, for the erection of needed public buildings in WashingNow Secretary of the Treasury Mellon, in his annual report, has said that, not only must Washington be made the equal in beauty of any city on earth, but that, for reasons of economy, the necessary land must be bought now even though buildings are not to be erected upon it for years to come. He urges that the Government immediately acquire all of the land stretching from the Capitol grounds to Fifteenth Street, with Pennsylvania Avenue as its northern and the Mall as its southern boundary. Senator Smoot and Representative Underhill have introduced bills to authorize such purchases and to make an additional sum of $25,000,000 available for the purpose. The Smoot bill has passed the Senate.

Those not acquainted with the mixed squalor and beauty of certain parts of Washington cannot understand what the acquisition of this great triangle would mean toward making the capital city of the United States what it ought to be, because they cannot know how, in its present state, this triangle detracts from the beauty of buildings already constructed and open spaces already parked and planted.

The Mall is a great open space-designed to be open and actually almost so stretching from the Capitol to the Potomac River. Potomac River. Pennsylvania Avenue is the principal thoroughfare, running from the Capitol to the White House. Between them lies this triangle. In it are a few fine buildings-the District Building, the Post Office Department Building, the Southern Railway building. In it are the market houses and stalls and curb spaces for hucksters' wagons. In it are almost innumerable disheveled houses. Once, when cities were less careful than now of their outward appearance of morality, some of these houses were the abodes of painted women who sold their charms, and, though the women are long since gone the old houses have something the lo of old courtezans, wrinkled and ber their paint faded and their finery thre