Volume 147

Uncle Sam Effects a Cure

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ARL CARROLL, convicted of perjury, was started on a journey to Atlanta, He collapsed in transit, was taken to a hospital, and his friends and lawyers set up a howl to the effect that his transfer to Atlanta would be the death of him. Hard-hearted (or keen-visioned) Government physicians begged to differ from this opinion, and Mr. Carroll's interrupted journey was resumed Atlantawards. Once within the prison walls, his health, instead of declining, promptly began to improve. Word now comes that he has recovered sufficiently to be transferred to the prison farm, where in wall-less seclusion he will work out the remainder of his sentence.

Who knows but that if Mr. Carroll had promptly taken advantage of the Government's offer of a vacation from Broadway he might have escaped all the consequences of his earlier illness? Men with less influence and money would undoubtedly have had to follow such a course whether they wished to or no. We have never thought of the Atlanta Penitentiary as a health resort, but perhaps, like the imaginary mongoose in the old story, it may be a grand cure for imaginary ills. Score one for Uncle Sam. It may be that the next time he is confronted with a case like that of Earl Carroll he will not permit sentimental influences to warp his judgment.

September 7, 1927

The Committee finds that pleading guilty is common, as a matter of legal tactics and presumably as a factor in receiving mitigated sentences.

Over seventy per cent of the crime problem is included in the four crimes of grand larceny, assault, burglary, and

Keystone

Ex-Governor Bilbo, of Mississippi, who is

looking for a return trip to Jackson robbery. Of these grand larceny leads the others, rising in importance in certain of the larger cities to more than one-third of felony arrests. In rural areas burglary leads. The major crimes are committed, the report shows, by professional criminals to a large extent, for the purpose of taking property by acts of violence.

Wholesale Arson

SOME

tee finds as a result of its researches, S

covering 25,000 cases of felony, that "the median age for those who commit robberies, perhaps the most serious of the so-called professional crimes, is not over twenty-three, while for those who commit burglary it is fractionally lower. The median age for forgery and fraud is about thirty, while grand larceny falls somewhere between twenty-five and thirty."

OME five years ago or more there seemed to be what almost amounted to an epidemic of the burning of churches in Canada. At one time a newspaper correspondent noted the burning of no fewer than ten Catholic churches placed wide apart. There was no reason whatever to suppose that these cases of arson came from hatred of the Roman Catholic Church. But it was thought possible that the crimes might

Number I

have been committed by some halfcrazed individual fanatic.

The culmination of these crimes came in the destruction in part of the fine old Cathedral at Quebec and in the burning of the famous Shrine of Ste. Anne de Beaupré.

Now the mystery has apparently been solved. A convict who was about to begin a long term of imprisonment at Columbus, Ohio, has told in detail of the commission of a long list of burnings of churches in Canada and the United States for the sole object of stealing the treasures of gold and silver vessels and sometimes money. He admits that he

has been committing crimes of this kind for a great many years, and asserts that his robberies probably yielded him in all about $300,000, mostly in gold, silver, and jewels from sacred vessels and paraphernalia.

Among these crimes were the burning of the two great churches named above. In these cases, however, the criminal and his accomplices were unable to get possession of what they were seeking. The Church of Ste. Anne de Beaupré alone is said to have had in its shrine jewels worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but before the robbers could seize the jewels the priests of the church had rescued them.

If this story is true, it unveils a new form of professional criminality, and one that is as despicable as it is sordid.

Why Mississippi Chose a Demagogue

HOUGH Mississippi has fought val

Tiantly for almost twenty years to

free itself from the demagogy fomented and fastened upon it by James K. Vardaman, that demagogy is still potent. Theodore G. Bilbo, the eager recipient of Vardaman's mantle, is again to be Governor, having won the Democratic nomination in a run-off primary.

When Henry L. Whitfield was elected Governor in 1924, the long fight appeared to be won. Whitfield typified the State's best traditions. By profession an educator for years State Superintendent of Schools and for other years president of a college-he had developed qualities of statesmanship which promised to make him a servant of his State

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as dependable if not as brilliant as were L. Q. C. Lamar and John Sharp Willliams.

Vardamanism had been defeated before, but by compromise. Vardaman himself had been displaced in the United States Senate, but by Pat Harrison, a Senator not the ideal of those who waged the fight. In the election of Whitfield there appeared on the surface to be no compromise, but there was. In order to secure Whitfield's election it had been necessary to place on the ticket with him as the candidate for Lieutenant-Governor Dennis Murphree, a politician of no particularly outstanding ability.

Governor Whitfield died. Mr. Murphree became Governor, with the bulk of Whitfield's supporters obligated to him. In the ensuing contest for the Democratic nomination for Governor the State was thus deprived of the opportunity to make a free choice. Either of the two candidates eliminated in the primary might have been under other circumstances stronger than Murphree.

When the run-off campaign came, with Murphree and Bilbo as the contenders, the State was already deprived of opportunity to choose the candidate it would have preferred. Of the two contenders, it is hardly to be doubted that Murphree would have been the choice if he had not been made a fool of by some of his overzealous supporters.

Murphree charged Bilbo with having received a congratulatory letter from Governor Smith, of New York. Though the ostensible object was to show that Bilbo was the tool of the wets, there was at least the appearance of an effort to inject anti-Catholic prejudice into the campaign—and this, coming from a man whose name is commonly pronounced as if spelled "Denny Murphy," may have seemed to certain Mississippians not in good faith. In any event, Bilbo was able to disprove the charge. In the court of public opinion, slander was proved against Murphree. The revulsion gave Bilbo the nomination.

The result does not prove that a majority of Mississippians want the type of government made familiar by Bilbo's preceptor and by Bilbo himself. It goes a good way, on the contrary, to show that Mississippi does not want this type of government and that the fight against it will go on. Meanwhile, however, Mississippi must suffer. A rumor was current in New York two days after the result was known that a wealthy Chicagoan who had been ready to launch a big industry in northeastern Mississippi -a region sorely in need of industrieshad at once canceled his arrangements. Business in Mississippi has suffered se

Exit Necator Americanus

L

ITERALLY translated, the name of the hookworm is "the American murderer" and never was a parasite more aptly named. When, some fifteen years ago, Mr. J. D. Rockefeller made a gift of a million dollars to aid in the cure and prevention of the hookworm disease, there was some ridicule of the idea that the hookworm was a cause of laziness, but the appellation "the lazy sickness" was as true as the scientific designation of the parasite as a murderer. Its ravages lowered the vitality and thus inIcreased the death rate from other diseases. It also so reduced the energy of those attacked that it injured their working ability.

The fight against the hookworm has been prolonged and vigorous. Now the Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation is able to announce that, if the disease has not entirely been eradicated, it has come under control to a large extent the world over, while in the United States it has almost entirely disappeared. It is stated that about seven million persons have been cured and restored to something like normal activity.

The successful campaign against the hookworm is equaled by that carried on by the Rockefeller Foundation against malaria. True malaria is the result of the bite of only one of three kinds of the anopheles mosquito known in the United States. The war against it first found and defined the breeding grounds of this particular species of mosquito, and then

concentrated on its destruction.

Altogether the progress, as reported by the Health Board of the Rockefeller Institute, in ridding the world of dangerous forms of disease and also in improving health conditions both in town and country, especially as they affect children, is most encouraging.

It is true that baffling problems, the greatest of which is perhaps that of cancer, still remain unsolved; but the evidence of this single report alone is enough to show that science has made extraordinary advances in the last quarter of a century.

miles landed at Croydon (the airport for London) "as calmly as though they were members of a personally conducted tourist party" on the morning of August 28, having made the flight in a trifle less than twenty-three hours. This was the first step in an attempt to set a new record for circling the globe. Since Jules Verne's story which made his fictitious travelers go around the world in eighty days the record has been very much reduced, and at present it stands at about twenty-eight and a half days, as made by two travelers who used airplane, steamship, and railway as best they could.

With anything like good luck, Brock and Schlee will find it easy to beat this record and hope to reduce it to fifteen days. Their second step, from London to Munich, was as businesslike and successful as the first. The Pride of Detroit landed at Munich on August 29, after an eight hours' flight. Their next stop was Belgrade.

The only previous attempt to fly around the world was that of American, British, French, and Italian airmen in 1924. The trip was completed by two American planes, piloted by Lieutenants Smith and Nelson, in about five months, with, of course, many stops. The phrase "around the world" perhaps needs some definition or limitation. This flight, which was completed only by the American planes, did not, in fact, traverse any very large stretches of ocean. The record was from Santa Monica, California, to Seattle, thence to Sitka, and thence through Alaska and the waters near the coast of Siberia to Japan and China, thence to India, and back to Europe; while the return voyage westward "across the Atlantic" from England was by way of the Orkney Isles, Iceland, Greenland, Labrador, and Nova Scotia-a passage which involved no very long distances of ocean flight.

With the Long-Distance
Fliers

THE outstanding accomplishment in

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as dependable if not as

L. Q. C. Lamar ar liams. Va _f

Wide World

where.

A touch of farce was added to the air history of the week under consideration in the solo flight of Levine from France to England. No one understands or cares about Levine's quarrels with the French pilot Drouhin, but it was the result of those quarrels that Levine, who has had no extensive experience in a plane except as a passenger, took out the Columbia, which he owns, for a little exercise, as he said, and then calmly sailed it across the Channel and to the Croydon airport. He had no map, his navigation was extremely happy-golucky, and his attempts to land (his first effort at this difficult feat) almost resulted, two or three times, in his destruction, One thing at least he has accomplished, and that is to show that,

whatever other qualities he may possess, he has that of physical courage.

Jones Triumphs Again

M

EMORANDUM from editorial to composing room: "Please polish up standing head, 'Jones Triumphs Again.' He has just entered another tournament."

Memorandum from composing room to editorial room: "Standing head worn out. Will have to set it again."

This interchange of compliments between The Outlook editorial and composing rooms is a matter of imagination rather than fact-as yet. Robert Tyre Jones, Jr., of Atlanta and points north, east, and south, is in his middle twenties. He can be conservatively rated as the greatest golfer of all time, and the most discouraging opponent which his friendly enemies can be called upon to face.

In the National Amateur Championship at the Minikahda Golf Course, at

Minneapolis,

The Outlook for Minnesota, Mr. Jones

again demonstrated the superlative skill which has won for him every worthwhile title except the British Amateur. At Minikahda he played the kind of golf which makes history. After playing the first eighteen holes of the qualifying round in 75, three over par, he scored a 67 on the second day, and won the qualifying medal with a total of 142 strokes, beating his nearest rival by three. In the match play he was carried by his first opponent to the eighteenth green before winning by two up. In his second round he defeated his nearest opponent by three up and two to play. Then he hit his stride and took his next three opponents-Johnston of Minneapolis, Ouimet of Boston, and Evans of Chicago -into camp by ten up and nine to play, eleven up and ten to play, eight up and seven to play. Against Evans he made the first nine holes in 31 strokes, leaving his distinguished opponent, who scored a 38, five down at the turn. His card for this round was as follows:

43 3 4 4 3 4 3 3-31

It was in this round that he made the uphill ninth hole of 562 yards in three shots. The second shot with a spoon, 250 yards, stopped within eighteen inches of the hole. Such shooting would be credible for a rifleman; in golf it's simply more than human.

No wonder that Francis Ouimet took a marble to the Tournament Committee with the modest request that Jones hereafter be compelled to use it in competition. "It's the only way," he explained, "that I can get a chance to beat him."

Irving House

T is pleasing to old New Yorkers to

House on Irving Place and particularly pleasing, we may add, to The Outlook, which lives a block down Irving Place.

The old house at 49 Irving Place is not precisely beautiful, but it is to be unpainted and restored to its pristine old-brick color, is to become a repository of antique furniture, some of it belonging to the Irving family, and also a memorial museum of Washington Irving manuscripts.

There never has been much doubt that a nephew of Washington Irving lived here during the author's life, but there has been question as to Washington Irving's residence in the house. Lately Major George Haven Putnam has stated his clear recollection of going to this house when a boy for his father, who was then publishing Irving's books; he is not quite as positive that he saw