(C) 1928. Pacific and Atlantic Photos, Inc.

not comprehend, or the reporter has no inkling of the real purpose of these spectacular experiments in which great resounding sparks crash about the heads of those who direct their creation.

Not long ago it was thought that the million-volt sparks released in the hightension laboratories of the General Electric Company represented about the highest electric pressure man could reasonably aspire to make. But now two physicists, Dr. Breit and Dr. Tuve, experimenting at the Carnegie Institution. of Washington, have succeeded in generating currents at 5,000,000 volts. These are not of the nature of the electric currents of ordinary experience, but are concentrated surges only about onemillionth of a second in measurable duration. What the scientists are seeking comprises two things, in particular. One is the generation of very high speed particles electrons-for bombarding atoms, performing hoped-for transmutations of elements, and duplicating on a mass scale the potent particles emitted by radium. The other is the concomitant generation by means of tubes of ether waves like light and X rays, but

far higher in frequency; the higher the frequency, the higher the form of natural radiation man can duplicate. The upper limit of voltage, far beyond reach as yet, is about 50,000,000 volts, corresponding to the creative cosmic rays made popularly known by Millikan, the noted physicist.

If man ever extends his control as far as that, he will doubtless have come into powers little dreamed of today. But why? For what purpose? Specifically, it is still hard to say. These things are only beginnings. Yet it has become a commonplace that in science such seemingly valueless beginnings usually turn out to have endings of undreamed-of practical worth to man. The spark makers are feeling around in the dark to see what they can stumble on. Most of the past progress of science has thus been made by similarly adventuresome been made by similarly adventuresome opportunists.

Fighting Stock in the Inland Area MAJOR-GENERAL HARRY A. SMITH, Commander of the Seventh Corps Area, has spoken his mind about the view often expressed that the inland region of

the United States is lukewarm on National preparedness, if not worse.

"I travel over the country, and hear it said again and again that the Middle West is pacifistic," General Smith says. "They say to me, 'I don't see how you

get along so well out there, because those people are a lot of pacifists.' But there isn't a word of truth in it. I tell them so."

If the view of the section is as prevalent as General Smith's observations indicate, it is not at all clear how it originated. It was not unfamiliar in connection with response of the region to the plea in behalf of President Wilson in 1916 that "he kept us out of war." And there has been the assumption that the area, because of a sense of inland security, has not appreciated so keenly as other regions a need of preparedness. But records of its representatives in Congress and of enlistments in the World War do not bear out that idea; nor was response to the slogan of 1916 confined to the section.

General Smith says that the Seventh Corps Area-Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota-has more R. O. T. C. units and members than any other area; that its rifle team last year "earned the highest rating in the history of the Army, except some of the regular teams;" that it leads in reserve officers in training; and that "this region was not settled by pacifists."

To the last, older residents on the border between Missouri and "bleeding Kansas" could abundantly testify.

Nonsense or Good Engineering? ONCE more the much-projected landingstations at sea-great floating rafts anchored in the middle of the Atlantic for transoceanic aviators-have come in for public discussion; it is announced that the first of these artificial islands is soon to be built. This is one of the most provocative subjects in the argumentative repertoire of the man on the street, and the opinions heard are seldom lukewarm or half-hearted; he is either for the idea or he thinks it is sheer nonsense.

While the project seems to be governed largely by its economic aspects, there is no really unsurmountable engineering obstacle to it. The rafts can be constructed, they will float, and, built as planned, with slender legs placed on deeply submerged hollow bulbs of steel, they will be affected by wave motion to a far less extent than ordinary surface vessels. They must be anchored in some manner, but there is no insuperable diffi

culty in this, though the anchor gear required must necessarily be heavy; cables several miles long would be required in mid-ocean in order to provide that long, slanting curve whose variable sag acts in all anchor gear as an absorber of sudden shocks. Statements that the islands would be placed on steel supports -stilts-reaching all the way to bottom may safely be dismissed as sheer nonsense, originating, doubtless, with some good feature writer. In three miles of height-even when partly buoyed up by the water-the stilts would collapse of their own weight.

From an engineering point of view there are many things which look harebrained but are feasible, just as many plausible appearing projects are harebrained. Given money, an engineer can accomplish almost anything. In this case, how much money? Will it pay? We attempt no answer, but we think it

can be done.

The D. A. R. Upholds the Black List

THE Daughters of the American Revolution, gathered in convention at Washington, promptly squelched an insurgent movement protesting against the organization's semi-ludicrous black list. Only fourteen of the nearly two thousand delegates felt that the individual chapters of the D. A. R. should have the right to select speakers without interference. Mrs. Eleanor Roy, of Kansas, who opposed the black list, was greeted with hisses when she announced that she belonged to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Pacifism-meaning any agitation against war -landed scores of publicists and writers on the D. A. R.'s proscribed list.

Mrs. Alfred J. Brosseau, PresidentGeneral of the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, had previously expressed her approval of the black list, and the action of the Convention was a vindication of her position. But it was a triumph, also, for Fred R. Marvin, Director of the Key Men of America. Mr. Marvin, whose name has previously appeared in these columns, assists such organizations as the D. A. R. in learning about radicals and pacifists. The Key Men of America has worked with the D. A. R. in behalf of further immigration restriction, and Mr. Marvin sells, for $6 a year, "Daily Data Sheets" giving detailed information about "subversive activities."

The press accounts of the Washington Convention are reminiscent of National political gatherings. The ladies showed

their familiarity with steam-roller methods and the foes of the black list were quickly flattened. One of the last acts of the delegates was to take from Mrs. Ellenore Dutcher Key, of Maryland, a contract under which she furnishes official pins. Mrs. Key had supported the resolution condemning the black list.

Meanwhile, the Washington Council on International Relations issued a statement in which it was said that, "however disagreable the task, it becomes an obligation to insist upon holding the D. A. R. and its officers sternly to accountability for having brought odium and ridicule upon an organization for which many who are not in its membership have had a sentimental regard."

A Conductor Scores Americans AFTER a sojourn in this country as Guest Conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Pierre Monteux has left behind him a scathing criticism of American, and specifically Philadelphian, concert audiences. "People who are musically uneducated," he has said in an interview with the Philadelphia "Jewish Times," "are given the powers and liberty to choose the conductors for this world-known symphony troupe. This is unheard of abroad. There the members of the orchestra are permitted to choose their leader. They know who is best suited. That is something those who appoint the guest conductors here cannot boast of. Philadelphians want a slim conductor who pays a great deal of attention to his tailor. Perhaps that is the reason why my popularity here was sort of half-hearted. . . . Philadelphia audiences think they know something about music, but they know nothing. They talk of teas and dresses and parties while the concert is going on. . . . Philadelphians and, in fact, all Americans want to be bluffed."

At his final concert in New York with the Philadelphia Orchestra, M. Monteux, who for several years was conducteux, who for several years was conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and was a familiar visitor to the metropolis, received an ovation.

Appreciative musical audiences, in spite of what M. Monteux has said, are in the making. An orchestra of three hundred high school pupils from thirtyeight States, under the direction of Frederick Stock, gave a creditable performance of Dvorak's "New World Symphony" recently in Chicago; under the direction of Joseph E. Maddy performed two numbers of Tschaikowsky's "Nutcracker Suite," Grieg's Piano Concerto, and Wagner's "Rienzi" overture;

and, under the direction of the composer, Howard Hanson's "Nordic Symphony."

Five Million Slaves

How many countries tolerate slavery and how many slaves are living today? To both questions the answers given by a report of a League of Nations' commission and by the President of the British Anti-Slavery Society, Mr. Charles Roberts, are surprising.

There are, it seems, eighteen countries or political areas in which slave-owning, slave-trading, or slave-raiding exists. The list reads like the answers to a geographical questionnaire. Morocco, Liberia, Sahara, and Abyssinia are the largest offenders. Little known are Kufra, Eritrea, Sierra Leone, Rio de Oro, Nepal. In Abyssinia the slave trade is "open, cruel, and fiendish." As to numbers, the total is estimated by the commission as from four to five million slaves.

The British boast that no slave can breathe under the British flag is not true as regards British spheres of influence and mandated territory; but Great Britain has caused the liberation of nearly half a million slaves since the end of the World War, and has also urged that the transfer of slaves by water should be considered an act of piracy, but has failed to get other Powers to agree.

Modern slavery takes some modern disguises, such as contract labor, peonage, and the enslaving of children under pretext of adoption-an extensive practice in China.

Greed and cruelty follow in the wake of human slavery, however disguised. The League of Nations has a mission to eradicate such world evils as commerce in opiates and commerce in men.

Teeing Up

It is an imposing enough team that this country has named for the Walker Cup golf matches of the season. Headed by Robert Tyre Jones, of Atlanta, the list of players selected for the defense of the trophy against the invasion of Great Britain contains seven other names almost as imposing in the ranks of amateur golfers as the captain's. They are Jess Sweetser, George von Elm, Charles Evans, Jr., Francis Ouimet, Harrison R. Johnston, Watts Gunn, and Roland Mackenzie.

The return of the veteran Chick Evans to the front rank of the amateurs is hailed with joy by the many friends of this Middle Western star. It is considered that the honor of playing on this

team has been due to Evans for the magnificent fights he had made against Jones in the last two amateur tournaments. In both of these it was the veteran Evans, rather than any of the newer stars of the game, who gave Jones his hardest tasks.

Jess Sweetser's selection marks the return to health of this young Yale graduate who, two years ago, won a sensational victory in the British amateur and returned home to start a long and hard fight against ill health, a fight which he has apparently won. That British victory of Sweetser's remains one of the most dramatic in the history of golf, for he was a very sick man when he started play and his stubborn fight through to the title was accomplished against terrific odds.

The winter season of golf in the South has ended and play started throughout the North. Among the most interesting of the players to perform during the more prominent of the tournaments of the winter circuit was Mrs. O. S. Hill, of Kansas City, the winner of the North and South at Pinehurst. This event, always at the end of the season, has the best fields entered. Mrs. Hill played remarkable golf to go through a field of opponents that included Miss Glenna Collett, two times a National Champion; Miss Maureen Orcutt, runner-up to Mrs. Miriam Horn in the championship of 1927; Miss Helen Payson, the Canadian ladies' champion; and Miss Virginia Van Wie, of Chicago, who was a sensational player through the earlier tournaments of the winter.

Mrs. Hill defeated Miss Payson 5 and 3 in the second round, defeated Miss Collett in the semi-final, and defeated Miss Van Wie in the final by the very handsome score of 6 and 5.

Trees for Parks

EVEN small parks without trees would hardly be parks at all. Our National Our National Parks likewise should be well supplied with tree-covered expanses, though forestry is not the objective of the National Park Service. On the other hand, Congress seems reluctant to buy bits of forest for inclusion in the Parks. In fact, most of the park area not already in the public domain came through gifts from States, associations, and individuals.

Thus it happens that the Yosemite National Park is in danger of a diminishing area of tree-covered land. There exist such areas, some of them containing extremely fine stands of splendid trees, apart from the Big Trees in Sequoia Park, which were rescued by private

purchase and presented to the people. Some of these areas, owned by lumber interests which will sooner or later deforest them, are within the outer boundaries of the Park. Mr. Mather, Director of the National Park Service, has lately pointed out that Congress should take this pressing need up for action and purchase these private tree-islands inside a public park while the opportunity still exists. Some gains have been made in area by exchange of forest lands owned by the National Park Service but not needed for park purposes for privately owned sections where the reverse is true, but this has not always worked well.

The policy of Congress as to acquiring park land seems to be based on the hope that societies and persons enthusiastic in extending our beautiful National Parks will provide the money. This is not a noble nor a National state of mind.

A Dance of Death

SEVERAL days after forty persons out of about sixty in attendance at a dance at West Plains, Missouri, had been killed. by a sudden explosion and wreckage of the dance hall, the exact cause of the disaster remained a mystery. Indications were that it might never be determined. It does not seem that knowledge is essential to prevention of such casualties.

The dance hall was above a public garage, in which automobiles and a considerable amount of gasoline were stored. Whether the explosion was set off deliberately or was purely accidental, the hazard was there. It was a source of danger recognized generally in regulations designed to prohibit occupancy of quarters in or near buildings where large quantities of gasoline are kept. There seems to have been no restriction as to use of the hall in this case. And, according to safety officials who have expressed opinions on the West Plains disaster, where protective measures of this nature exist with reference to hotels, apartments, and other structures they often are disregarded.

A district manager of the Missouri Inspection Bureau who investigated the catastrophe advanced the theory that the explosion was due to gasoline fumes in or beneath the garage, which had been ignited. "One gallon of gasoline, properly vaporized," he declared, "has the power of eighty pounds of dynamite." Evidently, gasoline, in large or small amounts, is not a safe neighborunless it is securely confined. But human nature is imperfect, and it learns caution only at severe cost.

From Washington

The Jury Acquits; the Public
Condemns

No court has the right to review a trial jury's verdict of acquittal. Harry F. Sinclair, therefore, is free of the charge of conspiring to defraud the Government in the Teapot Dome lease. In the civil case, the United States Supreme Court found the Teapot Dome transaction tainted with fraud; but in the criminal case the charge was the specific one of conspiracy, and it was that on which the jury rendered the verdict of "Not guilty."

The jury which tried Sinclair appeared to the layman to be made up of men of somewhat higher type than those who usually sit on criminal court juries. These men were selected by the presiding judge himself, counsel, of course, retaining the right of challenge.

The verdict was, in Washington at least, decidedly unpopular. The men who sat on the jury will probably suffer, in prestige if not in purse. At least one of them has intimated that he will probably lose his job. It is to be hoped that he misjudges his employer.

There has been no intimation that the jury was in any way improperly influenced. It was kept locked up. That, of course, might not have prevented an attempt, even a successful attempt, at tampering. Sinclair is already under conviction for contempt of court for causing the jury to be shadowed at a previous trial; but the American people still retain a large measure of faith in the jury system. The verdict, though it be unpopular, will, of course, be accepted as honest.

An Incomplete Record

THE Sinclair case was ably conducted on both sides. Messrs. Roberts and Pomerene, special Government counsel appointed by the President, deserve well of the Government and of the public which they served. Conspiracy is recognized everywhere in this country as the most difficult of all crimes to prove. These exceptionally able lawyers had one of the most difficult cases in the history of American courts, and handled it as well as any case was ever handled. The verdict of acquittal in no way diminished the value of their work to the public. Legal penalty is by no means the whole of the deterrent effect of criminal trials.

The evidence presented by the Government was held by the jury not to establish legal guilt; but in the light of

the Supreme Court's opinion the trans'action will be held by the jury of public opinion to have involved moral obliquity.

The defense was not permitted to introduce former Secretary of the Navy Denby as a witness. It chose not to introduce as evidence the deposition of former Secretary of the Interior Fall, named jointly with Sinclair in the indictment. From the standpoint of the public, the record of the trial will be something less than a satisfactory record of the Teapot Dome transaction. The record of the Senate investigation will in some respects remain a closer approach to a complete record.

The acquittal of Sinclair doubtless ends, but for two contempt cases which hang over him, the criminal phase of the oil-leasing cases. Albert B. Fall, Sinclair's co-defendant, was, because of his poor health, granted a separate trial and postponement. The indictment against him, based on the same set of facts, will probably be dismissed.

Controlling the Flood-in Congress

THE President has won his fight with Congress over Mississippi River flood control. He may get a bill not to his liking, but he will get recognition of his contention that the localities in which the work is to be done share the cost with the Federal Government, and he will get some diminution of what he regards as excessive "pork" in the bill.

It is not that Congress has been converted to the President's way of thinking. The House would be glad to pass the bill substantially as it was unanimously passed by the Senate. But Congressmen do not dare go home to face an election without a flood control plan definitely made into law, and they have become convinced that they must at least compromise with the President in order to get his signature. Therefore House action has been delayed pending adjustments. Since most Congressmen choose to run this year and the President does not, they, and not he, would suffer from a veto.

For once, the President has been vigorously outspoken in denunciation of a bill. It may be that not all of the facts he cites against the Flood Control Bill were carefully considered; he may not have had time to check them. Members of the House who are as much opposed as the President to the Senate and the House Committee plan are not prepared to say, for instance, that lumber companies would be in position to be peculiarly benefited. They are inclined to believe that, because of the somewhat

unusual wording of the bill, this place of distinction would be occupied by railroad companies alone. But among the lobbyists for the bill there have been sinister figures reputedly employed by lumber interests, and the presence of these unlovely individuals is, perhaps, sufficient to warrant the President's apsufficient to warrant the President's apprehensions of a grabbing hand in the glove of humanity.

The compromise as planned will place no onerous burden upon the flood States. Local contributions will be confined to purchase of the rights of way for the main levees, an item which, it is estimated, will not exceed $500,000. The Federal Government will still bear the cost of lands purchased for floodways, probably $200,000,000. But the provision making the Federal Government liable for a sort of double damage to the railroads will be eliminated.

The compromise calls, too, for a planning board of three instead of five members, with the chief of Army engineers largely in control. Here, if anywhere, the fight will be made on the compromise. The people of the flood country are by no means in love with the Army engineers.

Coolidge, Harmonizer of Doctrines

Is it possible that America, after being at war with itself for a hundred and fifty years over two supposedly antagonistic conceptions of Government, has produced a man and made him President in whom is combined and harmonized the essentials of both conceptions? Specifically, does Calvin Coolidge combine in his political thinking both Jeffersonism as modified by Jackson and Hamiltonism as modified by Lincoln?

It has been, naturally, accepted without question that Coolidge, Republican President, is in doctrine the successor of Hamilton and Lincoln. Yet on various occasions he has revealed himself as a Jeffersonian. Jeffersonian. And but just now, when Tennessee placed a bronze likeness of Andrew Jackson in Statuary Hall under the dome of the Capitol, President Coolidge accepted it in a speech which seemed to reveal him as a Jacksonian. His speech was, in the main, a biographical sketch, not essentially different from that which was printed on the program of the proceedings, but he here and there interpolated expressions of views which disclosed large admiration for the democratic Nationalism of the man who was at once closest to the people and the most dictatorial of all our Presidents.

On the day of that delivery the Daughters of the American Revolution

were gathering in Washington for their annual Convention, and a day or two later President Coolidge addressed them. Without mentioning the name of Jefferson, he devoted his attention almost wholly to a laudation of State's rights and local self-government in thoroughly Jeffersonian fashion. He deplored the apparent willingness of the States and of smaller governmental units to surrender their freedom in return for Federal aid of almost any sort, and seemed to reveal the fear that America is by way of losing its heritage because laziness has supplanted love of liberty.

Those who see in the sayings of public men only the expression of the exigencies of the hour may believe that the President meant to appeal to the new disciples of State's rights brought into being by prohibition. But the President has said similar things too many times, under too many sets of circumstances, over too long a period, for that to be

true.

Frank R. Kent, in his "History of the Democratic Party," recently off the press, says that even Jefferson could not consistently practice Jeffersonian doctrine when he was President. Oscar Underwood, in "Drifting Sands of Party Politics," which is equally fresh from the press, says that in Governmental affairs "we cannot look alone to the spoken word or the written declaration" of the men who control them. The quality of Calvin Coolidge's political belief will be finally determined from the record of his years in public office.

Good Lobbyists?

ONCE a great deal of comment was brought forth by the statement that there were good trusts. Now Senator Bruce, of Maryland, has startled the Nation by declaring that there are good lobbyists, or words tantamount.

This statement came after Senator Caraway, of Arkansas, had hurled the short and ugly word at organizations and individuals who try to influence legislation or claim that they are able to do so. Caraway said that there are between 350 and 400 lobbying organizations in Washington, but he named directly only the representative of the National Reclamation Association, who, the Senator said, had circulated lies about flood control.

Senator Bruce interrupted to say that some of the 350 or 400 organizations furnish accurate information in good faith.

Senator Caraway was speaking on his own resolution authorizing a Senate in

vestigation of lobbying. The resolution recites, among other things, that "the lobby located in and around Washington filches from the American public more money under a false claim that they can influence legislation than the legislative branch of this Government costs the taxpayers. The lobby seeks by all means to capitalize for themselves every interest and every sentiment of the American public which can be made to yield an unclean dollar for their greedy pockets." Cole Blease Blazes

LOCAL self-government came in for another warming up during the week. Cole Blease broke out in the Senate. Speaking on a migratory bird bill, he denounced everything from intermediate credit banking to Herbert Hoover's method of getting Negro delegates from the Southern States. He displayed the zeal, if not the eloquence, of William L. Yancey and Robert Y. Hayne. He did not threaten secession or even nullification, but he did serve notice that South Carolina was mighty tired of Federal tyranny and had got to be let alone.

At last Senator Cole Blease, of South Carolina, has been true to his past by his course in the Senate. For a long time it looked as though he were a changed man. He said little, and that not of the fire-eating, ante-bellum Southern type that was expected of him. On more than one occasion he intimated from the floor that he was seriously con

sidering joining the Republicans, actually if not nominally.

And then suddenly, in one flaming speech, he made good for all of his old traditions. That speech was all that could have been expected from the Cole

T

Blease whom the country used to know so well. The South has a job of apologizing that will keep it busy for some time.

To Block Block Booking

THE tendency to monopoly in motion pictures is to be broken up by law, if Senator Brookhart, of Iowa, succeeds, as he believes he will, in securing passage of a bill now before the Committee on inter-State Commerce. The anti-trust laws are to be made more thoroughly applicable to the motion-picture industry to the end that blind booking and block booking may be prohibited in inter-State

commerce.

Supporters of the bill see in "blind booking" a system whereby the exhibitor is denied the right to see the product he is to lease and to select such part of it as he thinks would suit the taste of his patrons. The associated term, "block booking," is a practice which forces an exhibitor to lease all of the product of a certain distributer in order to get any of it. It is said that the exhibitor is forced thus to show poor films, since the combination of producers is such that an exhibitor cannot continue in business unless he submits to blind and block booking.

It is claimed that the quality of motion pictures would be generally improved if these practices were broken up.

Windows on the World
By Malcolm W. Davis

WO IDEAS of the way to prevent war-the American and the French-stand contrasted in the proposals made by Secretary Kellogg and Foreign Minister Briand to the other Powers.

The question is whether Mr. Kellogg's suggestion for a treaty against war, or M. Briand's, represents the majority view also of Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Briefly, the American draft is a simply stated agreement to condemn any recourse to war for the solution of international controversies and to renounce war as an instrument of national policy as between the parties. It leaves the settlement of all disputes of whatever settlement of all disputes of whatever nature or origin to be sought by pacific means. It also leaves the right of action in self-defense or against any violator of the treaty unstated, as if implied in the sovereignty of each nation and in the nature of the agreement itself.

The French draft, characteristically,

goes further in making precise specifications. In renouncing war, it says what it means by defining the kind of war"an instrument of individual, spontaneous, and independent political action." It reserves the right of legitimate selfdefense and the right of liberty to act against an aggressor violating the treaty. It further provides that the compact shall not take effect until generally accepted, unless the parties agree. This obviously aims to maintain the pledges of France to her Continental alliesPoland, for instance-in case another party to the treaty should go to war with one of them.

The bargaining is really in its first stages. A great deal of discussion is already under way as to whether the French reservations are acceptable to the United States, in view of Mr. Kellogg's desire for an uncomplicated statement denouncing war and leaving details to diplomacy. France is suggesting a conference of jurists to draft a com