seaboard who are big enough to satisfy the Tammany interests. These lawyers would declare the Eighteenth Amendment unconstitutional before a cat, even such a cat as the tiger cat, could wink her eye. Dry Democrats should not feel safe in the belief that the country is protected with a dry Congress."

This rejoinder brought from Governor Smith the following comment:

"I have said what I have to say; my position is clear; and as far as I am concerned, that is all there is to it.

Reed "Supports the Ticket"

SENATOR JAMES A. REED has had breakfast with Governor Smith and has promised to support the ticket.

"No need asking me that," he told reporters afterward. "Everybody knows I am going to do that."

He was asked for his opinion of Democratic prospects.

"We hope to win," he said. "I do not think the people of this country are ready to elect as President a man who has spent his entire adult life abroad and whose investments and interests are all in Great Britain. He was so close to Great Britain that he was offered the post of Minister of Munitions before this country entered the war. He was also offered a British title. He is a man who came to this country for no other purpose than to beat down farmers' prices, and he has accomplished his purpose."

This kind of talk will make votes, but it will not put them in the Democratic column. Any more of it, and Governor Smith and his friends may rightly ask Reed which ticket he is supporting.

Deuce!

LET the friends of Al Smith be not too fearful, however, of the consequences of Jim Reed's support. The Ku Klux Klan of Alabama seems bent on turning its Republican ballyhoo into good Democratic propaganda.

We quote from a despatch to the New York "World," describing a Birmingham rally at which Governor Smith was lynched in effigy.

"As the dummy was brought in the presiding officer cried, 'What shall we do with him?' There were loud cries of 'Lynch him!'

"A Klan official then cut the dummy's throat with a knife, at the same time pouring mercurochrome down the figure's chest to simulate blood. Revolver shots were fired into the dummy and, with a rope around the neck, it was dragged about the hall, many Klansmen

Then you

companied by a friend. "flop;" that is, you fall and make a noise like an injured man. Then the friend takes the names of witnesses. Then you go to a physician who will swear that the injury was real. Then you go to a lawyer who will sue for negligence. There is money in it for every one, barring the defendant.

Daniel Laulicht named Samuel Kopelton, an attorney, as one of his business associates. He also said he had brought negligence cases to Attorneys Charles D. Sprung, Fred Flatow, Morris H. Katz, Louis Tinkler, Harry Haberman, Moses Cohen, Abraham Gelman, Theodore Berger, Louis Katz, Maxwell Schenker, Morris D. Silverstein, and Joel Kirschner. Attorney Kirschner is in jail along with Daniel Laulicht; and for the same reason-automobile "flops."

Laulicht named as medical associates Drs. M. Ehrenberg, M. Waldinger, S. F. Braunfield, Leon Luria, and Philip M. Goldberg.

Insurance brokers are also helpful. Some properties are more heavily insured against accident than others. For five

dollars some brokers will tell you which is which.

A really great member of the profession, Daniel Laulicht said, was his former associate, Irving Fuhr. Irving Fuhr specialized in vault-light, cellar-door, and manhole "flops." There were days when he would "flop" ten times, and every one of them turned into a case of negligence. Sometimes no more than two city blocks separated one "flop" from another.

This testimony of a professional "flopper" with its medico-legal aspects was given in New York City in the continuing investigation of ambulance chasing.

Paris Divorces

THE French have decided at last to give some attention to the methods by which matches made in America are unmade in Paris. The Ministry of Justice has approved a request for disciplinary action against Judge Grenet, vice-president of the so-called divorce court, seven French attorneys, a bailiff, and two clerks.

At the same time, it is promised, the records of every divorce granted during the past two years will be investigated; but while this may disclose plenty of evidence of unethical practices, divorced persons are told not to fear that their decrees will be declared void.

Whatever the outcome of the trials and investigations, it is believed that the divorce mill will not grind so swiftly again for those impetuous Americans.

The motive for this action is not apparent at the moment. The correspondent of the New York "Times" says it "comes to climax years of determined effort on the part of the French Ministry of Justice to put an end to abuses through which wealthy Americans have been exploiting the French courts as a quick and easy means of evading consequences, inconveniences, and delays of divorce laws in their own country."

What Kind of Conference?

By his statement that, if elected President, he will immediately call a conference of agricultural leaders to assist him in preparing a definite program for farm relief Governor Smith has placed the agricultural question practically alongside the prohibition question as an issue in the campaign. It has been apparent for months that in very large sections of public thought these two things constitute the issues paramount. The Republicans, with mountains of precedent behind them, have pussy-footed bothfarm relief by the record of the Administration, prohibition by the utterance of

Chairman Work and by lack of utterance, thus far, of Mr. Hoover. Governor Smith, by bringing both to the front, is foolhardy-or sagacious beyond the race of present-day politicians. The election will tend to prove, among other things, whether caution or candor is the better political strategy.

There is, however, caution in what may appear to be Governor Smith's rashness. He has avoided committing himself to a McNary-Haugen Bill. Comparatively few farmers have ever believed whole-heartedly in McNaryHaugenism. Many of those who have favored it have done so because, beyond the recommendations of a conference at the beginning of the Harding Administration, nothing else at all comprehensive was offered.

Voluutary Compulsion

PRACTICALLY all postmasters in Georgia make regular contributions, most of them paying monthly, to the Republican State organization. This fact was proved before the Senate investigating committee in session in Atlanta by introduction of a card index showing names and sums

Y. M. Mercantile Library Ass'n

Hoover's Handicap

CINCINNA in the South

CONDITIONS Similar to, if possibly less
flagrant than, those in process of revela-
tion in Georgia have been an important
contributing cause through the past five
decades to keeping the South solidly
Democratic. Men in charge of Repub-
lican organizations in Southern States
have frequently had fat-frying conces-
sions which they would have lost if their
States had by any chance gone Republi-
Leaders of Republican organiza-
tions have had a greater pecuniary inter-
est than Democratic leaders in keeping
the Southern States Democratic.

can.

This situation is today the greatest handicap to Mr. Hoover's chances in the South, a condition which may be counted upon to offset a considerable part of the disaffection which is said to exist toward Governor Smith. Many practical Republican leaders in the South do not even now want to see their States go Republican.

The Republican President-or Republican candidate who finally cleans up this mess will be the benefactor, not merely of his party, but of his country. Perhaps it is too much to expect that a candidate, with all the limitations that are imposed upon him, will or can put a stop to the frying of malodorous fat. But there are signs not wholly unhopeful. Ben Davis, for instance, is no longer Republican National Committeeman from Georgia, though he is still secretary of the State Republican Committee.

George E. Chamberlain

THERE passed with the death of former Senator George E. Chamberlain, of Oregon, one of the tragic figures of our World War period-one of those who, having sat among the confidential advisers of Woodrow Wilson, finally had the outer door barred against them.

Senator Chamberlain was Chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs when the war came on. He was one of the leaders in putting through in record time President Wilson's remarkable program of war measures. No man in either house of Congress rendered more efficient service during that period.

Later on, Senator Chamberlain said in a speech in New York that "the War Department has ceased to function." He cited specific reasons for his belief. This came at a time when, as a fact, the War Department had fairly begun to function. There was never any explanation as to why Senator Chamberlain made the statement.

banks and the sound investment houses must continue the fight to keep this junk out of the hands of the unsophisticated investor.

The Tragedy of the
Italia

MINGLED with rejoicing at the safety of members of the Italia's party and of some of the rescuers who have themselves been stranded we have now a clearer impression of the tragedy and of the all but mortal suffering of the survivors. Most heartrending of all is the story of the three men who left Nobile's stranded party and tried to reach help for the others. The horror is intensified by the fact that false and emotional reports had pictured the two Italians of this detachment (Mariano and Zappi) as having devotedly stayed for many days by the dead body of their Swedish comrade, Dr. Finn Malmgren, scientist and Arctic expert. Later there came from Moscow a positive statement sent from the Krassin by the head of the Soviet relief party on the ice-breaker, Professor Samoilovich, who reported Zappi's narrative in Zappi's own words. We give it entire as of world-wide interest:

In our march landward we suffered untold privation. For days we drifted on floating ice. Several miles southeast of Brock Island Malmgren was unable to march on and told us to go ahead and take all the provisions. Before leaving, Malmgren asked us to dig a grave in the ice, and he lay down. Quietly he stretched out his hand, bidding us adieu, and, handing us his

compass, requested us to give it to his mother.

We plodded on slowly and in twenty-four hours were only 100 meters from Malmgren. We saw Malmgren raise his head. Hoping that, driven by hunger, he would go on with us, we waited. Realizing this, Malmgren cried: "Go! Go! At the price of my life you'll save all."

We marched on, suffering great privation. One mile from Brock Island Mariano became blind, and again we drifted with the ice. During our wanderings we saw six airplanes only about a mile distant, but none save Chukhnovsky (Russian aviator aboard the Krassin) saw us, despite our frantic signals.

For twelve days we did not eat anything. Mariano felt death approaching at the sight of Chukhnovsky's plane and begged me to place his body aboard the plane after death, should the flier land.

The Krassin has not reached the base ship, the Citta di Milano, at this writing. She has on board the two members of the Malmgren party, five members of the party from which Nobile had already been rescued, and Chukhnovsky

and four other aviators who located the Malmgren party in a flight from the Krassin but had to make a forced landing at Cape Platen. Two members of the Sora expedition, which tried to reach the remnant of the Nobile party, have been rescued by a Finnish plane. Still unlocated are the great Norwegian explorer Amundsen and his party. Hopes are entertained that they may be found

in the search of the Krassin for those men of Nobile's party who were carried away by the Italia after the cabin containing Nobile and others was shorn off.

Some ill feeling has been expressed in Russia and Sweden against the two Italians who "deserted" Dr. Malmgren, but, as they say, at his own urgent request. It is evident that the entire history of the Italia flight and disaster must be thoroughly sifted and all its living members and all the rescuers questioned in detail, not only to settle charges and countercharges, but to throw light on polar research and aviation. It is now two months since the Italia crashed, and there are still men in peril and news to be gathered.

The Duce Fights Malaria

THERE seem to be several things that a dictator can do more efficiently than a parliament. Mussolini has all but wiped out the Mafia-a feat deemed quite impossible when Marion Crawford was writing "Corleone" not so many years ago. Now the dictator is pressing forward war against another pest of Italy

malaria; to uproot it means not only to improve health but to raise standards of living and to open for cultivation enormous tracts of heretofore unlivable country.

Great strides have been made in the last two years in Italy's anti-malaria campaign. Two and a half million acres have already been reclaimed; plans are on foot for saving at least as large an area. Not far from a twelfth of Italian

Underwood & Underwood

soil has been or will be rescued and improved.

The human side of this vast undertaking is as important as its economic side is valuable. The conditions in the past among those who tried to live in the malarious regions were all but indescribably degrading and filthy. Thanks to quinine, malarial fever has vastly decreased; the so-called "Roman fever" has become a legend; Italy consumes thirty tons of quinine a year-it is given away or sold at very low prices by the Government-and as the swamps are reclaimed it is safe to say that the mortality rate and the consumption of quinine will go down in proportion.

Flappers and Peeresses

THERE seems to be a rivalry for publicity between England's flappers and her peeresses. Properly a flapper is a fluttering young thing, but in today's talk she is a woman between twenty-one and thirty. She wants the vote now denied her, and she is going to get it.

The revolt of the peeresses-that is, those women who are peeresses in their own right-is for seats in the House of Lords. They have tried for it two or three times, and came close to success; now they say that if the flappers win the peeresses certainly must have a House of Lords and Ladies. Why the

one thing should be supposed to balance the other is beyond American ken.

There are eighteen peeresses in their own right-not to count four Scottish peeresses, who in fact don't count-one duchess (the Duchess of Fife), two viscountesses, two countesses, and thirteen baronesses. Oddly enough, one baroness (Baroness Ravensdale) is the sister of Lady Cynthia Mosley, the Socialist, who hopes for a seat in the House of Commons and openly regrets her possession of a title. Baroness Ravensdale, on the other hand, is a proponent of seats for ladies. Both sisters are half-American by descent, daughters of Viscount Curzon, who married Mary Leiter. Baroness Ravensdale, the other day, spoke at the yearly service at Runnymede in honor of Magna Charta and said, "I am proud of being in the ranks of those very barons who gave us our rights."

Morbid Missionaries

A PSYCHIATRIST has come back from China to tell the National Committee for Mental Hygiene that there is an unusual amount of mental disturbances prevalent among the missionaries in that country. Dr. J. L. McCartney, who brings the report, has been studying mental diseases at the Peking Union Medical College and, as visiting psychiatrist, at St. Luke's Hospital, Shanghai.

He reports that out of 203 workers invalided home from a single mission, 25 per cent were tagged as "neurasthenic," 8.8 per cent as "insane," and 2.9 per cent as suffering from other neuroses.

It is customary, says Dr. McCartney, to place the blame for these conditions on the food, the weather, the economic situation, and the natives. He disposes of such diagnoses as "rationalizations" of people out of adjustment with their environment and unaware of the psychological sources of their difficulties.

He finds that most missionaries responded to the "call" during the impressionable period of adolescence, when young people are naturally susceptible to religious fanaticism. Many of them are away from home for the first time. Some are out there because a girl or a boy at home preferred another lover. Sometimes it is because life on Main Street had become humdrum.

"On arriving on the foreign mission field," the report continues, "the new worker finds himself or herself in a totally foreign moral environment, with a radically divergent system of sexual and personal ethics. The possibilities for the stimulation and gratification of the sexual side of the psychic Occidental are more numerous in the Orient, and the continual flaunting of the erotic makes its impression on the unstable personality. If he evades it, he callouses his nature; if he succumbs to its wiles, it erodes him. In either case he may be thrown into a morbid mental condition.

"Many of the young missionaries suffer from the desire to be free from the

dictates of a narrow moral standard, and the intolerant attitude of many missions toward their workers tends to break down the morale of the strongest men and women.

"The responsibility placed upon young men and women American missionaries often is colossal. The feeling that they are the final court of appeals in matters relating to their... work, that there are few to whom they can go for helpful counsel, . . . may necessitate a psychoneurotic escape. Naturally, such persons tend to become hypersensitive and phobic, or, what is more common, superlatively egotistical.

Dr. McCartney advises mission boards to choose their personnel more carefully.

"The question of the ability of the newcomer to withstand the foreign environment is one of no small moment," he observes, "when it is realized that a failure to adjust means wasted ability and that the hundreds of dollars expended in sending out such an unstable