O’NEILL FRONTIER ~ P. H. CRONIN •'Opportunity for world leadership knocks a second time at America's door,” said Joseph P.. Tumulty, In New York recently when asked to discuss the armament conference. "A year ago America abandoned that leadership In exchange for what Woodrow Wilson characterized 'a barren Isolation.' Now Is the time for President Ilardlng, rep resenting America, to assume bold lead ership. All Americans, Irrespective of political affiliations, wish him the ut most success In the approaching con ference. But he wlU succeed through audacity rather than caution.” Old Bill Ix>wnoy, whose life has been devoted to opening oysters, claims that when he split 100 of them In 3 mlnutea 8141 seconds not long ago he established a world's record, says a dispatch from New York. He has challenged any and all oystermen to meet him In competi tion with a barrel of bivalves and a knife. Old BUI was born up Cape Cod pray 63 years ago, and he knows ths Miner and records of all the speedy oyster openers along the coast. Dock operators In Superior and Duluth have been worried considerably of late because of severe fires In the large coal piles on the water front. Fires this fall are numerous, due to the recent rush of stocking the northwest's winter supply before the threatened railroad strike materialized. Caused by spontaneous combustion, many of the flrea bre at the base of the coal piles, which make it extremely difficult to combat them. A new species of -con man” has been discovered In Bay City, Mich. The city put a bounty of 10 cents on rats, and for obvious reasons, required only the tnlls of the dead rodents to be pre sented for "cashing In." This counting developed Into rather perfunctory per formance and then It Jeveloped that some of the ever present small boys were mixing In pieces of Insolated wilts, and even small pigs’ tails with the rat appendages. The greatest need for the country girl who comes to the city Is religious train ing, statet conference of probation of ficers of New York state were told Monday by Miss Helen F. McCormick, daputy assistant district attorney of Kings county. Many country girls, she I declared, are fed on the worst sort of movies, books and otorles, and frqjn other girls are under the obsession that wicked city people are going continually to tempt her, and It Is through tVi ** A greatest mysteries about the past of the earth has been of fered by Dr. Harlow Shapley, the measurer of the universe, director of t be Harvard observatory. T lls mystery concerns the changes of ilimate over millions of years, which at one time caused the polar lee cup to extend as far south as New York and at ot ler times warmed the arctic region so thoroughly that the animals and vegetation of the tem perate zone could live there, as shown by fossil remains in that region. The earth has been cooled off dur ing long periods,' according to this theory, when the sun, the earth and the other planets were passing through regions of space filled with clouds of dust or dark, nebulous ma terial, which cut oft enough of the sun’s heat to freeze most of the globe. At other times, apparently, the solar system moved through a region of space almost entirely free from such material, so that the sun’s rays beat with fulU/orce on the earth, probably making the polar regions pleasant and the rest of the earth unlivably hot. At present the sun is apparently moving through a part of space thinly scattered with interplanetary ma terials. A few million years ago, according to Dr. Shapley, the earth, the sun and the other planets were moving through a murk which is observed by astrono mers in the constellation of Orion. This is one of many vast black pockets, or "coal sacks,” in the sky, some of which may be detected by the naked eye. Behind this veil in Orion are 70 faint stars which vary in in tensity. They average about 700 light years (about 180,000.000,000,000 miles) from the earth, which is a mod erate distance astronomically, and many of them will probably be very bright,^except for the curtain of dark material hung between them and the earth. The density of the curtain ap parently varies, from the manner in which the stars behind It are flicker ing. At the densest the black nebu lae are believed to be very rare, large stretches of vacuum separating the I particles of matter. Still they are j sufficient, because of the great space they occupy, to hlot out stars, and some astronomers believe the sky would be blindingly brilliant except for the smoky patches. The black spot in Orion is calculated to be vast ly greater than our solar system. In a brief account of his theory in the Journal of Geology, Dr. Shapley said that it is calculated that "a few million years ago our sun was in the vicinity of the Orion nebulae; at its present speed the sun would require nearly 1,000,000 years to pass through that particular nebulous region.” After showing how starlight is cut oft at present by billions of miles of dust clouds in Orion, Dr. Shapley proceed ed to suggest how the earth would fare when our solar system moved through the same region. , “A change of 20 per cent, in the solar radiation,” said Dr. Shapley, "if maintained for a considerable period of years, would sufficiently alter ter restrial temperature to bring about or remove an ice sheet; an 80 per cent, change, unless counteracted by con current changes in the terrestrial at mosphere, would completely desiccate There are apparent flaws in nearly ill the theories which have been put_, orward. None of them account for he many far reaching changes In ilimate indicated by the geological ■ecord. If Dr. Shapley’s theory hold# ;ood, the eaTth passed through it* last lark pocket in space In comparatively ■ecent years, because it Is generally iccepted now that the last glacial jerlod extends almost Into historical limes, the ice cap receded past the ilte of Stockholm, Sweden, only 9,000 rears ago. A period of volcanic activity might muse an age of cold, according to Dr. iV. J. Humphreys, of the United weather bureau. He calls attention to :he fact that the great volcano of romboro, in the Malay archipelago, in 816, darkened the Bky during the day md night for three days for a dls ance of 300 miles and produced & ong season of cold because of the ef ect of the atmospheric dust In Inter iftpting the sun’s rays. If a few vol lanoes went into the action contem joraneously the heat from the sun would be so reduced, according to Dr. Humphreys, that polar ice caps might rradually form. With ice once formed iver a large part of the earth’s ares, he process of warming up again would be very slow, he believes. The rreat surfaces of ice would reflect the leat of the sun as fast a3 it came. IVlth only a small belt at the equator or warm air currents and ocean cur ents to form, the earth might require iges to thaw, although It took only % ihort time to chill. Other theories to account fo* ihanges In temperature Include sun ipots and other changes In the sun which may have damped It dtMwn at >ne period and caused it to burn with treater fury at another; the dust en velope around the sun, visible as the :orona; possible differences In th* lomppsitlon of the earth's atmosphere, which might at one time have checked he sun’s rays; the rising of moun aln ranges, forming centers of cold ind nurseries of cold wind, and their linking with the opposite effect; ihanges In the circulation of the icean with Its climatic Influence. Geological evidences Is supposed to ndicate a continuous succession ol ife on earth for several hundred nllllon years. Plant and animal life nay have been wiped out several Imes by Intense heat or cold, and lave started over again, however, luring the long life of the earth which ias existed with a solid crust for sev iral billion years, according to the nost recent studies. The earth 1# upposed to be only one of billions of lmilar planets that may sustain life. According to one theory held by sci ntlsts, spores or germs of certain ypes may be aloft to the top layer# if the atmospheres of these worlds nd then .repelled by the pressure of ight and other forces, until they es ape from the gravitational control of heir planets. Here they are kept in old storage In space, according to hls account of the origin of life, until hey light on some other planet, where hey start a new train of life. This tuess, which merely shifts the mys ery of the origin of life to another ilanet, has been put forward serl msly In a publication of the Smith sonian institution, and Is no more lapable of proof or disproof than any >ther guess which has been made on he greatest of problems. Sacco and Vanzetti. From the New York Post. Foreign governments have found it difficult enough to comprehend those distinctions between federal and state Jurisdiction of which the Sacco^anzettl case affords an unusually clear example. The British and Canadian governments were perplexed by the affair ef the steamer Caroline in 1837-41 to a degree that made war a possibility. New York state asserted its right to try the Brit ish subject who was accused of burn ing the Caroline in New York waters; and Great Britain demanded of Wash ington that he be released without trial. Happily, the New York Jury acquitted the defendant before diplomacy had exhausted its arts. When three Italian subjects were lynched in New Orleans in Harrison's administration, and Blaine insisted that the Louisiana courts alone had Jursdiction, Italy was ready to rup ture her relations with us. Happily, again, a federal indemnity was ar ranged without offense to Louisiana's sovereignty. The Japanese government has, like most Americans outside Cali fornia, not always understood the authority claimed by California courts. It is not strange that European labor has been unable to see Just why Presi dent Wilson and the department of jus tice could-not deal with the alleged mis carriage of right in the Money affair. It is not very remarkable even that Anatole France and ftomaln Rolland should suggest to President Harding that they impatiently wait his pardon of Sacco and Vanzetti. Of course, though the appeal of Messrs. France and Rolland goes to President Harding, it will really be read by the Massachusetts authorities. The conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti in the superior court at Dedham this summer lias been widely criticised as based upon inadequate circumstantial evidence. Several careful Boston newspaper men who attended the trial of these Italians for the murder of a shoe factory pay master and his guard have said they do not believe the state made out its case. But the Judgment is not final. Argu ments are to begin next week before the state supreme court for a new trial; and the high character of the Massachusetts bench and the fine traditions of the Massachusetts courts offer assurance that full Justice will be done. Why They Smile. From Christian Science Monitor. The war profiteers who succeeded in escaping prosecution for their alleged offenses against the United States gov ernment for three years had Just drawn their first breath of relief when the Senate voted to extend from three years to six years the period during which these actions may be begun. Perhaps, however, they are not greatly disturbed. To the layman, the outsider who does not understand such things, it may seem as easy to gain immunity for six years as for three. The incomprehensible thing about the whole affair is how the al leged offenders have succeeded in es caping punishment if their offenses are half as black as they have been painted. They are said to have been willing con tributors to the campaign fund of the successful party in 1920, and perhaps the peril they see in the new complica tion is the possibility that they will not be immune from a similar asse-sment in the campaign tt 1924. Wholly Economic? From Successful Farming. Governor Miller of New York is quoted In the September 16 issue of the Journal of Commerce as saying at the New York state fair that labor and farmer organ izations are necessary but their sole justification is economic. "When either seeks to exert political power they at tempt that which is hostile to American Institutions and is certain to result to their own advantage.” We can not agree with Governor Mil ler that the sole Justification is econ omic. It should be and is the predom inating excuse for existence, but when the economic laws of transportation and marketing are interfered with by greedy interests then the farmer must get into politics in 'order to get laws to curb these greedy interests. The giutn gamblers could only ibe routed out by law, and the farmers had to take a hand in politics in order to get such a. law. Freight rates \?ere annihilating the profits of certain farm interests and sections. It took a political influence to bring these things to the attention of the powers that be. Take the oleo fight a few years back. Big concerns were putting out a bogus product that masqueraded under the appearance of a well known dairy pro duct. The intent was to defraud the consumers. The farmers had to get into political action to stop this fraud, for this fraud was interfering with the economic laws of supply and demand. We fail to see how the political action of organized farmers is "hostile to American institutions.” If this is so, then other interests that have always had political influence come under the same charge. We believe any Interest is Justified in presenting its case to con gress or a legislature. If there is merit in the contention there is no harm done. If It lacks merit the legislators ar« guilty of neglect if they let it become law. Beer and Vanity 3,000 Years Ago. From the New York World. Breweries and vanity1 boxes of ancient Egypt were must like the same com modities today. This has been proved by the receipts of one of each at the university museum. The vanity box was used by some lady of high degree at Lahun. In upper Egypt about 1,800 B. C. The brewery is a model found in a tomb at Lahun, or Gurab. It is in a small box which was placed near the body of the dead man. All th« vats and other apparatus neces sary for thb brewing of beer were re produced on a smsKl scale, but in exact proportion and in one corner was found a small quantity of barley. The box also contained exquisitely modelled figures of brewery workers. In the same or another tomb the ex plorers found two models of small boats filled with rowers, and fitted with masts and sails. This shows the de ceased carrying a rod and staff, which is unusual. It is a reminder of a phrase in the J3rd psalm which has never been fully understood. It Must Bs So. From the London Mail. "Is pants singular or plural?" "If a man wears ’em it’s plural." "Well? If he doesn’t?" "Its 'singular 1"