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Of92S. nr hca Ntnvicc. in
Either Chain or Political Control
Destroys Newspaper Independence
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Mr. R. L. O’Brien, formerly editor of the Boston Herald,
one of the newspapers in which the International invested,
thinks the press is retiring from the field of public opinion.
He says the usefulness of the press as a public servant has
declined with the development of chain newspapers and the
rise of advertising. This change placed them in contact with
so many business interests that rather than give offense in
quarters profitable to them they shut up. Mr. O’Brien asks:
“What is to become of the journals of opinion when news
papers become recognized cogs in the mechanism of business
and how shall the populace get along without that service
which the oldtime newspaper performed?”
How has the populace in much of the country been get
ting along without it for several years? There are even big
cities in the country without a single newspaper hypocritical
enough to pretend that it is tightening the battles of the peo
ple. Thomas Jefferson and his associates thought an un
trammeled press indispensable to free government, and we
imagine there is no serious dissent from that today. To
answer Mr. O’Brien’s inquiry, the population would do very
badly without it. It would no longer know the truth about
public affars. The press would practice social disservice,
precisely as most of it did when the oil scandal was exposed.
The press cannot remain free and be too apprehensive of the
cost of that freedom. Yet there are instances of prosperous
newspapers that have never surrendered their intellectual
integrity. They are, in our opinion, the answer to the re
strictive laws proposed by some of the members of congress,
as they are the answer to what the International has been
doing.
If the owners of newspapers are content to peddle them
as if they were nothing more than business concerns, then
the law is powerless to preserve the press as a quasipublic in
stitution. Mr. Gannett flinched from the revelation that his
newspapers were associated with the International. Even
had there been no exposure of that association, as a news
paper proprietor he should have felt that the attitude of his
newspapers wTould inevitably betray it. They everywhere
betray their ownership. They cannot be even half slave
without rattling their chains. The country is never in any
doubt as to how far they are bound. A newspaper’s virtue,
like that of a woman, is something more seen than asserted.
Where “Tall Coin” Grows.
Prom Minneapolis-Joumal.
If football players have been sub
sidized at the University of Iowa,
■hen the Western conference sev
erance of athletic relations with the
Hawkeye school have been made im
mediately effective, involving can
cellation of games in the 1929 sea
son. If proof of professionalism at
Iowa City is lacking, then Iowa
should not have been suspended un
til and if it is produced.
The powers that rule the West
ern conference chose neither course.
They seem to have agreed to sus
pend Iowa, pending the proof or
refutation of charges that are
hedged about with mistaken secrecy;
but at the same time they seem to
have agreed to permit scheduled
contests to be played with a school
tentatively branded with a stigma of
impurity.
The public, we think, will agree
with President Clarence Cook Little,
of Michigan, that an unwise course
has been pursued, a course that can
scarcely be called consistent, in that
it is either unfair to the other nine
universities in the conference or un
fair to Iowa. Detailed information
public action should have been tak
Lobby Legislation.
Prom Omaha Bee-News.
Reports are coming into the sec
retary of state from lobbyists who
attended the late session. They are
supposed to be statements of sal
aries received and expenses in
curred by members of the “third
house’’ who showed the other mem
bers wrhat to do.
One man, who represented the
bank depositors, answers the query
as to salary received, “Not a damned
dime!” He admits incurring some
MOO in expenses for railroad fare,
entertainments and so on, but neg
lects to say who paid the bill. The
representatives of the railroad en
gtoemen reported the largest bill so
as to the charges and supporting
proof, should have been freely given
to Iowa and to the public, in case of
immediate severance. And if sup
porting proof is lacking, then no
en, pending results of an unadver
tised investigation.
But what has happened has hap
pened. Wise or unwise, the course
adopted now places the burden of
proof—or rather disproof—upon the
Hawkeyes. And the news from Iowa
City will hardly convince the pub
lic that the disproving job is be
ing undertaken in the manner in
the manner in which a capable law
yer might undertake it. Throwing
decadent eggs at the home of the
erstwhile athletic director, Belting,
doesn’t refute anything. Nor is any
thing gained by countercharging
other schools with having done the
things Iowa is now suspected of hav
ing done.
Especially unfortunate for the
cause of the countercharges was
their selection of Minnesota as a
university toward which they might
point accusing fingers. Maj. John L.
Griffith, the Judge Landis of the
Big Ten, blows that particular line
of defense clear out of the ground
far turned in. amounting altogether
to about $1,600.
These expense accounts wm go on
file, and will get about the same
amount of attention and credence
as is given to the reports of cam
paign expenses.
One member of the house of rep
resentatives, who was active on the
banking bills, told a group of de
positors the other night that if
there has been a bigger lobby in at
tendance, something might have
been done for the relief oi the peo
§le who have lost money in failed
anks.
All of which justifies the ques
tion: "Why is a legislature?”
An Omaha man who has had vast
with the retort that, in the matter of
clean athletics. Minnesota’s record
is the best in the conference.
If the present storm clears the
football atmosphere in the Middle
West, with possibly similar results
elsewhere, much good may come of
it. We do not share the fears of
alarmists that trending revelations
will wreck the Big Ten. If anv Big
Ten schools, through their alumni
or otherwise, have been carrying
their zeal for gridiron supremacy to
the point where it is being made
pecuniarily worth the while of a
good football player to attend one
university rather than another uni
versity. then the fact that such re
cruiting has become known will
doubtless lead to eradication of the
practice.
College football has a storm like
this every so often, and each storm
is followed by new and better safe
guards against professionalism.
Silly Censorships.
From Cedar Rapids Gazette.
A Eoston bookseller has been no
tified by customs authorities that
Candide, one of the masterpieces of
Voltaire, is obscene or indecent
within the meaning cf section 305
of the tariff act and sections 211 arid
240 oi the United States criminal
code. The books of the French phil
osopher were seized by the collector
of the port of Boston and a volume
was referred to the treasury depart
ment for a ruling. The treasury bu
reaucrats uphold the collector of the
port.
This is merely another demonstra
tion. if another was required, that
intelligent people of the nation are
restricted in their choice of books by
jobholders who probably consider
Harold Bell Wright, Alice Began
Rice and Eleanor H. Porter as the
acme of literary excellence. It is not
difficult to understand why a job
holder with such literary standards
would object to Candide. To a
wholesome mind the book is no more
indecent than Jack-the-Giant-Killer
or Goody Two Shoes. It is the
thought conveyed which is offen- |
sive to jobholders.
Candide is nothing more than an
ironical attack on the philosophy of
Leibnitz. The latter was a German
philosopher who formulated 170
vears ago a philosophy which has
been popular with bureaucrats from
time out of mind. Leibnitz tauaht
that this is the best of all possible
worlds and that whatever is right.
Jobholders take to such philosophy
with the readiness that cats lick up
cream. It means that the status quo
has been settled for all time and
that bureaucrats will draw their pay
for ever and ever while they are
free at the same time to meddle all
they please with the business of oth
er people—especialy intelligent peo
ple.
Voltaire hated jobholders and he
hated fanatics who made easy and
congenial jobs for the former. Good
ness knows he had suffered enough
from the tribe while fretting in the
Bastile or fleeing across the border
to Switzerland or England where he
could write his thoughts without in
terference. So when the philosophy
of Leibnitz came to hand Voltaire
smiled one of his bright ironic
smiles and wrote Candide. Europe
sent up such a roar of laughter that
jobholders everywhere howled curses
and philosophy of Leibnitz suffered
a decided slump in the intellectual
market. Needless to sav the bureau
crats of the period took effective
steps to bar Car.dide from all coun
tries where they were pre-eminent.
They were certain then as thev are
today that this is the best of all pos
sible worlds and that whatever is
Is right—so long as jobholders draw
their pay.
The treasury jobholders are mere
ly reaffirming the iudgment of the
French jobbers of 170 years ago. Be
sides, if jobholders were not meddle
some and obnoxious how could they
Justify their jobs?
He Meant Well?
From Buen Humor. Madrid.
"What? Is this you, Jones! I was
told you were dead."
"No. It is my brother who Is
dead ”
"Oh. I am sorry to hear that."
experience In politics, has served in
the legislature, and has actively en
gaged in the framing of laws, says
that laws are made by active minor
ity groups. A review of what has
taken plara supports his statement.
Wouldn't it be fine to have a leg
islature made up of members who
had a comprehensive knowledge of
the needs of the state, who were not
I bound up in parochial ventures, and
who wculd listen to surges.ions from
the governor? Such a legislature
cou’.d get along very well without
any lobby, and might do the state
some good, not by passing new laws,
bu. by repealing some of the old
i ones
Many Studies of Crime and Law Enforcement
Have Been Organized and Some Still in Progress
From the New York World.
When Mr. Hoover first announced his plan of
a law enforcement commission he was shaking of
prohibition- The occasion was his address of ac
ceptance at Palo Alto. He 6aid in the Stanford
Stadium that he still believed prohibition to be an
“experiment noble in motive;'' he added that "com
mon sense compels us to realize that grave abuses
have occurred;” and he thereupon promised his in
quiry. Since then the nation has always thought
of the investigation as bearing primarily upon pro
hibition. It still thinks so. for it studied the per
sonnel of the president's commission chiefly in the
light of their records as wets or drys. It will con
tinue to do so. The president may talk, as he has
recently done, about narcotics, smuggling, the Jury
system, the police and court procedure. But for
the nation at large prohibition sticks out like a
sore thumb, and it will inevitably preoccupy the
attention of the country.
In this attitude the nation instinctively takes a
more sensible position than the president has re
cently done. There is undoubtedly need for an ex
pert and searching study of all munerous topics
which the president has lately mentioned. But it
is a need which after all has been given a vast
amount of attention in recent years. If any sub
jects in American life are today being thoroughly
investigated they are law enforcement, crime pre
vention and the improvement of Justice. We have
the National Crime Commission, founded in 1925
under the leadership of Newton D. Baker. Charles
E. Hughes, former Governor Lowden and others,
and acting through various subcommissions; for
mer Governor Hadley’s report on legal reforms was
made in 1926. We have the various state commis
sions for whose formation it asked; we have inde
pendent state bodies like the Baumes commission
and the New Jersey Crime Commission. We have,
m addition:
The Chicago Crime Commission; the Bal
timore Criminal Justice Commission; the Crime
Commission of Los Angeles; the Kansas City
Law Enforcement Association; Cleveland As
sociation for Criminal Justice; Missouri Associ
ation for Criminal Justice; San Francisco Sec
tion on the Administration of Criminal Jus
tice; American Crime Study Commission;
American Institute of Criminal Law and Crim
inology; Society for the Prevention of Crimes,
etc.
We also have the American Bar Association and
numerous state and city bar associations studying
the reform of court procedure; we have the Ameri
can Law Institute working on a restatement of
the law; and we have at Johns Hopkins, Harvard,
Columbia, Northwestern and the Universities of
Virginia and Chicago, institutes for the study of
law or crime.
There is not much point in rethreshing straw
which has been flailed and reflailed; and the coun
try rightly expects the president’s commission to
go beyond the work of all these bodies. How can
it go beyond? Perhaps in various ways; but th«
most evident and urgent is in dealing with prohi
bition. For prohibition presents the hugest, most
baffling and most glaring problem of law enforce
ment in American history. It is the one law which
millions of Americans have deliberately and deter
minedly violated for reasons which satisfy their
consciences as sound and right These millions are
in general an excellent body of citizens. They have
included one president; many congressmen, gov
ernors and Judges; the great mass of business and
professional leaders in our cities. They would not
think of violating other laws. In violating this one
they involve many federal, state and municipal of
ficers in malfeasance and corruption. They also,
and more alarmingly, enlist the services of a great
criminal organization below the pale of respecta
bility; and this organization, thus enriched and
strengthened, torments cities like Chicago and
Philadelphia with gang murder, thuggery, black
mail and other cardinal crimes. This is a situation
such as has probably never existed in any other
great state in modern history. It will continue to
exist; and to study it adequately in all its bearing*
might well take all the time, energy and wisdom
of Mr. Hoover’s commission
It alone presents a high problem of statesman
ship, going far beyond the bounds of those other
topics with which our crime commissions and bar
assetations deal; for it alone olfcrs a double as
pect. There is first the question of enforcement.
Assuming the continuance of the present situation,
how can the law be made more effective? But back
of this lies the more fundamental question of en
forceability. No one thinks of modifying the laws
against murder and robbery, for overwhelming
public sentiment everywhere upholds them. But
millions of Americans, constituting a majority in
great communities, tacitly assert that they will not
obey the prohibition law till It Is modified. Presi
dent Hoover seems to assume that when the habi
tual conduct of millions is at odds with the law,
the fault lies wholly with the millions. But Is it
not possible that part of the lault lies with the
law? Is it not certain that the only way to make
law and conduct square is by a reciprocal modifi
cation of both? In short, is the commission not
bound to give courageous attention to the enforce
ability rather than the enforcement of the one law
which in 150 years of national history has prerrnt
ed a grim threat of chronic social disorder? To ex
orcise that grim specter is one of the gravest prob
lems before the country.
Censorships, Law Tyrannies and Federal Paternalism
Impose Severe Strain on Theory of Free Citizenship
From the Omaha World-Ilerald.
Prof. Andre Mortaz of Harvard university pro
tests vigorously because the government of the
United States will not permit him to import copies
of Voltaire’s classic, Candide, for use in his classes.
He says:
“The literary decision of the United States
customs creates for all professors of literature
a ‘cas de conscience.’ There is not a course
on the literature of the Eighteenth century
where the reading of the Candide is not a part
of the assigned readings.
"Now, one of two things—either the censor
of the United States customs is right and has
given proof of his scholarship and keen judg
ment, and, in this case, all of us professors of
literature who oblige our students to read Can
dide should be denounced as corruptors of
American youth and be invited to drink, for
war.t of anything else, a strong dose of hem
lock. Or else, in accordance with the most
enlightened mine's of the last two centuries, we
are right to consider Candide as one of the
essential work.- m literary history—and in that
event the ‘findings’ of the censor remain as a
monument to the absurd and the ridiculous."
It is not, however, a monument lonely and
unique. It is one among many—monuments to
the decadence of democracy and the triumphant
rise of paternalism.
We are getting farther and farther away, in
these United States, from the theory that men
and women are competent, and entitled to rule
themselves, to determine their own ways of life.
We are displacing that theory with the kinder
garten theory of government and of society. And
we are making, not the home, not the school, not
the church, but an Uncle Sam with epaulets on his
shoulders and a birch rod In his hand, the master
of the kindergarten. On occasion he throws down
the rod and grasps a policeman’s billy.
What made the United States so splendidly
different from other lands, In the beginning, was
the soul-thrilling notion that people are citizens,
not subjects; that they are endowed with inalien
able rights to decide and choose for themselves;
that they are Invested with a dignity and intelli
gence that lifts them above the cattle in the fields
and the dray horses on the streets—that In their
own right and by virtue of Inherent capacity they
are the lords of the earth. Since government was
necessary to an orderly society they would set up a
government of their own, not to command and
rule them, but to serve them. And since it was
to be a servant rather than a master, they would
delegate to It only such powers as were necessary
to protect them against each other and against
outside enemies. For the vest, the people, sov
ereigns, were to be free to work out their own
destinies.
Their political and social theories, happily,
were in conformity with their religious theory.
God had created them re.-ponsible beings, had
given them a conscience for their guide, had
planned they were to acquire merit on earth and
salvation hereafter by encountering temptation,
knowing it, resisting it, making a free choice be
tween good and evil. Not only did they not need
a government for a moral mentor and comman
dant; such a government would interfere with the
unimpeded working out of the divine plan.
It was a noble and inspiring program, that
promised to produce a virile, free and self-reliant
society. But it is the program no longer. And
the very institutions that should have combined
to uphold it have joined to conspire for its over
throw. The church has scrambled to unload its
moral responsibility upon the government; to
make Uncle Sam the guardian of its flocks.
Schoolmen clamor for a federal department of
education to take supervision over their task All
too many homes abdicate to legislatures and po
licemen in the performance of duty to children. In
groups beg and little we agitate for governmental
control over our personal lives, in order that all
alike may conform to fixed rules and rigid stan
dards. Science and industry and commerce com
bine to carry the process along, sc that everybody
eats the same food, wears the same clothes in the
same styles, reads the same "book of the month,’*
sees the same movies, plays the same games. Uvea
in like houses similarly furnished, thinks the same
thoughts, and shares throughout In the universal
surrender of individualism.
We started as nonconformists and have become
conformists. We were to have few laws, a limited
government, and we have more laws and a
stronger, severer government than any other civ
ilized people. We who were to control ourselves,
fashion ourselves, are fashioned and controlled and
ordered by the Frankenstein we have created and
perverted. We have consigned ourselves to the
kindergarten in a timid anxiety for an easy safety
and an enforced morality that has no virtue In it.
That was not Thomas Jefferson’s plan, or God’s,
as the sturdy fathers understood it, but it is what
we have drifted into.
Study Sun to Predict
Changes in Climate
WASHINGTON- —Daily
studies of the intensity of the sun’s
rays soon may make it possible to
forecast the general march of solar
energy for a year or more in ad
vance.
Regular periodicities have been
discovered in variation of the in
tensity of the rays, according to
Dr. C. Abbot, Smithsonian sec
retary and director of the astro
physical observatory.
If the periodicities continue to
prevail, not only may there be a
forecast of the genera ltrend of the
sun’s energy, but prediction of cli
Mystrrics Engulf England.
P. G. Wodehouse In the Saturday
Evening Post.
Quietly and, as it were, surrepti
tously, the present flood of mystery
stories has engulfed the British Isles.
Only a short time ago the evil ap
peared merely sporadic. Now we are
up to our necks in the things, and
more coming all the time.
There seems to be some virus in
the human system Just now' which
causes the best writers to turn out
thrillers. This would not matter so
much, only, unfortunately, it causes
the worst of writers to turn them
out, too.
The result is that this royal
tlyone of kings, this sceptere4 lfl$,
' matic and terrestrial changes de
pendent on the sun.
Solar radiation has been found to
rise to a feeble maximum in the
spring months and fall to a marked
minimum in the autumn.
Three observatories of the Smith
sonian institution, fjtuated on
mountain tops in desert localities
of southern Oallfomia, southern
Africa, and Chile, are co-opeialing
in the Judies.
Q. What land is included in
Oceania? T. L.
A. Oceania or Oceanica was a des
ignation which embraced the land
surface which remained after appor
tioning the continents of Eurasia,
Africa, and the Americas. The term
this earth of majesty, this seat of
Mars, this other Eden, demiparadise,
this fortress built by nature for her
self against infection and the hand
of war. this happy breed of men,
this little world, this precious stone
set in the silver sea, which serves
it in the office of a wall or as a
moat defensive of a house—I need
scarcely say that I allude to England
—has degenerated into an asylum
full of goofs reading one another's
detective stories, And 99 out of
every 100 a dud.
--M
Q. Why are women not allowed in
Khyber Pass at certain hours of the
day? E. H.
A. The restrictions on the Khyber
covered Australia, the Indian Archi
pelago. and the Pacific islands. Aft
er Australia was set apart as a con
tinent, Oceanica was restricted to
the Malay Archipelago and the is
lands of the Pacific.
Q. What is the meaning of Toe H?
R. C C.
A. Toe H was a sign on a soldiers'
rest room back of the trenches at
Ypres. Toe was the British soldiers'
nickname for tea and H was the ab
breviation for house. It was in this
tea house that a society known as
Toe H originated. It is a young
mens movement with the following
ideals: To consecrate humanity: To
conquer hate; To create harmony.
It is a pretest against the old evil
traditions which make a world war
possible.
Pass apply to men and women. The
pass is open only on certain days of
the week and at certain designated
hours. It is the main strategical
point of entry into India from Af
ghanistan and is therefore carefully
guarded.
Q. Should an automobile tire
carry the same pressure in summer
as in winter? S. G.
A. Automobile tires, generally
speaking, carry the same pressure In
summer as in wunter, particularly
If in good condition. Sometimes if
the tires are old and weak, it is not
adviseable to give as much pressure
in summer as they axe apt to blow
out.