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NATIONAL CAPITAL!
By Carter Field
FAMOUS WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT J
Washington.—This talk about cut
ting federal expenditures ten per
cent in order to balance the budget
is just eyewash, as most folks who
know what is going on around Wash
ington will tell you. When first stated
it sounds fine, but it doesn’t sound
so convincing after you begin study
ing the figures.
In the first place, a considerable
part of the total federal expendi
tures is in the "untouchable” class,
to borrow a word from India. For
example, the interest on the fed
eral debt. Then there are the pay
ments to veterans, and the pay
ments to farmers, which of course
technically do not belong there, but
actually — can you imagine a
majority of both house and senate
voting to curtail payments to farm
ers?
And any one who thinks that, after
all the talk in the last campaign
about the government using the
money collected in pay roll deduc
tions for old age pensions and un
employment insurance, for ordinary
governmental expenditures, con
gress is going to vote anything like
that—so soon—is Just ignorant of
the ordinary political mental proc
esses.
It finally gets down to the federal
pay roll, about $1,500,000,000 a year.
Ten per cent of that would be $150,
000,000 a year. That would be im
portant money to any other person
or agency than the United States
government. But it is less than one
month's relief bill, at the rate of
spending for this year—meaning the
year ending June 30 next.
It is perfectly true that the gov
ernment cut all federal salaries al
most fifteen per cent back in 1933,
and that the country generally
thought it was a pretty good idea.
But things were different then. In
the first place, most folks outside
the government service had been
taking cuts, some of them much
more drastic than fifteen per cent.
More important, people working un
der private employers had been sub
ject to drastic weeding out proc
esses—the fellow or girl who had
kept his job being more or less
lucky.
Piteous Wails
So the public attitude was that
the government employees, who up
,to that act of 1933 had not suffered
from the 1929 debacle, were particu
larly favored and privileged class
of workers. So when they were sub
jected to a fifteen per cent cut,
though the wails in Washington and
jsome other places were piteous,
'there was very little public sym
pathy.
j But now! Actually the workers
outside, in a considerable percent
age if not a majority of cases, hove
been the beneficiaries of salary and
wage boosts, bonuses, and general
advancement, not to mention reduc
tion of hours. So that the govern
ment clerks nrs no longer a priv
ileged class. If anything, the con
trary.
There is another point, which in
sheer logic has nothing to do with
the case, but in the human equation
figures Importantly. At the same
time that this salary cut was voted
by congress, the compensations and
whatnots of the veterans were also
cut. Senators and representatives
have never been permitted to forget
that, nor to cease regretting it. It
gave them plenty of trouble at the
ensuing election.
Also, at the same time, congress
cut the salaries of its own mem
bers. Mrs. Senator and Mrs. Rep
resentative have not forgotten that!
To be perfectly frank, it is a rather
Unpopular topic. Up on Capitol Hill
the subjects ore more or less as
sociated in the collective memory,
SO to speak.
Which brings us back rather forci
bly to the idea that if there is going
to be economy it is going to come
out of relief. But that is another
story!
Senators Indignant
A small group of senators is very
Indignant over a proposed com
promise in the neutrality bill, which
would exempt the Great Lakes and
Inland waterways from the cash and
carry provisions of the senate bill,
and allow just that much of the
“discretionary” powers granted the
President to which, in the house bill,
the senators objected so much.
This group of senators has charged
all along that the real purpose of
the advocates of giving the Presi
dent so much “discretionary” power
was to leave the United States gov
ernment free in all international
difficulties to co-operate, if it
wished, with the British empire. In
fact, they have been naming parti
cular men, notably, Norman H.
pavis, as desiring an accord be
tween the English speaking coun
tries which, the senators feared,
would almost surely drift into an
alliance in the event of another
World war.
They point out that this proposed
compromise is very definitely in the
interest of the British, since most
of the traffic so exempted from
the cash and carry provisions of
the senate bill would be on the
Great Lakes. As only two countries,
the United States and Canada,
border on these lakes, the discrim
ination, they point out, is manifestly
in the interest of Canada.
But this discrimination is of no
value to Canada, merely as Canada,
they insist, but only to Canada as a
part of the British empire.
They admit that the same sort of
discrimination would be important
if a war can be imagined in which
Mexico is one of the belligerents,
but in which the United States is
neutral. The exemption affecting the
Great Lakes would also affect the
Rio Grande river.
Not Important
But this, the objecting senators
insist, is not important; first, be
cause it is difficult to imagine a situ
ation in which it could figure, and
second, the width of the Rio Grande
along most of its course is not really
a problem anyhow.
Defenders of the discrimination in
favor of Great Lakes traffic point
out that after all the object of the
proposed law is to keep the United
States out of entanglements—not
primarily to prevent war supplies
being exported from the United
States.
The objection to permitting Amer
ican ships to carry on the high seas
supplies (other than arms, ammu
nition and implements of war which
are specifically embargoed at the
outbreak of the war anyhow) is that
enemy submarines might torpedo
them, or enemy warships capture
them. Either would involve the Unit
ed States in the same sort of diffi
culty with the belligerent figuring
in the episode that involved it with
Germany during the period of Amer
ican neutrality in the World war.
On the Great Lakes, they point
out, there would be no hostile war
vessels. The goods would be bound
from United States ports to Cana
dian ports. Every one might know
that they were bound ultimately for
another destination—perhaps to one
of the belligerents—but there would
be no opportunity for any “incident"
to arise which might embroil the
United States in whatever inter
national conflict was going on at the
time.
On the whole, however, the "com
promise" seems to have been a
sweeping victory for the senators
who fought and won, in their branch
of congress, the fight for the cash
and carry neutrality program.
Labor Relations Board
Operating almost in a vacuum,
as far as public interest was con
cerned, until the decision of the Su
preme court held it constitutional,
the labor relations board actually
has been formulating policy and
setting up something destined now,
apparently, to become one of the
most all pervading branches of the
federal government.
In the eighteen months of its ex
istence, during which nearly every
one believed that it was only tem
porary—would be thrown out the\
window by the high court—the board
has decided no less than 135 cases.
A study of these decisions, as well
as the statements and interviews
and speeches — never given any
prominence because of the convic
tion of editors as well as business
men that it Just wouldn't last—gives
a fair cross section of the men
whose interpretation and admin
istration of the law is now so im
portant.
Following the example of the
courts, the board has adopted the
policy of expressing no opinions in
terpretative of the act until the
particular case that might be in
question should be brought before
it. For that reason J. Warren Mad
den, chairman, and the other mem
bers, Edwin S. Smith and Donald
Wakefield Smith, are not in a posi
tion to answer many of the inquiries
that have been pouring in since the
constitutionality of the act under
which the board is operating has
been upheld.
One question frequently asked is
whether an employer has the right
under the act to appeal for an elec
tion to decide with which group of
his employees he should deal. It
can be stated that the board feels
that management should not con
cern itself in any way with the de
termination of employee representa
tives. Its feeling is that such action '
would be contrary to the words ‘‘free
choice” as used in the act, and
would tend to unrest.
Find Limitations
The board recognizes many limi
tations In the scope of the act. It
recognizes it can intervene only in
disputes which may burden y ob
struct commerce. Such of these dis
putes as it may enter, must, in turn,
be confined to those arising out of
an employer’s denial of the work
ers* right to organize and bargain
collectively.
It may surprise many to know that
the board does not feel that it can
concern itself with the normal pur
pose of organizations—disputes over
wages, hours, and other terms of
employment. The board does not
believe its functions embrace ar
bitration, conciliation, or even medi
ation.
Some critics think the attitude of
the board is very one-sided, but the
board does not feel that it is set
up to protect the employer—but only
the employee. It does not think the
employer needs any protection.
4) Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service.
Radio Beacon
Position reported •
by sinking ship, i
possibly as much ||
as 50 miles from u
her true position. K
mmwrr , smim
r
This steamer receives the
distress signals, but having
noradio compass, is unable
to tell the direction from
which they come. She can
only proceed to the incor
rect position and so is un
able to find the sinking ship.
mtr. mmmsm
Zj. r I II IMP I awrtw.-. .-.y- •••-■■
Vessel in distress broad- |
casts the SOS call, giv- j
ing also the latitude and i
longitude of her position,
wrongly stating it to be
j at the point marked.
!The steamer that is shown
above picks up the distress
I call on its RADIO COM
PASS, which tells the direc
tion of the SOS; therefore
her navigator disregards
| the reported position, and
is able by means of these
| radio bearings to steer di
| rectly to the foundering
f ship, regardless of fog and
l storm, and save her crew.
i _
Rescuing Vessel Locates Ship That Gave the Wrong “Address.”
Prepared by National Geographic Society,
Washington, D. C.—WNU Service.
THE most magnificent of all
lighthouses was built before
the dawn of New Testament
history, but the most remark
able of navigational safeguards has
come only in the past few years.
Day and night a monotonous
drone of dots and dashes goes out
over the sea, penetrating the thick
est rain and fog, to help bring the
voyager safely home.
Today radiobeacons are essential
equipment on our most important
lightships and lighthouses, and ap
paratus for receiving radiobeacon
signals is carried on all modern pas
senger liners and many other ves
sels.
Thus, after more than 2,200 years,
we approach the solution of one of
mankind’s oldest problems. The
lofty Pharos of Alexandria, erected
by the Ptolemies near the mouth of
the Nile, has never been surpassed
by any other lighthouse in height or
in fame. Its name became the
word for lighthouse in the Romance
languages; the French use it in
radiophare (radiobeacon).
But the signal which this magnifi
cent tower gave to mariners was
the light and the smoke from an
open fire. No progress was made
in marine Bignal lights for many
centuries. Only a hundred and
twenty-five years ago tallow candles
burned in the famous Eddystone
lighthouse near the English coast,
and until 1816 the May Island light,
off Scotland, still used a blazing
coal fire to guide ships.
Nearly all the major advances in
lights and fog signals—the electric
lamp, the incandescent oil-vapor
light, the Fresnel lens focusing the
beam in the horizon of the mariner,
the fast revolving light making it
possible still further to gather the
rays into powerful beams, and the
fog bells, followed by the whistle,
siren, and diaphone—have been de
veloped within a little more than a
century.
Only in the last 30 years has so
necessary an aid been employed as
the lighted buoy, boon to the navi
gator who must bring his vessel into
port at night through treacherous
shoals and narrow channels.
Only the Radio Signal Is Certain.
The most notable advance was
made 15 years ago, when radio
beacons were placed by the United
States lighthouse service on Am
brose Channel lightship and two oth
er stations in the approaches to New
York. Thus was solved an age-old
problem. Only the radio signal pen
etrates fog and rain that blot out
the most brilliant light. It can carry
its message of safety through
storms that drown the most power
ful whistle.
Above the pilothouse of a modern
liner you will see a small rotating
coil antenna mounted on a metal
frame. This coil receives radio
beacon signals now sent out from
important lighthouses and lightships
—more than 120 of them on the
coasts of this country.
In approaching the coast, the nav
igator of a ship with this coil picks
up a radiobeacon signal—perhaps
the four dashes from Nantucket
Shoals lightship, or the single dots
from Ambrose. By rotating his ra
diocompass coil until the signal
fades nway ("taking the minimum”
it is called), he determines the di
rection from which the signal
comes, even from distances of
more than a hundred miles.
Anyone who has stood on the deck
of a liner in a dripping fog, and
has wondered at the courage of the
navigators going ahead toward the
unseeable, must realize what a
blessing this is to tense nerves—
how valuable is this gift of science
to better navigation and to safety
at sea.
Radiobeacon systems now are be
ing extended throughout the world,
and radio direction-finders are be
ing placed on more and more ves
sels, recently even on fishing craft.
There also are direction-finding sta
tions on shore which give radio
bearings to ships asking for them.
Distance Finding on Great Lakes.
A simple arrangement for dis
tance finding is now in use at a
number of stations, especially on
the Great Lakes. The radio signal
and the sound signal are synchro
nized to be sent at tne same in
stant, and the difference In the
transmission time, as measured by
a stop watch, gives the approximate
distance of the vessel from the sta
tion. This is easily computed when
it is remembered that sound in air
travels approximately a mile in five
seconds. The distance, therefore,
is roughly the “time lag” divided
by five.
A comparison of the number of
Great Lakes ships which stranded
during the four years preceding the
use of radiobeacons, with the num
ber for the four years following, in
dicates a 50 per cent reduction;
also the saving of time by vessels
taking radio bearings is a large
factor in economical navigation.
The dramatic use of SOS calls in
dangers and tragedies of the sea is
familiar enough. Radiograms to
and from friends on shipboard are
commonplace. Radio also serves
navigation in transmitting the cor
rect time, a sfervice of prime im
portance in determination of longi
tude at saa.
When wrecks obstruct channels,
or when storms drag buoys from
their normal locations, radio affords
a valuable means of broadcasting
such urgent information. Radio also
transmits reports from mariners
who observe defects in navigational
aids.
A vessel equipped with a radio
compass can take a bearing on
another ship sending radio signals,
and thus determine its direction at
sea by the same method it would
use with a radiobeacon on shore.
This taking of bearings between
ship and ship diminishes the risk of
collision in fog, and it also helps
one ship to And another which may
be in distress. The rescue of the
crew of the British freighter Antinoe
by the United States ship President
Roosevelt in mid-Atlantic in Janu
ary, 1926, is a notable example of
this use of radio bearings.
Capt. George Fried, then master
of the Roosevelt, immediately
changed his course on receiving the
SOS, and radio bearings on the An
tinoe were taken every 15 minutes.
He found the Antinoe's position as
given was some*50 miles in error;
but, steering by the radio bearings,
he reached the Antinoe in about
six hours. After three and a half
days’ heroic struggle, the 25 men
of the sinking Antinoe were rescued.
Tragic loss of 42 lives, through
lack of equipment for taking radio
bearings, is shown in the wreck of
the Alaska, which sank the very
year that radiobeacons came into
use.
One August day in 1921, the Wah
keena, in a dense fog off Cape Men
docino, California, picked up an SOS
call from the Alaska. Having then
no device for telling from which
direction came the call for help,
the Wahkeena cruised for ten hours
before she could find the sinking
Alaska.
Not So Lonesome Now.
Today, of course, all outside tend
ers and lightships use radio, and a
number of isolated light stations
and some tenders are equipped with
radio-telephones, which greatly fa
cilitate reports and orders in emer
gencies.
At remote stations, the lightkeep
er’s life long has been a symbol of
loneliness. Before the days of ra
dio, all the keepers heard was wind
and waves, sea birds, or the fog
horns of passing ships. During a
period of bad weather in 1912, no
tender could reach the lighthouse on
Tillamook Rock, Ore., for seven
weeks. The station on Cape Sari
chef, at the entrance to Bering sea,
went for ten months without any
mail or news—August, 1912, to
June, 1913!
Radio changed all that.
“Before we got our radio,” wrote
one keeper, "a new President might
have been elected a month before
we knew about it . . . This time,
we heard it as soon as anybody.
The last two big prize fights, when
it was announced who was cham
pion, we heard it . . . We listen
also to ministers preaching, and
there is singing. It is almost the
same as being in church . . . When
storms blow, our sets keep us post
ed; we can take all necessary pre
cautions and follow the progress of
the hurricane.”
Hhinkd about
Humane Fox Hunting.
SANTA MONICA, CALIF.
—In England it has been
decided that fox-hunting is
humane. Ttiis opinion ema
nates from the hunters. The
foxes have not been heard
from on the subject.
Maybe you don’t know it, but
there’s a lot of fox-hunting among
us, especially down
south. Being but a
lot of stubborn non
conformists, south
erners do not follow
the historic rules. A
party at large wear
ing a red coat,
white panties and
high boots would be
mistaken for a ref
ugee from a circus
band. And anybody
Blowing a norn as irvln s. Cobb
he galloped across
hill and dale would be set down as
an insane fish peddler; and il you
shouted "View, halloo! Tantivy,
tantivy! Yoicks, yoicks!” or words
to that effect, they'd think you were
a new kind of hog-caller.
.Down there they’ve chased the
fox until he’s wise. The foxes have
learned that the hounds can’t fol
low trail on a paved highway and
so quit the thicket for the concrete
when the chase is on. A fox has
been sitting in the middle of the big
road listening to the bewildered
pack.
On second thought maybe Brer
Fox isn’t so smart, after all—not
with automobile traffic what it is.
’Tis a hard choice—stay in the
woods and get caught or take to the
pike and get run over.
Courageous Republicans.
WHO, besides the writer, can re
call when the Democrats held
their jubilization rallies the night be
fore a presidential election and the
Republicans the night after the re
turns were in, when they had some
thing to jubilate over? Now the sit
uation is just the other way around.
The Literary Digest poll was prac
tically the only thing the Republi
cans had to celebrate during the en
tire fall season of 1936.
Still, we must give that dimin
ished but gallant band credit for
courage. Here, in an off-year,
they’re spiritedly planning against
the next congressional campaign.
• * •
English Recruiting.
THE English are still having
trouble inducing young fellows
to join the colors. First, the gov
ernment tried to increase enlist
ments by giving every recruit a gid
dy new blue uniform, absolutely free
of charge, and still the lads re
fused. So now, as an appeal which,
’tis believed, no true Britisher can
withstand, the military authorities
announce that, hereafter. Tommy
Atkins will have time off for after
noon tea.
This may be a new notion for
peacetime, but, during the great
war, the custom was maintained
even up at the front. Many a time
I’ve seen all ranks, from the briga
diers on down, knocking off for tea.
However, this didn’t militate
against his majesty’s forces, be
cause, at the same hour, the Ger
mans, over on their side of the line,
were having coffee—or what the
Germans mistake for coffee. And
the French took advantage of the
lull to catch up with their bookkeep
ing on what the allies owed them
for damage to property, ground
rent, use of trenches, billeting
space, wear and tear, etc., etc.
Did it ever occur to our own gen
eral staff that guaranteeing a daily
crap-shooting interval might stimu
late volunteering for the American
army?
• • •
The Job of Censorship.
ONE reason why moving pictures
are so clean is because some
of the people who censor them have
such dirty minds. To the very
pure everything is so impure, is it
not? That’s why some of us think
the weight of popular opinion, rath
er than the judgment of narrow
brained official judges in various
states, should decide what should
and what should not be depicted.
Anyhow, there are so many movies
which, slightly amending the old
ballad, are more to be pitied than
censored.
Sponsors of radio programs also
lean over backward to be prudishly
proper. But without let or hindrance
the speaking stage, month by
month, grows fouler and filthier.
Suggestive lines once created a
shock in the audience mind. The
lines no longer suggest—they come
right out and speak the nastiness.
Sauce for the goose isn’t sauce for
the gander, ’twould seem—or may
be, after the reformers got through
saucing radio and screen, there
wasn't any left over for the so
called legitimate stage.
IRVIN S. COBB.
©—WNU Service.
Ancient Coin Found
A coin so small that it is not as
large as the head of a tack was dis
covered near Antioch in a silvet
purse 10 feet underground, and It is
believed to have been used 500 yeari
before the birth of Christ
1 k i I T □ W
rmn
“Buried—But Not Dead”
By FLOYD GIBBONS
ADVENTURE sure laid an icy hand on the shoulder of
Joseph Kurtiz, who sent me one of the best written
yarns I’ve had to date. Joe lives in Brooklyn now and at
last writing could have used a job. He gave up his youthful
ambition to be a mining engineer as a result of events re
lated in today’s story, and switched to mechanical engi
neering. But, if you ask me, the magazines are looking for
people who can write like Joe.
Accordingly, I’m following his script pretty close. In April, 1920, Joe
was a surveyor with the Glen Alden Coal company, Scranton, Pa. It was
his first job, and he was assigned to investigating “pillar robbing” in the
Cayuga mine. I’ll explain.
Miners must leave enough coal to support the roof of the mine,
which consists of shale, a scaly rock, that caves In easily. Pillar
robbing means stealing coal from these remaining supports, and
is illegal, since it may cause ca' e-ins in which workers are killed,
gas and water mains burst, even explode, and brick buildings
standing on the land collapse. It’s earthquake, fire and flood.
Fine Place for an Avalanche.
The Cayuga had been deserted for fifty years. Inside Joe and three
companions found pillars cracked and crumbled by the weight of mil
lions of tons of rock they had held up for five decades. As supports they
were useless and might just as well have been mined out. Old timbers
erected by miners to protect themselves in those far, bygone years
were rotted, useless. A touch and they collapsed to fungi-infested, mil
dewed dust. Not much between Joe and the millions of tons of rock
over his head.
Worse, the workings were of the “pitch” type—each chamber like a
long, sloping tunnel, some very steep. The roof was dangerously cracked.
Slabs of shale hung so loose a breath would send them crashing to the
floor. Fallen rock covered the steeply-slanting floor in sizes from a fist
to a dining-room table. This "gob” can start an avalanche on the
slanting tunnel floor.
Joe’s duties—lovely Job!—were to climb over this loose rock,
covered with slime. If he made it, it was safe for the others
to come up. If he didn’t and started a fatal avalanche—Joe forgot
to tell about that.
A Pocket of Gas Was Ignited.
Well, sir, Joe climbed gingerly upward, clinging to the glistening
coal pillar at the side, peering ahead by the faint light of the lamp fastened
above his cap-visor. He stepped, light as a falling feather, testing every
footfall. At the top our “human fly,” as Joe calls himself, was to es
tablish a point for the transit—a surveyor’s instrument—to shoot at.
Joe never made it. Twenty feet from the top—Bom! An explosion
like a giant bassdrum shook the earth in a bolt of livid flame. GAS1
Joe’s light had ignited a pocket of whitedamp!
Splinter! Crack! Crash! The shock jerked rock toppling
from the roof, dropped it on the loose “gob” on the steeply-slant
ing floor! THE SLIDE WAS ON!
At first, with thumps scarcely audible above the rolling rumble of
the waves of flame over his head, then, in a roaring crescendo, jagged
rock raced, leaping and thundering downward past Joe, hurtling into
the hell of darkness far below.
Buried—and in Inky Darkness.
Joe’s lamp had gone out with the explosion. But above him was a
blinding glare—a marching surf of blue-and-red-streaked fire, lighting up
the chamber overhead. Blistering white heat above—thundering flood of
angry rock below! Joe clung to the pillar on his stomach, ducking hurt
ling rocks, shrinking from the blazing heat above. With clawing fingers
and toes that vainly sought foothold in the hard floor, he lay there—it
seemed ages—aching muscles a-torture. The slide diminished. The "car
bonic oxide" above burned fitfully, threatening any second to seek out
with its rainbow flames another pocket, spreading in chain explosions
through the underground terrain, burying Joe and his companions.
Joe thought of the others. Had they been crushed to a jelly
smear under those tons of rock—trapped in some doghole or cross
cut in a pillar?
The rolling flames died, went out. In the inky black Joe groped
for a match, lit his lamp. The floor was clear. He stepped out. In
stantly he tobogganed down on a slab of rock he had overlooked. Four
hundred feet below he brought up short on the heap of loose rock. It
had blocked the entrance completely.
No Wonder Panic Seized Him.
Joe was CAUGHT LIKE A RAT. He sat on a rock, wondered that
he was not frightened, began to figure his chances of seeing sunlight
again. It seemed suddenly very precious, sun and open air. Air! The
rock had sucked much out, the explosion had driven more out and the
fire had burned he didn’t know how much of the life-giving oxygen in
that black pit. V- ould the rest last till they got to him?
Then, Joe says, panic did grip him. He shouted himself
hoarse. He smashed a rock repeatedly against a pillar, listened.
Not a sound. Just silence. TERRIBLE SILENCE. Joe saw
slow death ahead—suffocation, thirst, starvation. Unwounded, he
wished for death—swift death, rather than this drawn-out agony.
Now he could only wait helplessly.
Joe says he prefers to forget the next nine hours. Imagination
can be the most horrible form of torture. But—his companions had es
caped. With all hope gone for Joe, they had notified the surface. A
relay of rescue crews, working as only mine rescue crews can, dug
through the pillar from an adjoining chamber and pulled Joe out nine
hours later.
From that day on the only coal Joe can stand looking at is in a
stove. He quit the mining engineer career cold. But I still say he can
write like a professional. What do you think?
©—WNU Service.
Gold Spike Joined First
Transcontinental R. R.
It was a gold spike driven with
two silver sledges that dedicated
the joining of the two railroads
which completed the first transcon
tinental railroad in the United
States, observes a writer in the
Cleveland Plain Dealer.
The Union Pacific was built west
from Omaha, while the Central Pa
cific was built east from Sacramen
to. The rails of the two roads were
joined on May 10, 1869, by a cere
mony at Promontory Point, on the
tip of an isthmus projecting into
Great Salt lake. Utah, from the
northern shore.
The last spike to be used in the
railroad was made of golu, and was
presented by David Hewes, a prom
inent citizen of California. Also,
a specially prepared tie of Califor
nia laurel wood had been provided
for the ceremony. Leland Stanford,
president of the Central Pacific and
formerly governor of California,
swung one of the silver sledges for
his railroad. An official of the Union
Pacific swung the other one. Im
mediately after the ceremony the
gold spike and the laurel wood tie
were removed and an ordinary tie
and iron spike substituted. The gold
spike is in the museum at Leland
Stanford university.
“E Pluribus Unum,” the
U. S. Great Seal Motto
"E Pluribus Unum”—one from
many—is the Latin motto which ap
pears on the obverse of the great
seal oi the United States. It is thus
the "official” motto of the govern
ment. and by act of Congress is also
inscribed on the coins.
The motto was originally proposed
on August 1, 1776. by a committee
of three which had been appointed
by the Continental Congress to pre
pare a device for a state seal. The
committee consisted, incidentally, of
Benjamin Franklin, John Adams
and Thomas Jefferson.
Their suggested seal, states a
writer in the Cleveland Plain Deal
er, was not accepted, however, and
it was not until June 20, 1782, that
the motto was adopted as part of the
second and successful device, which
was submitted by Charles Thom
son, secretary of Congress.
It was in 1796 that Congress di
rected the employment of "E Pluri
bus Unum" on the coinage. On the
great seal it is inscribed upon a
scroll issuing from an eagle’s
mouth. It also so appears on many
coins.
The motto itself is an ancient
turn of phrase, to be found in num
ber of the classical authors.
