through the preparatory commission. It calls for a total of 42,000,000,000 francs, with a margin of 500,000,000 francs of estimated income above expenses. The Radicals are expected to try to boost the appropriations, with an eye to pleasing their constituents before the elections. The Radicals may scheme-but Poincaré stands ready to risk his political life to keep France from spending more than she makes. Shortening the Transatlantic W route for dirigible service is planned to Australia. It would be profitable to ship gold from South Africa. But these plans seem to be further in the future. Evidently the Canadian service is regarded as a possibility for next summer. CAPTAIN GRAY'S LOG Scott Field at 2:33, at 52 degrees temperature. 2:35 p.m., 10,500 feet, 24 degrees. KMOX on air. KAHMIAX 27-37, "Sympathy," two bags of sand. AC. 300 to 500. KSD; symptoms of rickets; 91 over OKAW. E. Mascautah. Bar No. 11 turns at 12,000 feet. Drop extra hand rope at 2:40 p.m. Marked 248. Bar No. 14 stopped at 15,000. Left glass foggy. 2:50 p.m., near schoolhouse and east gauge part clear; 16,500. 3:05-19,500 feet. Temperature zero. KMOX-With compressed oxygen; 23,000. KMOX. HILE daring aviators have been attempting spectacular flights across the Atlantic in airplanes, practical men have been making plans on a commercial basis for shortening transatlantic voyages. These plans are of two types. One type of plans depends upon improving the established means of transportation by the operation of faster boats on shorter routes. Use of airplanes may be supplementary in facilitating the embarkation or landing of mails and, in special cases, passengers. About such plans there is very little that is sensational. The other type of plans depends upon the use, not of airplanes, but of Zeppelins. According to Air Vice-Marshal Sir Sefton Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation in the British Air Ministry, as reported in a special despatch to the New York "Herald Tribune," the two giant dirigibles which it has been known for some time were under construction in Great Britain will be ready for service to Canada next summer. There have been various reports about these British Zeppelins; but they all agree as to the immense size of them. They will have a speed of sixty to seventy miles an hour. They will each They will each carry one hundred passengers besides freight. The accommodations-even to dancing floors will be comparable to those of a steamship. With a normal commercial load and a cruising speed of about sixty-three miles an hour, each should be able, without refueling, to traverse a distance of 4,000 miles. According to Sir Sefton, an experimental service between Great Britain and India has not only been planned but is being organized. The first stop from England would be at Ismailia. There a mooring mast has already been erected. At another stop, Karachi, there is another mooring mast. A second 3:10-Snow, gloves, 8 degrees below zero. KMOX-"Thinking of you." WHO, Des Moines-"Sunset," by Ole Olson's Orchestra. 3:13-24,000 feet. Snow. 3:17-44 telling about dying; 29,000 feet, minus 29 degrees; WLS, Chicago, Chonchide. 3:31-Pied Piper; 30,000 feet. Ice, sun clock frozen. Minus 35 degrees; 32,000 feet; WFIW at Hopkinsville, March; 33 degrees below. 34,000 feet; cyl. off antenna. No more music. 10:03 p.m.-Minus 40 degrees; too much air. 36,000-32 degrees below; getting This is the record of what an Army into the air-his last voyage The trip between Canada and Great Britain would be about four days. According to Howard Mingos, who has collaborated with Captain Ernst A. Lehmann, a Zeppelin commander in the World War, in writing a recently published book on "The Zeppelins," Germany is engaged in a friendly competition with Great Britain to be the first to get commercial dirigibles into the air, and the German and British ships will probably race around the world. Disasters which have led some people to say that craft lighter than air have proved impractical and dangerous have not halted the construction of Zeppelins. On the contrary, they have led builders to make their ships bigger than ever. Undaunted men are ready to risk their lives that future multitudes may dance their way across the Atlantic five thousand feet in the air. A Martyr to Altitude S° OMEWHERE aloft where the air is s thin that it cannot sustain life ther died the other day another of those me whose records tell the story of man material progress. From time immemorial men of eac generation have attempted to outc their forebears. Some have sailed th seas into the unknown. Others hav searched wildernesses or sought the ulti mate South or North. Captain Haw thorne C. Gray sought to rise above th surface of the earth higher than an other man that ever lived. In his log reproduced herewith, he entered the rec ord of forty thousand feet, but it is un officially reported that his instrument indicate an altitude of forty-three thou sand. He died because in the rarefied atmosphere of that altitude where an artificial supply of oxygen is necessary to sustain life Captain Gray, it is be lieved, accidentally cut the tube that connected his breathing mask with the oxygen tank. As fish, eons ago, climbed from the water to become amphibians, will man some day rise above his earth's envelope of air? The Fall-Sinclair Mistrial A a hotel apartment brought to a TALKATIVE juror and the search of sudden close the trial of ex-Secretary Fall and Harry F. Sinclair, oil operator, on the charge of defrauding the Government in the lease of Teapot Dome. The result was a mistrial. That was startling enough; but at the same time facts were ascertained which may disclose an offense much graver than that for which these two men were tried. The talkative juror in the case, according to the affi davit of a newspaper man, remarked that he thought Sinclair was all right. and that he himself would be disap pointed if he were not soon riding about in a big automobile. A search of the hotel apartment resulted in the discov ery of reports of operatives of the Burns Detective Agency showing that they had been keeping certain jurors under surveillance on behalf of a client which has proved to be Sinclair's aide. These reports showed that the Agency was going into such matters as the financial affairs of the jurors, the mortgages on their property, the debts they owed. It re mained to be proved whether such sur veillance amounted to tampering with the jury. W. J. Burns, called before the grand jury to explain the activities of his Agency, retaliated by declaring that the Government itself had attempted to tamper with the jury, for a Government officer had approached one of the jurors, which his men had no right to do. It is impossible for us to imagine, however, what purpose there could be in getting such facts about the jurors as the Detective Agency's operatives reported than to bring pressure upon them by the use of money. To do that is daring impudence, in defiance of society. It is that of which the Government suspects one of the men it has been trying for fraud. Until the case is tried, of course, fairminded people will suspend their judgment; but they will not have to wait for the case to be tried to be convinced that the use of wealth for the perversion of justice is a graver offense than getting wealth by fraud. The one is an offense against property rights; the other is an offense against that institution of justice on which the protection of property rights and other human rights depends. It is bad enough to pilfer the ship's stores; but it is worse to scuttle the ship itself. Marcelline Gives Up THE HE younger generation now growing up and beginning to have babies of their own will regret to learn of the death by suicide of the once-famous clown, Marcelline. Twenty-five years ago at the London Hippodrome and later at the New York Hippodrome he was "the children's idol." Of Spanish birth, he gave to his profession of acrobatic clown a new touch of European artistry that made him the talk of the town. But tastes changed and money failed, and the once jovial clown has taken the saddest way out of existence. Marcelline's meteoric career recalls the pathos of the old French legend of "My Lady's Tumbler." Chemistry and Civilization Albert B. Fall nounced industrial alliance, made largely to win back, if possible, under efficient German, leadership the advantage which the infant American chemical industry began to assume when the World War forced it to swim alone or drown. The industrialists of Germany, France, England, and Italy have just forced a PanEuropean Alliance for the express purpose of dominating, not merely the chemical industry of the world, but, if possible, all industry. This alliance is really a great supertrust, and is, of course, juxtaposed to the non-combined but highly organized American industrial groups. If Europe can do well what America has been do ing within recent years, if she can forget bickering with labor and co-operate with it, if she can replace hampering tradition with the unsparing discard of old machinery and the application of modern mass-production machinery, and especially if she can catch the idea of using power in place of muscle, she may once more outdistance America-in which case, all she accomplishes will be deserved. Little need be said concerning Germany's capabilities as a leader in chemical science and chemical industry, at any rate. We suspect that there are people who do not yet realize what modern chemistry is up to. To obtain a sense of the extent of it and to take in its full meaning one must either become a chemical engineer or read some general semipopular book which takes in its whole sweep, such as H. E. Howe's "Chemistry in Industry" or Floyd Darrow's "Story of Chemistry." Darrow is sufficiently lucid without being insufficiently abstruse to satisfy a professional chemist. The story is, of course, long even to touch on, being interwoven with practically every one of the industries of our age. If, as is said, this is to be a chemical age, America will have to look to her industrial laurels. France Seeks Safety A NETWORK OF ALLIANCES creating a European block of states friendly to France now includes Yugoslavia, along with Belgium to the west and Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Rumania to the east. Paris has just notified the Foreign Offices of other Powers of a new treaty of friendship and mutual defense signed with Belgrade, completing the system begun by French Nationalists some seven years ago. France does not like to have her new arrangements called alliances. But to all intents and purposes they are. She calls them regional security compacts, as approved by the League of Nations. Flanking Germany, Austria, and Hungary on the east and west and offsetting Italian agreements with Hungary and Albania, they provide a decisive balance of power in Europe at the moment. Friends of the League have tended to criticise these arrangements by France as disloyal. They argue that she should work through the international association at Geneva. The fact is that France does work through the League, and shows an increasing tendency to do so. But, with Gallic realism, she is not inclined to rely entirely upon it until it has proved fully its ability to safeguard the peace of Europe. Her policy seems really consistent and implies no disloy- first to the Alfonso, Mr. Whitehill, and alty to the League. France seeks security for France -through the League if she can find it there, through alliances until she can be sure of a better way. "Violanta" Much Too Violent IF F an American composer in his teens had asked Mr. Gatti-Casazza to produce one of his operas, what would have happened? But Erich Korngold had been hailed as a boy prodigy when in 1916 he wrote "Violanta." Moreover, he was Viennese, not American. So, with what seemed to most who heard that jejune work mistaken kindness, the veteran manager of the Metropolitan gave us "Violanta" some ten days ago as the first novelty of a not-over promising season. It is a short work, in one act, inspired by Hans Mueller, a most lurid and crude playwright. Melodramatic to a fault and far too violent, it tells the story of a lady-the protagonist—who, to avenge a ruined sister on her seducer, cne Alfonso (an unscrupulous baritone of royal blood), welcomes the villain to the palace of her husband, where she intends to have him murdered. Unhappily, Alfonso fascinates Violanta. She falls into his arms at last in ecstasy. Whereon her husband very rightly (from the Italian point of view) gets rid of her with the aid of a stiletto. As she expires a chorus sings a dreary song. Alfonso looks on at death unmoved. Throughout the opera young Korngold has struggled bravely to escape from the influence of two models, Strauss and Puccini. In the opening of an interesting overture, modern in tendency, he does now and then succeed in evading them. Yet his music as a rule is unoriginal and, though amazing as the work of one so young, disturbs the singers by its unmerciful loudness. There are some episodes, though, among them a scene in which Violanta confides her woes to an attendant, in which Korngold is both charming and discreet. The choruses annoy one by their rowdiness. Under the conductorship of Mr. Bodanzky, the orchestral portion of "Violanta" was interpreted with eloquence, if somewhat stormily. Mme. Jeritza, as the heroine, outdid herself in melodramatic and at times meaningless posturings. She also displayed a gorgeous dress with much dexterity. The honors of the performance, none the less, went next to the Metropolitan couturiers. Taken by and large, the new-old opera "Violanta" is a pretentious failure. In Honor of Shakespeare IT T is proving to be an easy task-or rather a grateful pleasure—to raise a fund of a million dollars as America's share in the Shakespeare Memorial Fund. Mr. Rockefeller's gift of half a million dollars, just announced, is to be divided equally between the British and Dominion Committee, of which Viscount Burnham is chairman, and the American committee, headed by Mr. Thomas W. Lamont. This is a striking way of emphasizing the fact that the people of both the United States and the British Commonwealth are heirs to. Shake speare's genius. The intention is not merely to replacethe Shakespeare Memorial Building in Stratford-on-Avon, destroyed in 1926, but to establish a Shakespeare Foundation, which will build the theatre, museum, and library to be included in the plan, and also, it is hoped, to main tain a permanent acting company and provide for the presentation of Shakespeare's plays and the training of actors in Shakespearean rôles. It is doubtless the intention also to honor the drama's sister art of architecture with an edifice that shall be a fit monument to the illustrious dramatist and poet and in keeping with his agein other words, to avoid that mistake in the old brick-and-stone Memorial Build ing that caused Baedeker, thirty years after it was built, to say, "Time has not yet brought it into harmony with its venerable surroundings." nobility. It would therefore seem as i his selection would be welcome to the Nationalists; but it has been received coolly in conservative circles. This is because Dr. von Prittwitz accepted the Republic from the first. But the protests are not vigorous, because even Nationalists recognize the need of America's friendly understanding of Ger many's problems, and therefore the need of having some one in Washington with a democratic way of thinking. Dr. von Prittwitz, who, at forty-three years of age, now becomes an Ambassa dor for the first time, is not unacquainted with America, for before the war he was for a short time in Washington. The post which he is leaving is that of Counselor of the German Embassy at Rome. During the war he was in the Chancellor's office. Germany's envoy at Washington will have a double advantage-he comes of the old régime, but supports the new. Americans Enshrined in France IN IN the Pantheon in Paris the French Republic has inscribed the names of thirteen Americans. To find these names the visitor must walk far back through the Pantheon's majestic aisles. In marble around two doors is cut in gold a list of 560 names of writers who died in the World War. Among these men of vision who had. "a rendezvous with death" are these sons of America who served under the French colors before their own country entered the war They are Victor E. Chapman, Henry Farnsworth, Edmond Genet, Russel Kelly, Joyce Kilmer, G. Raoul Lufbery James R. MacConnell, Paul Pavelka. Norman Prince, Kiffin Yates Rockwell. Alan Seeger, Bernard F. Trotter, and Kenneth Weeks. These thirteen are not the only for eign names inscribed on this memorial. There are a handful of Belgian and Peruvian names and one or two others. Nothing on the list differentiates them from the native sons here honored. At the religiously impressive ceremony on October 15 when this memorial was unveiled, as each name was cited a member of the Veteran Writers' Association responded, "Dead on the field of honor." Eulogies from various French academies and elsewhere, written in India ink on durable paper and inclosed in a bronze tube, were sealed into the back of one of the panels. There in this shrine of patriotism these Americans keep company in spirit with St. Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, with the Maid of France, with Mirabeau and the other inflaming spirits of the Revolution, with Guynemer, who sailed off into the blue and never returned, with Voltaire and Rousseau and Victor Hugo. In estimating the forces for national security France knows how to value men of the mind. In losing them, whether they be her own sons or not, she realizes that she loses something incalculably precious and irreplaceable. When she writes their names in a sacred place, she has already written them in her memory. court martial. That was somewhat more than a month ago. In the meantime Gomez, seeking refuge across the border in Guatemala, was reported to have escaped. Even before his execution, however, his effort to overthrow President Calles had been a failure. As long as Mexicans choose their Presidents by bullets instead of ballots, so long Presidential candidates will continue to fall by the same means. The Connecticut Flood N the number of lives lost the flood of the Connecticut and adjacent rivers which has brought unprecedented disaster to New England is comparable to this year's great flood on the Mississippi. In the Mississippi flood the toll of death was 147; by Sunday of last week the death list in the New England flood had reached the estimated total of 125. What the damage to property will prove to be is as yet, and will for some time remain, unknown. In area affected, beside the great territory covered by the raging of the Father of Waters, the flood of the Connecticut seems small; but the inundated region in New England is well populated and its cities are busy with industry. There especially a flood has strong allies in disease and fire. Under such circumstances habits of self-government are of incalculable value; and the people of New England have had long training in governing themselves. As the flood waters gathered Vermont communities were the first to suffer, and then quickly thereafter communities of western Massachusetts. The city of Rutland in Vermont was partly under water. Montpelier and Barre were isolated from the rest of the world. The little village of Becket in Massachusetts was practically wiped out. In New Hampshire as well as in Vermont and Massachusetts villages and towns were cut off from all communication with the outside world. Later, towns in the State of Connecticut along the Connecticut River suffered. Trains were blocked. Food supplies, such as vegetables and milk, could not be transported. Thus cities outside the flood area as far as Boston were affected. Aid, of course, was offered at once, particularly by New York and by the Federal Government. Army airplanes were sent out to survey the stricken district. The President despatched troops for relief. Governor Weeks, of Vermont, in the spirit of self-help characteristic of his State, declined the offer of troops, supposing that it was for guard duty; but the Army in such disasters brings other aid-the restoration of communication, for example, and even medical service. Through experience of the same kind of disaster perhaps the Middle West and New England may be drawn to understand each other better. Politicians and critics of public men sometimes forget that the American people have a respect for the Presidential office that extends to those who may occupy it. They resent reflections upon a President's character. They are not likely easily to forgive those who, in the heat of a campaign, have brought unproved charges against a man they elect as President. American history, unfortunately, abounds in instances of such charges; but, fortunately, it affords ample illustration of their futility. To cite but four cases, they proved unavailing, and dishonoring only to those who made them, against Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Warren Harding. From this time on until the nominations are made next June Governor Smith will be more than ever a conspicuous subject of controversy. The effect of what he says even about State issues in New York will be National. And National also will be the effect of whatever may be said about him. In the State campaign which ended on election day, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, the former President's son, has challenged Governor Smith on several counts. He has declared that in managing the financial affairs of the State Governor Smith has been extravagant; that he has been mistaken in his waterpower policy; that in making judicial appointments and in ordering investigations he has been partisan. These are all legitimate subjects for public discussion. It is, of course, the very object of political debate to hold up to the scrutiny of the voters an official's policy and record. But Colonel Roosevelt has gone further than that. He has declared that "the red light district has crawled to the very steps of the State Capitol." Disclaiming any attempt to question Governor Smith's integrity, he has nevertheless let it be inferred that somehow Governor Smith is responsible for conditions of protected vice at Albany. He has named Democratic leaders in Albany who are under indictment for running a gambling pool; he has declared in general terms that Tammany Hall has lived by corruption, and that "Governor Smith was bred in the Tammany fold and is the bell-wether of their flock." But up to the day before election he has produced no proof connecting Governor Smith with the political corruption he describes. It is hard for the ordinary reader or hearer of these charges to believe that in intent they were not an attack upon Governor Smith's good name, a reflection upon his personal fitness for high office; but, whatever they were in intent, that is precisely what they have been in effect. If there is no proof of Governor Smith's direct responsibility for corruption-and there is none offered-then is Governor Smith to be condemned because of his party? Who, then, shall escape condemnation? What about Republican corruption? What about the Teapot Dome lease which the United States Supreme Court has declared to be vitiated because of fraud? That was perpetrated not at a State capital, but at the National capital, and under the auspices of a Republican Administration. What about the scandal of the Pennsylvania primaries? That was a product of Republican politics. What about Illinois? Republican. And the noisome corruption in Indiana? Again Republican. Has New York been more corrupt under the rule of Demo cratic Tammany Hall than have Philadelphia and Chicago under the rule of Republican machines? If the sins of a party are to be visited upon any of its leaders, however high his own integrity may be, then no leader is to be trusted, for there is no party without taint. Is Governor Smith, then, to be declared unfit because he has not denounced corruption in his own party? Is he to be condemned, not for what he has done, but for what he has not done? Is the charge against him one of unworthy silence? Is a public official to be judged, not by his deeds, but by his words? What, then, shall be said of President Coolidge? What ringing words of his have stirred the indignation of the country against his party's offenses in Indiana and Illinois and Pennsylvania? Was it President Coolidge that took the initiative in exposing and prosecuting those who had defrauded the Government in the naval oil leases? Is President Coolidge also to be condemned because he has not been a crusader? Perhaps we need a crusader-a man incorruptible, far above suspicion, whose words and acts can burn and cleanse. Colonel Roosevelt, as he himself has said, has denounced the corruption in his own party. Honor to him for that. But that is beside the point. The question is whether the charge against Governor Smith that holds him responsible for protected vice is merely that he has not been a crusader? Is this enough to smirch his name? Surely the charge against a public man must be more than this or else it is nothing. If a man by temperament, training, associates, manners, or character is unfit for the Presidency, it is of the utmost interest of the American people to know it. If any one has the evidence to support it, innuendo and inference will not do. Let him first be sure that it is irrefutable proof; and thenat whatever cost to himself-let him give that proof to the people. Otherwise silence. Ten Days in Russia-and Ten Years NEN YEARS is at least ten times as long as the Bolsheviks expected to be able to stay in power when they drove Kerensky out. An American who now lies buried under the walls of the Kremlin in Moscow, the correspondent and Communist John Reed, recorded that event in a book which he called "Ten Days That Shook the World." The period that followed might be called "Ten Years That Did Not Shake the World." The fact that the Soviet Government is celebrating its tenth anniversary and that no great change due to the Soviet Revolution has occurred in the rest of the world is a double contradiction of the beliefs the Bolsheviks held when they made themselves the rulers of Russia. When Lenine and Trotsky overthrew the Kerensky Government, they and most of the chiefs of the Communist Party thought they might stay in office for six months, and hardly dared dream of such political luck as staying in for a year. Sudden violent changes were the order of the day. General Kornilov had bid for command and failed only a month earlier. The impotence of the old army cliques was not as evident as it became later. Any one who was in Russia and had means of knowledge was aware that the idea dominating Communist Party councils was the idea of taking as much |