The air has now been placed beside land and water as a normal medium of travel.

A Man of Mystery

A1

FTER months of secrecy, the appearance of the new Ford car has become one of the news events of the week.

No industrialist in any field has dealt in such mystifications, has worked so single-handed, or has carried to success such coups d'état, so to speak, as Henry Ford. Carnegie had his Fricks. and Schwabs; Rockefeller, his Archbolds and Rogerses; but Henry Ford, like Napoleon, works alone. He created mass production in the automobile industry, but when competitors forged ahead by adapting his methods to improved models, with Napoleonic boldness he abandoned his models, dismantled his plants, and has begun anew.

What the effect of the new Ford car will be on the automobile industry is still a matter of speculation. It is rumored that some of the leading independents will combine in a great merger like the General Motors in order to meet the enlivened competition which the Ford car may develop. To the inexpert mind it seems as if the saturation point of the automobile consumption had been nearly reached. But at a dinner given in New York a few days ago in honor of Professor E. R. A. Seligman, the distinguished economist of Columbia University, a high official of General Motors prophesied that 5,000,000 automobiles would be made and sold in 1928. In view of the scientific standing of the guest of honor, this startling statement was probably not made without careful consideration. It recalls the recent jocose comment of Will Rogers, who said that it is easy enough nowadays to differentiate rich and poor families. A poor family is a family that owns one car. That is a joke that Henry Ford made possible.

If Napoleon was "the man of mystery," Henry Ford is entitled to be called the Napoleon of the automobile industry.

character of the country. Now they have proved their silent force by causing a division in the Communist Party. Trotsky, Lenine's old lieutenant, is out in the open at the head of an opposition to Stalin, General Secretary of the

party and the actual boss of Soviet Russia. Trotsky and his followers talk of forming a new party. Naturally, both Trotsky and Stalin claim to be the true disciples of Lenine, but the rock on which they have split is the policy toward the peasants.

Trotsky maintains that the well-to-do peasants have the state by the throat and are blocking its plans for trade and industrialization by refusing to yield up their grain for export at the low official rates. He is for going back to the system of requisitioning grain through the Red Army which brought the peasants near the stage of revolt in 1921. Stalin and the ruling group maintain that it is necessary to keep the peasants as contented as possible in order to safeguard and continue the Bolshevik power.

The fight between Stalin and Trotsky is significant to outsiders mainly as evidence that the peasants are the decisive influence in Soviet Russia today.

Mr. Lamont and Japan's Railway in Manchuria

W

HEN Thomas W. Lamont went to Japan this autumn, it was announced in the press that his visit had no special significance. In Tokyo he voiced at one of the gatherings in his honor the predominant American feeling toward Japan: "We believe in her peaceful intentions; we believe in her

courage, her patience, her good faith, b loyal friendship for America." As turned homeward reports appeared t he had discussed with responsible Ja nese bankers and officials the possibil of a loan for the South Manchuri Railway, which Japan secured in Russo-Japanese War and holds unde ninety-nine year lease. That is a mat of quite special significance to Amer and the Far East.

Since his return Mr. Lamont has o sulted Secretary Kellogg in the Dep ment of State; and news from Washi ton has indicated that the Departm would see no objection to the flotat of such a loan in the American mark In Manchuria, China, Japan, a Russia are in conflict-China for w she deems to be her national rig Japan and Russia for spheres of spe interest and influence. The effect American association with one of parties must be seriously considered relation to the whole policy and posi of the United States in the Ori While we reserve full comment u later, it is important now to record significance of the facts.

America faces the question of en try into the area of greatest rivalr in the Far East.

The Bygone Pride of Kings

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NEASY rest the bones of and kings. In Egypt the sensa about the splendid burial housing of boy king Tutankhamen was only a l point in the unburying, so to speak many Pharaohs. From the Gobi De lately came the assertion (not yet firmed and too thrilling to seem t that a Russian archæologist had "fou the coffin of Genghis Khan resting the crowns of about forescore prince had conquered. Then came the n that the skeleton of Queen Meresa had been discovered in a brilliantly namented tomb not far from the G Pyramid. The Queen's body had b thrown brutally into a corner by p derers some forty-five hundred y ago. Dr. Reisner, head of the Har expedition, thinks that this discov will have an illuminating historical nificance.

There followed still more lately a port that the grave of Attila, Scourge of God" and conqueror Rome, has been found in Hungary. be sure this is a comparatively mod king, for he died a little less than f

The Outlook, December 7, 19

hundred years ago. But if the report is true-for, like that about Genghis Khan, it is more gorgeously thrilling than well substantiated-we may hear next of the finding of the three coffins (gold, silver, and iron) in which tradition says that the great Hun warriorking was inclosed and of the armor he wore and the treasure he had won.

King Zoser is another aspirant to modern attention. Mr. Firth, of Egypt's Antiquities Department, thinks he has found Zoser's tomb. But after the searchers got a glimpse of something golden there was a cave-in. We must wait. Zoser's Premier, Imhotep, was a great architect five thousand years ago.

Not a king, but a god, has broken

into the news from Palestine. Every

one who knows his Old Testament will remember the name of the heathen Temple of Dagon. The American archæological expedition headed by Allan Rowe, of the University of Pennsylvania, has made important discoveries at Beisan (the Biblical Bethshan), and among them is the Temple of Dagon, a portrait of the builder of the Temple, and a perfect wealth of weapons, utensils, and ancient writings all relating to a civilization existing about four thousand years ago. In contrast are the impressions of a gazelle's feet made on brick when it was soft and a child's rattle with the little stones still in it.

Such finds are not as exciting as football games and oversea airplane voyages, but they do give us moderns a feeling of nearness to those who were moderns ages ago.

Charges of Contempt

ITED to show cause why they should

CITI

not be punished for criminal contempt of court, Harry F. Sinclair, William J. Burns, and others involved in the jury-tampering charges of the FallSinclair mistrial must face the trial judge, who may, without the intervention of a jury, send them to prison for a year or impose upon them any lesser punishment.

The rule to show cause why they should not be punished for contempt was issued by Justice Siddons, of the District of Columbia Supreme Court, on motion of District Attorney Gordon. It is based on the charge that the respondents sought to pervert the administration of justice by corruptly influencing members of the trial panel. The respondents, besides Sinclair and the elder Burns, are Sheldon Clark and Henry Mason Day,

The operators declare that the miners were repeatedly warned not to advance upon the mine property in an attempt to "picket" it and make a demonstration. The miners assert that their "procession" was entirely unarmed, and that at the worst they were committing trespass, not assault. However that may be, the result was the killing of five miners and the wounding of perhaps a score of the strikers' army, while a few of the mine guards were injured. This "battle," if so it can be called, resulted in the calling out of the State National Guard, the declaration of martial law, and the mobilization, despatches say, of tanks, airplanes, and cavalry as well as of infantry.

The mining situation in Colorado is in one point of view like that of other softcoal mines in the Mid-West and that of the English discontented coal miners: that is, it is a natural result of overproduction-too many mines and too many miners inequality of productioncost in different mines and localities, and the consequent impossibility of enforcing everywhere the same wages and the same prices.

In another aspect, however, the mining system in Colorado is peculiar. The recent troubles were started by the Industrial Workers of the World in opposition to the wish of the United Mine Workers, who belong to the Federation of Labor.

As the strike went on the lines be

tween the labor unions were broken and the strike began to center upon the question of what is and what is not legal picketing in Colorado. Governor Adams had declared invasion of property illegal, even if not accompanied by violence; but admitted the right of strikers to hold meetings close to the property line. What followed seems to have been an attempt to "demonstrate" beyond the legal limit; but at this distance it does not appear that violence was threatened or that the trespass, actual or contemplated, was such as to call for machine guns.

One curious outcome of this event was the "picketing" by I. W. W. members of the sidewalk before the New York office of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. This long-distance demonstration, even assuming that there was provocation for it. is the obverse of Sydney Smith's declaration that something he disapproved was "like tickling the dome of St. Paul's in order to please the dean and chapter." Following the Colorado mine war of 1910, in which the Colorado Iron and Fuel Company was involved, the Rockefellers organized a system under which workers had a share in settling industrial disputes, and it is officially stated that the Rockefellers have no connection with the Columbine mine,

Whenever coal-mine disputes culminate in war Congress promises to take the question up; but it doesn't!

Sawdust and Rags

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SAWD

AWDUST and rags are generally classed among waste products, but both are far from being worthless. In fact, although this country produces in its sawmills an enormous quantity of dust and sawdust, it is necessary to import thousands of tons from abroad in order to fill the demand for sawdust as raw material. Its uses are many and odd; for instance, wood-flour is made in immense quantities and is used in the manufacture of many articles ranging, as has been said, from dolls to dynamite; in the last-named product several thousand tons of wood-flour are used yearly.

The story of what may be done with rags is long and varied. An especially interesting fact is that the refugees in the Near East are earning a million dollars a year by making beautiful rugs and other articles out of the rags that Americans throw away. These rags in all sorts of forms and colors are sent across the seas to workshops maintained by the

Wear East Relief in Syria, Palestine, Greece, and Armenia. Some are used as arments for the destitute, but most of them are sorted, carefully unraveled, the arn redyed, and then woven into rugs f beautiful Eastern colors or into oldashioned hooked rugs, sold cheaply in he East. Even the burlap bags in which the clothing is shipped are conerted into rugs.

"We print a picture of one of the rugs made by refugee children. Unquestionably, this and many others have beauty as well as value in showing what may be done by ingenuity and labor with apparently worthless rags.

Art, patience, and hard work are I often the chief ingredients in a thing of beauty.

Mexican Immigration and the Farm

THE

HE comfortable impression of certain opponents of unrestricted Mexican immigration that the question could be settled on the two per cent of 1890 basis received a setback in El Paso on November 18 and 19, when representatives of the Southwestern, mountain, beet-sugar, and Pacific coast States' agricultural interests met with the purpose of putting opposition to Mexican immigration restrictions into the farm bloc program.

In the considerable agitation raised by labor union leaders over low-wage Mexicans taking the places of American industry the point tends to be missed that

newcomers from across the Rio Grande

perform service as farm help. South of a line drawn east from San Antonio they supply almost all the unskilled labor in Texas cotton, fruit, and vegetable cultivation. A little farther north and as far east as Alabama they are beginning to fill gaps left by the Negro exodus.

They are, of course, the mainstay of farm work in southern California and in the irrigated portions of Arizona, New Mexico, and west Texas. In the Southwestern cow country they have practically replaced the American cowboy. Even as far north as Montana the Mexican vaquero is penetrating. In the beetsugar regions the Mexican is increasingly regarded as the complementary economic factor with the tariff, which makes the industry's successful operation possible.

All these employing interests were represented at the El Paso conference. Their conviction is that if, as proposed, Mexican immigration should be restricted to anything like the two per cent of 1890 quota, allowing less than 1,600 Mexicans to enter the United States an

nually, their industries will either be put on their backs for a long period of labor adjustments or snuffed out. They also insist, with a certain plausibility, that proposed Federal arrangements to admit Mexicans as seasonal agricultural laborers will not work, because the demand of the railroads and other Western industries for relatively cheap unskilled and semi-skilled labor will draw the "special permit" Mexicans away from the farm.

as into a vacuum. The Western organization is out to effect an alliance with the farm bloc in Congress against restriction, on the principle that it is essential to protecting the farm labor supply and reasonable farm wage scales, not only in the Mexican belt, but throughout the country.

The chief weakness in their effort seems to be a lack of intelligible statistics as to how many Mexicans are doing farm work, what they are being paid in comparison with other classes of farm laborers, etc. But their opponents, on the other hand, are almost equally lacking in data as to Mexican wages and infiltrations in industry and regarding the seriousness of the "Mexicanization menace" generally.

Perhaps no great harm would be done if Congress put off settling the Mexican immigration problem until it was reasonably clear what it was all about.

Admirers of President Coolidge paid him a doubtful compliment when, following his statement that he did not choose to run for the Presidency in 1928, they assumed that he would run. As a result, unpleasant necessities have been imposed upon him. He has had to "speak to" Senator Fess and C. Bascom Slemp, formerly private secretary to the President. More recently he has had to discourage and put an end to the circulation of chain petitions asking him to run. But, withal, he must have made the fact pretty clear even to those with whom belief comes hardest that he will not run for President in 1928.

Americans ought to learn to take their President at his word; they would save him annoyance and themselves the loss of love's labor.

Modern Forestry

THE practical and very useful trend

of modern university education is indicated by the announcement that eighteen seniors of the University of Maine have just gone into camp for two months in the Maine woods to carry on what may be called the laboratory work of their course in forestry. A professor will accompany them. They will not only take part in the actual operations of logging, pulp-wood gathering, and

reforestation, but they will learn how man lives in a struggle with the forces of primitive nature. They are to be envied, for they will have more fun and better exercise than they can get in two months' work with a football squad. What appetites they will have for coffee, bacon, and flapjacks! On what snow scenes, tinted with purple shadows and the green of the spruce, they may feast their eyes! In their leisure moments let them read what John Muir says about his winter in the forests of the Yosemite. And they might cut out and paste on the wall of their cabin Joyce Kilmer's poem:

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

A New Musical Prodigy

TH

HE puzzling psychological question, What is genius? was brought again to the fore by the public appearance in New York recently of a boy violinist only eleven years old. As may be surmised from his name, Yehudi Menuhin, he is, like so many gifted violinists, of Jewish parentage. He was the soloist at a concert of the New York Symphony Society and played the classic Beethoven concerto for violin and orchestra. Because his fingers and arms are still short, the boyish Yehudi used a specially made instrument only three-quarters the normal size; yet his technique was that of a master and his interpretation that of a poet. "It seems ridiculous to say," remarked one accomplished New York critic, "that he showed a mature conception of Beethoven's concerto, but that is the fact."

Rumanian independence. But the younger brother has never seemed the equal of the elder. So Rumanian affairs, troubled enough of late, enter a period of increased uncertainty.

The Rumanian dictator passed in the

Underwood & Underwood

Premier Bratianu, of Rumania, who died November 24

midst of difficulties created largely by his policies. The man who brought Rumania into the war on the side of the Allies and who won at Paris territory doubling the size of the pre-war Kingdom, he had practically determined its destiny ever since. He was engaged in an implacable struggle to prevent the former Crown Prince Carol from returning to Rumania from France and re asserting his claim to the throne-a struggle the end of which cannot now be foreseen. But the fact that Carol's emissary, Manoilescu, whom Bratianu had tried for treason, was acquitted just before the death of the Premier indicates that everything was not going the way the one-man power behind the throne wished.

usual at this session. This is the ses sion preceding a Presidential campaign. and political as as well as individual divergences of opinion will play their part.

Already four contentions exist as to the extent of reductions desirable. With the Democratic members standing out for a deeper cut, the Ways and Means Committee of the House has tentatively agreed upon a bill which would reduce taxes by $236,000,000. The President and the Secretary of the Treasury think that even this cut is too deep; that it should not exceed $225,000,000.

But the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, which has had a committee investigating for many months, says that taxes should be reduced by $400,000,000. The contention of the Chamber is supported by a vote of 91 per cent of its membership.

President Coolidge and Chairman Green of the Ways and Means Committee have retorted that the Chamber has acted without information. And this retort seems, in the nature of things, to be justified. The Chamber of Commerce of the United States would be within its rights, and within the range of its infor mation, if it contended that the Treas ury surplus be used for tax reduction instead of debt reduction. But it exceeds that right and that information when it undertakes to fix the extent of reduction.

Still, there is a semblance of justification for the Chamber's stand. Each time that taxes have been reduced the Treasury has fixed a maximum sum that its surplus would stand. Each time Congress has made reductions in excess of this sum. And each time subsequent facts have proved that the Treasury surplus would have stood even a greater reduction than the one that Congress made. Apart from the fact, however, that under a budget system the Treas ury Department is under obligation to underestimate rather than overestimate income, the surplus is due to temporary sources of income which could not be accurately measured and are now drying