A DINNER AT A THOUSAND DOLLARS A PLATE

A

DINNER at a thousand dollars a plate was recently given in New York City.

Despite the high price, the bill of fare was limited to rice stew, bread, and cocoa. The cocoa was served in The rice stew was army mess cups. served on tin plates. The bread was without butter. This is the same meal which the European Relief Council has been giving and will give to 3,500,000 children in Europe who are actually starving.

Nor was the food served on the usual dinner tables; it was served on pine trestles without any covering at all, and the chairs arranged alongside were of the folding camp variety. The waiters were women volunteers in the Red Cross garb of those who actually feed the children in Europe.

Those who partook of the dinner were the men and women who had contributed a thousand dollars apiece to the $33,000,000 fund which the European Relief Council is trying to raise; thus they could reckon their dinner at a thousand dollars a plate. More than one-third of the amount desired has already been raised.

The cost of saving the life of a child until next summer's harvest is $10. When harvest comes, it is hoped, Central Europe may become self-supporting, though of course on a very much lower scale than before the war.

On the speakers' dais was placed a child's high chair. This symbolized the

JANUARY 12, 1921

children who were unseen guests at the dinner-the children who are being saved. According to ex-Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane, who is Treasurer of the Relief Fund, they sent this message:

We, the unhappy children of Europe, send you our gratitude. We are only boys and girls, you know, not men and women. We did not make this awful war. We are its last victims and we cannot help ourselves. . . . When we are and women we shall tell our children what you did for us, and some time, maybe, we can keep other boys and girls from knowing what we know of the cruelty that comes to children out of war.

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Among the speakers were Mr. Hoover and General Pershing. The first reminded the diners that the entire fund asked for did not exceed the cost of a single battleship. He also mentioned the sums spent in this country on luxuries, and declared his belief that the American people were not unable or unwilling to help to save the lives of the starving children of Europe. General Pershing pointed out that the greatest suffering of the war had been not among armies but among women and children. He added:

There is another thought that forces itself upon our attention tonight. As we contemplate the causes of the World War and realize its horrors, every right-thinking man and woman must feel like demanding that some steps be taken to prevent its recurrence. An important step would be to curtail expenditures for the maintenance of armies and navies. ... It is a gloomy commentary upon

world conditions that expenditures several times greater than ever before in peace times should be considered necessary. . . . We may well ask ourselves whether civilization does really reach a point where it begins to destroy itself.

General Pershing's words afford another illustration of the fact that no one is more eager than the true soldier to prevent war. But, whatever may be done to that end in the future, there is an immediate and pressing need, and that is to send relief to those children upon whom the past war has brought undeserved wretchedness.

W

THE CHIEF TASK OF CONGRESS HEN each Congress assembles for its last session of three months, it is commonly said that little legislation can be expected except the passage of the appropriation bills. This sounds as if Congress were dilatory, inefficient, uninterested in its larger legislative duties, and unresponsive to the popular demand for corrective or progressive laws. A very general impression is that the passage of appropriation bills is a routine matter that a small group of business men would get through with in short order.

Again this year we are hearing the same report-that little can be expected from Congress before March 4 except the passage of the appropriation bills. Very few Americans have any idea of the enormous amount of labor and the financial knowledge required of those who are charged with this duty. There

(C) Harris & Ewing

PROF. ALBERT MICHELSON

the use of the National Parks for these purposes. The Commercial Club of Great Falls, Montana, a strong organization, originally passed resolutions in favor of using the Parks for proper industrial purposes. But after getting all the facts in the case the Club reconsidered the matter, withdrew the resolution, and notified the Congressman to whom the resolution had been sent of their revocation. The Chamber of Commerce of Cheyenne, Wyoming, is urging Congress to oppose the plan of building a reservoir in the Yellowstone Park.

The entire Congressional delegation from Wyoming is on record as opposing any encroachment upon the National Parks, Senator Kendrick, for example, writing thus to a constituent: "While I have always been an ardent believer in the maximum development of the waters of our Western States for reclamation or for power purposes, I feel very strongly that such development should not be extended to the National Parks."

These are encouraging incidents. When the American people have all the facts regarding a question of public policy, they are generally guided in their decision, not by local and selfish motives, but by a broad general view of public welfare.

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At first glance this seems travagant statement. The wonderful achievements of science during even the first twenty years of the twentieth century make the layman wonder sometimes whether there are many fields of knowledge left for man to conquer. And then, just when we begin to think that man has about become lord of all creation, along comes science with a new discovery which shows how puny he really is and how the majesty of the universe towers above and beyond him, unfathomable and unknowable.

It was in this mood that the old Hebrew poet wrote, "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" And it is this mood which must have been impressed upon the minds of thousands of men and women who read the recent announcement, in the last week of December, of the unprecedented astronomical achievement of Professor Albert Michel

son, of the University of Chicago, who has successfully measured the size of the star Betelgeuse, in the constellation of Orion.

Betelgeuse (sometimes spelled Betelgeux) is an incandescent star or sun, doubtless very much like our own mysterious and flaming Orb of Day, except in point of size. Professor Michelson has discovered that it would take twenty-seven million suns like ours to

ORBIT OF MARS

Courtesy of the New York "Times"

The shaded portion of the diagram shows the size of Betelgeuse compared with the orbits of our planets. As will be seen, the star would nearly fill the orbit of Mars. The sun and the planets as shown here are greatly exaggerated. The sun, for example, if correctly drawn to scale, would be only 1-150th - of inch in diameter. It would take 27,000,000 suns like it to equal Betelguese, although the diameter of our sun is 866,000 miles

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make one Betelgeuse, which has a diameter of nearly three hundred million miles. Since the circumference of a globe is 3.1416 times its diameter, it would take an airplane flying one hundred miles an hour about one thousand years to circumnavigate this gigantic sun, without stopping a second for the birth and death of generations of pilots.

No wonder that the special correspondent of the New York "Times," reporting from Chicago the overwhelming measurements and calculations made by Professor Michelson, remarks: "These dimensions make the bodies in our solar system seem most minute and insignificant and present the conception of celestial bodies of magnitudes hitherto unmeasured and almost beyond comprehension."

Terrestrial and human pride seems pretty small after such a glimpse into the illimitable universe. And yet we cannot resist adding, with some satisfaction, that Professor Michelson received his scientific education at the United States Naval Academy, at Annapolis, but resigned from the Navy in 1881 to devote himself to scientific research. He has successively held the chair of Physics in the Case School of Applied Science, at Cleveland; in Clark University, at Worcester; and for the last twenty-eight years in the University of Chicago.

names of even second or third rate composers is English. The one striking exception is not English at all, for it is Irish-Sullivan; and that can be counted English only because Sir Arthur was born in London, though his father was a native of County Cork. The twentieth century has seen a change. Among living composers the German Richard Strauss has perhaps been most widely advertised and has perhaps created the greatest sensations, and the French d'Indy is perhaps the most interesting to the students of the development of music, but no one has become more deservedly distinguished than the Englishman Sir Edward Elgar. And among the younger composers those of England are giving as much promise as those of any other country except possibly France. Here in America we ought to hear more of English music, just as we ought to hear more music of American origin. Simply because the very greatest composers have been German is no reason why we should hold our breaths every time a German composer makes a noise. American audi

noble. The composer has lent a factitious interest to this work by saying: "Through and over the whole set another and larger theme 'goes' but is not played."

The symphony in this concert is frankly the starkest kind of programme music. It is supposed to describe the city of London. The Thames flows silent in the dawn, the Westminster chimes strike the half-hour, the Strand becomes all bustle and turmoil, a costermonger sings a coster song, a bit of shabby-genteel London comes into view, and then the turmoil of the Strand reappears. Thus endeth the first movement. In the second movement is pictured the region known as Bloomsbury, and an old musician plays a plaintive tune on a fiddle in front of a public house. In the third movement the composer undertakes to give his audience through the ears a glimpse of the slums. The last movement might be called the labor movement. It is supposed to depict the hunger and unrest of London; but it brings us back to old Father Thames still flowing silently. This

graphic communication with the outside world. As it was, they wandered for

labeled German which would frankly bore them if it were marked "Made in England" and which they would not listen to at all if they knew it was by an American.

All this is by way of lengthy introduction to the statement that one of the last orchestral concerts of the old year in New York City consisted of English music under the direction of an English conductor.

At the invitation of Walter Damrosch, conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra, Albert Coates has been visiting this country to lead the orchestra as guest conductor. His first appearance was in a programme consisting of a suite arranged and edited by himself for string orchestra from the works of Henry Purcell, Sir Edward Elgar's "Enigma" Variations, and Vaughan Williams's "London" symphony.

Purcell represents the high-water mark of English music previous to the present century. That was a good many years ago about two centuries and a half. At that time English musicianship was of the highest order.

Sir Edward Elgar's Variations constitute one of the most beautiful compositions produced in our day, which grows with repeated hearings. Its theme, which seems strange and almost awkward at first, has the kind of beauty that is denied to mere prettiness. The Variations, supposed to be representative of the temperaments of some of Sir Edward's friends, are of widest variety; one is buoyant; another, mincing; another, pretentious; another, suave and

and as an art production may be ranked with the movies. Those who prefer to see moving pictures and those who prefer to hear something else beside movies will be alike unappreciative of this composition. Nevertheless there are passages of beauty in it. It is written with great skill and mastery of modern musical resources. Vaughan Williams, the composer, received his musical education chiefly in England, and he has worked with Maurice Ravel in Paris; but he writes a good deal like the modern German.

Albert Coates, the guest conductor, is English in name and in his paternal ancestry, but he was born in Russia of a Russian mother, and, though he studied science under Sir Oliver Lodge in Liverpool, he received his musical education in Petrograd, was a member of the Gewandhaus under Nikisch, and became conductor of the Imperial Opera of Petrograd. More recently he has been conducting in London.

Bay Post at Moose Factory. Meanwhile the American Naval Air Service and the Canadian authorities were bending every effort to locate the missing men. It was a matter of international relief and congratulation when the adventurous voyagers were finally reported safe. It is expected that it will take two weeks for the officers to return from Moose Factory to the nearest rail head. Certainly their journey to Canada and return may be described in similar language to that used by the Chinaman after his first ride upon a toboggan. When asked what it was like he said:

"Wi-s-s-s-s-h! Walkee back three mile!"

We are a little at a loss to know what

military or naval purpose is served by such a flight in a craft which belongs, so far as modern warfare is concerned, in a category with flintlocks and blunderbuses. Perhaps, however, the

stimulus which such a voyage gives to qualities of courage and self-reliance may have justified the risk involved.

(C) Harris & Ewing

PROF. ALBERT MICHELSON

the use of the National Parks for these purposes. The Commercial Club of Great Falls, Montana, a strong organization, originally passed resolutions in favor of using the Parks for proper industrial purposes. But after getting all the facts in the case the Club reconsidered the matter, withdrew the resolution, and notified the Congressman to whom the resolution had been sent of their revoIcation. The Chamber of Commerce of Cheyenne, Wyoming, is urging Congress to oppose the plan of building a reservoir in the Yellowstone Park.

The entire Congressional delegation from Wyoming is on record as opposing any encroachment upon the National Parks, Senator Kendrick, for example, writing thus to a constituent: "While I have always been an ardent believer in the maximum development of the waters of our Western States for reclamation or for power purposes, I feel very strongly that such development should not be extended to the National Parks."

These are encouraging incidents. When the American people have all the facts regarding a question of public policy, they are generally guided in their decision, not by local and selfish motives, but by a broad general view of public welfare.

an ex

At first glance this seems travagant statement. The wonderful achievements of science during even the first twenty years of the twentieth century make the layman wonder sometimes whether there are many fields of knowledge left for man to conquer. And then, just when we begin to think that man has about become lord of all creation, along comes science with a new discovery which shows how puny he really is and how the majesty of the universe towers above and beyond him, unfathomable and unknowable.

It was in this mood that the old Hebrew poet wrote, "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" And it is this mood which must have been impressed upon the minds of thousands of men and women who read the recent announcement, in the last week of December, of the unprecedented astronomical achievement of Professor Albert Michel

son, of the University of Chicago, who has successfully measured the size of the star Betelgeuse, in the constellation of Orion.

Betelgeuse (sometimes spelled Betelgeux) is an incandescent star or sun, doubtless very much like our own mysterious and flaming Orb of Day, except in point of size. Professor Michelson has discovered that it would take twenty-seven million suns like ours to

ORBIT OF MARS

Courtesy of the New York "Times"

The shaded portion of the diagram shows the size of Betelgeuse compared with the orbits of our planets. As will be seen, the star would nearly fill the orbit of Mars. The sun and the planets as shown here are greatly exaggerated. The sun, for example, if correctly drawn to scale, would be only 1-150th of an inch in diameter. It would take 27,000,000 suns like it to equal Betelguese, although the diameter of our sun is 866,000 miles

make one Betelgeuse, which has a diameter of nearly three hundred million miles. Since the circumference of a globe is 3.1416 times its diameter, it would take an airplane flying one hundred miles an hour about one thousand years to circumnavigate this gigantic sun, without stopping a second for the birth and death of generations of pilots.

No wonder that the special correspondent of the New York "Times," reporting from Chicago the overwhelming measurements and calculations made by Professor Michelson, remarks: "These dimensions make the bodies in our solar system seem most minute and insignificant and present the conception of celestial bodies of magnitudes hitherto unmeasured and almost beyond comprehension."

Terrestrial and human pride seems pretty small after such a glimpse into the illimitable universe. And yet we cannot resist adding, with some satisfaction, that Professor Michelson received his scientific education at the United States Naval Academy, at Annapolis, but resigned from the Navy in 1881 to devote himself to scientific research. He has successively held the chair of Physics in the Case School of Applied Science, at Cleveland; in Clark University, at Worcester; and for the last twenty-eight years in the University of Chicago.