Vol. IV. No. 14

The Weekly News-Magazine

October 6, 1924

NATIONAL

THE PRESIDENCY Mr. Coolidge's Week

Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge descended from their railroad train in Philadelphia just in time to arrive for the end of a celebration. It was the 150th anniversary of the first meeting of the Continental Congress and the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Carpenters' Company. That forenoon, the guests of the Carpenters' Company had been taken to Valley Forge to see Washington's Army impersonated by Company H of the First Pennsylvania Militia, and a parade in which a number of ancient military organizations, including the Worcester Continentals, the Washington Light Infantry (of S. C.), the Amoskeag Veterans (of Manchester), the Governor's Foot Guard (of Conn.), the Fifth Maryland Infantry, the Old Guard (of Manhattan), the Putnam Phalanx and the old Guard State Fencibles took part. In the afternoon, the Scottish Rite Masons of Philadelphia presented in Carpenters' Hall, amid the original furniture, a reproduction of the first meeting of the Continental Congress, with words taken from the Secretary's minutes and the original prayer offered by the minister of the same church who had opened the historic meeting. All this Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge missed.

But they came in time for dinner. Senator Pepper presided and spoke. So did Solicitor General James M. Beck, who recalled the good old times when a dinner was given for George Washington and 33 toasts were drunk. In the evening, at the Academy of Music, the President was made an honorary member of the Carpenters' Company-the first ever made. He delivered a speech:

"No American coming to Philadelphia on this aniversary could escape being thrilled at the thought of what this commemoration means. It brings to mind events which, in the course of the century and a half that has passed since the day we are celebrating, have changed the course of

human history. Then was formed the ideal of the American nation."

Then-whisk!-and Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge were back at the Capital again.

The White House received word of the death of General Sawyer of Marion, White House physician to President Harding and (for a few months) to President Coolidge. The President immediately sent his condolences to Mrs. Sawyer.

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt resigned, having been nominated for Governor of New York; and the President bade him Godspeed in the footsteps of his father.

A message to President Coolidge from the Law Enforcement League of Philadelphia invited the President to prevent the ejection of Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler of the Marines, who was in danger of being removed from his post as Director of Public Safety (Police Commissioner) of Philadelphia. Some months ago. General Butler was granted leave from the Marines in order to take the

CONTENTS

National Affairs Foreign News

Music

Books

The Theatre Cinema Education Law Religion Science Sport

Page 1-6 7-12

12 13-14 14-15 15 16-17

17

18

18-19

20-22

The Press

22-24

Aeronautics

24

post and clean up Philadelphia. Friction developed between him and the reigning politicians of the city. It was believed that Mayor Kendrick would not reappoint General Butler. The Law Enforcement League declared that it had evidences of "political corruption all down the line in Pennsylvania." The President turned the matter over to Attorney General Stone, who promised investigation and "appropriate action."

The President addressed several thousand delegates to the Retail Druggists' Convention, at the White House grounds; Cardinal O'Connell lunched at the White House; Senator Moses, Chairman of the Republican Senatorial Committee, reported that all was well for the Republicans in this year's Senatorial electionsbut there must be no overconfidence.

Other callers at the White House included Senator Wadsworth of New York, a delegation of California laundry owners and a delegation of the National Local Preachers' Association (Methodist).

Like Theseus entering the Labyrinth, with no string to guide him out save Assistant Secretary of War Dwight F. Davis, President Coolidge plunged into the temporary offices where the War Department is carrying on the work of preparing to pay the soldiers' bonus. In and out through corridors of files, with a dozen typewriters clicking in his ears at every turn, a battalion of adding machines belching forth figures from every cranny and 2,700 acolytes. spread over eleven acres of floor space, putting 20,000 requests through the ritual every day, the President wandered, and emerged with a smile -and Secretary Davis.

THE CAMPAIGN Alarums and Excursions

The progress of a week's campaigning found the combatants seven days nearer to the election.

Calvin Coolidge's only political remarks made publicly were near the end of an address at Philadelphia on the

150th anniversary of the convention of the First Continental Congress.

Charles G. Dawes took train for Minnesota. He spoke at Rochester, Zumbrota, Red Wing, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Anoka, St. Cloud,* Lake City, Wabasha, Winona (all in Minnesota), La Crosse, Sparta, New Lisbon, Portage, Madison, Stoughton, Janesville, Bardwell (in Wisconsin). Nearly all these speeches, made in three arduous days, were delivered from the rear platform. Typical remarks:

"You haven't been going to the polls and why haven't you? It is because the cowardly politicians, at least on one side, and that is on my side of it, haven't been giving you an issue. There have been a lot of fellows on the other side giving you an issue. I don't agree with them, but I respect their courage."

"I've read the newspapers' reports of Wheeler's attack on me. The newspapers said it was vitriolic. It was not vitriolic. Vitriol leaves a mark. Wheeler's attack is more like surphurated hygrogen, which leaves a temporary and disagreeable odor."

"I am not a great man, at all. The reparations plan to which my name is attached was a group effort evolved by the representatives of five nations.

"It was successful and it is going to be successful, because the people there are just about as sick of politicians as the American public is getting to be."

John W. Davis invited William G. McAdoo, newly returned from Europe, to lunch with him. They conferred in private, were photographed in public, and before Mr. McAdoo went off to give $500 to the party treasury as a contribution, he had promised to make some speeches for Mr. Davis en route to his home in California.

Mr. Davis then set out on another speaking tour in West Virginia. He spoke at Charleston, Huntington, White Sulphur Springs, Hinton, Thurmond, Ronceverte, Anderson, Meadowcreek, Quinnimont, Fayettesville, Bluefieldt, Fort Gay, Crumm, Williamstown,

Welch, North Fork. Some remarks: "Now, with great respect to my Republican friends, whom I love and revere, and whose candor, sincerity and honesty I concede without reserve, those who manage their campaigns are the most ingenious creators of political scarecrows the world has ever known.

"The latest 'bogey man' is that around every corner is stationed a 'Red' or a 'Bolshevik' with a bomb in his

*Forty-five miles from Sauk Centre ("Gopher Prairie").

† Bluefield is just across the river from C. Bascom Slemp's Virginia home.

Leaving West Virginia, Mr. Davis spent a day in Washington, bringing the three Presidential candidates all into the same metropolis at the same time. Then he concluded his little excursion by a speech at Wilmington, in which he spoke of the Republican campaign:

"It is a vast, pervading and mysterious silence. It is broken here and there by the vocal nominee of the Republican party, warning the American people in anxious tones that around every corner and under every bedstead there lurks a Bolshevik ready to destroy them. Now and then some person, almost forgotten; writes to a candidate and complains of the terms in which he has been described.

"And then, occasionally, some Cabinet officer, standing on the Western shore, will rattle his sabre like a new toy re

cently given him. Extinguishment is placed upon him; and silence reigns supreme once more. It all reminds me of nothing so much as the words of Tenny

son:

"The dead oared by the dumb went upward with the flood."

a

Robert M. LaFollette, resting in Washington for in preparation dervishlike close to his campaign, was prompted to excoriate the California courts, when the Supreme Court of that state in a 4-3 decision refused for legal reasons to accept the names of the 13 La Follette electors to be placed on the ballot in the Independent column. Said he:

"There is no need to point to the moral or to adorn the tale. Again, one man, one individual has nullified the deliberately expressed will of 50,000 voters who had written a virtually new chapter in American political initiative in meeting the extraordinary requirements of the California electoral law. In one day, each of these 50,000 persons affixed his signature thirteen times to the petition to place Independent Progressive electors on the ballot. This action of the electorate one judge out of seven now declares null and void. Fortunately, while the will of the people has been thwarted, there is a way out for them. They can still register their support of the Independent Progressive candidacy by voting for the Progressive electors named on the Socialist ticket.

One of his

Burton K. Wheeler, touring the West, spoke at Rock Island, Ill., Davenport, Iowa, St. Paul, Des Moines, Lincoln, Omaha. most telling effects was to push an empty chair to the front of the platform and call for "strong and cautious" Coolidge. Then he turned dramatically toward the empty seat:

"Why, Mr. Coolidge, did you wait until forced by public opinion to remove Attorney General Daugherty and Secretary Denby from your Cabinet? You know the record of Mr. Daugherty. You heard the evidence which has been brought out at the hearing. And why, Mr. Coolidge, did you permit William J. Burns, the great international detective, to use his agents of the Bureau of Investigations to break into the office of Senator LaFollette and to spy upon the members of the Senator Brookhart committee while that committee was conducting its inquiry?

"The usual silence emanates from the strong, calm, cautious man in the White House!"

Taboo

They led it around on a string and they laughed. The goat walked with an air of injured dignity. On his back, he wore a placard: "William Allen White." The Imperial Klon

vocation of the Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan was in uproad. This was in Kansas City, Mo.

Across the Missouri, opposite. in Kansas City, Kan., William Allen White hopped off a train wearing his light gray felt hat, his natty gray suit and his bow tie-awry, as usual.

"Too bad," he smiled, "that I can't see the grand assemblage of the menagerie. However, I should not complain about not seeing the main show, for I am having the time of my life viewing the passing panorama of Grand Goblins, Titans, Grand Giants, whang-doodles and so on. "The people of Kansas seem to get the same pleasure out of the show that I do. They turn out in great numbers in the hopes of catching a fleeting glimpse of the blood-sweating behemoths."

Thus Candidate White. The title doesn't come easily-he has been Editor White so very long. As an editor of a local newspaper, he has made himself a national reputation just by being straight-forward, unaffected and hard-hitting. Because of it, the Red Cross sent him to Europe as an observer during the War. Because of it, he was chosen to sit on

the jury which awarded Edward W. Bok's peace prize. Because of it, a score of other things have fallen his way. He was in the Roosevelt Progressive Movement from 1912 to 1916, but nominally he is still Republican-not a regular, just a Republican. He turns the shafts of his humor on friend and foe alike; he speaks what he thinks; and so he is William Allen White of Emporia, Editor of the Emporia Gazette.

In the year of our Lord, 1924, he was stung to something more than action. The Republican State Convention in Kansas refused to repudiate the Ku Klux Klan. Mr. White says that the Republican candidate for Governor, Ben S. Paulen, and the Democratic candidate, Governor Jonathan M. Davis, both received the support of the Klan in the primaries. So he threw his pen on the floor and jumped onto a soap box-Independent candidate for Governor. He cried:

"I want to be the Governor to free Kansas from the disgrace of the Ku Klux Klan; and I want to offer to Kansans, afraid of the Klan and ashamed of that disgrace, a candidate who shares their fear and shame.

"The thought that Kansas should have a government beholden to this hooded gang of masked fanatics, ignorant and tyrannical in their ruthless oppression, is what calls me out of the pleasant ways of my life, inthis distasteful, but necessary,

to task.

"It is a nation-wide menace, this Klan. It knows no party. It knows no country. It knows bigotry, malice and terror. Our national Government is founded on reason and the Golden Rule. This Klan is preaching and practicing terror and force. Its only prototype is the Soviet of Russia. So I feel that I am walking the path of duty in going into this race."

The effect of White's candidacy may be to split the Republican vote to reëlect Governor Davis, although the State is expected to go Republican this year. That is something which concerns Kansas. But the whole country is considering the possibility of losing such a two-fisted editor-two-fisted with a sense of humor-to politics.

The temper of his editorial fervor is well expressed by an editorial* written over ten years ago, in Jan

PLE

uary, 1914, which, incidentally, makes especially good reading today:

no.

"A number of Progressives at Lakin, more kind than considerate, yesterday resoluted in favor of this man White of Emporia for Governor. They wanted him to run as a Progressive candidate. To which the Gazette says no a thousand times For we are on to that man White and, without wishing to speak disrespectfully of a fellow townsman who, so far as we know, may be at least outwardly decent in the simpler relations of life-perhaps he pays his debts, when it is convenient, and he may be kind to his family, though that's not to his credit, for who wouldn't be?-and he may have kept out of jail, one way or another, for some time; without, as we say, desiring to speak disrespectfully of this man, we know that he's not the man either to run for Governor or, if such a grotesque thing could be imagined, to serve as Governor.

"He can't make a speech. He has a lot of radical convictions, which he sometimes comes into the Gazette office and exploits and which are dangerous. He has been jawing politicians for 20 years, until he is a common scold, and he has set up his socalled ideals so high that the Angel Gabriel himself couldn't give the performance that this man White would have to advertise on the bills.

"So, in the words of the poet, nix on Willyum Allen He is a four-flusher, a ring-tailed, rip-snorting hell-raiser, and a grandstander. He makes a big noise. He yips and kyoodles around a good deal, but he is everlastingly and preeminently N. G. as gubernatorial timber-full of knots, warts, woodpecker holes and rotten spots. . . . Men and women would be trampled to death at seven o'clock election mornings, trying to get at the polls to cast the first vote against him; and, at night, perfectly good citizens, kind fathers and indulgent husbands would risk a jail sentence to get in at least ten votes against him as repeaters. It may be that the Progressive Party needs a goat; but the demand doesn't require a Billy goat! . . . this man White is a shoulder-galled, sore-backed, hamstrung, wind-broken, string-halted, stump-sucking old stager who, in addition to being no good for draft and general purposes, has the political bots, blind-staggers, heaves, pink eye and epizootic. Moreover, he is locoed and has other defects.

...

"A word to the wise should gather no moss!"

By-Play

A bit of by-play to National Politics took place last week in New York. Republicans and Democrats both held state conventions and nominated candidates for Governor. situation was this:

The

New York has a Democratic Governor, by name Alfred E. Smith. He is a man of immense popularity in his Own state. He is what politicians know as a "vote-getter." Naturally John W. Davis and the Democratic National Organization wanted Smith to run for reëlection because it would strengthen their rather dubious chances of carrying New York with its 45 votes in the Electoral College. Naturally, Tammany, the local Democratic organization, wanted Smith to run, to strengthen their local ticket which they feared might go down in a national Republican landslide. But Smith did not want to run. That was natural because he had the Presidential bee in his derby hat. He had nothing to gain by running this year, when he might be defeated as he was in 1920; although even in that Republican year he ran far ahead of his ticket. He could afford to retire in 1924, without risking a defeat, and take his chances of being elected again in 1926 and being in a favorable place as regards prestige for the Democratic nomination in 1928. But Smith changed his mind and the probable reason of his changing was this: He was a vote-getter, but he did not control the Democratic machine in New York; the machine said to him simply: "If you desert us in this crucial year, we will never go back to you when you want us." So Smith agreed to run again for Governor.

This decision was known when the Republican Convention assembled at Rochester. Senator James W. Wadsworth held the reins that controlled it. A man named Machold, Republican Speaker in the State Assembly and arch-opponent of Smith, was one of the prominent candidates for the Republican nomination for Governor. Almost at the last minute he withdrew. The Wadsworth machine, with neatly oiled precision, nominated the man whom Wadsworth had picked in advance. He was chosen on the first ballot without the slightest excitement. It was all cut and dried. Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, son of the late President, was to be the man.

It was known for some time that it was planned for him to imitate his father's record-a romantic touch that surely would appeal to the vot

ers.

First he was made a Lieutenant Colonel. Then he was made Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Soon Governor of New York. Then

A few days later, with equally little to do, the Democratic Convention met at Syracuse and nominated Smith as per schedule.

The quidnuncs of National Politics now lean forward to watch the battle for the 45 electoral votes of New York-Coolidge raising the great war club, the prestige of a dead warrior's name; Davis lifting the shillelah of a great vote-getting Irish Governor.

PROHIBITION Semi-Soft Cider

Saturday night in Baltimore-and Representative John Philip Hill of

Keystone

CONGRESSMAN HILL
He clapped his hands

the Third District was at home. A select party of friends attended. They smacked their lips. He served cider -semi-soft cider. It was made from apples picked up in his own orchard. A few days later, a Federal Grand Jury in Baltimore indicted him on six counts:

1) Manufacture of 25 gal. of wine at his home in September, 1923

2) Possessing the wine so manufactured 3) Manufacture of 30 gal. of cider at his home in September, 1924

4) Possessing the cider so manufactured 5) Maintaining a common nuisance when he made wine

6) Maintaining a common nuisance when he made cider

Thereupon, Mr. Hill clapped his

*The present Theodore Roosevelt, Lieutenant Colonel in the World War, is commonly referred to as "Colonel."

hands and rejoiced. In Washington he aims to belong to the best social clique; at home, he aims to satisfy a moist constituency. For four years, according to his own statement, he has been trying to obtain a ruling on the maximum percentage of alcohol which is allowable under the Volstead Act according to a section which permits the manufacture of "non-intoxicating cider and fruit juices." He declared himself dissatisfied with the answers he received from the Prohibition Enforcement Unit. In September, a year ago, he notified Prohibition officials that he was about to manufacture wine at home. Agents came on the appointed day, looked, left and did nothing. This year his wish was gratified. He was indicted. Said he: "If 2.75% cider is intoxicating, they must prosecute me. If it is not, then 2.75% beer is legal, too."

CABINET

A Nice Point

The triangle as a source of drama is not exhausted. A recent variation is that in which Governor General Wood of the Phillippines, the War Department (his superior) and the Department of State are concerned. It involved a nice point.

The U. S. Constitution, in that section of it known as the 18th Amendment, forbids the manufacture, sale ог transportation of intoxicating liquors in "the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof." This includes the Philippines. The Volstead Act, which defines intoxicating liquors and under which alone can violators of the Amendment be persecuted and sent to jail, does not apply to the Philippines. It does not apply to the Philippines because they are not specifically included in the Act; and the law (the "organic law" or Constitution), given by Congress to the Philippines when they were acquired by the U. S., provided that no subsequent act of Congress should apply to the Philippines unless specific mention was made of the fact.

Hence, there is legal prohibition in the Philippines by provision of the Constitution, but no law for enforcing such prohibition; and hence, there is no actual prohibition in the Philippines.

However, for some time the State Department, by and with the advice of the Department of Justice, has been refusing through its consuls to certify invoices for liquor shipments to the Islands. Liquor was shipped anyhow-and a small fine paid

at the port of debarkation. In June of last year, the State Department ordered its consuls to refuse bills of health to vessels leaving for the Philippines with liquor cargoes.

It was over this question that the disagreement arose. A consul at Hongkong refused a bill of health to a liquor-bearing ship. Governor General Wood protested, and finally asked the War Department to bid the State Department modify its instructions to consuls, inasmuch as the Volstead Act did not apply to the Philippines. The State Department refused on the ground that its instructions were based on the Constitution.

Now the Philippine knot awaits the unraveling of the courts or the Alexandrine stroke of Congress.

Druggists' Plaint

At its 50th annual convention at Atlantic City, the National Wholesale Druggists' Association adopted report apropos of Prohibition:

a

"The industries depending on the use of alcohol have steadily declined, owing to the drastic and unjust methods employed by the prohibition office, while establishments engaged in the use of alcohol illegitimately have flourished by falsifying bonding warehouse records and, obtaining alcohol without tax, are flooding the market with preparations containing it at a price far below the standard at which legitimate concerns must sell.

"It is useless to expect that the manufacturer who needs alcohol for legitimate purposes can receive wise from and conservative treatment men whose business it is to chase criminals and who think only on this plane.

"The manufacturers of this country using alcohol are a unit in opposing the policies of the Prohibition Enforcement Division of the Treasury Department. There is absolutely nothing that they do of which we approve. They have been and are a rank failure in every way."

To this, Prohibition Commissioner Roy Asa Haynes replied caustically from Washington:

"There is no evidence whatever to sustain such a statement. On the other hand, there has been an expansion in the volume of legitimate alcohol-using industries and, in addition, there have been a number of new alcohol-using industries established during the past four years.

"The records of the Prohibition Unit show that no request of a legitimate wholesale druggist for alco

Paul Thompson

ROY ASA HAYNES Druggists dread him

hol supply during the past two years has been denied."

The Wholesale Druggists' Association also adopted a report condemning the Cramton Bill, passed by the House and now on the Senate calendar, which would take the Prohibition Unit out of the Internal Revenue Bureau and place it directly under the Secretary of the Treasury. They assert that it would hurt their industry if control of the industrial alcohol trade should be taken from the supervision of "the conservative internal revenue officers" and given entirely into the hands of "inexperienced prohibition agents whose time is largely given up to pursuing law violaters and who regard every user of alcohol as a potential bootlegger."

KU KLUX KLAN

At Klansas Sity

Men began to drift into Kansas City, Mo. Women began to drift in. So did children. The men were Knights; the women were their wives; the children were their offspring. They had come for the Second National Imperial Klonvocation of the Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan. It was said that there were 2,000 men and 3,000 concomitants present.

An Imperial Klonvocation, according to the Klan constitution, is the "sole legislative body" of the order. It meets biennially. The delegates consist of the Grand Dragon (Gov

ernor) of each Realm (state), one Klepeer (elected delegate) from each Realm, the Great Titan of each Province (subdivision of a Realm) and one Klepeer (elected delegate) from each Province. The delegation from each Realm has as many votes as there are hundreds of Klansmen in that State. The individual delegates cast their proportional share of the Realm's voting strength in the Klonvocation. The Imperial Officers are also members of the K'onvocation. The presiding officer of the Klonvocation is the Imperial Klaliff (First Vice President). All acts of the Klonvocation become laws of the Empire within one hour of passage, unless vetoed within that time by the Imperial Wizard (President). The Klonvocation may pass laws over his veto by a three-fourths vote.

This great body assembled in Kansas City. Its meetings were held behind closed doors; a card and a password were necessary to gain admittance. Only Klansmen with courtesy cards were allowed to view the What procedings. published about the proceedings came through the Klan publicity office.

a

SO

was

A photograph, given out, showed the platform adorned with a great U. S. flag. On the flag was picture of President Coolidge, flanked on either side by pictures of Washington and Jefferson. The meeting was opened by the Grand Dragon of Nebraska. Then the Imperial Wizard, Dr. Hiram Wesley Evans of Atlanta, appeared, accompanied by his Kloncilium (Cabinet) consisting of 15 genii: Klaliff (First Vice President). Klazik Vice President). Klokard (lecturer), Kludd (chaplain), Kligrapp (secretary), Klabee (Treasurer), Kladd ("Conductor")*, Klarogo (Innerguard), Klexter (Outer-guard), Klonsel (Attorney), Night Hawk (Courier) and the four Klokann (auditors).

(Second

Dr. Evans delivered a message to the Klonvocation on the state of the Empire:

"This Klonvocation, held here in the great Middle West, is assembled on the battlefield of the immediate future. Some of the Eastern states are today lost to true Americanism and must be rewon: but the great American population of the Middle West, of the South and of the Southwest are left to do valiant battle.

"You are of this superior blood. You are more-you are leaders in the only movement in the world, at present, which exists solely to es

*The only function assigned to the Kladd by the Klan constitution is that he shall perform such duties as are assigned to him by the Imperial Wizard.