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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 31, 1922)
THE SUNDAY OREGONIAN. PORTLAND. DECEMBER 31, 1923 ESTABLISHED BY HEN BY -. I'lTTIKK Published by The Oregonian Pub. Co.. - iw &ixm rnreet, rorc.anu, uresifii. j w a. nnjiijjE., r,. a. riri.n that no fact may be unimportant in an age which, is concerned with the efficiency of the machine.' So, too, Kekule when he dreamed out the benzene puzzle unlocked a iabvrinthine series of formulas of Manager. Editor. I jmlT1pns,- sien if jcance to the future The Oregonian Is a member of the As- Purv inrlnstrv deDendinsr on nocmted Press. The Aesociated Press is or every inaustry aepenuius exclusively entitled to the use for pubM- chemistry, already removed from ration of all news dispatches credited to . nlnne xmom the nure it or not otherwise credited in this paper lts former place among me pure and also the Ijjcal news published herein, sciences by virtue of its appiica Aii rights of publication of special dis- t the needs of commerce and patches herein are also reserved. M"" l" wc s i industry. Subscription Ralm-Invariably In Advance, j Scientific research derives added (By Mail. in'Oregon. Washington, Idaho ! interest from the circumstance that and northern California.) 1 t deals with the future and SO is Sunday KSSSS ST .EKhV W species of pure altruism. Constant Daily. Sunday Included, three months 2 ; progress in this field in an age that 83 ttVaSr?. :: J . otherwise not without its di Daily, without Sunday, six months .. 3.-'." j couraging aspects is one answer to Dally, without Sunday, one month .. ' the forebodings of . the pessimists All other points In the United states: J who fear that the world is Dally. Sunday included, one year .. .Sli.lWl . to the dogs. Daily, without Sunday, one year . . . .00 j . 1 Sunday, one year 5.00 . Single copies, daily, 3c; Sunday, lOc. By Carrier.) , ' Daily. Sunday Included, one year. ... $9.00 Daily. Sunday included, three months 2.25 Dal'y. Sunday included, one month... .7.' Daily, without Sunday, one year 7.R0 Daily, without Sunday, three months. Daily, without Sunday, one month... .. How to Remit Send postoffice money order, express or personal check on your local bank. Stamps, coin or currency are at owner's risk. Give postoffice address in full. Including county and state. Postage Hates 1 to IS pages. 1 cent; 18 to 3'J pages. 2 cents; 34 to 48 pages. 3 cents; r0 to 114 pages. 4 cents; (ill to 80 pages, cents; 82 to 98 pages, 8 cents. Eastern Business Offices Verree Conkiin,- 300 Madison avenue. New York; Verree & Conklin, "Steger building. Chi cago; Verree & t'onklin. Free Press build ing. Detroit. Mich.; Verree & ConKlin, Monadnook building, San Francisco. Cal. joing THE. POISON NEEDLE MYTH. The vitality of a crowd hysteria is illustrated by the panic into which Paris has been thrown by reports that a "poison needle" wielder is busy again. At the pres ent rate of progress it will take but a few years for this often-exploded fallacy to encircle the globe. It may have had its beginning in New Jersey seven or eight years ago, when, following reports of mysteri ous attacks on young women in crowded places, there was an epi demic of them all over the United States. Scientists vainly assure their ri'RE SCIENCE AND PRACTICAL AF- public that there is no known poison J capable of being so casually admin istered which will produce the ef fect described; the world loves its tions now out of print, with journals of the actors in the drama of con quest and settlement, with files of newspapers justly entitled to be regarded as the first sources of his tory. Many of these perhaps most of them are gone forever. It is to be regretted that "the relatives of the participants in historic events of moment, and not infrequently the participants themselves, are prone to be unaware of the value of written and printed testimony, set down first hand on the ground. FAIRS. A thought-provoking article by a staff writer in the Scientific Amer ican on the progress made in the mystery and will not be happy domain of pure science during ' wunout it. rortunate.y u,, 1922, in which the statement is made that "as fast as subjects de velop in his field they are taken out of his keeping and made part of, the field of electricity or engi neering or some other practical subject," is a reminder of the in creasing capacity of men to cope with the intricate problems in volved in their everyday, practical nf fairs. Constant narrowing of the scope of the abstract is one of the significant phenomena of the cen tury. The history of research is re plete with examples of the results of experiments undertaken in the pure love of knowledge. Radium was discovered in this manner. The questioning mind of a shrewd investigator who wondered why oil spreads on water, as Floyd Parsons has " pointed out. resulted finally iti ability " to measure the size of molecules. The nature of the molecule is even now a subject of little personal concern to most persons, yet in ways that they do not dream of it affects progress' in physics and chemistry and In its ultimate aplication to industry bids fair to create a revolution in the social as well as the mechanical world. ' So the contradictory situation exists that the field of pure science is growing narrower because it is being broadened, but this is only another way of calling attention to a distinction without a real differ ence between the definition of pure and that of applied science. The former, as the Scientific American writer observes, has come to be more and more limited to astron omy the only branch that has re cently seemed tp lie in that domain. But now he trembles "lest even that refuge be lost." Astronomy is rapidly acquiring a status as an ap plied science in the name of its cognate sciences, such as physics and chemistry and even engineer ing. For illustration, he says: One of the most significant contribu tions of many years presents an extraor dinary case of this linking up of the sciences through astronomy. it started in an Investigation of certain Decultari- ties of the photographic plate. It widened very quickly into an investigation into the properties of light. And it bears fruit In the hypothesis that light Is not simply and severely a wave motion of the imponderable ether, but Is even per- naps as material as .Newton believed it to be.' The astronomical tie-up comes partly through the ff.ct that the astron omer It i who hn to employ light as his sole c bscrvational tool; and partly through the fact that when, in con formance with ir-r.dern procedure, we re duce the thin? to a basis of mathe-mutico-phMical formula we get some thing very, much akin to the Einstein theories- and must then call upon the astronomer to tell us whether what we have fits. with the facts. . With this illumination of the sub ject we are now able to give credit . as we have not perhaps been will ing to do before to the works of men like Pasteur, whose natal cen tenary occurs this month, to his co workers in the laboratories of physics and biology, to ' Perkin, whose discoveries of the nature of coal tar have been attended by consequences of which we cannot yet see the end; and, more recently, to the astronomical expeditions which have been hopefully study ing the eclipses of the sun. The ex pediency of encouraging scientific study in the abstract, without rela tion to Immediate results,- is made clear by the incessant process by which we are associating and clas sifying previously propounded the ories and making them serve the practical purposes of men. Dr. Edwin E. Slosson mentions in his "Creative Chemistry" that what we now know of the ex tremely complicated problem of soil waste and repair is founded on the researches of Justus von Liebig in the early part of the last cen tury. Less than a hundred years ago it was not understood that some thirteen of the eighty natural ele ments were necessary for growth of plants. But while Liebig about eighty years ago came on a funda mental truth of importance, it was not complete in itself and it has required co-ordination of the ef forts of other scientists to obtain the data necessary to a better un derstanding of the manner in which chemicals do their work in promot ing production of crops. It is prob ably not an underestimate of the importance of pure science in this connection to credit it with" three fifths of all that has been done toward staving off ultimate fam ine for the American people, who, "for three hundred years," as Dr. Slosson reminds us, "have been liv- heads. . '. , ' Only a century or so ago we should have been treated to out breaks of mob violence in which many innocent persons would have been threatened, and two or three hundred years ago suspects sim ilarly accused would have been in real danger of being burned at the stake. RADIO WEEK. .The call to observe "Radio week" but adds another to' the list of su pernumerary demands, yet it serves to remind us that the thing we think of when "radio" is mentioned has been in existence hardly a year. Broadcasting of sound and its reception by means of simple and. even inexpensive instruments will be set down as one of the real achievements of 1922. And this will not be because it embodies a new; mechanical principle or repre sents a revolution in science but by reason of its contribution to the so cial development of its time. One phase alone, which perhaps has es caped the attention of most per sons, justifies all the labor that has been involved. It has put a veri table army of shut-ins in touch with the world outside, beguiling the tedium of the sick room and al leviating suffering and pain. It will serve a myriad of new pur poses, but none higher than this. MEN OF THE COAST GUARD. A major: disadvantage under which the men of the United States coast guard who just now have good reason to be dissatisfied with their lot, labor in getting their cause before the public is the re moteness of their employment from contact with the everyday citizen. In its very nature the work of guarding our coasts and saving the lives of the victims of angry seas is imbued with anonymity. Tet the life is beset with uncommon dag gers, its hardships and privations are considerable if not as great as they used to be, and it is everlast ingly to the honor of the coast guard personnel that it never fails to do its duty. The spirit of the corps triumphs over more than or dinary discouragements. philosopher will surmise that it may all be part of the plan to keep man himself in his place. Not the sparrow per se, but too many of him, makes him the nuisance that he has become. Our fondness for the little fellow will increase with the years that show him to be numbered among the now vanishing tribes. Already, says the report of a recent tiird survey, he is becoming a rarity in some places that formerly knew him to their" sorrow. Viewed in this as pect, he obtains a new sentimental interest. We look forward with confidence to the time when spar row protective associations will be organized, having as their purpose the destruction of birds that eat sparrow eggs. For by that time we shall miss him and doubtless we shall have discovered that the biological balance has been upset by his- decimation, In some manner that we do not now discern. such pupils pass up through the grades , then .returned, making a record of getting the most essential parts of the a rounci trip of 322 miles Without work of each grade and passing on fori . nro hmsps I some training in the upper grades before ci,c,,i i w...B I the compulsory age limit is reached, land to eat his meals. Anotner Most of these pupils, if held to a rigid i j-jdei-g performance of 116 miles in fh?tli:5ui" r-.n7Untraouht! eight hours and ten minutes with GRADING PUPILS. . Dr. S. C Kohs, psychologist of the Portland court of domestic re lations, presents the crux of the very latest problem in education in an article in the current bulletin of the Portland Grade Teachers' as sociation in which he summarizes the theories of those who deny that standardization of the method and substance of teaching, without ref- The annual report of this service erence to the capacity of the pupil THRIFT CLUBS. . That - the" so-called Christmas clubs, organized largely through the agency of banks and designed to help the citizen accumulate a fund for his Christmas giving, should have succeeded beyond the expectations of their founders will not be surprising to one who knows anything whatever of 'the psycholo gy of saving. It is variously esti mated that members withdrew during the recent holiday season from $200,000,000 to $230,000,000 for the purposes specified. It is even said that there is a tidy bal ance in the account. Such is the value of habit and the cumulative importance of little things. The Christmas club originated in realization that few things are more certain in the life of the average man than that he will be confronted by Christmas obliga tions and that, if he is an average man in every respect, he will be short of funds at this time of all times when he thinks he needs them most. Armed with a pass book and a definite incentive, the member of the Christmas club mapped out his programme. Every day in every way, to paraphrase the philosophy of a certain opti mist, his bank account grew fatter and fatter. And as it waxed ple thoric, it was surprising how ,much easier the job became. Those mil lions, not all of which, as has been said, were withdrawn for holiday excesses, are a concrete testimonial to the practicability of the scheme. It works, and it promises to grow in popularity. , j , The idea is capable of indefinite elaboration. We know of a man who has started a trip-to-Europe club of his own, and we indorse the idea, though we wish it had been a see-America-first club in stead. Every man ought to be long to a vacation club. There is a field for interest-on-the-mort-gage clubs. We have less use for a current-bills club, since the col lectors seem already to have in cluded us in the list of their well wishing friends. More and more, however, the vista widens for the tax club. This, with the success of the Christmas club as an unfailing inspiration, ought, as they say on the big-time circuits, to "go big." For if there is anything more certain' than Santa Claus and more realistic and truer to'-the life, it is that the tax collector will be around. Uncle Sam brooks no excuses; the sheriff has a perennial lien on the real estate. Taxes, like the semi-annual pre mium on the life insurance policy, always fall on an inconvenient date. If you Would have a short Lent, says Franklin, borrow money to be paid at Easter. But Frank lin, genius though he was, had not conceived the thrift club idea. The tax club scheme should be taken up by the League for Longer Life. We can think of no plan for making existence pleasanter than one that comes at an appropriate time to emphasize the duty of the people to these, among the least known of their servants. It is shown that during the year 2954 persons were saved from death, or at least res cued from positions from which there is reason to suppose they would not have been able to extri cate themselves without assistance. The total number of persons as sisted on imperilled ships was 14, 531. Help was given by cutters and stations in 3759 cases and the value of ships and their cargoes which were involved was more than $35, 000.000. - These are tangible realities, rep resenting numbers and sums of money that can be reduced to sta tistics. - The frequency with which the crews of ships and stations ac cepted personal risks to which nothing but an unrivalled sense of duty could have impelled them and which neither law nor discipline could have made compulsory is be yond estimation. The grievance of the men of the guard is in brief that while nearly every other kind of service, even in the public interest, has experienced some measure of readjustment to the changing times, they are rather worse off than they were at the be ginning of the century. Surfmen especially would seem to have fared badly in a series of reorgan izations which first amalgamated them with the revenue cutter ser vice and then made them a football of fate by a process of shifting of grades and allowances. That the present rate of pay is but $54 a month, with an impermanent com mutation of rations amounting to $1 a day, while in 1907 it was $65 a month with legal commutation al lowance of SO cents a day, is an obvious ground for discontent which the personnel is warranted in calling to congress' attention. The men have their best argu ment in the deeds they have per formed. In an incidental particu lar the report is eloquent of this. In the year in question there were fifty-seven cases of victims who had been apparently drowned. Twenty-four were restored to con sciousness, although some had been in the water as long as 30 minutes. Unfortunately, the formal account is not as widely read as it ought to be, and, as has been said, , most coast guard stations are remote from the centers of population. But fortunately perhaps there is in the cosmos of the average Amer ican an underlying sense of justice. The task of the coast guard men is to get. the' truth of their situation before the people. would assure us that the tax busa- ing on the unearned increment of i boo had been laid unoccupied land." Langmuir's pioneering jn the So far as rising prices for rare field of the atom, by which he was 1 books and manuscripts relating to led to understand that the mole- j the earliest periods of American cule in various materials takes var- j history are accompanied by a tend ious shapes and forms carries us ency to' withhold these precious in back in memory to a time not so cunabola from circulation by pre very long ago when there was much venting publication which might more taiK man tnere is now of dis carding studies conceived of as having no bearing on "practical" affairs. In accepting the conclusion impair their purely commercial value, they become' a matter of pro found concern. A little too late, as it happens, we are develoDinsr a that the shape of the molecule is taste for study of the steps by vital to study of problems of lubri-' which our country became what cation we touch only the outer edge it is. Half a century ago our gar gf its possibilities, though we know jreta were filled with precious edi- A NUISANCE ABATING ITSELF. Whereas it is but a few years since people were wondering whether the English sparrow would take possession of our American woods and dales, . crowding out more desirably bird species by his aggressive self-confidence and his undoubted capacity for taking care of himself in a pinch, news now comes from the department of ag riculture at Washington that the evil is on the verge of abating it self. The incident but illustrates the principle that nothing is ever quite so bad as it seems. For it seems only yesterday that there was talk of excepting the sparrow from the protection commonly accorded to small birds. Indeed there were cities and counties which had of fered bounties to encourage his ex termination. , In the long run the processes of nature consist of a succession of cycles and in the . end, if we are able to wait long enough, the bal ance rights itself. This, it would appear, has come to pass with the sparrow. It is well known that sparrows are able to account for considerably tmore than their weight in a fight; they are preda tory almost beyond measure; pro- lificity is their long suit. , But just in the nick of time, according to scientific observers, other birds have hit upon a new line of attack Unable to cope with the sparrow in open warfare, the latter have found that sparrows' eggs are good to eat and are governing themselves ac cordingly. The predatory egg-eater is more than a match for the com bative little Sprite that some of us have loved while recognizing that it is easily possible to have too much of a good thing. Beneath the surface of events so pregnant with meaning in the ornithological world things are oc curring of which human observers can be only dimly aware. We are led to wonder by what incessant series of miracles the world has been prevented from becoming the abiding place exclusively of some one kind, equipped in the long process of selection with the pre else qualities necessary to enable it to survive. The gardener and htfs- bandman will speculate in vain over the reason why all useful plants and animals were not driven out eons ago by thp microbes and in sects that are now with difficulty held within bounds. The answer seems to be that nature, never in tended the globe to be the habita tipn of a few species only, that it has always been meant that there shall be a vast and proliferous variety, that it abhors a- monot ony no less than a vacuum. The to acquire knowledge, is desirable "Education in a democracy," he re minds us, "demands (She intelligent direction of children." He would banish worship of pedagogical for- mulas in the interest of what he terms a more intelligent conception of the moral, intellectual and spir itual needs of the individual child. Retardation and grade repetition he declares to be unnecessary evils. That which he picturesquely desig nates as the "goose step in educa tion" must go, he declares. More over, 'the present system is held to be the cause of needless and wan ton pecuniary waste. It is an en gaging thought that, in a school sys tem whose enrollment is 25,000, the cost of non-promotion of pupils may amount to $262,500 a year. It is a tidy sum, but it is dwarfed by other items of loss. The cost to the pupils must also be enormous. Grouping of the pupils on the basis of capacity rather than by ar bitrary standards has been ten- 'tively proposed by forward-looking educators for some years. Authori ties agree in the . main that . the child should be advanced, if prac ticable, as rapidly as he can show that he deserves promotion. The problem of the dull and bright pupil is not a new source of vexa tion. It is interesting to note that Dr. Kohs' estimate of 30 per cent as the -proportion of those who are "pedagogically retarded" coincides closely with the observations of others in this field. Some place it is as high as 38 per cent. One finds that three out of four pupils fail at least once before reaching the eighth grade. Dr. Kohs believes that about 15 per cent repeat their grades -a figure that', with due al lowances, is not far from the pre ceding estimate. But the tragedy involved in repetition may extend beyond the fact that it unnecessar ily consumes a pupil's time at' a critical period in his career; it may be that it indicates the presence of error which is continuously and cumulatively ignored t hat the content as well as the method of the curriculum is unsuited to the pupil's practical needs. The trouble arises out of the ef fort to achieve the theoretical ped agogical ideal, which would be in dividual instruction, without sacri fice of the social values of the larger, group plan. Undoubtedly, since in everyday life the citizen must solve many unique personal problems and adjust himself to as sociation with all manner of men, the function of the school is more than to impart information or even to stimulate thinking in abstract terms. "The question which the objection raises," says Professor Lewis M. Terman, In a suggestive chapter in a report on the revision of elementary education, "is of cru cial importance. Any considerable loss in social and character devel opment would be too big a price to pay for a little improvement in the efficiency of intellectual training." Yet Professor Terman meets the issue, as does Dr. Kohs, with a sug gestion which does not prohibit group associations, while it em bodies the ideal of adjustment of instruction to individual needs and capacities. "The supplementation of self or individual instruction by suitable playground experience and by frequent group discussions Cf general-interest topics," Professor Terman says, "partly makes up for the lack of social experience af forded by group study and group recitation." It is on this point that the pedagogical factions are likely to come to disagreement. The Issue will be whether in fact gain by re classification on the basis of intel ligence will be sufficient to offset the disadvantages on the opposite count admitting accurate classifi cation to be practicable from the administrative point of view. On two headings the advocates of regrading and group classification have at least a plausible argument on their side. It has already been demonstrated by successful work here and- elsewhere with pupils who arev conspicuously retarded who do not precisely correspond. however, with the lowest group in proposed three-group system that the retarded pupil makes better progress under natural and normal competition among his own kind. There is sound reason for supposing that the "inferiority complex" to borrow the much overworked cant of certain psy chologists has more than once operated with devastating , effect. This is avoided by prudent group ing according to intelligence stand ards. So, too, it is worth consider ing whether the method is n6t par ticularly worth while as a means of inducement to a greater proportion of pupils to complete at least their elementary education. Most com pulsory education laws are founded on an age limit and experience has shown that few pupils remain to repeat a grade after having reached the age which permits thenl to leave school. This is, indeed, & chief purpose- of such special lim ited instruction as is now pre scribed in a number of school dis tricts, concerning which Professor Virgin E. Dickson, director of the bureau of guidance in Oakland, Cal., saysr The purpose of such classes is lo ac commodate the , average, slow pupil, modifying the content of the course of study and the rate of progrerss ao that the compulsory age limit and ..pass out into industrial life long before finishing the elementary grades. Professor Terman has wisely given warning that "standardized tests of the school's raw material can -no more be dispensed with than standardized tests jn agricul ture, manufacturing or medicine," yet "some false hopes will have to be dispelled." Not even the uni versal use of intelligence tests is going to bring the millennium. Still, there is something so repellent about the hrd and fast grouping of pupils according to chronolog ical age, in view of what everyone now knows concerning variation in mental capacity, that it seems im probable that the subject will be permitted to rest without further discussion. For a good many rea sons it invites consideration. Is it "obviously-a waste of time," as a school writer has said, "to require a child to take six years to com plete a course which it can. finish in four"? Is it futile Ho expect a backward pupil to receive stimulus from the example of his "brighter" classmate? Ought the class to be conducted for the benefit "of the aver'age .pupil, who constitutes about 65 per cent of the whole number (the remainder being dis tributed about equally above and below him)? How far ought pre cocity "to be pushed forward? Does genius require especial treatment, or is it, by reason of its gifted na ture, more likely to profit by being left to its own devices? ' Are the social values of education impaired, and is democracy imperiled, by the substitution of mental for chrono logical age as the basis of group ing? , To ask the questions is to indi cate the probable scope, of debate on a number of topics as to which there is wide difference of opinionJ not so much, however, with reference to the purpose to be achieved as to the method by which it shall be attained. The Listening Post. By DeWItt Harry. eleven changes of mounts long stood as a record hardly likely to be excelled now. . . .With less concern for dramatic particulars, the pony service had been maintained up and down the Willamette valley since 1852. It received new impetus, notwith-, standing "the growth of stage trans portation, when the transcontinen tal route was opened by Holladay. Esprit de corps was stimulated all along the line. , The Oro Fino gold excitement gave Portland, express connection with Idaho and eastern Oregon in 1861, by way of The Dalles. The riders were an especial breed of men, such as we are not going to be able to recruit for any fancy exhibition of fast riding, though the hippodrome be as big as all outdoors. They had a rider on the southern route, -as a writer in The Oregonian then related, "who got too big to sit on a pony, but he proved exactly the right build for. holding . up ' stages." While he worked for the pony express he was the acme of honesty. But men were chosen for certain imponder ables of character which admitted a queerly mottled bunch to the ranks. One who had to "kill his own Indians as he went along, as said another Oregonian corre spondent, was apt to develop a complex of some sort. Of such were the men who for the pure glory of achievement cut. down the distance between the coasts frofii more than two months to less than fourteen days. DAYS THAT ARE GONE FOREVER. The most that can be expected from the pending project to revive the old pony express, designed as a means of invoking interest in a memorial to Mark-Twain, will be a feeble and futile simulation of the real thing. It would not be pos sible, even if it were desirable, to reinstate the conditions that made the pony express the romantic and peculiar institution that it was in the decade of the fifties in Oregon and northern California and in the sixties on the great western plains. It would be even more difficult to recruit the human material essen tial to the enterprise. . From Ben Holladay, the executive spirit of the first express between St. Jo and the Pacific coast, down to the humblest hostler in his employ, these men were sui generis. They were not created by accident. They were the product of a searching process' of selection which ceased to function when occasion for it had passed. - Yet. the comparative modernity of this now almost forgotten phase of our history is apparent from the circumstance that the early files of The Oregonian contain the practi cally complete annals of the incep tion, the romantic fulfillment and the final decline of the pony ex press. Almost a decade before it achieved its larger notoriety and became the theme of frontier saga and fable, it had its beginning the necessities of the miners of California and southern Oregon. Prior to discovery of gold in Jack son county a very rudimentary means of communication had suf ficed for the needs of the people The telegraph was not realized un til some time afterward. An agri cultural population, dwelling in its Arcadia, put .small emphasis on rapid transit. Effective develop ment of commerce began with the gold era, which created demand for fast mail and particularly for a means of transporting treasure far in advance of any which then existed. The pony express out of Rose burg, by which mails were carried between that point and Gardiner on the coast, where they were taken by schooner to San Francisco, con tributed an epic to the history of the west long, before Ben Holladay as the right hand man of Russell, Majors & Waddell organized the longer route across plain and des ert. The latter stands out in the kaleidoscopic drama of the period because of certain striking circum stances. . The story of the $50,000 wager involved in the first mad race across the continent is still a classic. It was doubtful then whether congress would consent to granting an overland mail contract or instead would vote a subsidy of $10,000,000 to the steamship com pany then operating by way of Panama, which would have meant a delay of two weeks to the people of Oregon and California. The pro moters of the pony express bet that they could send a mail sack from St. Joseph to Sacramento, 1950 miles, in ten days. In the literature of close finishes there are few stories that compare with this news account of the arrival of the first pony rider, taken from an early isgue of The Oreg'nian: At 4 o'clock the west-bound express must be in Sacramento. The noon has passed and the minutes are being counted. Half past 3. Will the brave rider be on hand? As yet there is no sign. With thirty minutes to spare. Rus sell wants to double his bet. Then a cloud of dust is seen; it grows Into a sm-ck. The rider waves his hat. The people shout. The pony express has crossed the great American desert. Vic tory! There are still twenty -minutes to spare. - Those were the times of the great open spaces, mostly appro priated to the uses' of motion pic ture actors nowadays. On the east ern trip one rider missed his way in the snow of a canyon for four hours. "Then he started with des parate vigor, on finding himself, to regain the time that he had lost." Another was caught inin eddy on the Platte, his horse was drowned, the rider swam out, recovered his mailbag and trudged to the next station, from which, says the an nalist, "his flight was taken up again." Flight! We should say it was one. The schedule had been so closely estimated in advance that it was judged a prime feat of horsemanship to gain an hour in 60 miles, but a rider did it. Buffalo Bill once covered a stage of seventy-six. miles, ' including several crossings of the North Platte, when he found that the rider beyond had been killed by Indians, so he kept on for eighty-five miles more and Potatoes as cheap as 18 cents a bushel in Michigan and not much higher in other places provoke the expected discussion of methods for forestalling alternate, feasts and famines in commodities. Probably it is one of the world's problems that never will be wholly solved, for the more obvious remedies may be even worse than the evil com plained of. Regulation , of planting by government decree would be re pugnant to all individualists, even if it were practicable, which it is not. We are not likely to discover a way to make the seasons conform to our needs, and so long as rains and frosts and sunshine vary in in- tensity the inconvenience of bumper crops is one of the things we shall have to put up with. Nor there any way that we know of to prevent the farmer' from plant ing largely of his favorite staple in the hope that his neighbors will nlant something else. The con stant guessing that makes' farming a perpetual gamble is unprofitable at times, but - if the truth were known it probably enlivens exist tence for a good many who would otherwise find the life inexpress ibly dull. ' ' . Old Year: New Year. By Grace B. Hall. SENECA FOUTS was passing Third and Washington streets and paused to buy his supply of papers from Blind Bill, the newsboy. Bill recognized his voice and stopped him, holding out a big coin in his hand. ' - "What's this, Mr. Fouts?" he' said. Some man gave it to me last night for a dollar. It was cold, my hands were numb, and he handed it to me and I gave him a paper and 95 cents in change and wished him a Happy New Year." On the blind man's palm was a big copper coin, the size of a dollar. Fouts told him that it was copper and seemed to be Chinese or some thing of the sort, and the newsie was heartbroken over his loss. A dollar just when he needed it most. 'But Bill, don't worry. I'll take that coin. 1 need a lucky pocket piece," the attorney said, and handed him a silver dollar instead. The next day Fouts was telling trie story to a couple of friends and Professor Herschel C. Parker, the scientist, w(as in the group. The professor, learned in ancient lore, took the coin and exclaimed over it. "A most beautiful coin," he said. Persian and over ldo years old- A very fortunate find and, accord ing to the belief of ;the Persians, certain to bring enduring good for tune to the owner. Now that you've taken it in good faith, as a chari table impulse with the intention of helping a blind man, it should be a talisman of the first water. In any event almost any coin collector would be glad to pa$r anywhere from $10 to $25 for the coin." So Fouts determined to sell the ancient Persian piece as soon as possible and give whatever it would bring to Blind Bill. It might have been a mean man who tried to pass it,-, right in the holiday season, or someone might have done' it unin tentionally while knowing .its real value. In any event the newsboy, and he has a -family to support, should be made a happy man. We met as strangers always meet. Old Year, as you came in. Your ways were pleasing and re ,plete With charm; you could but win Our confidence, and still I hold Your motives then were good, And though today you're changed and cold. . You did the best you could We planned so many happy things That first day you were here! Our fancies sped on silver wings To places far and near; You promised me a golden cup With red and mellow wine But only dregs at last I s"l . With these pale lips of mine. But welcome. New Year, just the same! Why tune the harp to sorrow. Though what today is leaping flame shall be gray ash tomorrow'.'- Pour redder wine than last year brought, And 'mid the song and laughter We'll pledge our stronger, better thought For every day hereafter. - Bring in your promises. New Year, And spread them for our viewintr; But hide the crystal of each tear Tis joys that need renewing. Pour out your bag of games and toys. That we may, laughing, choose them; We are but grown-up girls and boys vvno thoughtlessly misuse them. Come in. New. Year, and bide a while We'll urge no question eager. But tune the lute with joyful smile. Although our songs be meager. Farewell, Old Year; we'll not forget Trie lessons you have taught us: And mingled with each sad regret is greater strength you brought us. Here is an ingenious explanation of why women's hats cost so much more than men's. The material doesn't account for the difference, it seems, but selling expense is several times higher, i A man will put on a hat and walk out with it, while his wife will consume the time of the clerks for, hours on hours. .Another theory, which is offered merely for what it is worth, is that the man, nine times out of ten, is spending his own money. - It may not have escaped attention that it is not the self-supporting among women who are the millin er's best customers. Nor, we sus pect, is the demand for extravagantly-priced headgear as wide spread as the writers in the funny papers would make it appear. The man who used to enjoy lift, ing himself by his bootstraps will be interested in the-news that Rus sia has decreed that each ruble is sued after the first of the year will b; worth a million of the old. What the holder will want to know will be whether it will buy a million times as much food. It was on a Vancouver inbound car the other day. He was about 21 years old and of the Rudolph Vaselino type. He stood in front of a rather well-finished flapper in impressive style and spoke thus: "I haven't saw you for a long time. You're getting fat. I been in California." She replied: "Well, not too much Didn't miss you. Expect to go down myself." "Take it from me, kiddo, don't go down unless you gotta job. O' course I don't have to work, so hadda good time." It didn't seem to get by, so he resumed: "Why doncha stay up here? Maybe I'll be able .to help you to some thing .good. How would a $40. i week job suit you?" And he seemed to grow desperate as she scorned to reply except to reiterate her in tention of going south. Finally he explained: "I'm going into newspaper work, An editor here has sent for me and is fitting up an office now. I'm to get $40 a week reading news and editing and . a commission of $100 for every story I write. You know I've got lotsa ideas and I figure I can write four stories a week, can afford to spend $40 for a stenographer, if I can get a good one like you. Why, you know, that paper pays its office boys $25 week." But he didn't seem to be getting it over. She came-to her corner and arose, saying: 'Well, I don't wanna job, thank you. 1m going to Joos Angeies to visit my auurttee and go to school, and she left him flat. Subscription book' publishers have resolved to abolish the type of book agent who gets his foot in the door and refuses to go away until he has made a sale. For which we shall be thankful until we discover what substitute scheme has been devised for selling us something we don't want. To impress on us the extent" of uncivilization in the world a sta tistician has figured that one-tenth of the human race chew the betel nut. And nearly ten-tenths of them chew the but you can draw your own conclusions as to what was meant to be said. A New York court having de cided that artificial teeth can be classified neither as jewelry, scien tific paraphernalia nor toilet acces sories, we are more than ever re solved to hang onto our own grind ers as long as we possibly can. A French recalcitrant character izes the Poincare administration as "a year of futile threats, vague promises and barren accomplish ments." What a lot of good plat form material he is letting run to waste! Manufacturers are going to stop using the word "pop" to designate certain drinks. "Carbonated bev erages" is much more in accord with the scientific spirit of the age. It is a cinch that if President Wojcieehjewskl of Poland , ever visits the United States the head line writers will find a way of cutting him down. Oregon teachers were told the other day by an expert that foreign language teachers do much to kill interest in their subject. Why drag in the foreign"? It would be interesting to know who invented the practice of mak ing New Year resolutions and how long he kept the first one. Blizzards rage on the Atlantic coast. Once more it's good to be a citizen of the mild and almost al ways salubrious Pacific slope. - In spite of alt our modern inven tions, we haven t found a way to persuade Greeks and Turks that they are both licked. Dr. Coue tells us to teach our children to be amiable. We would be with him, if We but knew how. In discussing banking practices and the standing of certain finan cial institutions, the man who had lived for some years in New York broke into the conversation with this one: 'I had been in business for five years and thought, I was doing very well. One day I had accumulated quite a large sum of money, it seemed to me, 'and, armed "with a certified check for $13,000 I went to the First National bank of New York city to open an account, think ing that they would welcome me I was passed from doorman to the first clerk in the private set of of fices, when I thought I .should at least have seen a vice-president. And then this young man turned me out, refused to accept my check, generous as it seemed to me, with the explanation that "they pre ferred not to be bothered with any small accounts." Though we have swaited in vain for over two weeks for some inkling of who might have been the person who got the deceased Thomas cat instead of the set of juicy steaks, maybe the following little note will induce him to make his identity known: f JUNEAU, Alaska. Dear Sit: I am not particularly inteisted. in the final disposition of poor old Tom's remains, but I would tike very much to hear the other fellow's version of how it hap pened when the old lady ppened the package. Very truly yours, TOM MAUZEY. .' The neighborhood butcher and an irate customer were arguing over the merits of the holiday turkey. "And when I order another turkey from you don't send me any of those airplane ' birds," the house holder roared. "What kind of a bird is that, sir?" "The kind you sent me last. All wings and machinery and no meat." 1 As an echo of our "meals of other days" recollections, wherein we published the Palace hotel's 25-cent Christmas dinner menu of 20 years ago last week, we received this one that a reader claims was clipped from a 'display ad in a New York newspaper of 1904: TABLE D'HOTE LUNCH. . 5 courses, 30 cents. 11:30 to 8:80. puree of tomato a la Cardinal. Chicken soup with rice. Lamb chop, breamed, sauce Creole. Braised veal a la jardiniere. Prime ribs of beef, dish gravy. New spinach in cream. Marrow, lima beans. Mashed .or boiled potatoes. Cream rice pudding. S'.iced oranges. Tea, coffee or milk. ( . Old William, the office philoso pher, avers that fto matter how hard Henry Ford works to increase his output, the Rockefeller family will always be , benefited and just a step ahead. . LOVE'S DELIRIUM. All through the long, dreary months of the winter Visions and thoughts of you kept me enthralled; Then came a day I had waited for yearningly It was the day, dear, I knew you had called. Straightway I purchased the license and started' Up tb your home on the wild mountain side. Oh, the alluring emotions that cams to me Over that road will forever abide. For I was filled with a daring ela tion; Nothing could stop me, of that I was sure ' For I could see you in fancy. Mavourneen, Patiently waiting there, shy and demure. Stepped on the gas with a reckless abandon; Went like a streak through the green country side. Chickens and ducks and geese. dazed and bewildered. Fell by the way, fluttered feebly, and died. Wild insane farmers, speed cops and town marshals . Took up the chase in a vengeful brigade; Lost them by speeding around a sharp corner Forty miles per, down a ten per cent grade. . Then when the road tapered down to a cow trail. Quickly I parked the machine ' near a tree; Madly I rushed up the side of the mountain Up where I knew you were wait ing for me. Poisoned and battered by nettles and brambles, Jagged holes torn in my new out ing clothes; Floundered right Into a hornet's convention. Welts now embellish the end of . my nose. Wounded and bleeding, exhausted I stumbled Up to your place where a cataract roared. Surely my love has been cruelly tested; Surely it merits the richest re ward. , Vict'ry is mine, for I'm holding you fondly; The look in your eyes gives me queer little thrills. Gently I draw you still closer, my darling. The while I'm extracting the hook from your gills. WILLIAM VAN CROOS. MY books; Dear, steadfast friends, of peaceful, sun-fed years. Grown gray in hoary counsel, bent and worn; Majestic, in your clothing, ruda and torn; You share, with solemn joy, ' my smiles and tears; You bless my trembling hopes, and calm my fears; And when of earthly love I am forsworn, Show me his star, in life that lies, new born, Within the - manger of the half wrought spheres, 3"ou give no voice, nor rain of silver speech; Yet your outspoken words light. , all my gloom, And music, that must every world outreach, Fills, with a thousand chords, my silent room; And all that was, or -is to be, is mine; Spoken from the lips so dumb, yet so divine! MARY ALETHEA WOODWARD. "FAITH. There's someone near me in the night: When 1 awake and miss the light Because I know the darkness holds A real content that softly folds About me, though 'tis night. There's someone near, me in the night, ' , And if I call in sudden fright A kind, assuring voice I hear . Responsiveness from someone near Puts all my fears to flight. The night is dark and there may he Steep, untried paths awaiting me: But e'er a voice assures within Tells me to hope, to strive and win ! And shades of night will flee. . JANETTE MARTIN. MARY HAD A LITTLE fiOAT. Mary had a little goat That had a perfect gland. And everywhere that Mary went, That goat was close at hand. It followed her to school one day. The old prof, was no fool For, now. he frolics out at play. While children keep the school. MARY STEPHENSON BARNES. f