A The Voice From the Life By IBBY HALL It was not Santa Claus, but a large policeman in blue uniform who ended his quest at last with great rudeness and authority. At five one is still polite, and this one stated his case fairly and courteously, in answer to the questions put to him. He would like to find Santa Claus. He had a special message for him. No, he was sorry, but no one else could deliver it for him. He had to see Santa Claus himself. LITTLE boy of five in New York is still looking for Santa Claus. He is sure to recognize him by the sound of his voice, though he is curious to know what he looks like. For although only five years old, the little boy made up his mind early in December that there were certain needs in life he could not very well live without. The principal one was a puppy. There were also certain toys that would make living a much more satisfactory affair. As far as he could see, however, his mother was doing very little about IN RETURN for this truthfulness and it. She had neither written nor telepoliteness, he found himself taken phoned nor sent a wireless message, and how was he to get his puppy if Santa Claus were not notified in time? Besides, there were all those other children to be looked after. It was on a sunny afternoon, when all children should be out of doors anyway, that he decided to take the matter into his own hands. His mother, who lived in the northern part of the city, had decided to take her little boy to visit her sister, who lived several miles of city blocks to the south. They started off hand in hand. With the usual indifference of grown people, she did not notice her small boy's preoccupation with heavy thoughts. She never even dreamed that at five he was capable of sitting by her side in the subway, secretly plotting out the needs of his existence. Nevertheless, she held on to him pretty firmly during the trip downtown. There was no chance of escape. But once arrived at his aunt's it was a different story. A good little boy would have very little attention paid to him, and this little boy was extraordinarily good. At the very first opportunity he slipped out of the door and on to the street, and was off. At a safe distance from the house of his aunt, the little boy paused and drew a deep breath. He might be only five, and with short legs at that, but he was free-the city belonged to him. Moreover, he was quite confident that Santa Claus was lurking around the next corner. But it seemed after a number of dashing sallies that the next corner became always the next corner. He was forced finally to pause and think it over. firmly by the shoulder and marched to In this bare and uninviting looking The small boy looked around at those questioning faces with his lips closed tight and determinedly. Well, he had made up his mind now he wouldn't answer them. They could ask all the questions they liked. They had refused to help him find Santa Claus. He would in turn refuse to help them find himself. He didn't want to be found, H looked as though he were really inte ested in matters of importance. came nearer to the boy. "Do you really want to find Sar Claus?" he asked, sympatheticall "Would you like to speak to him you self?" The small boy nodded but would trust himself to open his mouth. "Well," went on the new friend, think maybe I can arrange it. I kno his telephone number. Perhaps I ca get him for you on the wire." A telephone was produced fro somewhere and handed to him. The re ceiver was off the hook. "Here he is," said the new frien cheerfully. "All you have to do now tell him what you want for Christmas. Still doubtfully the small boy accepte the receiver, and held it to his ear. And lo! it was the voice of Sant Claus! "Now tell me what it is you want came the kindly voice, with just a touc of Irish in it, "and I'll see to it the you'll be getting it at Christmas." The five-year-old heart leapt to u burden itself. With a long-drawn sig. the wanderer opened his mouth speak. When he had quite finished explai ing, when there was nothing else imagination could picture, he sai "And I guess that's about all-b especially the puppy." "I have it all written down," sa Santa Claus, reassuringly, "and I'll not forget any of it. All I need to be know ing now is where to send these thing What name and address shall I be writ ing on them?” T IS DIFFICULT to escape the conviction, after seeing "Holiday," and remembering "Paris Bound," that 'White Wings," and others ant to find Philip Barry is the Lightning Bug Sy of the Broadway stage. Now you peak to see him, now you don't! Now he lights ip; again he doesn't! As the man beded but raind us in the theatre said, "It's the his mouth oddest play I ever saw." me new ins We are moved to these reflections in ange it no spirit of criticism. We know of no Perlap playright who amuses us so much as -wire." does Mr. Barry. We know in advance prode when we go to one of his plays, that the to him majority of his characters will utter magnificent fooleries and present us he new with entertaining and ridiculous points etod of view; most of which, on examination, for Chwill prove to be not so ridiculous after I boy all, but to contain genuine ideas. o his er "Holiday" is no exception. In this iced new comedy, as in "Paris Bound," Philip Barry has hold of a distinct sy idea. As voiced by the head of the jst Seton family, the banker, it is to the see te effect that it is "un-American" not to ist want to work and make money. That leap this making of money, while it has satdran isfied Mr. Seton, has resulted only in unhappiness for every other member of his family, has no effect upon him. He de sturdily clings to the idea that making gmoney is an end in itself; and that to be consider it merely as a means toward any other end is to be absurd. "Toward what end?" he can be heard dim ly inquiring throughout the play. And d we must confess that none of Mr. he Barry's characters really give him a good answer. The It is precisely in this lack of ability to give a good answer to the problems which his characters propose that we are always most disappointed in Mr. Barry. He is so distinctly the lightning bug, until it comes to giving the answer to the conundrums he propounds. Thereupon he goes out. You don't see anything; and you even doubt whether he was ever there-until more of his entertaining dialogue comes along and you realize once more that he is lighting up all over the stage again. Considered from the standpoint of character and dialogue "Holiday" might be said to be a combination of "White Wings" and "Paris Bound.” Here are people who have original points of view, and who express their The Theatre By FRANCIS R. BELLAMY ideas in the satirical and absurd manner which such people usually employ. They are seldom earnest, almost always ironical, occasionally drunk, and in all cases educated, loquacious and possessed of good words. The sharp shift from sincerity to irony, coupled with the gift for satire and an irresistible tendency to make his characters see their own absurdities-it is these things about Mr. Barry which as in the case of the man behind us, confuse people. The characters in "Holiday" appear construction and in sparkling dialogue. We are irresistibly reminded of the To a certain extent, we feel the same way about Mr. Barry. He has all the necessary qualities except that of depth. He is even attracted by the very ideas from which genuine drama could be made. He lights them up with all the abilities we have mentioned, and then just as we are about to get down to the meat of the thing-lo, the light is out! Perhaps it is too much to expect the : one man should have everything. Possibly the very fact that Mr. Barry presents life as superficially as he doesperhaps this is part of the price he must pay for his wit and humor and magnificent absurdities. Certainly his popularity and his vogue are undeniable, and well deserved. He writes of a drawing-room which he understands, about people whom he knows, and the audiences which enjoy his work are made up of precisely these same people. Why, then, quarrel with the light comedy which he gives us and demand something more? Well, only because we think he has it in him to do more than he does. In the present instance, "Holiday" is distinctly worth seeing. It is exceedingly well acted, despite the fact that to us Hope Williams is a disappointment. So far as we are concerned, she has little or no emotional power, although possessing marked ability to amuse. Meanwhile, we suppose, we will have to be content with realizing that "Holiday" is for entertainment purposes only, and shows just enough signs of being built upon a definite idea to be tantalizing and not a little irritating. If you like to smile almost continuously and yet be a little uncertain just what it is all about, we would advise you to go see it. But we cannot refrain from remarking that Mr. Barry, while laughing at Americans who make money (with no other end in view) still writes himself down as of precisely the same calibre. For in order to produce a hero who thinks there are other things worthwhile in life, and who proposes to find out about them and experience them while he is young, Mr. Barry has thought it necessary to put a man to work when he was ten years old, so that at thirty he has already earned-Mark you, earned!-his year of idleness. In other words, in order to enlist sympathy for his hero he has made him, in effect, an old man already, with twenty years of precisely the hard, honest, one hundred per cent American work behind him against which he rebels! Such confusion of thought mars a play. Preparedness A S THE The HOLIDAY SEASON has approached, Congress seems to have been fading into the background of public consciousness. Not wholly. With Boulder Dam out of the way, nobody expects much progress with the legislative program on Capitol Hill until after the New Year. But still in the foreground has been the Senate's game of football with the treaty of cumbersome title-the Treaty for the Renunciation of War as a National Policy. The Scripps-Howard newspapers have been conducting a campaign on behalf of this multilateral agreement, called for short the Kellogg Pact. They have had a poll of their readers and have reported a favorable vote of about ten to one. One or two other polls have shown a similar result. Editorial opinion throughout the country seems to be quite as nearly unanimous in approval of the treaty. Most of those who favor the treaty want it ratified without reservation or explanation; but there are some organs of public opinion which believe that a Senate resolution, accompanying the act of ratification, to explain what the United States understands by the treaty is desirable. As it stands, they argue, it is so indefinite that almost anything can be read into it. So Senator Moses has proposed a resolution stating in effect that the treaty does not nullify the Monroe Doctrine, or commit us to the League of Nations, or involve us in any future war in Europe, in fact leaves us free to use force to defend not only our own territory but our interests. Such a resolution, it is argued, will free us from the charge of hypocrisy if we should in the future defend our rights. But such a resolution, it is answered, makes the treaty meaningless, for no nation in these days ever resorts to war except in alleged defense of its "interests." Apparently on the question of ratification without planation the ayes have it, and by a popular majority much bigger than the Senate majority that is needed for con sent. ex This sentiment for peaceful means of settling international disputes is reflected also in newspaper comment on the Bolivia-Paraguay imbroglio. The World This Week fact that these two republics have resorted to force has shocked this country. Opinions differ as to whether the conflict calls for the interference of the League of Nations; but opinion is united that it does call for some kind of international action for peace. Chance, it is pointed out, made it possible for the Pan-American Conference in Washington to offer mediation. The Conference has no permanent organization to meet such emergencies, while the League of Nations has. It is much better, most newspapers in this country declare, that an inter-American dispute be settled by inter-American (or "co-American") mediation than by either a European organization or the United States alone. The coincidence was fortunate and, it is suggested, will. have a good effect not only on the recalcitrant republics but on the Conference itself. It may lead to some permanent arrangement for mediation. And since the United States is not in the League of Nations it has an obligation to provide a substitute to deal with conflicts in this hemisphere. There are one or two other lessons drawn from this incident for the benefit of this country. One is that public opinion is overwhelmingly against war as an instrument of policy and that it would be a calamity for the United States not to say so by means of the Kellogg Pact. Another is that wars come quickly and we need to be prepared against them. Still another is that as Bolivia and Paraguay each gards itself as fighting in self-defens and regards the other as aggressor, we may find ourselves at odds wit some nation that we regard as aggre sor in spite of the fact that it may r gard itself as the victim of our aggre sion. We cannot serenely disregard t possibility of such a situation. In spit of a peace pact we may need cruiser At any rate, it is clear that t world has a greater abhorrence of w than it used to have and is better o ganized than it used to be to prevent One of the contributions to inte national feeling is the airplane th levels mountains and ignores frontier The twenty-fifth anniversary of t Wrights' first successful flight has course furnished occasion not only for views of the progress of aviation but al for anticipations of what it will bri to the world as it becomes more a more air-minded. Meantime, newspapers pour for advice not only to individuals but al to communities to prepare against a fo not foreign, but domestic-influen People who are ill themselves, or a concerned for those of their own fan lies who are ill, have little care for fo eign affairs. Recognizing this fa editors have evidently been calli upon the medical profession for inf mation and counsel to give to the readers. In general it is to observe t ordinary rules of health, avoid as mu as possible chances of infection, ta every cold seriously enough but not t influenza epidemic so seriously as worry, and not to scatter infection indiscriminate and unguarded sneezi and coughing. iraguar g in self as agg s at od gard a that it 1 of our ly dis lation. A r need orrene d is h as an "experiment noble in motive." There may be some basis for this optimism, for Senator Jones has informed the Senate that Hoover would ask for more money to enforce the dry laws. The same Senator has placed on the calendar a bill providing for stiffer sentences for offenders. In fact, certain reorganizers have expressed criticism of the Anti-Saloon League for what they call its failure to press for more money and its willingness to rest content with existing conditions. This attitude was given by some drys as one of the reasons for creation of the new association, which intends to make its fight for more effective enforcement on economic and e to social grounds as well as moral ones. tions: Whether the influence of the Antiair Salooners will wane under the new realignment remains undetermined, but rsary there are indications that its absorption High will be tantamount to elimination of this militant band of white-ribboners from our midst. not istic it 1692 Larger appropriations for enforcement appear certain within the next few years, and the drys will thus be in the position of fighting for and winning on a sure thing. Although the Senate, by a vote of 38 to 35, defeated the move for the sum of $270,000,000 instead of a mere $13,500,000, the disrcussion revealed a remarkable change of sentiment. Such sincere drys as Sheppard of Texas and Barkley of Kentucky showed dissatisfaction with the present state of the "experiment." Even those who opposed the larger sum did so on the ground that the courts and other agencies are unprepared to handle the vast increase in business which even an attempt at real enforcement might bring in. Vestris Report THE REPORT of United States Commissioner F. J. O'Neill, before whom the inquiry into the loss of the Vestris was heard, has been rendered and will go before Congress for its guidance in legislation. Mr. O'Neill makes fourteen recommendations; most of them are of real importance. The report finds fault with the conduct of the captain and officers of the ship but with no such bitterness as led Captain Jessop of the United States Navy to use the phrases "sheer stupidity" and "incompetence." He does not denounce the crew, but sums up the matter by saying: "The crew seems to have been By-Products of Murder competent, if led, but they were not properly led." The Commissioner evidently thinks that it is "astonishing and disquieting" that the Vestris, a British vessel, trading from New York to ports non-Brittish and non-American, should escape full examination in either country. speaks of this as "a practice"-not as a legal necessity-and one contrary to public policy and common sense. He Among the more important of the AN ELEVATOR TO THE SKY Captain T. B. Slate, designer and builder of the first steam driven, all-metal dirigible, dem onstrates how the metal elevator carried in the gondola will be lowered with passengers. The ship will hold itself stationary in the air, thus dispensing with the need for a mooring mast, and allowing the passengers to descend at any designated place. recommendations are those which concern the amending of the antiquated salvage laws, the present excessive limitation of liability for ship-owners, the need of protecting seamen under workmen's compensation principles, the need of having the actual stability of a vessel fixed definitely before each voyage, and the value of a rule that all ocean-going ships should carry wireless. One ship without wireless was only a few miles from the Vestris when she sank. THE MAN who killed Arnold Rothstein, New York gambler, is still at large at this writing but the shots he fired have given the city a new Police Commissioner and put a momentary crimp in the illicit drug trade. What interests New Yorkers mainly is the police upheaval; especially as it places Grover Whalen, suave city greeter and department store executive, in one of the most difficult and insecure municipal offices. The country at large, however, will be more concerned with facts about the peddling of narcotics, as revealed by an examination of Rothstein's safety deposit boxes. There is good reason to believe that the chief source of the murdered man's fortune was not gambling nor race horses but "dope." Twice since his death, and because it has been intimated that his papers revealed his connection with the trade, enormously valuable shipments of drugs have been seized. In a trunk customs officers found drugs valued, on a retail basis, at $2,000,000; packing cases marked "scrubbing brushes," "porcelain" and "tenpins" contained drugs valued at $3,000,000. If the total of two rather casual seizures is $5,000,000, the annual trade in "dope" must run to astounding proportions. Mars Again AS ONE FACES the south just after nightfall three planets are simultaneously visible. Almost directly above the southern horizon is Jupiter; far to the right and about to set is dazzling Venus; while Mars is not far above the eastern horizon. Once more after about two years Mars has reached the nearest point to the earth in his orbit, and astronomers who can still find absorbing interest in the planets are turning their telescopes toward his ruddy disk-ruddy to the naked eye but often a most delicate shade of green when seen telescopically. While our intriguing neighbor planet is nearly twice as far as it was at the time of the near approach of four years ago, there is a partial compensation in that it is higher in the heavens. Thus its light is permitted to shine almost direct instead of diagonally by a longer path through the earth's atmosphere. This means much, for it is our atmosphere, all of which lies within only a few miles of the telescope, rather than the millions of miles to the planet, that furnishes the chief obstacle to good visibility. as It is not unlikely that the giant 200inch telescope, which is about to be set up in California, will shed new light on the nature of the canals and other features of the Martian surface, but such great instruments do not give results in proportion to their size for this kind of problem (for which they are not intended). Opinion among tronomers, while conservative, has been swinging within more recent years toward some of the explanations of the features of Mars described by the late Perceval Lowell of Flagstaff, Arizona, namely that the canals, whatever they are, are objective phenomena-not optical illusion. Of this there is only one real proof, but it is a good one; the canals have been photographed. Pre-History in Mesopotamia ANNOUNCEMENT that flint implements dating from the Old Stone Age have been discovered in Mesopotamia will not surprise anthropologists as much as it has apparently impressed newspaper editors. The find is important enough but it is not unique, for there is a long chain of previous finds of comparable antiquity extending from France, where it is well known they have been made at a large number of pre-historic sites, across Italy, through the Balkans, Phoenicia and the Caucasus. Aurignacian is the term applied to cultures of the age involved in the new find, a period running back some 25,000 or 30,000 years and providing in some localities not merely flint implements but skeletal remains of the human beings who made them. In Western Europe the Aurignacians were evidently a tall race of splendid physique, who were doubtless intelligent, for their skulls were capacious in just the right place. Whether the same people extended as far as Mesopotamia, the eastern end of the chain of places mentioned above, is another question. Either they did or some other race or races had learned from them or taught them to make flint and occasionally bone implements in their peculiar and easily recognizable style. The fact that Mesopotamia-Irakis this time involved may cause confusion with the classic ancient history of that area. Here, however, an antiquity of only seven or eight thousand years is involved while the new finds may jump back three or four times as far-time for many unknown changes of race to have taken place in Mesopotamia. The situation is comparable to that in Egypt where plenty of very early prehistoric implementsancient in terms of hundreds of thousands of years-are found, but no positive evidence of racial continuity. The Earth Creeps WHEN SCIENTISTS ANNOUNCED, several years ago, that the entire coast line of California and a sizable fraction of that State were gradually moving northward at the rate of roughly a foot a year, there was general incredibility. A similar horizontal movement of a large land area has now been revealed in Japan, and was recently described before the Imperial Academy of Japan by the noted seismologist, Imamura. This lateral displacement has taken place since the great earthquake of 1923 and amounts to twenty-six feet. Ordinarily we think of land movements involving large areas as vertical. The concept of entire areas as large as States sliding laterally along weak zones in the rocks is not an easy one to grasp. Such movements sometimes take place rapidly and along a single, definite line, very visibly offsetting fences and roads a number of feet. These are, however, nearly always comparatively local phenomena. The ones mentioned, in California and Japan, are of far greater extent, and there is no way of discovering them except by the triangulation method of precise surveying. If two corners of an immense triangle, perhaps twenty-five miles on a leg.! on one side of the supposed line movement and the third on the othe then the angles within the triangle v be altered very slightly-this is t simple method of triangulation. What these extensive earth mor ments betoken science cannot yet sa or rather there are many conjectur but little definite proof of any one them. In general it is now being se that the earth is a "mobile" thing, Professor Daly of Harvard believe and that man's assumption that natural state is one of rest is largely preconception resulting from the f that as a closely observing reasoning being-that is, as a scientist-his li on earth is limited to only a hundre years; while the earth's age is som thing like four billion years. Suc movements are therefore not abnormal. Reserved for Americans QUARRELS between American state are not the affair of Europe; they a to be settled, when necessary, as the concern of North and South American That is the upshot of the border skir ishing between Bolivia and Paragua The League of Nations, of which bot countries are members, stood ready do anything it could and exerted it influence to ward off hostilities; it w even prepared to call a special sessic of its Council if the fighting shoul grow serious. But it was the offer mediation tendered by the Conferenc of American States in Washington th the two contestants accepted. Thus wa was averted. But more significant, this case, was the evident fact that the doctrine of President Monroe out weighs the League in the America hemisphere and will continue to do s for an indefinite time. After fighting was already under way, Bolivia ordered her forces to stop Paraguay agreed to accept the offe of mediation from the Pan-America Conference, and Bolivia followed su with Bot similar agreement. a informed the League of their action. but it was to the inter-American gath ering at Washington that they turned for good offices and investigation of the circumstances leading to warfare. Both governments were mustering and moving troops, following the first forays at the Bolivian Fort Vanguardis and the Paraguayan Fort Boqueron, the disputed frontier zone between them. A Bolivian airplane had dropped in |