The spokesmen of the major Powers are indicated by numbers as follows: 1-Foreign Minister Stresemann, of Germany; 2-Premier Mussolini, of Italy; 3-Austen Chamberlain, of Great Britain; 4-Aristide Briand, of France; 5-Emile Vandervelde, of Belgium detectives, but do not make a fuss about it. During the Lausanne Conference I saw Marquis Curzon always followed by a detective. His lordship even took the man with him to Geneva in going thither to see Sir Eric Drummond. Lord Curzon stepped into the League of Nations building and up to the Secretary-General's office on the second floor so quickly that the Leaguers were not aware of his presence until a journalist who knew the detective informed them. Now Lord Curzon was a decidedly self-conscious person. Only he was not exactly an advertiser. Of course the German Nationalists stood right in the way of international understanding and good will. They declared, first, that they would not listen to any peace proposal; they wanted war. Then they cooled off a bit and allowed that if a German delegate did go to a peace conference, it must be strictly conditional, compelling the Allies both to efface the war-guilt clause from the Versailles Treaty and immediately to evacuate the Cologne area. Even as the Conference concluded that old fire-eater the Junker Berlin "Kreuz-Zeitung" asserted that under no circumstance would the German National-Volkspartei accept a treaty not complying with these two demands. As to the first, the Nationalist papers scorn "being bound by forced conceptions of war guilt." To this a wag here rejoined: "Germany does not wish longer to be regarded as a convict on ticket-ofleave in decent society." As to the second, the Germans know perfectly well that the Cologne area will be evacuated just as soon as they have carried out their disarmament promise. Nevertheless, under Nationalist pressure, a week before this Conference convened the Berlin Government made the grand-stand play of actually mentioning these two matters to the other Governments, only to be instantly reminded that the Allies deprecated such proposals. What really counts is that this is the first time since the war that the Germans have met the Allies on a genuine basis of equality. At Versailles there was no discussion as between equals. Spa was not much better. At Cannes, Genoa, London, however, the Germans. were more and more treated as equals. Now at Locarno there was full equality an outstanding feature of this Confer ence. L' IKE the long-headed men they are, Chancellor Luther and Herr Stresemann would not have journeyed to Locarno unless sure that the Conference would succeed. On the other hand, the greatest hope of all the conferees for success (and the second outstanding feature of the Conference) was that Dr. Stresemann and M. Briand had to compel it to succeed, if, for no other reason, because failure would probably not only have cost them. their jobs as Foreign Ministers but also their positions as party leaders. In his attempts to this end M. Briand, doubtless wishing to atone for any short comings at Cannes and Washington, was a clever scene-shifter. Witness, for example, his Ascona and lake affairs. To the modest Elvezia restaurant, in the delightful neighboring lake village of Ascona, he tempted Dr. Luther for an intimate talk, with only the Germangifted Berthelot as occasional translator. The three were quite alone save for the house cat. The padrona, ignorant as to the identity of her guests and looking at them from a distance, told us afterwards how the cat now perched on M. Briand's shoulder and now snuggled into the Luther lap. It allowed its unpartisan fur to be stroked by both alike. The French Foreign Minister followed this by a party on the lake, a larger but still very select party. To it the English and German Foreign Ministers and the English, French, and German jurists were bidden. By privacy and independence you can do a lot in a short time. At Aristide Briand's two little parties, not only was the Rhineland demilitarization difficulty settled, but also Germany's objection to entering the League of Nations was definitely put to one side. The urbane, smiling host, always ready with a joke, was at base no less determined upon a proper pact than were the able Luther and the austerer Chamberlain. But he had a peculiarly pleasant way of accomplishing his ends. might be more easily adjusted by the simple, familiar round-table method, without any formal direction. But Mr. Chamberlain could not keep himself from being justly regarded as a presiding genius, not only because he is Foreign Minister of the chief Power at the Conference, but also because he is a person of peculiar prudence and poise, and, in particular, because of his understanding of and insistence on the necessity for International Union. His opening speech was in fluent French, and later he often spoke in that language. When recently he went to Rome, he surprised the Italians by talking to them in their own tongue. His German was perfected during his student days at the University of Berlin. He was a favorite at the home of Dr. Frommel, the Court preacher, and took part in the Christmas festivities around the H Christmas tree there, as did the present Something of the old hearty German If the term "open diplomacy" means that everything should be said aloud, if every difference of opinion revealing itself at the Conference table were immediately to find an echo in each country concerned, the result must be that, instead of thinking of those present at the Conference, the delegates would necessarily be thinking of the effect their words might produce on the public at home. Under such circumstances, the discovery of a solution As Advertised A Pennsylvania graduate pays a tribute to the OW seldom does purchased fact compare favorably with advertised fancy! We keep right on buying, of course, as hopefully as ever, but we know even before the book, or the utensil, or the Florida real estate, is acquired that we are quite apt to be disappointed. But we keep right on experimenting just the same! Sixty-some thousands of us were quite ready to be disillusioned at Franklin Field. Despite which some paid as high as $20 a ticket! And when we beheld that dark and slimy field, soaked with rain and melted snow, we shook knowing heads and said: "Aha! This will be the finish of the 'Flying Iceman of Illinois.'” You know how it has been. For lo! these many months we have had dinned in our ears the doings of a fieryhaired super-football wonder who was making hard-working, hard-fighting, and thoroughly self-respecting mid-country elevens look perfectly ridiculous. We heard this a year ago. This summer we heard that he was delivering ice to housewives in his home town. And this fall it began again. There was overmuch of it. Said we to ourselves: "Just wait till he runs up against a strong Eastern eleven and a slippery field!" Well, here was Pennsylvania that had humbled Brown, Yale, and Chicago, and one or two others. And here was a field for which the word slippery was inadequate by a large margin. Well, it was an amazing and a prepos terous performance. First, there came And then "Red" Grange. In the Thick as autumnal leaves that strow In Vallombrosa. Repeat that even three times, friends would be impossible. Open diplomacy in that sense can never be practiced with success. There is another meaning, however, to the term "open diplomacy." It is this. No binding decisions will be taken at this Conference without the assent of the British Parliament, nor any secret undertakings added to any public engagement. You must allow us to cook the meal in the kitchen. But as soon as it is ready it will be publicly served. The speaker's own subsequent acts in bringing together variously obstinate points of view and reducing them to a common agreement has now brought so redoubtable a critic of England as is the Berliner "Tageblatt's" correspondent to this conclusion: "There has not yet been a Conference where a delegate has played such an important part as has Mr. Chamberlain here." and sorrowing fellow-Pennsylvanians, and that is almost all there is to the story. The first two minutes of the game presaged the inevitable ending of it. There was no such other man in the football world, and certainly not among the Pennsylvanians, who fought grimly on in the face of certain defeat, seeing the end of their hopes as a championship eleven. Three times Grange made his touchdown, and contributed largely to the fourth. Penn, minus her great backs Kreuz and Fields, and with cripples on her line, wallowed with her opponents in the black and sticky mud until it looked like a combat between dazed tribes of darkest Senegambians. How does Grange do it? Probably by a combination of talents-an instant coordination of quick mind and welltrained body, an incredibly rapid and accurate judgment, coupled with a treacherous swing of the hips and a varying pace and direction of the legs that put them just out of reach of tacklers. When all was over, Penn and her massed alumni arose and cheered "Red" Grange, and then, like a melancholy dirge, with sad drums and muffled horns, they sang their melancholy song. But nevertheless all of the sixty-two thousand, Penn men and all, went home with their faith in humanity renewed. For, to say the least, "Red" Grange was as advertised! A Photograph from Jeffrey Mfg. Co. How the Fruit Goes into the Modern Cannery-an Apron Conveyor in Operation The Coming of the Conveyor By CHARLES FITZHUGH TALMAN CONVEYOR, says the "Mate rial Handling Cyclopedia," is "a more or less self-contained device for continuously transporting material in a horizontal or slightly inclined direction. If the inclination is steep, and the material is carried upward, the device is usually called an elevator; if downward, a lowerer. The operating force may be gravity or some form of mechanical power, as electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, or steam. The material to be transported may be in bulk in a more or less continuous stream, in bulk but divided temporarily for the purpose of conveying into small portions, each carried in a separate container, or in permanent individual units or packages of uniform size and weight." This definition suggests a wide diversity of forms and uses, and the conveyor is, in fact, one of the most versatile contrivances of modern times. A moving sidewalk is a conveyor. So is a pneumatic tube. A log flume is a conveyor. An escalator is an elevator conveyor. A merry-go-round is a conveyor, whether its freight be Young America or a string of molds in a foundry. The history of industrial conveyors is now entering a new stage. Not many years ago, in common with most other mechanical contrivances for handling goods and materials, they were generally regarded as experimental. They were, as a matter of fact, imperfectly developed, and their use led to many disappointments. Then came the period when the use of conveyors for certain kinds of work-especially in the handling of bulk materials-became materials became standard practice, but at the same time the ultimate range of their possibilities was hardly dreamed of, even by far-sighted engineers. In this stage conveyors formed a common but subordinate part of the equipment of a large proportion of industrial plants. In the third and present stage conveyors, in conjunction with such kindred devices as cranes, hoists, cableways, and power trucks, handle material at every step of its progress through a plant, from the time it enters in its raw state until it is loaded for shipment as a finished prod uct. The "conveyorized" plant is not yet, however, so common as to have lost the air of novelty. It is a paradox that, while everybody has long recognized the importance of efficient transportation of goods from producer to consumer, little thought has been given until recently to improving methods of transporting goods in process of manufacture. Industry demands steam, electricity, and the internal-combustion motor in the one case, but has generally been content with man power in the other. The incongruous spectacle may still often be witnessed of marvelously ingenious automatic machinery for making things used side by side with crude non-automatic methods of moving them. 4 The "conveyor assembly line," as used in automobile factories, became widely familiar some years ago. It is essentially a traveling work-bench on which an automobile is built up from a rear axle to a completed car, which runs off the line under its own power. under its own power. Nowadays the "final assembly line" is fed by "subassembly lines," and there are other elaborations of the process, which has spread far beyond the automobile industry. At the same time the principle of "production on the move" embodied in the conveyor assembly line has been The Ford The process of building an automobile on a moving conveyor is one of the most famous of industrial operations. These traveling "work-benches," running at such speed as to insure the maximum output of each workman along the line of production, not only save time, labor, and floor space, but promote in a very appreciable degree the spirit of order in the factory. The general use of the assembly line in the automobile industry is far less striking than the general neglect of its obvious advantages that has prevailed in other industries until within the last few years Photograph from Ford Motor Co. found adaptable to many operations besides assembling machinery. Striking proofs of its possibilities are afforded in the vast and complex establishments where Henry Ford is producing so many things besides automobiles-including, above all, ideas. In Ford's model foundry, for example, castings are poured in traveling molds, and in his plate-glass factory the glass is carried by conveyors straight through the successive processes of rolling, annealing, grinding, and polishing. The conveyor, besides saving floor space and promoting order in a factory, is a labor-saver. This means more than that it saves labor costs to the manufacturer. A good deal of concern has been expressed over the fact that conveyors, in some of their applications, are frankly pace-makers, and might conceivably set the pace that kills. In practice this has not happened. The flow of materials has not been speeded up to the detriment of the worker, and the evolution of conveying machinery has been along the lines of making the process more and more elastic. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Wage-earners are not complaining about the introduction of machinery that almost completely eliminates painful stooping, lifting, hauling, and shoving from their day's work. A Shuttle Conveyor Though the day of the conveyor has but recently dawned, a great many different types of conveying machinery have been developed, each being adapted to a particular kind of work. Here is one of the less familiar typesthe shuttle conveyor. It is a belt conveyor, the frame of which is supported on wheels running on a track, SO that it can be shifted lengthwise. The belt can be run in either direction. The material is received from a feeder at the middle of the length over which it Is to be distributed. The conveyor can be adjusted to deposit material at any desired point, or it can be made to run continuously back and forth, reversing automatically Photograph from Brown Hoisting Machinery Co. |