St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 12

Oil ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, SATURDAY EVENINCr, AN UAKY 17, 1U2U. 12 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH rounded by JOSEPII PULITZER Dec. 12, 1S7S.

TuWih'd by the Pulitzer Publishing Co Twelfth and Olive Streets. 'TOST-D1SPATCII CIRCULATION Average for December, 1919: Sunday DAILY AXD SUNDAY 196.625 is little likelihood that states will seriously concern themselves with it beyond encouraging expeditions having a scientific object. In the case of Spitzbergen, there being no native inhabitants, no occasion arises for the application of the convenient doctrine applied to the Indians in the Americas and to the natives in Africa, to the effect that the civilized discoverer's title to the soil is paramount to that of the uncivilized inhabitants; that at most the rights of the inhabitants are usufructuary. THE POST-DISPATCH PLAT-FOR3I. I know that my retirement will make no difference In Its cardinal principles, that It xill always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain demoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always bo drastically Independent; never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.

JOSEPH PULITZER. April 10, 1907. Pianist Rachmaninoff has spoken: No beer, no play. ADVERTISING ST. LOUIS.

The raising of 552,000 to advertise St. Louis by contributions from the municipality and members of the Chamber of Commerce is a step in the right direction. The advantages of the city as a manufacturing center ought to be made known to the general public. Judicious advertising where it will do the most good will result in substantial benefits through increased manufacturing plants and distributing agencies. Is not the raising of $52,000 only a step? As a fund for nation-wide advertising it is a bagatelle.

It ought to be increased. If St. Louis is to go into an advertising campaign let us do it in a way that will make the country sit up and take notice. The Post-Dispatch will do its full share in any larger advertising project. RUSSIA.

That superman of the apocryphal Tolstolan prophecy who was to emerge from his scribbling obscurity at a critical Juncture of the war and ultimately Impose his will upon a klngless, recast Europe who Is he? For a pregnant minute the flamboyant Kerensky seemed in a way to fill the outlines, but he proved of putty stuff. Imagination turned for a time towards Northcliffe, but a Warwick Is the British publisher's ultimate measure. Is Lenine the man? Whether he Is or not, the founder of the Bolshevist regime appears at this moment a factor seriously to be reckoned with. His success may be the product of allied stupidity. It may be, too, that he has long since abandoned the vagaries of the philosophy on which he rode Into power.

He may, as they say, have appropriated all the practices of the capitalistic system which he had come to destroy. His absolutism and terrorism may out-Romanoff the Romanoffs. But the impossible and bloody order that he established still stands. The negligible minority dominates Russia's millions. It has fought and worsted rebellion which civilization had aided and abetted.

Our own Siberian expedition is about to end. Kolchak is a prisoner. The tattered forces of this strange fanatic occupy Odessa. They threaten Poland. Continental Europe is alarmed.

The British empire sees the shadow of the bear darkening India and Westminster is again turning the leaves of Kipling for the ominous mumblings of Adam-iad. Such sanity as lingers in Berlin may be pardoned for recalling the ever-recurrent counsel of Bismarck "Be friends with St. Petersburg." It may well be that the present ascendancy of Bolshevism is only another episode. Just the 6ame, there must he a good deal of regret in all the chancelleries Just now that Russia was not accorded the right of self-determination. Certainly a Bolshevism that assumes the aggressive, that seems capable of setting forth upon physical conquest, is decidedly more of a problem than is a movement which asked only to be permitted to establish Its own form of government.

Attempts at subjugating Russia have been the prime folly of all Napoleons. Proletarian or imperial, Russia seems to be Russia, Landor's words seem as true under a Lenine as under an Alexander: "The creeping murmur of the world is her footstep, the pouring dark her veil. To the sentinels of the nations, peering across their borders, comes ever the same reply: "'Who goes NEW YORK HERALD'S SALE. Best known as a magazine editor and publisher, Frank A. Munsey has been one of the largest American dealers in and owners of newspaper properties.

He has successively purchased the Washington Times, the Boston Journal, the Baltimore News, the New York Press, the Philadelphia Evening Times, the New York Sun. The list of well-known newspapers which he has owned at one time or other is now extended to nine by the transaction of unusual interest in which he buys the New York Herald, the New York Evening Telegram and the Paris edition of the Herald. sl Through his latest purchase he becomes the owner of a property which has exerted a vast influence in the past and whose former enterprises have become a tradition in the Journalism not only of America but of the world. The citizen who can remember when no Herald under the control of a member of the Bennett family was printed and widely read in New York must now be 00 years of age or more. Once be SSI fore two New York journals were numbered among Wit.

Mr. Munsey's assets the Press and the Sun. The ac quisition of the latter was quickly followed by a merg LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE. The Wastes In DMrtbutlon. To the Editor of Oi Fot-Dlpatcn.

Statistics prove that the cost of living has. in ths last few years, advanced 100 per cent and is still going up. Politicians, professors and the editors are hazarding a hundred different guesses as to the cause and cure of this evil; women's clubs and combinations of co-operating consumers are frantically attacking tradesmen and produce merchants as the chief culprits, and are In some cases attempting to enforce a boycott, but prices do not falL If they advance another 60 per cent there will be revolution and disaster. Increase In production is advanced as the panacea for all our ills, but If we look back to the panics of 1907 and 1893 we see that they followed In the wake of tremendous eras of expansion and production. The real trouble lies In the waste caused by the anarchy and confusion of distribution under the profit system, with each agency from the grower at one end to the grocer at the other taking all the tribute they can exact St.

Louis should be supplied with fresh fruits and produce in season by a highly organized departmentalized company operating in a great central modern terminal, with ample trackage and unloading platform space, and also plenty of cold and dry storage rooms. This company should be under Federal as well as municipal supervision, so as to prevent extortion, and should have the most thorough support of all organized agencies In developing and distributing a steady and dependable cheap food supply for the people. In this connection I may say that while growers are allowed to combine and can fix prices, merchants are liable to criminal prosecution If they organize for efficiency and economy. In California women's clubs are circulating a petition asking for the removal of State Market Director Weinstock, accusing him of having fostered growers' and producers' combines which are largely responsible for the extremely high prices prevailing on perishables. The Sherman act should be repealed, organization substituted for the ruthless, destructive competition perforce prevailing among purveyors of perishables, and the tremendously Important business of supplying fresh fruits and vegetables placed on some more certain basis than the guesswork of speculators.

However, Mr. Editor and housewives, do not turn the vials of your wrath loose on these produce men. They are slaves of the profit system, even as we all are. If they stopped guessing and gambling the people would starve, and fruits and er in which the Sun's name was preserved. With the Herald as well as the Sun now under his ownership, will another merger follow or will they be conducted WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?" as competitors against each other in the same field? The Sun is the oiler paper by about two years, being founded in 1S33, while the first copy of the Herald w.s issued May 6, 1S35.

If a merger comes, will the iiame of the younger or that of the older paper be preserved? Or, despite auguries unfavorable to hyphenated papers in New York, will it be the Sun-Herald or perhaps the Herald-Sun? JUST A MINUTE HARDING'S APPEAL OF ANCIENT FLAVOR. In the old days when the Textile Trust used to dictate the tariff schedules, the high cost of clothes used to be due to the duty on wool, imposed, of course, for the sole benefit of the American farmer. Despite repeated exposures made then, as well as now, on the negligible proportion added to the cost of a suit by the cost of the wool, it is again the high price of wool, due this time to world conditions, which et present forces a reluctant resort to profiteering on the part of the regretful textile interests. Why 6hould a durable suit cost $30 or $60 when the wool in it, even at present prices, cost3 only $5 or With this question unanswered, Presidential Candidate Harding says protection 1b still an Isbuo before the country and that Textile Trust tariffs supply the only basis for permanent prosperity. THE END OP A GREAT AGE.

-In the larger territorial settlements of the peace conference the award of Spitzbergen to Norway, recently announced, is of more than passing interest, in that it closes forever the great age of discovery begun by land-hungry European states in the fifteenth Written for the POST-DISRATCH by Clark HcAdanis. OUR OWN PEACE REVIEW. ANYONE attending the conference among our topwits and two-story thinkers under the cartoon on yesterday must have been impressed by the zest with which everybody returned to this weekly task. Socrates said it And now the school children of an Iowa town have struck for more pay for teachers. If this keeps on persons of ordinary means will be able to engage in the teaching profession, which only the wealthy can afford to practice now.

indicated the reaction from that gloom into century, and marks the final appropriation of the habitable surface of the earth. Up to this time Spitzbergen was the only remaining res or territorium nul-lius, the only livable landed portion of the globe not under the sovereignty of some recognized state. Spitzbergen consists of a group of islands 400 miles north of Norway and lying east of Greenland, com prising about 27,000 square miles. There are no permanent inhabitants. For nearly 10 months out of the year the harbors are icebound.

Toward the close of the last century some adventurous Americans visited the islands and found evidences of great mineral wealth. Including coal and iron. Coal-mining enter prises were soon established, operated not only by Americans but by Swedes and Norwegians as well. With the expansion of the commercial importance of Spitzbergen the need of law and authority arose to TO REDUCE MOTOR ACCIDENTS. Assistant City Counselor Sadler has a plan for reducing automobile accidents.

He would limit the speed to 20 miles an hour, not by ordinance, but by a mechanical device which would make it impossible for automotive vehicles to exceed that 6peed. He recommends also that everyone applying for a driver's license be required to pass an examination proving his fitness for this responsibility before the permit is granted. Public sentiment, we Imagine, is likely to approve the latter suggestion, for which Mr. Sadler makes a good case. Driving an automobile is a responsibility, yet the privilege is granted to anyone who can pay license.

The consequence is incompetents at the wheel and accidents. To the plan for making 20 miles the mechanical speed limit there would doubtless be serious objection. It is obvious that such a device would greatly Impair the utility and legitimate pleasure of automotive vehicles. The toll of death which is caused by recklessness and Incompetence of drivers and recklessness and Ignorance of pedestrians must be checked. Sheriff Bopp is having a hard time finding any gamblers at home.

He might try rubber heels. The serious phase of the exclusion of its Socialist members-elect by the New York Legislature Is that it may seem to give a very substantial appearance of truth to clamorous Socialist Jargon in denunciation of American governmental practices, in contrast with American governmental theories charges which the average citizen declines ordinarily to take with nnv produce would rot on the trees and in the fields for lack of buyers. Clothing and other necessities have advanced more In proportion than foodstuffs, but because the urge of hunger la always the most pressing, more publlcitv la given to high prices In our line of business than any other. In conclusion, I would suggest that women's clubs, consumers' associations, et aL, do less talking and more thinking and constructive planning to counteract their present troubles. In Great Britain co-operative societies manufacture and distribute nearly a billion dollars' worth household necessities and food products at minimum cost yearly to their customers, who are all stockholders and working members.

If the consumers of America are really willing to work together for their common good, they can duplicate what has been done In England. J. II. BAWDEX, President St. Louis Distributing Co.

The MIRROR of PUBLICJDPINION "THE EMPIRE IS DEAD." From the Minneapolis Tribune. GEN. SMUTS, who is now engaged in a bitur controversy with the Nationalists in South Africa, recently made the startling assertion that the "British empire ceased to exist" in 1914. Ths phrase, "The Empire Is dead," attributed to Smuts, was at once relayed to London, where it echoed and re-echoed, producing a vast amount of consternation. Yet onco the more liberal Englishmen becan think over the phrase, they agreed that Smuts hd spoken truly.

So far as Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand are concerned, th British empire is simply an entente of sympathetic peoples, or, In miniature, a league of free natloni. The outbreak of the war revealed clearly that th empire was not a collection of states governed from the center. Each of the ntate9 did as it saw fit, without consulting the others; it faced its problems, assumed its responsibilities voluntarily, and discharged them unhesitatingly, answering, In Its conscience, only to its own analysis of the situation. And the fact that these states chanced to present a united front simply served to reveal the mof clearly the hopeless iniquity of Germany in so tar as each of these peoples, singly, arrived spontaneously at a common conclusion. But even before 1914 the four states mentioned had made great inroads on British sovereignty, and had gone far towards winning an almost complete Independence.

Powers to garrison, to tax. and to legislate passed out of the hands of London at a comparatively early date. The power to veto Dominion legislation existed on paper, but In practice soon died a natural death. The appointment of Governors-General still does reside with the Crown, but actually it is used only to conform to the wishes of the Dominion peoples. In law the ultimate appeal from the highest Dominion court is still to the privy council, but this system is roundabout and so circuitous that Canada has protested against it, and It, too, in time will pass.

Canada Is even going further and demanding that creation by the Crown of hereditary titles Dropped, and one may expect soon to see a Canada as free from titles as the United States. While hostilities were en the empire appeared to be an empire in the matter of a unified policy, the. close of the war disclosed an interesting phenomenon. Each of the Dominion! insisted that it should ratify the peace treaty Itself. ThI Implied, of course, the right to veto the treaty, of.

put differently, to reject it, as the United 6tt up to data has done. This power was not, happened, exercised, but the Dominions made clear to the mother country that they poea4 It. That was a most extraordinary assertion of Independence. Thus so far has Canada progressed that aha might, had she so chosen, have repudiated the peace treaty, and, in consequence, the whole British policy cf 1919, and still have been completely within her rights an a member of the empire-Surely, under such circumstances. It difficult the literal sense to speak of the empire as an supplant the anomalous situation in which every man and group of men on the Islands were answerable only to the moral law and their own consciences.

1 In 1913 an International conference on Spitzbergen was participated in by the United States, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Germany and Great Britain. All ex Credit Men Win Aid. To th Editor of the Probability that we may soon be able to see the movies by telephone naturally cheers everybody who had despaired of getting the peoplo back to the. land. It has been emphasized that there was no getting any population away from the movies, but it seems there is a chance of moving and still movieing, so to speak.

The acute our problems become, the greater the Inventions necessary to save us. At that, people like Mr. Edison never say anything, while our statesmen go on boasting of rescuing us every five minutes. The lower house of the Indiana Legislature, which cast a vote of 90 to 0 for the suffrage amendment, must be a remarkable body of men. Think of one entire branch of a Legislature without a crank in it! Canada's refusal to let us have paper has resulted in the suspension of all the newspapers in Winnipeg because they haven't any.

Maybe the Anti-Saloon League has prejudiced too many people against leagues of any sort A bootblack's sign. Twelfth street: Here's Yvhere I Shine. A Chestnut street theater which has three front doors carries this sign: Center Door Please. Since the center door is the one in the middle, our sign hunter Is puzzled to know why the sign doesn't say bo. Sign at a Government store, Fourth street: Groceries Only Sold Here.

They give them away most places. In the window ef a store at Pana, 111.: Come In and see our ladies' underwear Almost cut in two. Our sign hunter was too modest to risk it. I GO TO CHUROI. THE day Is tired soon the twilight Will soul-velce Its evening prayer.

I stroll to the wooded pasture (The trees are gaunt and bare) Between twin poplars, reaching Like steeples through the air. I enter a cathedral of A thousand pillars there. Boughs Interlaced are stenciled Depicting unity) Against the lighter tlntlngs That arch the nave and see! Horn- brown prayer-rugs are scattered Around conveniently. That straying souls, world-weary, May kneel with sanctity. Horizon light comes sweeping Down through sequestered Enshriped In reddish purples.

The sun from his chancel smiles; And vineyard colors filter Though mullioned. gray defiles. While vision slips communion From the wine-light drip of miles. Silver and gold candelabra Agleam In the altar-ward west Low-voiced falls the sun's benediction Great awe crowds the heart in my breast Oh. Sun! Oh, Beauty Nature! (What matter the name caressed?) Dear All no word e'er spoken That power from Thee could wrest.

BETH HEWLETT. cept the United States advanced grounds upon which they might claim sovereignty. Russia declared her trappers had discovered the islands in the sixteenth century. For more than a century, however, no state had undertaken any settlement or administrative acts until the discovery of coal and iron. In 1914 Norway bought out the American interests and erected a wireless station at Green' Harbor.

There remains some unappropriated territory in the Will the party signing himself A. Per who speaks of being swln which the world was cast by the usual difficulties at the outset of a great forward step. That is, he said, any great forward raovement Is at the outset attended by doubt, which creates at the moment an opportunity for the enemies of progress. Now that the League of Nations Is -stablished, the opportunity of the enemies of progress Is ended. That is, so Socrates explained, the step Is taken.

Clamor against it quiets, exactly as opposition to a wedding ceases after the wedding occurs. There was not, in hta opinion, much use for any deep, thinking or real brain work in the period when the enemies t-f progress were making their demonstrating This, he said, accounted for the failure of tin weekly conference, which no one thought it worth while to attend. He expressed the belief that it would henceforth be regular. He said lie had missed it, topping off the week as it ilid with a not too serious interchange of opinion. Mr.

Antwine really opened the day's work. He said that whether we like the league or not, there is nobody who feels big enough to destroy It. It seemed to him the arrangement had almost too much stability for us to worry about It. He was sorry that the league did not at its first meeting defy the Republican party, whlcn eorely needs the fear of God put into its heart; but he presumed the league was hatching somo-thing with which to' scare the Republicans out of seven years growth. Polemarchus, who Is mostly facetious, wanted to know If Senator Lodge would not be tried along with the Kaiser and everybody else who has tried to set the world back.

This caused one of those throaty chuckles characteristic of Socrates when somebody hits upon a bit of satire. Everybody left the conference confident of the future. It seems from what was said that humankind has no great faith in itself. It requires to be led, and ventures fearfully after thoje with the vision to lead it. Someone asked what rrobably would have been the consequences of popular voting upon the six greatest forward pteps the world has taken.

Socrates said, that probably every one of them would have been voted down. That Is, humankind is in a state of panic almost at the moment of taking a great step. At such a time it is possible for aimost anyone with a bed sheet around him to dash from behind a bush and cause a stampede. People like Senator Reed have done this time and time again In the history of the world, no Socrates said. It is a precarious moment, and he thinks we got over it nicely.

There will, of course, be a brief while in which the enemies of progress will derive comfort from our unfamil-larlty with the way we are going. They are much more sullen now than they will be aftsr they have had several good laughs at the expense of the rest of us. He thougnt we ought r.ot to begrudge them those laughs, and hoped the league would make enough mistakes to restore harmony among us soon. Thrasymachus, whose duty it Is to report the progress of stabilization in the world, showed an increase of three per cent for stability since the lat conference, which cheered everybody. There was a good laugh at the expense of d'Annunzle, whom Glaucon credits with having settled the Flume problem 'jy making an ass of himself, one of the most stupendous services ever done the world by a poet.

Somebody asked why we were withdrawing our troops from Siberia, whereupon Fitz said we had reversed our Russian policy and were now send-lnp reinforcements to the Soviets. Everybody enjoyed that, and the best of good humor prevailed when the pow-wow ended. More next week maybe. Nov Peoria can be on the Illinois Hirer. died by a collection agency, please get In touch with the Retail Credit Men's Na tional Association 308 Equitable Build Ing? Arctic and Antarctic, but since title can be established THE RETAIL CREDIT MEN'S NATION seriousness.

only by discovery, followed by actual settlement, there AL ASSOCIATION. EDITORHL SPARKS. OVERLOADING THE HAT HACK IV THE RING. Conductor's View of Smoking. Editor of th roit-Plrpktch.

I have been a conductor for 15 years "What effect had the hint of a secret on the girls?" "A telling effect." Baltimore American. and I have never seen as many men disregard the smoking rules as now. When me conductor ssks tnem, uks a man, to "Please stop smoking," Just as soon "Makeshift whisky" will have to be Included among our die-stuffs. Boston Transcript. as he turns to his work they will start smoking again, not respecting ladles or children, rules of etiquette or common Possibly one reason for the shortage of news print paper Is the volume of shoe manufacturing.

Louisville Courier-Journal. decency In the least. So I have decided to let them smoke until the Board of Aldermen pai an ordinance and provide for arrest and fine. I will rejoice to see the come. With best regards for the traveling public.

The reason we hate to lend a man ten dollars Is because It isn't enough to start a feud over and Is too much to expect the return of. Galveston News. A CONDUCTOR ON THE OLIVE LLNK. CHINESE OX STRIKE Mr. KoUtem'a Kindness to the Blind.

lh gaiter of Ui rot-Piput, Well, nobody will be advertising for lost keyholes In 1920 or singing "Where Is my wandering keyhole tonight?" Nashville Tennesaeean. Through the kindness and generosity FYom th OhnUn Sclnc lltor. STRIKKS are not confined to Europe and Anitf lea. In these stirring times, for It seems that Chinese are striking en account of the rise In prl of their staple diet. rice.

This increase is said to be on account of a decided shortage, fer the lm" i me Bomern-Marlow Theatrical Company some of the blind of St. Louis had xam extreme enjoyment of hearini "Twelfth Night" on Monday night an. "Hamlet" on Tuesday night. Most of The Vanderbilts have had to sell their Ave and a half million dollar house In New York because it cost too much to run It. XV suppose it has a hot air furnace.

Kansas City Star. the blind are Shakspeare students as they receive their education at the Mis eurl School for the Blind. It Is through ports at Hongkong this year are leas than hairm amount of last year's. Japan is the culprit wh has bought up the supply and deprived the reat this port's buyers of thlr normal supply. commonly understood that a Chinaman can on a handful of rice, and It would be Interesting know what the Oriental waiter In the Chlneae restaurants in America think of the Western T0' pies who demand, merely as a side dish to thel' chop suey.

rice sufficient to maintain a Cainn for a 16 -hour workday. SUCH acta of kindness that the Intelicc tuel life of the blind Is kept alive. Kind ly express the gratitude of the "VI hy are so many young people sent away from home to study muilc?" "Mont natural thing you could Imagine. Folks around the house don't want te bothered hearing them practice." Washington Star. illSBOURI ASSOCIATION FOR THE JJLLND.

ZZi Metropolitan Bids, v-Frota the Louisville Courier-Journal,.