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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1928-12-13, Page 7m $2,000,000 Year Effect of War Ruin Graft Laid on Social Life to' Border Stam Barriers Between Clashes Broken Down, Says Woman Writer NEW PLUTOCRACY As Generous With Their Purses as the Old Aristocracy Before the war ,society was essen- tially selfish. It was a. club with a very small lY US; Patrol Agents Face. Indictment in Liquor Smuggling Plot at Detroit 100 TO LOSE JOBS Detroit.—Two million dollare were obtained' by United States customs border patrol agents at Detroit in rum graft last year, it' was estimated recently. This and other information membership, run by a few powerful came out during the deliberation of houses for their own benefit, and that the Federal Grand Jury which is ex- of their friends, writes Rosita Forbes in the London Daily Express, In some cases it may have had ex- ceedingly high personal standards, but it had no sense of responsibility outside its own guarded circle. Before the war society had no in - petted to indict between twenty and thirty members of the patrol. Already fourteen members have been accused of permitting liquor to be sent across the river. Approximately 100 mon in all will be dismissed Brom the customs service fi.uenee at all except on those who and forty or more "rum barons" will wished to get into it or to remain in it. Without interest in anything be- yond its own sphere, which. included politics and the welfare of its tenants, it was entirely out of touch with life. With the middle -classes it had no contact, and, content to allow its laborers a pittance of sixteen shillings a week, it had no conception of any rights but its own. CHANCE FOR .YOUTH The effect of the war on such narrow system was dynamic. It is complained that tolerance has become laxity, and that, with the de- struction of most social barriers, standards of behaviour are as out of date as manners or morals. I do not agree. The dignity and reticence of the face trial if they can be caught. A crew of customs agents from .other cities is expected to replace the pres- ent patrol. SIX PRISONERS TALK FREELY. Six of the men arrested have talked freely, it was said, under a signed waiver of immunity. The othersix apparently refused to sign, jndgin� from the circumstances that six of the men were placed under $2,500 bond and six under $10,000. The thirteenth man pleaded guilty. The fourteenth is still sought. Tho estimate of $2,000.000 in graft collected from the rum runners by the -customs patrol is derived from\the statement of one of the nen that an average month's split of an individual member of the patrol was $1,700, and Victorian age were doubtless 'admir- that approximately 100 men of the able, but they served no better pur- patrol are involved. This means pay- ment of $170,000 a. month, or $2,- 040.000 a year. The estimate is bolstered by pre- vious revelations that $1,500.000 worth of liquor a month has been coining across, or $18.000,000 a year. ESTIMATED GRAFT CHARGES The average tariff charged by the customs men, it was whispered, was pose than the freemasonry of the pre- sent generation. The sole logical reason for the exist- ence of a privileged class called so- ciety is that it should compromise all that is best in achievement as well as tradition. From the point of view of any • country general welfare and progress, what a roan has done or can 25 cents a case for beer and $1 a case do is inevitably more important thanwho grand - for' liquor. It was said the custom he is or who was his fatthher. was to charge $500 a night, during which the ru`m runners could bring .across as much' liquor as possible. Whole trainloads of whisky have been known to be emptied: in Windsor in a night, it was whispered, all of which came across in`"right" boats. An immediate rezult of the investi- gation ' was a, sudden abatement in ruin -running operations, according to customs officials. Runners fear arrest and being charged with conspiraey against the government. • "Static" Car Gets Hero's Welcome Cpnqueror of Man -Made In- terference Royally Greet- ed by Port Arthur Huge welcomes .may' have been eic- tended to those heroes who conquered the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on their adventurous flights, but the en- thusiasm per person could hardly have exceeded the welcome extended by a Canadian city to the first government interference car which sailed into its midst in a solo flight to conquer "man- made static." Car number 16, the latest addition to the fleet, is at present in northern Ontario, where it is clearing up trouble for northern listeners. This war has done nothing but good. To - car, which is equipped to eliminate day it comprises every intellectual all inductive interference, started out i and active element, every shade of recently from -Toronto with one of the political opinion, and every creative government radio engineers who re- impulse on which the nation depends. cently returned from the Hudson Straits, as interference engineer. From Toronto north to North Bay, and then west through the nickel country, past Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie, trouble shooting was done all Since the war everyone imbued with enterprise and common sense has ceas- ed to look backwards. Therefore, ancestors have ceased to count, except, perhaps, as a stimulus. The war gave youth its chance as much in society as in every other sphere, and youth was not content to divide humanity into strata. As carelessly 'as it is accused of crashing codes and ballroom "gates," it felled the barriers between public school and board school. • LACK OF VENEER. The harm attributed to the war is all on the surface. We hear a great deal about the new plutocracy, but they are as generous with their purses And far less invidious than the old aristocracy. Except in veneer, there is no difference between them. They entertain the same people in the same houses. If they lack the habit of that somewhat frigid dignity which is generally combined with in- adequate $imagination, they substitute spontaneity, friendliness and a shrewd appreciation of human values. Society as a club must be just about as disagreeable to its original mem- bers as some Tory stronghold in Pall Mall, its placidity invaded by Social- ists, would be to its harrassed found- ers! But to society at a progressive force, in fact, . as a force at all, the NATIONAL RESERVOIR. , Effeet of Recent Storm in Europe • TURBULENT SEA TAKES ITS TOLL French cargo ship Yser was duelled against the rocks of Belle off the French coast and abandoned by the crew who jumped to the Island rocks. into one playground. or one labor mart. Spain's King Talks WOMEN OF I'ORTUI1E • Before the war society was a pre- serve. Even I can remember being told as a child that a certain eminent peer and landowner was a Liberal and along the way. At Sault Ste. Marie therefore, of course, outside the pale the car went aboard a passenger as represented by county recognition! steamer to Port Arthur. At Port Arthur a welcoming com- mittee. including the Mayor and the officials of the radio club, met the car, as she rode off the gangplank. It was the first radio intei.:fei:ence car that had been seen in the city, The engineer was tendered a banquet, at Today society is a national reser- voir, into which flows all that is most vigorous, whether it be good or bad. Scum always rises to the surface, so we are apt to hear too much about the 'fast" or "smart" sets, which are totally unimportant exoept in so far as they mislead public opinion. which 400 radio officials, -dealers and The effect of the war on social life fans of the district sat down. During' generally has been to make work an the' two weeks that the car stayed in aeknowledged necessity. Society plays Port Arthur and Fort William it more openly than it used to in the cleared both cities of inductive inter- days of guarded; -portals, but it works During the war two-thirdsat least . -O �s or f the men who belonged to contem- ovary society were killed. Inevitably their places were taken . by represen- tatives of what is vaguely known as the middle-class, and these married into families who before 1914 were too self-sufficient even to have in- vited them to dances! It was the .middle-class girls who could not marry, becouse their men- folk had followed the natural impulse to compete for the biggest available prizes. Another result of the war vas to put a great many fortunes into the hands of women. So many ,heirs were killed and their sisters, who would normally have been.content with the pittance allowed, to female children by our system of primogeniture, found them- selves landowners and free to marry where they wished: Consequently the last ten years have seen a social evolution caused by the infusion of nes- strains with standards of work and ambition un- known before the war. The effect of such has been even more salutary than the revolution, guided by newsy 'liberated youth which realized that the society Eden grew only one sort of apple! With the war 'vas evolved a certain mental elasticity, inseparable from the demands made on feminine as well as masculine adaptability. As long as this endures, society will be fluid rather than static, and, like every other modern condition, it will be subject to growth. I am myself convinced that most of the evils in the world spring rather from our bad hearts than from our stupid minds. Socrates considered stupidity the cause of wickedness; I should say rather that wickedness is the cause "of stupidity.—Bertrand Russell. 0 s p , ference. A Merry Xmas with a monstrously uneven And Personal Cards distribution, not only of wealtkf but. Your friends would prefer thein and of opportunity, there is today no you will . have a lot of fun preparing movement for the improvement of your own Christmas .Cards this year. labor conditions which is not support - Make it Personal, send an individual ed by the names of both the oldand new society. The most insistent critics of modern life are those who, depended on Vic- torian restrictions' for their power or prosperity. These lament the experi- ments of a generation which is .out to find the best wherever, and however, into a .eat and printed along with a it has been produced. vGr r Listing the tools necessary for th » he suggests that the artistic tier. 'lake a elft in battleship lino. 1r either .print it herself through wringer or have it done by both harder and inore productively. It acknowledged a evider responsi- bility. Whereas before the war it was greeting to your friends that reflects your personality or the life of, your henie. Mabel Iteagh' Butchins'volun- t,rers a, number of suggestions as to Christmas card ideas in the current issue of "Your Home Magazine". She lista` thri photograph• of the homo-inado But they are defeated, not only by the modern spirit of adventurewhich makes friends where it chooses and marries where its Common sense ra- ther than its inhibitions dictates, but kvold the stilted typo oi' by the facility of transport which .0Ys. • ' has reduced the whole civilised world Stolen Bands I3usl Telegraph Coming to Light Informs Africans King's, Vienna Police Say. Securities of Ines Axe_ Property of Bank News Spreads Through Wilds and Natives Assemble Along Route Which Prince of Wales Travels ori, His Hurried Re- turn to the Coast States liner Leviathan 'while in tran- London. ----How the mysterious tele sit from New York to Paris. graph . of the African natives, which Six of these bonds, each, of $1,000 the white roan never has fathomed, value, were presented to a Vienna 'spread the news of the King's illness bank which advised the police,' Since and the race of the Prince of Wales then 204 additional bonds were traced to the coast from his hunting camp to vfonna was described by Sir Percival Phillips, HAILS RIFLE]) LAST JUNE special correspondent of the Daily Mails aboard the Leviathan were Mail, in a dispatoh from Dar -Es- Salaam. rifled last June, the amount of the loot in New York Vienna.—Tho police announced re-* gently that they have recovered $210,- 000 worth of Tokio electric light bonds, the propertx of the New York Guaranty Trust Company, whichwere stolen last August on the United Sir Percival cabled: "The inhabi- being variously estimated from $500,- tants, both white and black, assent. 000 to $6,000. New York postal in- bled along the route of the Prince's. spoctors at the time said the amount1. special train, showing sympathy foe was not more than $10;000. the Prince of Wales. New Telephone Link . Cuts Columbus's Message Time From Months to Minutes New York.—Columbus was more than two months crossing the Atlantic for the Queen of Castile, and his let- ters grid gifts to her from the islands of the Caribbean were almost as long in reaching her. That was more than 400 years ago. There is a new dynasty in Spain and—not least of other changes -a telephone that has reached ot from tile New World and penetrated even to the seat of the kingdom that was Isabella's, and the King of Spain has used it to talk to one of his own Bourbon lineage, 3,000 miles away in New York City. The conversation at the New York enol was from the office of Hernand Beim, executive vice-president of the International Telephone & Telegraph Corporation, where Infante Senor Don Alfonso de Orleans, first cousin to the King, and Infanta Senora Dona Beatris:talked with King Alfonso and the Queen Mbther, Queen Cristina, in the royal palace in Madrid. It required only a few moments to link the new world and the old world. While the Infante and Infanta were in the office of Col. Sosthenes Behn, president of the corporation, receiv- ing a few of the higher officials, the ocean spanning connection was made. King Alfonso and the Infante spoke for 32 minutes, while. the latter told about his reception in this country and his delight in finding such great interest in the United States in things pertaining to Spain. C. E. Claiahen, head of the postal inspection service in New York, said News Travels Fast "News travels fast in the bush. ' that the theft of the Guaranty Trust Natives living in the vicinity of the Company bonds was not discovered railroad already knew from their "until some time after" the Leviathan. mysterious wireless. the purport of the mail theft in June. � Prince's journey. The women paused 3. L. O'Neill, vice-president of thel amid their cooking pots. The men Guaranty Trust Company, said that were curious but impassive. the dispatch from Vienna was a mis- "A stray.European comes to m) take and that no - bonds belonging to 1 carriage, in his battered helmet, khaki the company had been stolen on the shirt and shorts, eager for a morsel Leviathan or elsewhere. of news denied •to him in his life of "We have had no losses of the kind," solitude." he said. "I understand that the se- Sir Percival then presented a plc, curities lost on the Leviathan, though ture of the Prince's arrival at Dar. originally repotted in the millions, Es -Salaam: "Tropical darkness, damp were later found to be worth only and oppressive, enveloped Dar -Es. $10,000 or $20,000." Salaam in its suffocating clasp when the Prince's special train entered the station at 8.05 p.m. The Governor, Discuss Plight of Sir D. C. Cameron, and his chief sec- retary were waiting on the platform, The Prince conversed with them earnestly. "The Prince descended the steps to the street into the glare of a single electric lamp. He paused and looked in wonderment at the scene. The crowd, which had been ordered to keep clear of the exit, forgot its usual discipline and rushed wildly to obtain a closeup view, but there was dead serious stage that all political parties silence. are viewing the matter with the ut- "The Prince entered his automobile most concern and the Miners' Federa- still wearing his safari dress, inelud- One of the most important things in life , is the illusion oe the import- ance of the things that are not im- portant.—Robert Lynd. Miners, in 13,ritain All Political Parties View Un- employment With Ut- most Concern London.—The plight of unemployed miners in Britain has reached such a ben has issued an appeal for assist- ance. Nearly 300,000 mine workers are out of employment, and of these 2.00,P00 to 250,000 constitute a perm- anent unemployed surplus. ing a shirt with half -sleeves and no coat , and a khaki helmet. The watchers then cheered him." With their wives and children, this Railway Agent means that over 1,000,000 souls are faced with a cataclysm comparable to Lauds Loyalty l speedily forthcoming. The Miners' Federation, in its ap- of IndianHelp peal, says: "The mining population is faced with a catacysm comparable to the destruction wrought by some great earthquake or other giant disturbance of nature. Some of the miners have exhausted their unemployed benefit and are being supported bp grants from the poor law, which naturally are small, and the courts are filled with stories of hungry miners tramp- ing the countryside in search of work. The miners natural reluctance to leave the mines is also responsible for much distress and in the valleys of South Wales their mental attitude makes the transfer of them to other areas a difficult undertaking. They are so accustomed to being hedged in between hills that they regard the out- side world as foreign, and it is even difficult 'to get them to allow their daughters to go to London to work as domestic servants." Newspaper correspondents report terrible conditions. Men, women and children are living on the barest sub- sistence and thouzands of children are without boots in spite of all char- itable efforts. The unemployed are rapidly sinking into a state of utter hopelessness. Mount Etna Rampage Serious At left, steaming lava In the background. STREAMS OF LAVA SUBMERGE TOWN pouring downthe skip 1oun t Tina,with refugees, whose home were buried, Bengal Official Seeks to Keep Personal Touch of Em- ployer and Em- ployed Calcutta.—The appointment of "per- sonal officers" whose sole duty is to deal with the grievances of workers, was commended by N. Pearce, who urged that this system should bo uni- versally niversally adopted. Mr. Pearce, who is agent of the Eastern Bengal Railway, was speaking at the twenty-fifth ses- sion of the Indian Railway Conference Association. The problem of tackling labor troubles occupied the greater - portion of the presidential address. Get•back as quickly as possible, Mr. Pearce urged, to that personal toucli between the employer and the em• ployee that used to characterize rail way working. It was most essential that they should not lose sight of the important fact that India was still a ma hap (patriarchial country) and they must avoid the danger of sub• stituting for the old direct persona: touch between the District Officer and his staff a system whereby the per- sonal interest of the staff was handled by those who had no personal ac• quaintance with his needs. The officer must be imbued with tremendous enthusiasm for his work. He must get out of his Oleo and move about all over his section of the railway, so that not only would he know practically every pian indi- vidually, but, what was quite as lin• portant, he might be known by the staff. This might sound Utopian, but he was convinced that it was worth- while trying, so that there might bo an end to the suspicion that often expressed itself in labor unrest. Mr. Meighen Changes His Tune Quebec Soleil (Lib.): (At the con- ference of steel magnates at Bolevia, Miss., Arthur Meighen said that no other nation could hope to profit by the destruction ot another. This, says Le Soleil, Is a Liberal sentiment.) Who would have said that its three years time the Hon. Mr. Meighen. would wake up one morning almost a Liberal? To adore what formerly he used to condemn, to condemn the idols which he used to adore, to leave his old arguments and to state others which contradict them, to throw in tho waste paper, basket doctrines which once upon a time were dear to pini and 'to oppose others of them, this is what often happens to men who have had the time to refiect and mediate. Thus we were not greatly surprised to learn that the former Con;eervative leader had practically- denied racticallydenied his gods to approach tho prin. standing r.iples of his adversaries which ii ' .,. 1 l long ago he used to fight..