AMERICA TODAY

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 128, 1 June 1935, Page 16

AMERICA TODAY

THE BARD OF AVON

ESKIMO CULTURE

A PEIEST'S PREFERENCE

(From "Tho Post's" Representative.)

NEW YORK:, May 8.

The 371st anniversary of the birth oi Shakespeare was commemorated by two ceremonies at the statue of the bard in Central Park. The American Shakespearean Society co-operated with Great Britain in the memorial. A wreath and a white rose were- placed at the foot of the monument, and the proceedings were broadcast here and relayed to Stratford-on-Avon and the rest of the United Kingdom by the National Broadcasting Company. There were readings by Otis Skinner and Miss Ethel Barrymore—the Macbeth soliloquy and Portia's appeal. Miss Katherine Cornell deposited a wreath on be- j half of the National Shakespeare Federation. Daniel Frohman, dean of American producers, delivered a panegyric, declaring: "Shakespeare lives today because he left behind him characters that are as genuinely human now as when he portrayed them." A GAUGE OF LIFE. An "hour-glass" of life, which literally peers into the eye of the beholder, and tells him how fast he is ageing, and how many years of life he still has ahead of him—barring accident or bacterial disease—was reported for the first time before the National Academy of Sciences. The discovery, regarded as highly significant, both in its social and medical implications, was made after years of research at the University of Gottingen by Dr. Felix Bernstein, now of Columbia University. His method and apparatus rriay be likened to an instrument which combines the functions of a speedometer and petrol gauge. It recorded accurately, the life expectancy of 2500 individuals in Germany, whose deaths occurred at the calculated time. Dr. Bernstein found the key to the ageing processes of the body hidden in the human eye, the lens of which becomes less elastic as the individual reaches middle age. He found direct correlation between the hardening of lens and arteries. . .. ESKIMOS AND AMERICANS. Comparison between the culture of Eskimos and Americans is made, to the detriment of the latter, by the "Glacier Priest," the Rev. B. R. Hubbard, who has lived with Eskimos for varying periods during the past decade. Compared with Eskimos, he said, "Americans are living in an era of 'chisellation' and a state of Moronia." Returning from his latest" sojourn in Alaska, he declared that the Arctic natives "are living in a high state of culture and civilisation. This is more than I can say about Americans today. We have information which we substitute for education. We have better mechanical instruments, but the simple peoples have better brains. They have no machines to do their work and their thinking for them. Economically, Eskimo life is sound, unless ruined by contact with outside civilisation. They never have any depressions. Theirs is a perfect sample of communal ence."AMERICAN FLEET DEFENDS COAST. The most comprehensive manoeuvres in peace time are now being carried out .by the fleet, comprising 153 ships, associated with 446 aeroplanes, in a strategic defence from attack on the Pacific area. From the Aleutians, southward to Midway Island, 1200 miles;, west of Hawaii, to the Pacific Coast, is the theatre of operations—some 5,000,000 square miles of ocean. Among the ships are twelve battle cruisers, lour aircraft carriers, including the latest, the Ranger, and five of the most modern .10,000-ton cruisers. The manoeuvres, designed to test strategy for coast defence, are being carried out to the accompaniment of sensational charges in Japanese newspapers that they are aimed at the Japanese mandated . islands in the Pacific. On the eve of the fleet's departure to sea, the House, of Representatives, with a thundering chorus of "Ayes," passed the record naval peace vote of 460,000,000 dollars, to build the United States navy up to treaty strength. SOCIAL JUSTICE PARTY. . While the country is endeavouring to assimilate the huge programme of social security devised by President Roosevelt, the Social Justice Party is being inaugurated by the Rev. C. E. Coughlin, the "Radio Priest." In the words of its founder, it is the party's intention to "drive out of public life the men who have promised us redress, who have preached to us the philosophy of social justice, and then practised the philosophy of plutocracy." He outlined its objectives:—"To uphold and defend the right of private ownership of property, aright that must be always subordinated to the inalienable supremacy of human rights; to protect the masses against the greed and domination of, and exploitation by, powerful vested interests; and to promote common welfare by inculcating in all persons the principles of social justice." Huey Long observed: "This programme is right down my alley," as he pleaded, for the support of the priest to his Share-the-Wealth Party. LINDBERGH TO COMMAND. Colonel Lindbergh is expected to command the first flight of the PanAmerican clipper service between California and China, when it is inaugurated shortly. Tests of the radio-direction equipment in trial flights to Honolulu and back were a pronounced success.