AMERICAN LETTER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17285, 28 September 1916, Page 4

AMERICAN LETTER.

INFANTILE PARALYSIS

A WIDESPREAD EPIDEMIC.

[From Our Correspondent, j

NEW YORK, August 25

New York City lias more than 7500 cases of infantile paralysis, and there have been more than 1700 deaths. In Now Jersey there are more than 2000 cases, and the epidemic is spreading over New ; England and the Middle West. Hundreds of towns have established rigid quarantine laws, forbidding the arrival of children under sixteen years of age. Although it has been reported several times that the germ of this disease lias been isolated, the physicians seem to he as far from that goal as over. The inysteriousness of the malady and the obsolute lack of any definite knowledge as to how it is spread have much to do with the panicky feeling of the public, for not in a good many years lias an epidemic produced such widespread alarm. THE It AIL WAY MEN. A nation-wide railroad strike is

threatened by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. If declared, it might be the greatest disaster this country has experienced since the Civil War, but present indications point to a settlement of the controversy. The railroads were willing to arbitrate, but the engineers wero hot. When matters had reached a crisis President Wilson stepped into the situation. The President declared that the engineers’ demand of an eight-hour day was just, and should bo granted, and he is now trying to compel the railroads to make this concession. Tile railroads reply that the matter is one for arbitration, and that the concession of an eight-hour day would add fifty million dollars a year to their running expenses, forcing many roads into bankruptcy. The President replies- that lie will exert his influence over tho Interstate Commerce Commission in favour of an increase in freight rates sufficient to balance the losses an eight-hour day would cause. Under pressure from the President, tho railroads seem about to surrender, but very unwillingly. They contend that tho engineers are more highly paid than any other class of wprkcrs m all the Federation of Labour, that many of them receive more than SOOOdol a year, and that there is no justice in their demands. Owing. to the very high wages of the engineers, their refusal to consent to arbitration and the calamity they seem willing and almost eager to bring upon the whole industrial life of tho country, public sympathy does not seem to bo with them, and President Wilson is being attacked from many quarters for his stand in tho matter. This is the way Jacob M. Dickinson, Secretary of War under President Cleveland and now receiver of tho Rock Island railroad, sums up tho situation: “The plain issue is whether non operating the machinery of public utilities upon which depend not only practically all tho business of a hundred million people, hut their very lives, and the functions of all government, State and national, can enforce an arbitrary demand for increase of pay by threatening the general welfare of all the other peonlo. If the railroad managers should seek to enforce a demand for a reduction of pay by threatening a general lock-out, the people would immediately overwhelm them with righteous indignation! - If the railroad managers yield, the principlo of arbitration will he overthrown, the isstio merely will he postponed and not settled, and will return in aggravated form justified by confidence based upon success. It is a greater q'aestion than ono of compensation to employees or return upon' capital. .'lt "is vital to the life of tho American people, and they alone have tho power to settle it on a stable basis. The President has intervened. Some arc saying that he has been tho arbitrator, and that in this way the principle has, been maintained. This contention is manifestly false, and is made to mislead the public thought. The President bus not made and cannot make such claim. The employees distinctly refuse all arbitration of tho demand for an eighthour day. Tho railroad managers have never made him an arbitrator. He has publicly “announced that the question of an eight-hour day was not arbitrable. If ho is not clearly right lie has dealt a severo blow .to the principle of arbitration. Ho bases his conclusion entirely on a premise that society has determined thfft the eight-hour day m'iist be adopted. This premise will be denied earnestly and honestly by a largo part of the American people.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE. Although tho platform of his party declares that the woman suff rage question should bo left for each State to settle for itself, Justice Hughes, much to tho surprise of many of 'his admirers, announces that ho is in favour of a Federal amendment granting the right to vote to the women of the entire country. This announcement is hardly calculated to create widespread enthusiasm in tho great Atlantic and Middle Western States, where woman suffrage has been defeated by very large majorities, bat perhaps it will liolp the Republican Presidential candidate among the woman voters of tho Far West, for Mr Wilson, heading the Democratic ticket, while endorsing suffrage, thinks it is a State and not a Federal question. A million billboards throughout tho United States are to ho used in the women’s campaign to “put out of power the party that opposes nation-wide suffrage for women.” This was tho announcement made at tho headquarters of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage and the National Woman’s Party. No Western Congressman, it was said, would bo able, to go home without seeing suffrage signs along - tho railroads and elsewhere. When the Congressman steps off tho train at his homo station ho will he greeted with a life-sized picture of the “girl of the Woman’s Party,” made famous by the cartoons in the “Suffragist.’ The purple, white and gold of the Congres- - sional Union and the Woman’s Party will give colour to the posters. Tlio suffragist girl, painted on large wooden signs, will stand in many places on mountain, plain and prairie. The women of the Woman’s Party are coining t-hoir enthusiasm into epigrammatic phrases to bo used in tho billboard campaign. “ Until all the women of the United States are free, none are free: Vote against the Democratic Party ”; “ Tho Democratic Party blocks the way to freedom of American women,” and “Tlio women of tho East appeal to the women of the West to help them get tlio vote and freedom,”

are among the signs selected.

THE MEXICAN TROUBLE. Secretary of Stato Lansing has announced the names of the three American members of the International Joint Commission, by means of f which the American and Mexican JGovernments hope to reach an amicable settlement of the differences growing out of the presence of American soldiers in Mexico and bandit raids along the border. The American members of the commission are:—Franklin K Lane, Secretary of the Interior; George Gray, former member of the Federal Judiciary, and until recen ily Judge of the Third Judicial Circuit: Dr John R. Mott, general secretary of the World’s Student Christian Federation, and general secretary of the International Committee of the Young Men’s Christian Associations?

The Mexican Commissioners have been instructed to givo preferential consideration in the conferences to tho question of tho early withdrawal of tho American forces. When it became known 'to President Wilson that this had been done, inquiries were made to ascertain whether the do facto Government 'would assent to tho proposal in one of Secretary Lansing’s recent notes for broadening tho scope of the commission so as to embrace matters other than the questions of a withdrawal of tho American forces and an arrangement for joint protection of tho border against future raids. The do facto Government ga-vo assurances that it accepted tho suggestion of this Government for such a broadening of the powers of the commission. Tho Mexican Commissioners aro expected to insist from tho beginning on tho withdrawal of the American forces. There is every indication that this request will be granted, in view of the fact that General Funston, in response to a recent inquiry from Washington, has indicated that tho American forces may bo safely withdrawn. When the Joint Commission meets its members will not have plenary power. They will confer, freely with their respective Governments, and neither side is expected to yield anything without express authority from its Government. It is regarded as probable that withdrawal of the Pershing expedition would be followed soon by the recall of tho National Guard from the border. Some high officers of tho army believe that with Pershing’s men added to tho border patrol, and tho additional men provided under the new Army Bill, General Funston would have a sufficient force of regulars adequately to protect the border. Tt has been suggested that out of the discussion of economic conditions in Mexico might come assurances that would make it possible for American financial and commercial interests to offer aid in the rehabilitation of the Mexican republic. ANOTHER CELEBRATION. Reports from many parts of the country indicate that the observance

of Lafayette Day on September 6 will be on a national scale, thereby insuring for it a definite place in our calendar. New York. Boston, Washington, New Orleans and Fall River, Mass., are among tho cities in which preparations have been completed. In addition, Representatives of the Sons and Daughters of tho American Revolution are arranging programmes in hundreds of other cities. A committee of 100 has been invited to take charge of the celebration in New York. Theodore Roosevelt-. George W. Wickersliam, Vincent Astor, Robert Bacon, Mayor Mitchel, August Belmont and Major-General Leonard Wood are among those requested to serve. The Anniversary Committee has had prepared thousands of tri-colour badges to be sold throughout tho country for ten cents apiece ou Lafayette Day, the proceeds to bo devoted to the Lafayette Fund, THE PRODUCTION OF PAPER.

“ Over two-thirds of the more than a billion pounds of wood pulp imported into the United States during the fiscal year ended Juno 30. 1916, and used in the manufacture of paper, came from Canada,” according to a communication to the National Geographic Society from John Oliver La Gorce, and issued by the society as a bulletin in cnnection with tho Government’s inquiry into tho increase in the cost ot newspaper. “The pulp importations for 1915-16 have been pounds less than for the previdus twelvo months, yet the amount shipprtkto us from Canada during tnc past year was 130,000,000 pounds in excess ot her 1914.-15 shipments. Duriftg the year just closed nearly 70 per cent - of our 1 135,000,000 pounds ot pulp came from our neighbour to the north, while most of the remaining 30 per cent camo from Norway and Sweden. . “The enormous volume and importance of the paper manufacturing industry in tho United States is seldom realised by tlio chief beneficiary, too average reader. According to the most recent- figures of tho United States Department of Commerce (1914), the value of the annual production ot tho paper mills of this country exceeds 330.000.000 dollars. Over 50.000,000 dollars of this sum is represented in newspaper 1 313 284 tons, or enough to print ton and a half .billion fourtcen-pago eightcolumn papers. The book paper (plain, coated and cover) output was valued at--73,000.000 dollars in 1914, an increase of 34 per cent over 1909. Tho weight of this class of paper was 1.869.958,000 pounds —enough to print thirty-three standard size magazines of 120 pages each for every man, woman and child in the United States.”

THE DAY OF THE MELODRAMA. Never has there been a time when so many first-class theatres have been devoted to melodrama. The vogue or the sex plays and psychological palsy has disappeared. To-day the detective and the thief hold the stellar roles. In tho latest big success in New York, a play called “ Cheating Cheaters,” every character —even the heroine—belongs to the criminal classes. A VISIT TO FRANCE.

A commission of American business men, formed under the auspices of tho American Manufacturers’ Export Association, will sail on the Lafayette tomorrow for France to'make a scientific study of industrial conditions in that country rising out of tho present war. The body has the official sanction of France and tho United States in its mission. Its purpose will not be directly commercial, but rather the commission will make a careful survey, of industry in Franco and try to determine in what manner the merchants of tho United States may best aid the sister republic in its task of rehabilitation at tho end of the war. When the French Industrial Commission visited tho United States in the winter of 1915-

1916, they made a suggestion that a like visit to their country be made by Americans. This .proposal was taken up immediately by the American Manufacturers’ Export Association and will become a fact with tho sailing of the Lafayette. Pamphlets have already boon circulated throughout France telling the purpose of tho visit of the commission.. This, according to ono of thorn, “ has for its main purpose a helpful investigation of industrial conditions in France, which is contemplating, on a scale unparalleled in history, n rehabilitation of hot countries and industries, now and after tho war; to determine tho most effective manner in which American facilities may contribute to the recovery of a structure damaged, and in many instances destroyed by tho ravages of war; in fine to promote, by active co-operation, with our French collaborators, an intimato commercial relationship between the two nations.” The commission, which is composed of men at the head of their various fields of industry, represents all of the important spheres of American business.

The sale of 1,500,009 motor-cars in the United States in tho next twelve months is predicted by Horace do Lisser, chairman of tho Ajax Rubber Company, who bases his opinion chiefly upon the growth of general business and increasing interest shown by the agricultural population in popular priced cars. If wheat crops are poor, ho says, others are not far from their best recent averages, and tho buying power of 6,000,000 farm owners is a factor of great importance to any manufacturing business in the output of which the farmer is interested. Tlio manufacturers expect to reap much benefit frum heavy car sales and aro providing for a corresponding increase in output. Assuming that each car will consume six tyres a year and that the 3,000,000 cars already running remain in commission at tho end of another year, annual tyre requirements will reach 27,000,000, which would mean something like 500,000,000 dollars to the tyre manufacturers. Further expansion of building and general manufacturing activity on the present scale should cause even greater expansion in the motor-ear and tyro industries next year, is the opinion of Mr de Lisser, the only dangerous element in the situation being the labour problem and its effect upon prices.