AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3757, 16 March 1926, Page 35

AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

THE WORLD COURT. WASHINGTON, March 8.

Tlie Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain the attempted legal challenge to the participation of the United States in the World Court.

Mr Benjamin Catchings, a Washington lawyer, last month filed a petition in the United States Supreme Court requesting it to restrain Mr F. B. Kellogg (Secretary of State) from carrying out stejw to complete American adherence to the World Court because the Protocol would create a tribunal higher than the Supreme Court itself and would de!e«a*e sovereign powers from the United States Government to the World Court, thus violating the American Constitution.

AMERICAN WHEAT. WASHINGTON, March 9. The Department of Agriculture announced that the wheat on tlie farms on March 1 amounted to about 99.279,000 bushels or 4.8 per cent of the 1925 crop, as compared with 122,042,000 bushels or 13 per cent, of the crop of 1924 held on the same date last year. The wheat in the country mills and elevatcrs totalled 75,249,000 bushels or 11.3 per cent, compared with 67.622,0C0 bushels or 7.8 per cent, on the same date last year. About 68.6 per cent of the wheat held on the farms will be shipped out • f the * ‘Unties where it was grown compared tfith 71.3 per cent, of the 1924 cron.

DAMNED SOULS’ CLUB. NEW YORK, March 9

Tlie American Aspociaticfi for the Advancement of Atheism lias announced that atheistic societies similar to '‘The Damned Souls’ Club” at the University of Rochester will shortly be established. In many colleges throughout the country. Mr Freeman Hopwood, the general secretary, declared that it was expected to establish branches at Yale aud the University of Kansas within a few days, with the likelihood that at least a dozen branches will be functioning by the end of the present term. Mr Hopwood said: ‘‘Our association will supply t era with literature and co-operate in every way. We especially endorse invilw irofessaro to address and advise them. Experience has shown that the United States has a goodly percentage of professors who are atheists, *'

THE AMERICAN TYPE. SAN FRANCISCO. March 8. The Los Angeles Times says that Pola Negri has announced that she will marry Rudolph Valentino after a four months’ “separation test," if their love fer each other remains the same. Miss Negri declined to call the arrangement an ordinary engagement, because it souud like a business arrangement.

THE NEW AMERICAN. WASHINGTON, March 8.

The Smithsonian Institution has published the studies made by Dr Ales Hrdlicka, following 16 years’ investigation, stating that there is developing a new and distinct “American type’ 'of man, tall and sanguine.

Dr Hrdlicka, besides collecting a vast amount of morphological data, subjected to measurement more than a thousand Americans whose lineage had been traced as far back as the year 1700. lie found that the new American is the tallest of all the larger groups of white people, that he has hair of medium pigmentation, and that there is a scarcity of adult blonds and almost an absence of blacks. The main characteristicr of the behavior cf the new type of Americans are generally frankness and openness, yet shrewdness, energy, and persistence, with generally little sentimentality or affection, and relatively few extremes, except perhaps in industrial, financial and occasionally religious endeavour. This type is not Nordic, but like the British, is intermediate.