CHAPTER VII
SPEECHES, INTERVIEWS, AND REPORTS
=Type of story.= Speeches, lectures, addresses, and sermons may be considered in the same class with interviews and reports, because all are alike in being some form of utterance. Hence news stories of them consist largely of reproductions of the words and ideas of some person. A speech and a report differ only in the fact that one is spoken and the other is written. An interview, likewise, may be regarded as an informal address delivered to an audience of one. When an interview is given in question and answer form, it resembles cross-examination in a court story more than it does a speech.
As reproductions of utterances, news stories of speeches and reports must be largely informative. Except for an occasional opportunity to describe the speaker or the audience, they offer practically no field for human interest development. In interviews, on the other hand, it is possible to bring out the human interest element in portraying the character and personality of the person interviewed (cf. “Interview,” p. 135). Otherwise interviews, like speeches and reports, are largely informative (cf. “Interview with Official,” p. 133).
=Purpose.= To reproduce as accurately as possible the ideas expressed by a speaker, by a person interviewed, or by the author of a report is obviously the only object in writing a news story dealing with such material. Four common faults that endanger the accuracy of news stories of this type are carelessness in taking down what is said, the playing up of statements that taken from their context are misleading, unintentional distortion due to giving disproportionate space or emphasis to some points, and misrepresentation because of political partisanship or other bias. All quotation, direct or indirect, should be accurate not only in substance and form but also in spirit. A statement taken verbatim from a speech, interview, or report, may be played up in the lead in such a way that it does not give the actual thought or purpose of the original. By confining his news story to only one or two phases of the subject discussed, a writer often gives an erroneous impression of the whole speech. Distortion and suppression of speeches, interviews, or reports because of political or other bias is indefensible.
=Treatment.= Since news stories of this class must consist largely of direct and indirect quotation from an utterance, the problem of presenting news of this kind is usually that of condensing, summarizing, and combining different parts of the available material into a unified, coherent whole. This requires effort and skill.
In writing up interviews and speeches the reporter has a chance to portray clearly and attractively the speaker and the circumstances, thus stimulating the reader’s interest in the utterance (cf. “Interview,” p. 136). As the purpose of an interview is to present the ideas of the person interviewed, the reporter’s questions, which are a necessary means of obtaining an expression of these ideas, are suppressed in many stories. In other stories, the questions are embodied in the answers or are repeated by the person interviewed. There is a growing tendency, particularly in signed stories of interviews, to give the reporter’s questions.
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SPEECH
_Kansas City Star_
Switzerland is a haven of peace in a weary waste of war. Why? Charles H. Grasty answered that question Wednesday in his address before the City Club. It is because Switzerland, a valorous David, inspires respect from the Goliaths that surround the little republic. And Switzerland has said that it would defend its neutrality with all its strength.
Switzerland is the best equipped for fighting--size considered--of all the nations. Every man from 20 to 48 is a trained soldier. Those who are unable physically to qualify are formed into trade and professional groups and are available for supplementing the work of the army.
The system is compulsory, but it is also a voluntary system, since it was installed by the direct vote. The people of Switzerland decided that they were free citizens of a free republic, and that it was their duty to keep it a free country. Every man is more than willing to do his bit, and the service is held in such high respect that bankrupts and criminals are denied the privilege of taking part in the national defense. Instead, they are required to pay a special tax in lieu of service.
It is surprising how little time each man is required to contribute to the army. He enlists at 20, and that year he spends from sixty to ninety days in training, according to the branch of the service to which he is attached.
From then on he spends two weeks a year, for a period of years, in brushing up the military knowledge he gained and in acquiring new training. That is all. There is no rigid system that compels him to give up from two to five of his most fruitful years to service with the colors. It’s a free man’s system, conducted by free men.
The system begins in the public schools, where every boy is compelled to take athletic training. Several hours a week are spent teaching the youngsters military subjects, so that when the boy reaches his twentieth year he is a piece of fine timber. His body is strong, and he has some knowledge of what discipline means. Every boy gets the preliminary training, even in the private schools.
At 20 he enlists in the “elite” or first line. For two or three months he receives intensive training. They make real work of it while it lasts, but they are over with it quickly.
The rudiments of military life are drilled into the new recruits without any waste of time or money.
Soldiers and corporals, after the first year, go back every year for two weeks’ training until they are 27 years old, and then they are through, except for a final training trip when they enter the second line division, which begins at the age of 33. Noncommissioned officers and subalterns go back every year during their first line service, and once every four years in the second line service, which lasts until the age of 41. From 41 to 48 years is the age division for the third line.
Officers are not appointed through civil authorities but are selected for merit and by examination after they have completed the special courses offered by the government for those who desire commissions. The officers give more time to their studies than the privates, and they assemble quite often for war games and tactical discussions.
That is all there is to the system. There is no standing army, no military class, no terrible burdens of taxation. There is a general staff, a few officers to look after the details of recruiting and a number of instructors--less than two thousand men in all who are connected permanently with the army.
Yet in 1912 a fighting force of 490,430 men was available out of a total population of 4 million. The expense of the whole system that year was $8,229,941, or $16.77 a man.
In the United States in 1913 94 million dollars was spent on the army--ten times and more above what Switzerland spent--and all it paid for was a scant ninety thousand fighting men. An army less than one-fifth as large as Switzerland’s cost more than ten times as much.
As an economic proposition it would appear that compulsory service was a better bargain in defense than the American system as it exists today.
The strong point of the Swiss system is that it renders every man available for defense without imposing a burdensome tax on the country. The Swiss citizen becomes an actual, tangible part of his country. He takes pride in the citizen army, and in many cases the government fosters semi-official societies that aim to give additional training to those who care for it.
The beautiful thing about the Swiss plan is that it works. Surrounded by thundering cannon, Switzerland is at peace.
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NOTE--_Following the lead given below was a verbatim report of the speech._
SPEECH
_New York Times_
Strict neutrality, extreme caution in the publication of unconfirmed news, and “America first” were the keynotes of a speech by President Wilson that aroused great enthusiasm among newspaper editors and publishers from all parts of the country at the luncheon of The Associated Press at the Waldorf-Astoria yesterday.
Each telling point the President made in his speech, every word of which he seemed to weigh before uttering, was applauded by the audience of more than 300 at the tables and by a gallery of about 100 men and women.
The importance attached to his clear statement of the neutrality policy of his Administration was reflected in a request made by Melville E. Stone, Secretary and General Manager of The Associated Press, just before the Chief Magistrate was introduced, that all newspaper reports of the President’s speech be based on the verbatim copy to be taken by a stenographer and supplied to all of the newspapers and news-gathering associations represented.
Frank B. Noyes of The Washington Star, President of The Associated Press, praised President Wilson’s masterful maintaining of true neutrality, and said that the President had borne his great responsibility nobly. The applause that the laudatory remarks received would have done justice to a Democratic Nominating Convention. All arose and drank a toast to the President, and arose again when the orchestra struck up “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and again when the President stood up to speak.
In introducing President Wilson, the guest of honor, Mr. Noyes made brief reference to the scope of The Associated Press, saying he believed that, in scope and importance, it was “the greatest co-operative non-profit making organization in the world.” Its function, he said, was to furnish its members a service of world news untainted and without bias of any sort.
“To insure this,” he said, “we have formed an organization that is owned and controlled by its members, and by them alone; one that is our servant and not our master. So we are here today, Democrats and Republicans; Protestants, Catholics, and Jews; Conservatives and Radicals, Wets and Drys; differing on every subject on which men differ, but all at one in demanding that, so far as is humanly possible, no trace of partisanship and no hint of propaganda shall be found in our news reports.
“Because of its traditions and its code, and perhaps also because of the never ceasing watchfulness of 900 members, it has come to pass that few people on earth are capable of giving the management of The Associated Press any points on maintaining a strict, though benevolent, neutrality on all questions on which we can be neutral and still be what we are--loyal Americans. We know, too--none better--that the genuine neutral, the honest neutral, is always the target of every partisan, and we find some solace in the fact that this is now being demonstrated to the world at large.
“Today, however, we willingly lower our crest to one who has demonstrated in these agonizing times his mastership of the principles of true neutrality, and who, fully realizing the dreadful consequences of any departure from these principles, has nobly borne his terrible burden of responsibility in guarding the peace, the welfare, and the dignity of our common country.
“Our distinguished guest, who so honors us today, may surely know that in the perplexities and trials of these days, so black for humanity, he has our thorough, loyal, and affectionate support.
“God grant him success in his high aims for the peaceful progress of the people of the United States.”
After the toast and cheers and hand-clapping, the Grand Ballroom became silent as the President began speaking.
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SPEECH
_Madison [Wis.] Democrat_
WASHINGTON, Dec. 31.--The place of united pan-America in the situation which will confront the world at the end of the European war was pictured to the Pan-American Scientific Congress today by Director General John Barrett of the Pan-American union.
The delegates were electrified by his prediction of an evolution of the Monroe doctrine into a pan-American doctrine for a mutual defense against aggression from overseas.
He defined such a doctrine as meaning “that the Latin-American republics, in the event that the United States were attacked by a foreign foe, would, with all their physical and moral force, stand for the protection and sovereignty of the United States just as quickly as the United States under corresponding circumstances would stand for their integrity and sovereignty.”
Wherever the pan-American delegates gathered the director general’s declaration was discussed with the greatest interest and it was regarded generally as one of the outstanding events of the congress, pointing the way to a new pan-American unity.
“Both victor and vanquished in the European war will be hostile to America at the close of hostilities,” said he. “The former will say it won in spite of the attitude of the United States and the other American republics, and the latter will say it lost because of the attitude of the United States and its sister republics.
“In the mind of everybody interested in pan-Americanism is the question, ‘What is going to happen to pan-America when this war is over?’ Immediately there is the reply: ‘The American republics must stand together for the eventualities that may possibly develop.’
“While everyone would deplore any agitation or suggestion that a European nation or a group of European nations following this struggle should undertake any territorial aggrandizement in the western hemisphere, or in any way take action that would contravene the Monroe doctrine, it must be borne in mind, and cannot be for a moment overlooked, that whatever way this war results there may be little or no love for the United States and the other nations which form pan-America.
“No matter, therefore, how just and fair the nations of America have been in their efforts to preserve their neutrality and in no way interfere on either side of this conflict, the war passions and the war power of the peoples and the governments of the victorious group of nations may force a policy toward pan-Americanism, toward the Monroe doctrine, and toward their relationship with individual countries of the western hemisphere which will demand absolute solidarity of action on the part of the American republics to preserve their very integrity.”
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SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT
_Kansas City Star_
INDIANAPOLIS, Jan. 8.--Half playfully, half earnestly, President Wilson told three thousand people at Richmond, Ind., this afternoon that this nation is heeding what is “none of your business”--Europe’s affairs. In place of this, he counseled serious deliberation on America’s business, its future and its part in the betterment of mankind. The nation, he said, must maintain its equilibrium; it must face, too, the problem of the future now that the administration has endeavored to break the shackles on American business.
The President said:--
“You know I have been confined for a couple of years at hard labor and am out on parole for a day or two, but I want to say this, my fellow citizens, that it is very genuine pleasure to me to get abroad again and stir among the people I so dearly love.
“Because the one thing we have to think about down in Washington is the best thing to do for you and the thing that you want us to do for you, and that is a mighty hard thing to find out, particularly when you are not thinking about your own affairs and are constantly thinking about what is none of your business, namely, what is going on on the other side of the water. I say that in playfulness, but I mean it half in earnest.
“It does not do, my friends, to divert our attention from the affairs of this great country.
“The duty which this country has to perform to the rest of the world largely depends upon the way in which it performs its duty to itself.
“I have always thought with regard to individuals that if a man was true to himself, he would then be true to other persons; and I believe that that applies to a great country like ours, that a nation that is habitually true to its own exalted principles of action will know how to serve the rest of mankind when the opportunity offers. That is a very deep philosophy of life which it is very thoroughly worth while living up to.
“We have been trying at Washington to remove some of the shackles that have been put upon American business; but after you have removed the shackles you must determine what you are going to do with your liberty. And there are many tasks to perform for mankind. There are many things to be bettered in this world which we must set ourselves to make better. So what I want to say to you now is merely this:
“Let us seek sober, common counsel about our own affairs, and then when the time comes, when we can act upon a larger field, there will be no mistake as to what America will do for the peace of the world, having found her own peace and having established justice in her own mind.”
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ADDRESS
_Chicago Tribune_
For many years Glencoe boasted a wonderful spring of pure water gushing from a bluff and running in crystalline beauty down to the lake. The spring was constant even in the dryest seasons. It always ran a generous, spirited stream, clear and cold. Then along came the village manager, a new official in the new order of things--H. H. Sherer, appointed to put the affairs of the suburb on a business basis.
In a curious moment Mr. Sherer shut off the water in the mains. Then he went back to the “spring” and awaited results. In forty minutes the perpetual spring ceased to flow.
Glencoe had been paying 7 cents a thousand gallons to pump the water that ran off into the lake night and day the year around.
The story of the spring was a part of Mr. Sherer’s address last night before the Wilmette Civic association. He explained the work of village management as a business enterprise and told of important savings gained.
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LECTURE
_New York Herald_
“I don’t believe in the public cooking of milk, or in the public cooking of anything else to be used in the home,” said Dr. Thomas Darlington, formerly Commissioner of Health in this city, during an illustrated lecture last night at the headquarters of the Agora, a civic association which is a branch of the John F. Curry Association, at No. 413 West Fifty-seventh street.
Unsanitary conditions under which milk was detected being brought into this city during his administration of the Health Department were described and shown in detail by Dr. Darlington, as well as the conditions under which the milk is pasteurized in up-State and local dairies.
“Pasteurization may be good, but personally I do not believe in it,” he said. “The object of pasteurization is the destruction of bacteria which it may contain by a process of heating the milk to from 140 to 160 degrees. It is not a process of boiling, but merely of bringing the milk to a percentage of heat at which the bacteria will be destroyed.
“In my opinion the home and not a public place is for the cooking of food products which are to be used in the home. It can and should be done just as well there as in any other place.”
An absolutely perfect milk supply is impossible in this city, according to Dr. Darlington, at a retail price of less than twenty cents a quart. To add to this the cost of pasteurization, he said, would raise the price still higher.
He pointed out that the excessive cost of production under conditions that would result in absolutely pure milk would make the retail price almost prohibitive.
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LECTURE
_St. Louis Globe-Democrat_
WASHINGTON, February 6.--Telling of times when dog meat--and the meat of starved-to-death dogs at that--tasted better than any porterhouse steak he had ever eaten; picturing a region where the average velocity of the wind is fifty miles, where a bunting flag goes to shreds in a few minutes, a flag of stoutest canvas is threshed to pieces in an hour, and a flag of tin is battered out of shape in the first gale, so that sheet iron is the material that must be used; describing sea elephants that weigh sometimes as much as four tons each and measure 25 feet in length, Sir Douglas Mawson has presented before the National Geographic Society one of the most remarkable stories of polar exploration that has ever come from those regions.
In his account of his researches along the great Antarctic continent discovered by Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes--the same Admiral Wilkes who figured in the historic Trent affair, in which he, during the American civil war, held up the British packet Trent, and removed from her, Mason and Slidell--Sir Douglas paid tribute to the explorer and his work.
Mawson and his party undertook the work under the patronage of the Australian Government. The steamer Aurora, formerly plying in American waters, was the ship that carried them away. A midway base with a wireless relay station through which the party could keep in touch with civilization, was established at Macquarie Island, which was on the old sailing ship route between Australia and Cape Horn and whose beaches are lined with the wrecks of many a ship. The main base was established at Cape Dennison, on the Antarctic continent, and a second base several hundred miles further east.
Pictures were brought back by Sir Douglas showing the nesting places of a number of birds of passage who go to the Polar continent to nest and whose eggs have never been seen before. The birds and sea elephants were absolute strangers to fear, and would inspect the camera man with as much seeming interest as the camera man inspected them.
The character of the winds that blow on the edge of the Antarctic Continent was graphically shown by the fact that the men had to lean out upon it, at an angle of perhaps forty-five degrees, to walk in the ordinary wind, while no camera could record anything but a blank when the blizzard was at its height.
The hut which was the headquarters of the party had one window, which was in the roof. The breath of the men and the steam of the kitchen caused this to become frosted over to the thickness of 5 inches. Men going out to take the records of the climatological instruments had to break the ice that froze before their faces, from one side of their hoods to the other, and pictures showing how their faces were covered with great patches of frost bite, told an eloquent story of suffering.
But the scene was not all somber. The cellar was a natural refrigerator, and consisted simply of the space under the floor of the hut. When the cook wanted a piece of meat he would send a dog down to get a penguin or a leg of mutton, and would take it away from him as he came out. One day the dog got away with a leg of mutton, which was rescued only after a chase of two hours, and then it was so damaged that the party voted to give it to the dogs, after all. Reading matter was in great demand. One of the party read the Encyclopedia Britannica through to the O’s.
Upon one occasion Sir Douglas set out with Mr. Mertz and Lieut. Ninnis on a coast charting expedition. After going about 200 miles Ninnis and his sledge were lost in a great crevasse. Hours of calling brought no response, and the smashed-to-pieces sledge at the bottom told a painful story of his fate. Thereafter Mawson and Mertz turned around and started back to camp. They ate all the dogs, one by one, as they died by starvation.
Finally there was only one dog left--Old Ginger. “Old Ginger was a noble animal,” said Sir Douglas, “and he was game to the last. But when he died of that sheer hunger of the Antarctic wilderness of ice and snow, Mertz and I had to eat his carcass. We ate the bony parts first, breaking every bone so as to get out the marrow. Raw dog meat may not sound attractive at a distance, or when one is this far removed from the ultimate hunger in which the stomach seems to attack its very self, but there it tasted as good as anything you ever ate.
“Finally Mertz began to sicken and to weaken, and in a few days,--January 17 it was,--he died. I almost turned cannibal, so starved out was my condition, but with it all I buried him, and then started back on the 100-mile journey that lay between me and safety. Sore of body and sick of mind, it was more by crawling than by walking that I was able to get back to camp only to see the Aurora disappearing over the horizon. It left provisions for me, however, and six men to search for me. Nothing but Providence saved me from the fate of Mertz and Ninnis.”
Sir Douglas showed pictures of beds of coal that tell of a time when tropic summer once reigned in this great home of the blizzards, and others revealing great ice cliffs with the stratified snows of a hundred winters upon them, each stratum standing out as clearly as though it were of sedimentary rock.
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INTERVIEW WITH OFFICIAL
_Indianapolis News_
WASHINGTON, October 28.--That the United States, in a business and financial sense, can now view the war in Europe without serious apprehensions is the opinion of George E. Roberts, director of the mint, one of the keenest economists in the government service. Mr. Roberts talked about the situation today and made it plain that despite many disadvantages he sees no danger to this country.
“The situation with respect to cotton,” said Mr. Roberts, “is the chief drawback. With the market for cotton limited and prices low, the south suffers seriously and the effect is felt on the entire country. The effects of the cotton situation, on the other hand, are to a considerable extent counteracted by the fact that in the north good prices are commanded by wheat, corn, live stock and other products of the northern farms.
“This country may expect to be fairly prosperous during the period of the war in Europe. Capital will be dear and this will tend to prevent the starting of new enterprises. We can not have really good times unless money can readily be obtained for new enterprises.
“I do not expect to see money available for the building of railroad improvements and extension and new lines. I do not expect to see new business enterprises to any considerable extent started while the war lasts. I expect to see business in many lines already established run along about as usual. In certain directions it will be improved.
“The European countries, which are now at war, will go on putting out one issue of securities after another. It is a question how much of that they can float without compelling holders of American securities abroad to dispose of our securities. On the whole, I should expect most of the ready capital in this country, which under the conditions would be hunting for investments in new enterprises, to be absorbed for some time to come in taking up American securities parted with by foreign holders.”
Mr. Roberts doubts whether the stock exchanges will soon reopen. He says one strong influence against it is the banks which have made loans on the basis of securities. They do not want, on the one hand, to call in their loans, and, on the other hand, they do not want to incur any danger of seeing stocks and securities they hold as collateral quoted at low figures. He thinks it will be a considerable time before the exchanges are reopened. He pointed out that it would be impossible long to dam up traffic in securities.
“Already they have in New York the ‘gutter market,’” said Mr. Roberts. “I am informed that the volume of business done in this way is considerable, and it will grow. You can not stop for any length of time the business of exchange. If the exchanges are closed the buyer and seller will find some other method of coming together.”
Due in part to the fact that the new federal reserve system will release a large volume of reserve money, and in part to the fact that the bankers and the country generally have recovered from the first shock of the war and now confront it without fear, Mr. Roberts thinks the banks will have plenty of money to lend. He looks for little disposition to lend money on new enterprises; but, on the other hand, he believes there will be plenty of money to advance to meet the needs of ordinary business and to extend the loans of the average borrower.
As for the settlement of American indebtedness to Europe, concerning which there has been much discussion of the shipment of American gold abroad, Mr. Roberts thinks this problem will be adjusted. He pointed out that it would be partly adjusted by the growing volume of sales to Europe. It will be partly adjusted by the individuals who owe the debt, and who obtain extension. In one way and another the volume of the debt will be whittled down so that, according to Mr. Roberts, this problem is not at all insurmountable. As for the cotton situation, he hopes to see this worked out by the pool.
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INTERVIEW WITH EDUCATOR
_Indianapolis News_
Exemplification. Two short breaths and a stutter and then as follows: e-x, ex; e-m, em, exem; p-l-i, pli, exempli; f-i, fi, exemplifi; c-a, ca, exemplifica; t-i-o-n, shun, exemplification; there’s your exemplification.
“Correct, Johnnie,” and the schoolmaster, with a spelling-book in one hand and a lamp in the other, sends Johnnie to the head of the line and walks on through the dimly lighted country school building, pronouncing “jaw breakers,” teaching the youth to tread the flowery paths of knowledge, and in all ways carrying out the plans of a good old-fashioned country spelling match.
Many men and women now well advanced in years learned to be good spellers largely by means of spelling matches supplemented by special spelling exercises on Friday afternoons. But Fassett A. Cotton, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, has some new ideas in regard to the best methods of teaching spelling, and this subject received considerable attention in the course of study which Mr. Cotton is now preparing, and which is to be used in the schools of the State during the coming year.
“Spelling,” says Mr. Cotton, “can not be taught incidentally. It must have the systematic attention of the teacher as a separate subject and his constant care in all written work. While oral spelling is a helpful aid in fixing forms, it is generally conceded that written spelling must receive the larger stress. The eye rather than the ear must be trained. Indeed, correct spelling must be made an eye and muscle habit. Constant drill in writing correct forms of a word serves to build it into one’s very physical make-up.
“There are certain laws, a knowledge of which is valuable in teaching spelling. The work should be inductive; that is, words spelled according to these laws should be presented in groups and the children led to construct the laws. There is a certain economy in learning the laws, because through them a group of words may be learned as easily as a single word. The fact that there are exceptions to the laws by no means destroys the claim for economy. There are two sides, then, to the spelling process, the mechanical and the rational, and the teacher must keep them both in mind. They go together. Both are essential. The return to the use of a spelling book indicates a belief in the need of more systematic work in oral and written spelling.”
In regard to the subject matter of spelling, Mr. Cotton believes that here, as in other subjects, the dominant community interest should be taken into consideration. Each community, Mr. Cotton points out, has its own vocabulary. The assignment in spelling, he says, should be worked out as carefully as the assignment in any other subject, and, as in every other subject, the home life should dictate the point of departure.
The assignment may from day to day, Mr. Cotton suggests, consist of lists of ten or twenty words covering the entire range of life in the community. The teacher may ask the class to hand in a list of ten words that are names of kitchen utensils. If there are five or six in the class, it may be that twenty or more different words will be named. Such a device furnishes the fairest test of the child’s ability to spell these words, because he suggests them to himself and is not aided by having them pronounced. The teacher should correct the lists and hand them back, and then the twenty different words should be used as a spelling lesson and made the basis of a permanent list. Similar lists may cover other home departments, industrial departments, or farm life, and there may be lists covering the vocabulary of the social, the civil or governmental, the religious and the school life of the community.
The assignment may take another form, Mr. Cotton suggests, and accomplish the same purpose. The teacher may have it in mind to teach inductively the meaning of the word synonym. He gives the following list of words: farmer, grower, cultivator, agriculturist and husbandman. He then has the pupils pronounce each word, tell the meaning, use one of the words in a sentence and substitute as many words as possible for it. Other groups of farm words may be used in the same way.
While Mr. Cotton concedes that the teacher must select, in the main, his own devices for teaching any subject, he offers the following suggestions for teaching spelling:
“The words to be taught should be the words needed in the school vocabulary and in life.
“The work should be based as much as possible upon the laws governing spelling, and should be done inductively.
“Constant drill is essential, and absolute accuracy in all written work must be insisted upon.
“It is a good practice to keep a list of words most commonly misspelled and point out and emphasize in some attractive way the difficulties in spelling these words.
“Word building and word analysis are excellent devices.
“The use of words in sentences different from those in which they are found in the text-book is good practice for the vocabulary of the pupil.
“It is especially important that pupils should learn to use in sentences of their own construction the many simple words which are alike in their pronunciation, but which differ both in their spelling and in their use. The teacher will find it advantageous to make the list of homonyms in the spelling book the basis for language exercises as well as for spelling lessons.
“The new speller should be in the hands of each and every pupil. The work is outlined by grades in the book. No pupil should be promoted till he has mastered all the words in the grade in which he is working.”
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INTERVIEW WITH WOMAN PHILANTHROPIST
_Kansas City Star_
A little woman, her shoulders laden with the burden of a great effort to rid the world of poverty, came to Kansas City this morning. She is Mrs. Joseph Fels, widow of the Philadelphia philanthropist and manufacturer. With Daniel Kiefer, chairman of the Fels fund, and Mrs. Kiefer, Mrs. Fels is touring the principal cities of the United States in the interests of the idea to which Joseph Fels devoted his life, the taxation of land values. The philanthropist died last February.
Mrs. Fels’s eyes kindled when the war was mentioned to her at the Savoy Hotel this morning. She was dressed simply in black, but the soberness of her attire was eclipsed by the animation of her features when she was given the opportunity to plunge into the subject to which she is now giving her life.
“The war,” she cried softly. “It wouldn’t have come about if Europe had been listening. ‘More land,’ the nations say; ‘more land,’ with a wealth of it within their own borders owned by great landlords. Yet they must fight to extend their boundary lines.
“Is it possible to think that the good Lord would make a world in which there were more people than could be provided for? It is that idea that keeps us fighting on to make people realize. Freedom for each individual to earn his own living; we ask only for that. Tax the land; take the taxes off produced necessities; force landlords to quit holding empty land for the profit that comes from other people coming to live around it. Do you know that Philadelphia has 40,000 empty lots--not on the outskirts but in the city? London has 50,000 of them. ‘Congestion,’--we speak of that, but what congestion would there be if every man could till the soil, and if selfishness and greed were not allowed to appropriate the earnings of others?”
The diminutive figure of Mrs. Fels seemed to grow as her voice let escape in its tones something of the passionate conviction which she feels in the rightfulness of the land value taxation propaganda.
“The world has had enough of charity, a poor patchwork of a poor system of civilization. We are trying to prevent the need of charity, trying to spread justice and freedom, to free the worker from the landlord’s domination and give him opportunity. For us opportunity is freedom.”
Before the death of Mr. Fels, the philanthropist spent a good deal of time in England. Mrs. Fels still resides there half of the year.
“England has a king,” she said, “but fundamentally the English government is more democratic than the United States. We call ourselves a democracy, but in reality we are a plutocracy. The idea of a democracy is a fine thing to hold up before the eyes of the people, but in the present circumstances it is only to blind them to real conditions.”
Mrs. Fels is of German descent, but her sympathies and her blame for the war are with all of the fighting nations.
“I am sorry for all of them,” she said, “but I know that all are implicated. Perhaps some good will come out of it. If the people of the warring nations are made so poor that the nations will have to take extreme measures to exist, the great estates of Europe will be thrown open to intensive farming and to all the other methods of adding to productiveness.”
Daniel Kiefer, chairman of the Fels Fund, told some facts that Mrs. Fels appeared too modest to relate.
When Joseph Fels was living he proposed to match dollar for dollar any fund that was raised in the United States to forward the single tax propaganda. He did the same thing in fifteen other countries. In this country in the last five years the Fels Fund has given more than ¼ million to less than half that amount raised by others.
Mr. Kiefer explained that Mrs. Fels was giving herself to carrying on the movement in which her husband had shown so great an interest.
“Giving myself and all I have and am,” added Mrs. Fels. This afternoon Mrs. Fels spoke at Central High School and at Swope Center. She will speak at the City Club at 8 o’clock tonight. A reception for Mrs. Fels by the Council of Clubs will be held from 3 to 5 o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Mrs. Fels will speak again at a public meeting at the City Club at 8 o’clock tomorrow night.
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INTERVIEW WITH OPERA SINGER
_Chicago Daily News_
Mme. Tamakai Miura hid behind a baggage truck and pressed her fingers into her miniature ears. It was her first visit to Chicago.
“Ooo!” exclaimed Mme. Miura. “Ooo!”
The Twentieth Century limited was backing out of the LaSalle Street Station.
“She is the first Japanese grand opera singer in the world, the first to sing in America and one of the best sopranos in the company!” shouted the press agent above the roar. He led the way to Mme. Miura. She stood half frightened and half amused, seeming like a figure that had escaped from a Japanese print and got lost in a Meissonier landscape. For Mme. Miura was still dressed in her native costume. She might have just wandered off the stage from a scene in “Madame Butterfly” in which she is going to sing for the Boston Opera Company.
She wore a purple robe, with a dull red and gold girdle. It enveloped her in folds and a dull pink scarf covered her patent leather colored hair. American shoes, an American handbag and American furs testified to her acquired cosmopolitanism.
“I like come here and sing,” said Mme. Miura, removing her fingers from her ears. “I been in London and all over the world. I am only singer in Japan. In Japan women don’ sing so much or do anything. They have no suffrage an’ only listen to the nightingale and the wind blow through the cherry tree. But art will liberate the ladies of Japan.”
Mme. Miura glanced coquettishly at a Japanese man who stood near her.
“What you think?” she inquired of him.
“He is my husband,” she explained.
Becoming more accustomed to the baggage truck and the Twentieth Century, Madame Miura continued:
“When I come to America I all the time ’fraid people don’t like me because I hear about Japanese not being much liked, but when I come to New York everybody like me and is most nice to me. And I am sure everybody in Chicago like me. It is so full of noise, is it not? All America is full of noise.
“I like most American scenery which the railroad show me. It is better than English or German scenery, because in English scenery all the trees look like doll trees and in Germany all the trees look like they have been straightened with mower of the lawn. In American scenery everything is big and wild and maybe full of animals, is it not?
“And there is so much. I pass miles and miles in my ride, more than whole Japan.”
Madame Miura’s English required the greatest concentration on her part. She paused and thought and then resumed.
“Opera is new art in Japan. We have only very few singers. Because women have no great chance, but now maybe they have. I study in London and Berlin. I have sing before king and queen in Albert Hall. I sing Irish song, Scotch song, Italian and French song and English song. Isn’t that nice?”
* * * * *
NOTE--_The following three telegraph stories show three different forms for a group of several interviews on the same subject, which in this case was a decision of the Interstate Commerce Commission granting the railroads the right to charge higher freight rates. As originally published, these stories followed stories from Washington, D.C. giving the details of the decision._
GROUP OF INTERVIEWS
(1)
_Milwaukee Free Press_
CHICAGO, Dec. 18.--Wholesale merchants and shippers of Chicago were elated today at the decision of the interstate commerce commission. Here is what some of them say:
JOHN G. SHEDD, president Marshall Field & Co.: “Everyone should rejoice over the action of the interstate commerce commission. I regard this decision as marking the turning point in the business situation, and expect to see hereafter a marked advance on the road of prosperity by all lines of American industry.”
JULIUS ROSENWALD, president of Sears-Roebuck & Co.: “Representing one of the largest shippers, I am glad to say that we rejoice in the decision. I believe it will have a far-reaching effect. It will help the whole United States and stimulate business all over the land.”
JOHN V. FARWELL, president of the John V. Farwell Co.: “I am glad the application of the railroads for an increase in freight rates has been granted, as I believe the decision will be an essential factor in stimulating and encouraging all branches of business in all parts of the United States.”
(2)
_Chicago Tribune_
New York, Dec. 18.--Howard Elliott, president of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad company, and chairman of the board of directors, commenting on the decision of the interstate commerce commission, said:
“Careful calculations indicate that the increase in the gross freight earnings of the New Haven road, because of the decision of the commerce commission, will be less than $250,000 per year, and probably not much in excess of $200,000 a year on the present volume of business. So far this fiscal year, the freight earnings of the company have decreased $1,399,000.
“We are gratified to have the commission recognize the necessity of increasing freight rates and we are glad to have even this modest increase.”
A. H. Smith, president of the New York Central lines, made the following statement:
“As nearly as I can learn from preliminary reports, the commerce commission has granted an increase on perhaps a little more than one-half of the tonnage, but to the extent that the increase has been granted it will help the railroad situation. It should also promote general public confidence for the future.
“The commission has recognized not only the needs of the railroads but the effect upon the railroads of the present peculiar conditions. The increase granted will not solve the transportation problems of the day, but we are thankful for the help given and will endeavor to make the best possible use of it.”
(3)
_Chicago Tribune_
Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 18.--“The granting of the 5 per cent freight increase will have absolutely no effect upon the passenger increases,” declared George W. Boyd, general passenger traffic manager of the Pennsylvania Railroad company. “We want to establish the two departments of our road on an independent basis, and to do this we need the passenger increase as much as the freight increase.”
“I am glad for any decision that would bring prosperity to the people of Pennsylvania,” was the only comment of Gov.-elect Martin G. Brumbaugh.
The commission will aid in smoothing the way to prosperity, in the opinion of Alba Johnson, president of the Baldwin Locomotive works.
* * * * *
OFFICIAL REPORT
_Boston Transcript_
Twenty-five States are represented in a crusade which the lawmakers and school authorities of the country are waging against the high school fraternity, according to a report which has just been issued by the United States Bureau of Education. Of these, thirteen States have passed legislative enactments hostile to the secret orders, while the school boards of important cities in the other twelve States have adopted like measures within their own jurisdiction.
All States having laws on the subject provide a penalty of suspension or expulsion from school for all those who join these orders. The most drastic laws were passed by Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska, whose legislatures made it a misdemeanor for anyone even to solicit members to these organizations. Michigan and Ohio made it a misdemeanor for a school officer to fail or refuse to carry out the anti-high school fraternity law. Other States which prohibit these orders are California, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, and Vermont. Massachusetts empowers the Boston School Committee to deal with the secret-society problem in its own way, while Washington gives the same latitude to the school boards of its larger cities.
The more important cities whose school boards have passed regulations restricting or forbidding high school fraternities, are Denver, Meriden, Chicago, Covington, New Orleans, Lowell, Waltham, Worcester, Kansas City, Mo., St. Joseph, Butte, Oklahoma City, Reading, Salt Lake City, Madison, Milwaukee, Racine and Superior. The commonest penalties are suspension, expulsion, or debarment from athletic or other teams of the school.
The United States Bureau of Education’s report also cites some of the more important court decisions, every one of which upholds the school authorities in dealing rigorously with the high school fraternity, on the ground that the measures so taken are authorized as a part of the school board’s discretionary powers. Most courts cited, however, will not allow the offending pupils to be barred from classroom exercises, although they can be barred from participating in all athletic or other contests.
* * * * *
REPORT OF SCIENTIST
_New York Evening Post_
LONDON, August 1.--Boiling over a slow fire is the happiest death a lobster can meet; so it has been determined at the Jersey Marine Biological Station. The experiments were carried out by Joseph Sinel, a well-known biologist, for the Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, whose members associated the prevalent method of killing lobsters with mediæval torture.
Lobsters, says Mr. Sinel, are extremely difficult to kill. Piercing the brain does not seem to cause the lobster more than temporary annoyance, since his brain is a mere nerve ganglion the size of a hemp-seed. He has to be killed all over. To throw him into boiling water fails to do the work either mercifully or quickly, since he struggles violently to escape for about two minutes.
The pleasantest way to end a lobster’s troubles, Mr. Sinel finds, is the old-fashioned way of placing him in cold water and bringing him to a boil. As the water warms, he becomes merely lazy and rolls over as for a sleep. By the time the water reaches the comparatively mild temperature of 70 degrees, Fahrenheit, he becomes comatose. At 80 degrees, he is dead. To use a human illustration, the biologist says it is like a person succumbing to a heat wave, with loss of consciousness and a painless end.
* * * * *
REPORT OF FEDERAL OFFICIAL
_San Francisco Chronicle_
WASHINGTON, January 15.--Asiatic immigration, the “Hindoo propaganda,” and particularly immigration to Continental United States from Hawaii and the Philippines, are discussed at length in the annual report of Anthony Caminetti, Commissioner-General of Immigration, made public here today.
“I believe it is quite generally conceded that immigration from the Far East is detrimental to the welfare of the United States,” says the report, “not because it has heretofore been so extensive in numbers, but because of its peculiar effect upon the economic conditions and the possibilities of an almost unlimited increase in volume if left unregulated and unchecked. Our Oriental immigration problem, arising more than a quarter of a century ago, has never been satisfactorily solved; the exclusion laws need many amendments, not in purpose but in prescribed method.
“The Hindoo propaganda, as yet in its infancy, is calculated to give much trouble unless promptly met with measures based upon, and modeled to take advantage of our past experience in trying to arrange practicable and thorough, but at the same time unobjectionable, plans for the protection of the country against an influx of aliens who can not be readily and healthfully assimilated by our body politic.”
Of immigration by way of the insular possessions the Commissioner says: “It will be observed that 15,512 aliens came to continental from insular United States during the last seven years--10,948 from Hawaii, 3,950 from Porto Rico and 614 from the Philippines--and that of these, 10,740 landed at San Francisco, 3,910 at New York and 631 at Seattle.
“Aliens coming from Porto Rico have been handled with a fair degree of success, but those coming from Hawaii and the Philippines have given the service a great deal of trouble, the former with regard to the admission of aliens to the territory and their subsequent migration to the continent, and the latter with respect to the coming of aliens to the mainland from the Philippines only, the immigration service having nothing to do with respect to the admission of aliens to these possessions.
“It has been regarded as desirable to encourage the settlement in Hawaii of European aliens, and correspondingly to discourage the settlement there of aliens from the Orient, the idea being that the former does, and the latter does not, tend toward the ‘Americanization’ of the territory, which already has a large Asiatic population. Failure to retain the immigrants secured through the exercise by the Federal Government of a very liberal policy, is believed to be due to the fact that the conditions of work and labor are unsatisfactory and the standard of wages too low.”
Of the flow of immigration the Commissioner says:
“Immigration, judged from the results of the year, has apparently reached the million mark, and unless some affirmative action is taken by the Federal Government to restrict it, or steps are taken by European and other nations to reduce the steady stream of persons leaving the various countries of the Old World, we need hardly expect that the number annually entering the United States hereafter will fall far below 1,000,000.”
Immigration to the United States for the fiscal year aggregated 1,218,480, only 66,869 less than for the year 1907, which showed the greatest tide of immigration in history. As 633,805 aliens left the United States during the year, the net increase of population through immigration was 769,276.
Of the alien applicants for admission to the United States during the year, 33,041 were excluded on various statutory grounds, the debarments being 66 per cent greater than for the previous year.
The suggestion is made tentatively that some diversion of the immigrant fund be made to protect the immigrants after their landing in this country, in an effort “to relieve industrial centers by securing employment for the surplus labor found therein, whether native or foreign, either on farms or in other rural occupations or in settling people on lands.” Such relief would be, the report says, of benefit to all the people.