The Washington times., 1920-04-30

Our Golden Grain.
How Big Is the Universe?
Many Headaches In That.
Assorted Prohibition.
, ARTHUR BRISBANE
SCopxTi4he ls2e.l

enough grain for them and all the
stock besides" He was foolish,
what the rats couldn't eat they
spoiled.
We learn from John Fletcher Of
Chicago's Fort Dearborn Bank,
that the old u. s. A. Farm Is well
supplied with golden grain.
For instance, with only FIVE
per cent of the earth's population
TO feed. we raise TWENTY-F0UR
per cent of the earth's crops, about
five times our share.
We produce forty per cent of the
earth's mineral wealth and manu-
facture ,thirty-five per cent Of its
goods, eight and seven times our
share respectively.
The richest country in the world
outside Of ours is England, with
eighty billion dollars. We have
three times that amount Of money.
AL this is encouraging. Besides
We have q trade balance of five
thousand millions, what the world
buys from US costs five billions
more than what we buy from the
world.
Foreign nations used to own
eight thousand millions in Ameri-
can securities, we sent them inter-
est on that. We have bought it all
back, paying cash, with war profits,
and now keep the interest
What do we care, abost nine or
. ten billions lent to Europe, on
which we are getting no interest?
Half Of the worlds gold is here,
and while gold is not really wealth,
we delight in it, as q jackdaw de-
lights in his bright little pieces of
glass. :,
Deposits in our banks are greater
by thousands Of millions than all
the deposits in all the banks in all
the other countries of the world.
Verify we have accomplished
wonders, and truly at hath not
been shown what we shall be-"
The prodteering rats Of the
United States that gnaw, and the
idling rats of the United States
that wont do a days work for a
days pay, with all their stealing
and all their idleness, will find it
hard to destroy Uncle Sans mar
velous crop Of golden grain.
The trouble is that it isn't 50
much what they steal as what
they spoil.
The profiteer puts everything on
= false basis and undermines in
; dustry. The dishonest workman
who cheats himself and his fellows
thinking that he cheats his en-
! ployer puts labor on a false basis.
There Is no knowing how much
they will spoil among them.
Z Are there many universes ont
side Of the milky way IN which our
sun and - planstssare Is a grain
% How big IS that lighted avenue,
, the ealsctic circle, in which swe
swim through space?. Its size is
measured in Tight years." the dis
tance that light travels in one
year. Light travels at speed
that would take it around the
earth seven times in a second.
Scientists say it would take light
about three hundred thousand
years to cross the milky way. In
some quiet moment figure out for
yourself how big it is
Some scientists say a few bill
ions or trillions Of suns with their
planet families in our little group
make up the whole universe.
That would seem big enough for
any cpsmic experiment. Others
think that every one Of the nebulae
you see is another universe.
One modern theory sees this uni
verse shaped like a pancake"
floating in space. Curiously enough
the ancient Greeks had the same
notion about the earth's shape.
They "saw" it was flat and thought
it was like leaf, floating on the
water--bright sunlight above, be-
low, shadows for the dead.
The Greeks were wrong with
their leaf-shaped idea, and our
scientists are wrong with their
pancake" universe.
If anything is certain it is that
the sphere is the cosmic shape,
from the giant sun Aldabaran to
Shakespeare's. "ruddy drops that
visit this sad heart"
The blood runs in round drops
through your viens and arteries.
The planets roll in round balls on
their crrands. And the universe
presumably is made up of infinite
ly numerous round "universes," all
rolling together on some spiral en-
rand slightly beyond our mental
grasp.
You may say that to suggest an
infinite number of universes gives
you a headache. So does the
thought Of infinite space outside of
the universe, and all empty. Infin-
ite power and wisdom, with infin-
ito space and time to work in, will
undoubtedly go on creating and
filling space infinitely. You can't
imagine cosmic power having less
ambition than Alexander the