The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-07-27
'oday
A Heavy Earth. Late, for ''Plans." Storm, Whole, Meteor. I'm One of Them.
 By ARTHUR BRISBANE

 London. A heavy weight. but the old earth would scarcely notice 1t. According to Oliver Lodge, this earth weighs six thousand trillion tons. And the English trillion is what we call a quintillion. Write down one, add IS zeroes. multiply that by 5000 and you have the number of tons the earth weighs. The moon weighs millions, possibly billions of tons; they don't I-now exactly. When 1t falls on this earth, as it must do eventually. according to scientists, it will cause commotion, but it won't knock the heavy earth out of its path. That's hundreds of millions of years off. Don't worry.
 The cabinet plans to act" in the strike. It's time. The railroads be- long to the people. They made them, support them and have been to a large extent ruled and exploited by them.
 A nation that would not allow it's water supply to be cut off should not allow it's transportation supply to end or it's food supply to be men aced.
 This does not mean that owners of railroads should be put at the mercy of strikers or compelled to yield without hearing. There should be plenty of hearings, fair to both sides, and the public inter est and public sense of justice decide.
 Meanwhile the railroads should run. And what applies to railroads applies to coal mines and other pub lie necessities.
 The Scandinavian ship Frederick VIII reports heavy storm. a large whale and, one very big meteor that dropped flaming. hissing and sig zling into the ocean.
 Times and theoriee change. Mod erns know that the storm was caused by air rushing in to fill a space from which hot air had risen. We know that no devils were riding on the storm to wreck mariners.
 We know the whale wasn't follow ing the ship hoping that somebody might jump overheard and be taken as passengers.
 We know that the falling star" was simply one of millions of me- tcors constantly falling on the earth, usually melted by the heat of friction as they rush through the air, and was not an attempt by supernatural power to hit some little human crea- ture.
 An old man jumped off a ferry boat in New York harbor. leaving his money in Wall street and a post card on the deck reading: There is a sucker born for Wall street every minute. I am one of them"
 No gambler can win in Wall street. Monte Carlo or anywhere else A man won $500 on $l lottery ticket and asked his wife: How shall we in- vest it?" Her reply was: Buy five hundred more tickets" That's what gamblers do, always. The pendulum swings back and forth. Eventually it swings a little too far, the wrong way. That ends them. They go over the side of the ferry boat
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 Politicians old and new style, tell ycu: Don't talk about the labor vote. there is no such thing. Some of stheir leaders talk between cleo tions. but they line up on election nay.n
 Employers of labor on a big scale tell you: "In the long run no need to worry about labor. workingmen do not stick together"
 You read that British coal miners will not help American coal miners on strike. Mir. Lewis head of he miners. thought British workmen would supply no coal for shipment to this country. On the contrary. Brit ish workmen say they will supply 2.oo0.000 tons per month. which. of course, means helping to break the strike.
 Judge Gary says good crops will save the day in this country in spite of bad conditions. strikes, etc. He also believes that the wonderfully y promising crops of Russia will stop starvation there. and help put the Russian government and people on T their feet. Unlike some foolish in- X dividuals that bought the Czar's T bonds. and couldn't collect, Judge Gary knows that the whole world is interested in the welfare of central and eastern Europe. Civilization can't live half dead and half alive. The French government puts a luxury tax on wines. Frenchmen of the Bordeaux region, whence come the Lafite. La Rose. Mouton, Roths- child, etc. parade. led by senators and deputies. They say wine is not a luxury but a necessity of life, Over here we say, it is a poison and you mustn't drink 1t, tax or no tax Quite a difference of opinion. # This country asks England to help & US be pure. good. non-alcoholic. We N request permission to search British # ships outside the three-mile limit & that we may seize rum contraband We also ask Canada to protect us.