The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-05-07
T oday
More Alliances. Japan's Plodding. Wu Still Fighting. Interesting Bones.
 By ARTHUR BRISBANE

the best possible combination. was ready for war. And accordingly war came.
 Germany had alliances with Tur- key and Austria and thought she had one with Italy. Had that Italian al- hance stood, there would have been German victory.
 So much for the past. The present l is like 1t. Nations once more are busy making alliances.
 Germany and Russia have united; they couldn't do otherwise with all Europe against them. That alliance is said to have spread to Turkey, Bule garia and farther east.
 Italy has a working agreement with Afghanistan and an alliance with the Turks.
 England has made her arrange ments w4th Russia and probably will soon have a carefully drawn treaty with Germany.
 France stands, so far as the public knows, in proud isolation with near iy million first class fighting men armed and ready.
 Not much seems to have been learned from war. To get a differ ent kind of civilization you need different kind of people-one war doesn't produce them.
 The Japanese keep plodding along and their rate of plodding" Is rapid. They now stand fifth in trade. among nations of the world. Thirty years ago Japan did foreign trade of six ty-nine millions. In 1920. her for eign trade was two thousand. one hundred and thirty millions. Ameri ca's foreign trade goes down; Japan's goes up. And exchange rates are not to blame. Japanese money is good.
 That interesting Chinese general, wu, who frightened his enemies with fire crackers inside Standard oil cans. has won smashing victories" and taken Peking. How much does the average American know about the war in China, what 1t Is about. how it syould end?
 ] ist so much the people in China knew about our great war. The earth is so big; the people so widely sepa- rated by oceans and habits that they cannot understand or cooperate with each other. All the more reason for making your own corner safe.
 The marmoset at the trophies un- derstands the polar bear as we'll as the average American understands the coolie carrying bricks up hill on his back in Hong Kong. and vice versa.
 Can thing science" Ninety in A hundred are not interested. Call thing strange crime. and the same ninety are deeply interested. On lonely mountain. wrapped in news paper, some bones were found acci- dentally and thought to be the bones of dog. A scientist reassambled them with such accuracy as to lead to Identification of the girl in whose body those bones had once been the framework.
 All of the 90 per cent exclaim: -How wonderful.
 It fs a regular part of the work of science. One single bone buried in the ground millions of years ago en- ables q scientist to construct with &C., curacy the entire animal to which that bone belongs. A piece of jaw bone enables science to reconstruct the skull of primitive man. But does not interest the ninety as much as the bones wrapped in newspaper.
 Richard Croker was buried yester- day in a mausyoleum on the grounds of his fine estate. Glencairn Castle. There he will rest on the Irish soil that produced another fighter when it produced Richard Croker.
 When Croker was a boy in New i York, fighting his way upward with erful fists, 1t would have surprised him to learn that he would go back to De buried in his private mausyo- leum near his private Irish castle.
 It would have surprised the then owner of that castle had he been told that one of Croker's pallbearers would be Arthur Griffith. president of the Dail Eireann, leader of the movement that made Ireland free. Changes sometimes come quickly
 Mount Etna.. the volcano. fills the skies with smoke and it's roaring is heard miles away. People tremble and prepare to move. They feel about the volcano's mystei .ous power as their ancestors felt about lightning and the roaring thunder. a little while ago.
 Now we harness that lightning. make 1t sweep the floor. cool the re- frigerator. run the sewing machine. wash the clothes. One of these days the power of Etna and other volca- noes will be harnessed and used, and its roaring will become the roaring of machinery.
 -------e------------