Idaho County free press., 1923-09-27
This Week
The Lamp Went Out
The Year 56S4ia sa ~
Fliers and Divers Only
Goodby Harem
By Arthur Brisbane


twenty-five miles minute, got be
tween the earth and the sun the other
day and for 169 seconds the suns
/ light went out, entirely at certain
places, to a limited degree elsewhere
The moon was something like q
child walking between you and your
reading lamp. The eclipse was phot
ographed by scientists on the earth
and from flying machines, but only
savages were agitated. We don't be
lieve, as they once did, that dragon is
eating up the sun. And we don't
think that angry gods are warning us
: to behave ourselves.
In the old days they took eclipses
so seriously that two armies, about
| to fight, turned tail and went home
| in hurry when the sun began to dis
appear. 1t was poor ruler that did
MT have some kind of eclipse when he
died.
The Rev. Increase Mather, who
wrote his interesting essay on "Re-
markable Providences" in the early
Puritan days, found it easy enough
to explain an eclipse in Massachu-
setts. He said it expressed the grief
of Nature at the death of President
Chauncey, of Harvard. Quite a COM
pliment for Harvard.
We know that an eclipse means no.
thing at all except that the moon gets
in front of our sun lamp and shuts
out the light for a minute. We have
progressed in that way. But we don't
yet know enough to stop numbering
each other, as they did in the days of
superstition and darkness.
Tuesday, September II was Rosh
Hashahan, the Jewish New Year, num-
Der 1854.
Christians call it the year 1923.
Other religions and nationalities have
other years and other dates, major
ity believing that the world is about
5000 years old and ought to end soon.
If old Earth told her real age, we
should learn that many things hap
pened here a thousand million years
ago. When it STARTED, we don't
know.
Flying machines dropping bombs
that cost q few dollars have again
demonstrated for the benefit of the
American people that battleships are
obsolete. The old battleship Virginia
used as a target was sunk in thirty
minutes by flier 10000 feet up. How
many forty-million dollar battleships
will this country build to supply tar
gets some day for foreign fliers?
Forty million dollars spent wisely
on flying ships, with a few more mil
lions on submarines, would make
fighting fleets unnecessary and at
tack by any nation foolish.
o.
A while ago, anybody asking the
government to fix the price of oil
would have been called an anarchist
bv the moderates, and murderous boil
shevik by the real tories. Now, in
Texas. the oil men themselves ask the
state government to fix the price.
When prices get sick, any doctor is
welcome.
Kemal Pasha comes back to the
front page by preventing restoration
of the harem in Turkey. 1t was once
as difficult to imagine Turk with
out many wives as a Chinese with
out pigtail. The pigtail is gone, and
the harem wives are going. Wise ke-
NAL SAYS that one Turkish wife, OF
the new woman type, is as much as
any one Turk can or ought to own.
Wheat was lower last week. The
earthquake leaves thousands In need
of food, but that doesn't help the price
of wheat. Nations always find mon
ey to buy wheat for war, no matter
how high the price. They do not
spend so easily merely to relieve hu-
man suffering.
Germans are building flying ma
chimes for a 2Shour service between
Hamburg and New York. Real flying
is beginning.
One man In California cuts the price
of gasoline to 6 cents gallon This
js war. of course. But there isn't
much comfort for the consumer In
few days of war and low prices. When
the big oil men kill off the little fel-
lows they will take out Of the con-
sumers pockets all that the price war
costs and a little more.
SMITH PURCHASES