Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1925-09-25
Comment and Criticism
Observation-Disclosures

From the cool Businesses of his
summer mansion at Swampscott,
President Coolidge let it be known,
through the mythical white House
spokesman" that he was opposed 10
minimum wage of 81 800 for Gov
eminent clerks and that he thought
they should be satisfied with their
present pay.
If the President had stayed In
Washington all the hot summer or in
numerous other cities where Govern
ment workers are employed and had
worked as a Government clerk, it is
barely possible that he might have
been more interested in lettering the
lot Of Government employees. He
might have realized that working for
the Government is hard, poorly paid
toll and he might even have listened
with sympathetic ear to the request
of Government workers for fairer
treatment.
Fortunately for the Government
workers, the National Federation of
Federal Employees is working to better
the condition of all United States Gov
eminent employees and has drawn up a
comprehensive program to that end,
for which the support of Congress
will be enlisted at the coming session.
President Coolidge may be Indifferent
but the National Federation is not and
1T will be constantly on the job to Sc
cure better pay and better working
conditions for Federal employees.
= y
Unacquainted with the nice distinc-
tions between what is humane and
what is not, made in so-called Chris
tian civilization, the Riffian tribes
men in North Africa are reported to
subject prisoners to barbarous tor
tufe. An unconfirmed report which
comes by way of Paris says that when
they bring down an airplane they burn
out the stomach of the pilot
The French are less cruel. The
toughest thing they are reported to
have done consisted in sending bomb
in gairplanes over a little Moroccan
village, filled with women and children
during the hour of PRAYER. The vii
layers who were not victims of the
exploding bombs were driven to the
hills to watch in helpless anguish the
destruction of their homes.
There is undoubtedly a difference
here, but 1t would take a sophist to
explain it.
number of States are attempting
by legislation to put check on the
wanton destruction of forests and
homes through the carelessness of
campers, tourists and match throwers.
The criminal disregard for human
life and property as displayed by
some persons amounts almost to wilful
murder and arson. The Governor of
California put great stress on this re-
Gently when he signed a measure cal
eulated to aid authorities in prevent
ing. fires or Furnishing those who by
their reconsideration have set them.
Scarcely can anyone read. morning
newspaper without noting the large
number of accounts of fires and al
most always the stereotyped phrase,
covered by insurance"
Commenting on this statement.
Franklin II. Wentworth, secretary of
the National Fire Prevention Associa-
ton, says that the phrase in question
Is the most misleading combination
OF words in the language of business.
Every fire is an industrial death, he
says; all burned equipment, every bit
of destroyed material is so much gone
forever.
Other men may be born and other
material may be dug from the earth
or cut from the forests" Mr.. Went
worth says, but these are new crea-
tons demanding all the expenditure
of effort new creations necessarily
involve. \ burned industry is dead
and it stays dead until it is laboriously
built up again.
He lays special stress on the fact
that "the fire insurance companies
have not an ounce of raw material in
their till, not a plank or a bar OF
steel, nor rivet, nor wheel; they
| merely collect money from us all to
finance the individual who has the fire.
This individual is generally regarded
as an object of sympathy; but in many
cases he is a public offender and
should be looked upon as such.
The fire waste operates more
through the careless than through the
cunning. We can not catch the cum
ming incendiary, because the careless
incendiary is his guide, bulwark and
shield"