Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1932-11-11
This Week
BY ARTHUR BRISBANR
China Buys Silver.
Around the World, New Way.
A Really Big Shovel.
Training Counts.


Gently buying silver on a big scale,
buying even in New York, which sent
China nearly two million ounces dur
ing the past month.
The world produces only thirteen
times as many ounces of silver as OF
gold, but an ounce Of gold at present
prices is worth more than eighty
times as much as an ounce of silver.
That situation wonld distress the spirit
OF the late William Jennings Bryan.
But perhaps things will change, and
perhaps China knows 1t.
There are some wise men in China.
Years ago this column suggested
that around-the-world air travel would
be conducted as follows;
"Giant lighter-than-air ships will go
around the world making repairs In
the air, rarely coming down. They
will pass over New York, California,
Japan. Europe, passengers for the big
cities will step into small heavier
than-air planes attached to the giant
ship, and sail down with their lug
gage, with no need to stop the ship
or interfere with its stately course
around the earth" A few years ago
that seemed fanciful.
Today Admiral W. A. Moffett, OF the
Navy Department Bureau of Aeronau'
tics, mentioning that 1.-THE United
States now leads the world in lighter
than-air ships" writes:
I'VE have shown that there will
be no difficulty whatever in the next
airship, which hope will be of 9.0OO,-
900 cubic feet, and commercial air
ship. carrying an airplane that can
land passengers and mail without the
slightest difficulty and without inter-
fering with the operation OF the air
ship or any loss of time"
The imagination of few years ago
Is a reality now.
AS a preliminary, Congress should
pass the McNary-Crosser bill at the
beginning of the next session, author
izing the Government to make con-
tracts for carrying mail in airships.
Machinery that makes manual labor
less and less necessary is our big prob
lem now. 1t is also the hope of the
real civilization. which will come
eventually.
Machinery will be problem for a
little while, then a. great blessing, and
meanwhile you admire the mechanical
maryels that will some day set men
free from physical slavery.
The Wall Street Journal describes
a new shovel built by the Marion, Ohio,
Steam Shovel Company.
How many thousands of men, work
ing painfully with pick and shovel, will
this giant shovel replace? Operated
by electricity, it lifts up ffty-four
thousand pounds of earth at every bite,
and the operator, with his shovel at
the end of long arm, can drop the
earth two hundred feet from the
shovel, and on top of seven-story
building if desired.
This giant shovel will be used to
strip the earth, seventy feet deep, from
the top of a rich coal field, laying
bare the coal, which will also be
scooped up. steam shovels doing away
/ with painful mining underground
/ France is worried by Europes pro
fessional soldiers" particularly by
! Germany's highly efficient fighting nu-
I cleus.
The great factor in war, as now
understood, is professional training
| That unframed men would not stand
before bayonet charge was already
known before the big war.
The lover the top test, with poison
gas, ceaseless barrage of cannon fire,
bursting shrapnel and hand grenades,
made the short-time soldier less useful
than ever.
France suggests that nations have
| for armies only militia, men of short
training. taken in and let out of armies,
as much to train the men physically
as to protect the country. Germany's
! army, including private organizations.
constantly training and talking war,
! and the R"ichswehr, permitted by the
Versailles Treaty for home protection
! bothers France especially.
In the Reichswehr men enlist for
twelve years. Such !; body of highly
trained men would be menace in any
war, and France wants the Reichs.
wehr abolished, short term militia
taking its place.
In all this, the French do not look
very far ahead. That happens often
in military affairs. Napoleon paid lit
tie attention to improved firearms that
would have increased his strength.
And when he was on the edge of
the Channel, lack of wind preventing
his sailing ships rom invading Eng.
land, he would give "Only two min.
utes to that American" The Ameri-
can was Fulton, offering the steamship
that needed no wind.
Beware of excess weight, especially
as you get old. DR.. Barr, professor
of medicine in Washington Univer.
sity, st. Louis, issues the warnino