Evening star., 1934-03-27


4 \ day anniversary of the oldest
living Arctic explorer, Maj.
Gen. Adolphus washington Greely,
U. S. A., retired.
Gen. Greely, however. always keeps
one up on his friends in the matter
of birthdays.
1T is really my 91st birthday" he
explained to a Star reporter in an in
terview yesterday IT will be 90 years
old but if you say it is my Goth birth
day you are leaving cut the day l was
born. That was really my first birth
day. and the most important one"
When the reporter called, Gen.
Greely was seated on a couch in the
front room of the modest house at
313l o street, reading a sheaf of con-
gratulatory messages. They came
from all over the world.
1T is really very gratifying" he
said, Ito realize how the European
scientists remember me. Some of my
letters are from Soviet RusSia-one OF
them from a scientist whose wife as
sisted in the trying days when the
new regime was coming in"
Lives in Present.
Gen. Greely lives entirely in the
present, with a glance toward the fu-
,ture. He dismissed any reference to
his trip by dogsled farthest north in
1881. g.. OF the 25 men who made that
journey with him. and eventually
reached 80 degrees "a minutes N. latf-'
tude, only 7 were rescued by the party
sent out to bring them back.
"I saw those men starve to DEATH"
he said. That is over and done
With. 1 wrote the story so years ago.
Why should we recall it now? All
my life I have tried to do each day
the best that I could do in that
day. That is what intend to do
for the two or three years that the
insurance tables say l have left.
LAS to the present, do not ap-
prove of much of what is part of
the new deal. believe that through
out the world people are becoming
less civilized. We have had three
wars in this country recently, the
Civil War, the Spanish American War
and the World War. The Civil War
was necessary (Gen. Greely enlisted
in Massachusetts, regiment and was
thrice wounded in that war;. We
had to preserve the Union. But what
was the use of the other two? What
was accomplished in either?
I'VE are suffering more and more
today from mismanagement of the
leading men in the country, parti-
cularly in financial fields. If they
had been sensible, we would never
have made the loans Of eight or ten
billions of dollars to European coun-
tries, now gone beyond any hope of
recovery.
THAT money would have been
enough to keep our ten million idle
men at work. How should they be
a problem for me. But certainly I
millions Of dollars to people out Of
work, many of them because they
won't work. You will be paying for
this until you die.
Hits Farm Reductions.
And surely it is wrong to urge
farmers to stop growing food and to
pay them millions of dollars to stop
growing it with millions of people
claiming that they are starving to
death.
THE problem should like to tackle
today is that of personal economy
urging people to live within their
means. I daresay I do not spend
in the course of year as much as
10 cents day on my own wants be-
yond mere food and shelter. I think
I know whereof speak.
I'VE see evidences of extravaganza
everywhere. Moving picture houses
are always crowded, am informed,
and by people with very little money
for their real needs.
Il think much of this could be
stopped if todays preachers would
keep talking to their parishioners
about economy, but the preachers are
not doing their lob.
It am an honorary president Of the
Explorers Club of New York, and
they are always writing to ask me to
come to New York. and to be allowed
to pay my expenses. But I refuse.