Panorama. Vol. V, No.3 March 1940

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Part of Panorama

Title: Panorama. Vol. V, No.3 March 1940
Issue Date: Vol. V (No. 3) March 1940
Year: 1940
Language: English
Rights
extracted text: RIZAL ON YOUTH The World Has Just Begun • In the Soviet Law Sen Germany's Trouser Button • We're Management Engin Prince Saionji • Life in the British Foreign Office • Cellul Gold on the Peaks of Death • How to Poison Your :'.\'1'. Those Slinking Craf Orientals • o d' tran est I VoL. V No. 3 CONTENTS D Rizal on Youth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I The World Has Just Begun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 We're Man~gement Engineers ............... - . . . 5 The New Education in Mexico ...... ; . . . . . . . . . . 9 Political Faiths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I2 How to Poison Your Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I3 Life in the British Foreign Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I6 In the Soviet Law School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Couldn't Stump Him . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Germany's Trouser Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 vVhat's an Orator? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Cellulose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 vVinged Hostess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Babies and Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Literary Boosts .......... ; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 World's Strangest Tale5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Your Walk Betrays You .. -·.................... 42 Lincoln Improved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Prince Saionji . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Gold on the Peaks of Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 So Simple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Work Your Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SI Who's Loony Now? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Those Slinking, Crafty Orientals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Superstitions of the Famous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Panorama Quiz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Panoramic Views ......................... _..... 6I Readers' Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Panorama Quiz-Answers . . . . . . . . . . .... _ . . . . . . 63 r.1 ~~~3tt>~~m~~llmit£'.ffi~t~ PA N 0 RAM A is published monthly by the COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC 122 Crystal Arcade ---- .... .... ·-- .... --- .... .... .... .... Manila, Philippines President : Manuel Camus Managing Editor: Bert Paul Osbon Business Manager: Benjamin Racelis Subscription Rates: In the Philippines, one year, P2.00; three years, P5.00 Foreign subscription, one year, sn.50. three years. $3.75. Single copies 20 centavos a copy. One month's notice is required for changing a subscriber's address. The request fdr ehange should state both the oid and the new address. Entered as second class mail matter on Ma11 9-. 19116. at the Post Office of Manila VOL. V MARCH, 1940 Rizal on Youth Countrymen and Friends: Without wishing to parody the sublime words of Christ, I will say to you however, because I so feel and think, that wherever two Filipinos are gathered in the name of the l.Wotherland and for her good, there also I shall want to be in order to join with them. How I wish at this moment to be with you in order to think and feel with you, to dream, to desire, to try something so that those who will follow us may not put us to shame, so that we may give something to that country which has given us everything inspite of her misfortune! My dear countrymen, across the sea my prayers go in order that tonight you will do something memorable, something worthy of the Filipino youth on whom the Motherland has placed her hopes. And I shall end by repeating to you what I said ten years ago in a contest : Raise thy forehead smooth On this day, 0 Filipino Youth! Resplendent shines Thy bravery grand Fair hope of my Motherland! NO. 3 THE WORLD HAS JUST BEGUN THE alarm clock rings. Seven o'clock. You yawn, stretch, roll out of bed, and make your way to the shower. The curtains that. you throw back and forth are-what? Waterproof syntheti~ f ab r i c s . You step out and sit down to dry yourself---on what? A stool enameled with a synthetic lacquer. The shaving brush and toothbrush that you manipulate a few minutes later have gaudy handles. Bone? No. Synthetic resin. Maybe you use an old-fashioned glass for your mouthwash, but if you don't-and the chances are twenty to one that you don't-the tumbler is sure to be a synthetic plastic. At breakfast you dig into a grapefruit. What chilled it? Ice, of course, but ice made by a synthetic in the coils of the kitchen electric refrigerator. G l a n c e around and take stock of the dining-room. Those curtains at the windows--? They look like silk, and maybe they are. Yet, if your home is furnished more or less like millions of others, they are fash2 ioned of one of a half-dozen types of rayon. You climb into your car to catch the 8 :15 for town and your office. The steering wheel that you clutch is a synthetic cousin of the shaving-brush a n d toothbrush handles and of the tumbler that you grasped an hour ago. The shatter-proof windshield through which you keep an eye on the road is a sandwich consisting of two sheets of glass and a transparent synthetic "ham" that prevents splinters from flying if there should be a crash. Even the spectacle frame that encloses the lenses on your nose is a synthetic product of the laboratory. In this sense women are even more "synthetic" than men. The scuffless coating of their heels, the trimmings of their hats, the lipstick with which they improve on nature, the holder into which they thrust a cigarette, the handbag in which the usual odds and ends are carried, the jewelry that matches their rayon gowns or their eyes, the slide fasteners that PANORAMA take the place of buttons-much of what they hang upon themselves has no counterpart in the animal or vegetable world. To John Doe "synthetic" means a tricky substitute for something authentic. This misunderstanding makes chemists very unhappy. To them synthesis means what it always meant-a putting: together. A synthetic is one of the noblest works of man, because it is a deliberate and often a very difficult assemblage of molecules into a compound ·which may be entirely new and which always has interesting and sometimes commercially valuable properties. A synthetic vanilla that cannot be distinguished from the natural extract, a synthetic indigo that is a duplicate of the dye once extracted from a plant, a synthetic camphor that has broken the Japanese monopoly· because it meets all chemical tests for purity, a synthetic film on which a scr:'en play is photographed to delight and thrill millions, is not a mere deception. Nor is a synthetic like aspirin or sulfa.pyridine, which is curing hundreds stricken with pneumonia. Nor are the scores of artificial ambers, ivories, horns, and tortoise shells which compose MARCH, 1940 half the gadgets in a modern home. Children's books are full of fairies who wave magic words and change pumpkins into glass coaches and hovels into palaces. The chemist does not work on a scale qui,te so grand. Yet his feats in synthesis startle even him. Synthetic ston~s still called "previous"; exquisite fabrics on which ink can be poured "\\<;tl1out leaving a spot ; camphor make in a factory at 48 cents a pound against the $3-75 once charged for the pure, natural product; synthetic musk, base of all perfumes, at $7 a pound against $JOO for the very impure secretion obtained from a Tibetan deer; cement which does away with the necessity of stitching the uppers and soles of women's shoes together; fiber that looks and feels like silk but is worked up from acetylene ·gas; explosives and fertilizers plucked out of the airhe and we survey his accomplishments and ask: What next? The answer is never long in coming. Hardly a month passes but a new compound turns up with amazing properties. One of the latest is a plastic as clear as glass but only half as heavy. It leaves you wondering if you have not been the victim of a trick, even after you have experimented with it yourself. Throw it against a wall. It bounces back unbroken. Airplane . and bus windows are being made of it. At night on a dark road the beams of your headlights fall on little jewels of it which stud road signs and gleam like rows of cats' eyes. Take a thick corkscrew of it ten . feet long and hold a light at one end. The rays follow the coils and come out at the other end---cold. Already physicians and dentists are beginning to use this lucite, as it is called. An up-to-date specialist, for example, will thrust a rod of it back of your palate and illuminate your larynx with a bright, cold light. The latest illuminated tongue depressors are made of it, so that they glow like white-hot steel in the caverns of the mouth. There is no reason why this material should not send light overground and underground for miles, except the cost. And that will come down. Out of this plastic the lenses of cheap cameras and field glasses have been experimentally made. Pour or pr~ss the heated material into a mold of the right shape, and a few minutes later you pick out a lens. No slow, expensive, accurate grinding and testing for curvature. Furniture, airplane fuselages and propellers, wainscoting are now made of scores of synthetic resins. They are still much more expensive than wood and metal, for which reason they seem like oddities. Whole suites of rooms are even now exhibited at world's fairs and architectural shows in which not a single natural substance is to be found except the metal of the plumbing and the cutlery. Draperies, bed coverings, dishes, windows, wall panels, carpets, upholstery--everything is synthetic. The synthetics announce the dawn of an age in which science will assume complete control over matter, and free men from their ancient dependence on animals and plants and the crust of the earth for food, raiment, and structural m a t e r i a l . - Waldemar Kaempffert, condensed from The American ,Magazine. * * * 4 PANORAMA WE'RE MANAGEMENT ENGINEERS THE CHINESE have a saying that one picture 1s worth 10,000 words. We couldn't find a photograph of a Consulting Management Engineer at work, but we'll try to show you a sample of his typical work-and i n u n d e r 10,000 words, too. Take the case of the shoe firm on which the ladies simply walked out-without buying any shoes. A three-man partnership ran the business, which specialized m merchandising women's high - grade shoes. The partnership became the country's leader in its line. It built its reputation on "quality first," and steadfastly refused to follow the will-o'-thewisp of changing styles. And yet -quality merchandise, but with the style element marking time, simply gathered dust on the she 1 v es. Women walked. in, looked around, and walked out again-with not a penny changing hands. "What's the matter with our business ?" the partners asked each other. Being unable to supply any MARCH, 1940 answer, they called in public accountants, but they found noth.:. ing the matter with the books. So they recommended that the partners engage a firm ot management engineers, to examine fundamentals and try to discover the trouble. The initial inspection of the problem convinced the management engineers that, while the partners were nice peop~e, they didn't add up to what could be called "an alert management." Because of their long success with quality merchandise, they· failed to notice that times were chang~ mg. Their business was threatened with static-itis. There was no. time to lose. The fall season was upon them. The management engineers wired leading manufacturers to rush samples of the latest models. More than 200 were received. Best sellers in various price classes were analyzed and · judged. A sound plan of purchasing was inaugurated. Commitments were reduced. Rapid turnover was; at last, in sight. Things looked so much better that the dormant energy of the junior executives was released for constructive work. And before the end of the fiscal year a net loss had been transformed into a substantial profit. Take another case. A group of paper mills had merged so fast and furiously that it had nearly oq~anized itself out of existence. The Board of Directors knew little about details of the paper business, except that there seemed to be something the matter with it. Something probably ought to be done. Yes, but what? And by whom? They called in a firm of consulting management engineers. The men put on the job conferred first, according to usual practice, with the president of the mills. He proved to be a good promoter, but not a very talented business executive. T h e management engineers spent their first few weeks on the job untangling the involved finances, and the complicated accounting methods. Then they got all the other aspects of their findings together and made a reportwith all the directors present. ' The report called for a prompt deflation of an over-organized, over-estimated, over-merged business. It recommended a greatly simpiified executive control, centralization of office work in several units, discontinuance of one plant, disposal of all the retail stores as rapidly as possible. And inauguration of a new system of budgetary control. Within ~2 months after acceptance of tlie recommendations, the company was making money on the main end of the business for the first time in a decade. Dividends were declared for the first time in five years. Once upon a time it was slipshod habit to refer to people who do management engineering as "Efficiency Experts." But nowadays no management engineer cares to have you refer to him as an "efficiency man," because the title acquired disfavor by way of a small proportion of zealots whose habit it was to rush in, turn everything upside down, change everything around and generally scare all hands by trying to install systems so complicated and impractical that, when they had gone, it was sometimes as if the business had been through the Big PANORAMA Wind, and the boss hardly knew how to make head or tail of it without going through college all over again. The actual business now more accurately known as· consulting management · engineering, has its roots down in the time-and-motion studies made by Taylor & Gantt, and Gilbreath. Also, it grew to some extent out of the measures taken by omce-equipment companies to develop new outlets for their products. If you were going to develop new types of filing cards for index systems, you had to have a purpose for which they could be used. So such companies as the Library Bureau developed a superior type of salesman who could go around among businessmen, • look over their office methods, recommend new systems-and sell the equipment to install the systems. And by degrees the consulting management engineer evolved. He has no connection with officesupply companies. Indeed, one clause in the code of professional ethics for members of the Association of Consulting Management Engineers is, "We shall not accept fees or commissions from organizations whose equipment, MARCH, 1940 supplies, or services we may recommend m our work with clients." In the earlier days of the management engineering profession, the work: of the consultant· was concentrated largely in the field of production. It was there that men like Frederick W. Taylor-who, parenthetically, was an officer of the old Library Bureau-made their first contribution to the development of a "science" of man. agement. But today the field of the management engineer covers not only the department of production, in business endeavor, but sales, financial administration, and general management. Most consulting management engineering organizations _ nowadays include men qualified in the technique of both production and selling, and in even more specialized fields, such as personnel and finance. The chief value of a consulting management engineer is that he brings to the problem at hand a detached, disinterested point of view. Not being involved with the business itself, he can concentrate on one problem at a time with respect to it, bringing to bear on that problem a varied experience. Typical special problems presented to the management engineer are, "How can we strengthen our organization?" "How can we further expand our business?" "How can we make more satisfactory profits, while controlling our costs?" "How can we develop new markets for our products and service?" "How shall we Jay out our office or factories to obtain the greatest economy and most effective use of space ?" we can find another case story which illustrates the solving of such a problem as that last question proposes. The offices. of the world's largest manufacturer in his line were housed in a building erected to take care of several years' expansion. And yet, within three years after completion, the expansion limit had been reached. Two courses seemed open : to erect ·a new building, or to add more floors to · the existing five-story building. A firm of consuhant management engineers were called in, and their recommendations were accepted. Needless partitions and private offices were first eliminated. Then · large, open areas were made available. Departments that had sprawled over various floors were reassembled on one floor. Inter-related departments were brought close together, to speed up flow of work. Several impractical vaults were replaced by small safe-cabinets located near the departments needing them. The public corridor on one was widened to accommodate showcases and provide them with a constant public-showing value, releasing a large but little-used showroom for office needs. The company found itself effectively housed on four floors. The fifth floor stood ready for five more years of expansion. And as no new building was necessary, the net savings for this company were more than $100,<X)().-]anet Mabie, condensed from The Christian Science Monitor. • • • DON'T BE TOO SWEET! DON'T go to the extreme of speaking in sugary, drawling tones. Never· proceed on the notion that if a little is good, more is better. You can overdo anything -and a sweet voice is very easily overdone. As a social grace, it isn't the sweetness in your voice that counts. It's the courtesy of taking time with others that reflects in an unhurried way of talking.-Your Life. 8 PANORAMA THE NEW EDUCATION IN MEXICO FoR 400 years, from the time the Spaniards divided the land and enslaved the people, Mexico had been hag-ridden with vice, revolution, hypocrisy, and sham. The achievement of independence in 1821 did little to change the miserable status of the Indian and those of mixed blood. It merely set the stage for a new struggle for economic mastery of the country. This struggle, which was between church and state, was to last for another hundred years and was to use the l\-Iexican "common man" only as a pawn. The Roman Catholic Church owned half or more of the total wealth of the country, and the politicians cast covetous eyes on the hoard. Laws were passed to nationalize much of this wealth, the buildings of certain orders were confiscated, and the power of the clergy was curtailed. During the nineteenth century the nation suffered as the robber barons fought for possession of its vast wealth. One faction fought another for control of the government and its attendant perquiMARCH, 1940 sites. The United States took: fiveeighths of Mexico's territory in the Mexican War. For a time Great Britain controlled the customs of Vera Cruz. France set up a puppet government under Maximilian. With the overthrow of Maximilian, Benito Juarez attempted a reform government. After his death Porfirio Diaz seized control and ruled almost continuously from 1876 to 191 I. Diaz attempted to extract the last pound of flesh, the last drop of blood, from the country. Diaz sold the natural resources of the country in return for personal fortunes for himself and his favorites. British and American capitalists received incalculable concessions. Railroads, mines, oil rights, power, and land were turned over to foreigners until three-fourths of the national wealth of Mexico was owned by foreigners. At the same time the condition of the people was becoming unendurable. The last of their personal holdings, village lands, and even their bare human rights were torn from them. A system of 9 forced labor and peonage grew to such proportions that thousands were virtually slaves. Illiteracy mounted until it reached go percent of the population. When Madero raised the standard of revolt in 1910 the nation went with him. The constitution of 1917 provided for nationalization of the natural resources of the country so that all could share in the nation's wealth. Labor was protected from undue exploitation, and a system of free public schools was established. Realistic educational advances were made in the early 192o's by Jose Vasconcelos, secretary of education under President Obregon. In 1921 the budget for education was more than seven times any previous annual expenditure. john Dewey's theories of the "activity school" were followed at first. Progressively a more unusual kind school was developed to fill l\Iexico's needs. The Roman Catholic Church, declaring that a monopoly on education was its prerogative, fought the schools at every turn. President Obregon was murdered by a Catholic . fanatic and a series of bloody uprisings was staged by the JO cristeros. Sporadic fighting lasted for eight years in which the cristeros burned schools and mutilated and murdered school teachers. This seditious activity so handicapped the government that the educational budget was drastically reduced. In retaliation for the activities of the fanatics a firm stand was taken against the church. Article three of the constitution of 1917 was amended to exclude all private and religious schools not under direct government supervision. Education was reaffirmed as being free and obligatory. The schools were officially named the socialist schools of Mexico. Their primary aim was to provide an education that would be scientific, rational, and opposed to fanaticism. The socialist school is considered as being primarily a social institution to prepare younger generations for a new society. Moreover, the school helps to mold the new society by bringing modern techniques to the people. The school teacher leads the people of the community to improve their living conditions. He teaches them how to build better houses, clean up unsanitary spots, set up a betPANORAMA ter dietary standard. He shows the farmers how they can get land and obtain government credit to purchase tools, and then he shows them how to use the tools efficiently to increase production. Children are not only taught to become more efficient workers. They are also taught to live and work together cooperatively without thought of exploiting each other. Academic learning is incidental to learning socially useful techniques. Art, music, and dancing are an integral part of the curriculum and are taught for their socializing value. The arts serve another purpose in portraying graphically the gospel of socialism: brotherhood of man, equality of all races and individuals, and the right of all to lead a free, happy life. Starting with practically nothing in 1920, by 1938 Mexico had more than 15,000 elementary schools. New schools are being added at the rate of 2,000 yearly. The rapid expansion makes it impossible to provide well-trained teachers, and traveling cultural missions are sent out to continue and supplement the training of teachers. Mexico's Indian population 1s MARCH, 1940 not being overlooked. Artistic activities are being reoriented in the light of the indigenous culture, practically stifled since the coming of the Spaniard. Schools are being rapidly provided for the Indian in his own language, and centers of Indian education have been i:stablished in the Indian districts in which the young men and women live in a sort of environment which the government hopes to establish generally. They are taught to use modern tools, to understand the theory of modern society, and to raise their indigenous life-patterns to higher levels. When one attempts to judge the actual functioning of the socialist schools of Mexico he is faced by contradictory impressions. The schools vary from modern plarit to hovels. Many teachers are not in accord with the objectives laid down by. the secretariat of education. To this writer the leaders in Mexico City appear to be almost uniformly of a high type, but in the schools one constantly encounters pedestrian, routinized teaching. The important fact, however, is that Mexico is building schools. Poor schools can he improved and weak teachers strengthened or reu placed. Socialist education is not a theoretical philosophy argued by cloistered savants. It is a program of action, formulated and reformulated by men and women who constantly live the theory they advocate. School teachers who have lived and taught for months with a pistol always strapped to their hips are not inclined to be overly theoretical. Every point discussed at an institute represents a living experience to these people. Almost daily, the program is being altered to meet actual practice. D a i 1 y more schools are being erected. Daily more children are entering school who would never have had the opportunity to go to any school under the old regime. Mexico is providing schools ; she is sincerely trying to make those schools the best that can be provided and she is constantly trying to improve them. Only time can tell whether or not they will accomplish the redemption of a people that has seldom known anything but tyranny, oppression, and exploitation.-George C. Booth, in Social Education. 12 • • * POLITICAL FAITHS SocIALISM : You have two cows, you give one to your neighbour. COMMUNISM: You have two cows, you give both to the Government and the Government gives you some of the milk. FASCISM : You have two cows, you keep them both and give the milk to the Government, and the Government sells part of the milk to you.· NAZISM: You have two cows, the Government shoots you and takes the cows. NEW DEAL: You have two cows, the Government shoots one, milks the other, and pours the milk down the drain. CAPITALISM: You have two cows, you sell one and buy a bull. --The Australian Digest of -T-Vorld Reading. PANORAMA HOW TO POISON YOUR MIND A FRIEND of mine, a brilliant literary critic, was invited recently to give a series of lectures at an English university. After preparing his material carefully, he gave the first talk with all his customary skill and intelligence. He was somewhat surprised, therefore, after concluding it, when some of the students approached him with a complaint. He was more surprised to hear the nature of the complaint. "Professor," one of them said, "we've been looking forward to your lectures and we know that we'll learn a great deal from them. But the subject that you've chosen for the series seems a little strange to us-the poetry of Lord Byron. After all, who reads Byron these days? What does he have to give our generation? We're living in a different age, and his philosophy ·of life just doesn't fit into it. And then, we don't think his poetry ever was much good; .it's rough, unfinished, stodgy; it doesn't even have beauty and harmony. We've been wondering if you couldn't choose some young modern poet inMARCH, 1940 stead." My friend didn't show his astonishment at all. He smiled pleasantly. "I understand exactly what you mean," he said, "and of course I want to satisfy you. But I don't see how I can change the subject of the series, since it was approved by the chancellor .of the university. However, I tell you what I'll do. Those of you who prefer modern poetry come up to my room this evening and we'll discuss the work of some young man of our own time. If it's successful, we can do the same thing every night." After dinner that evening, a dozen or more ·students gathered in my friend's sitting room, and for an hour, he read aloud the work of a poet entirely unknown to them. Then for a while he talked about this poet's genius·; he pointed out the technical mastery, the inspired rhythms, the sweeping force of the emotions they conveyed. His listeners sat spellbound, drinking in every word he uttered. When he had finished, one of them said : 13 "I'd like to buy everything that man's written. What did you say his name was?" And then I think my friend permitted himself a little smile. "Lord Byron," he said, "The poems I read you were some I was pretty sure you didn't know." That seems to me to be a useful lesson-and as valuable to some professors as their students. For example: I know a young American, an intelligent, talented boy, who couldn't get along with his English professor. Nothing the boy did was right; no matter how many pains he took, every theme was returned with a low mark. He was convinced his teacher had taken a personal dislike to him. One day the assignment to the class was to write a short story. Our young American had no idea of cheating; he merely wanted to make an experiment. He took an excellent translation of one of the best of Guy de Maupassant's short stories and copied it out in his own hand. A week later, back it come. This was what the professor had written in the margin: "Commonplace writing. Subject dull, details badly selected. You simply don't understand how to tell a story." 14 There are two examples. They prove that many people don't take the trouble to judge work honestly. Instead, they go to great pains to remain faithful to the judgment of the crowd, or to the taste of a select few, or to their own preconceived ideas. A woman reads a book that bores her to death; but someone has told her that it's smart to admire the author. Do you think she will come out frankly and admit her boredom? Not at all! She herself will tell a friend what a wonderful book it is. Bernard Shaw wrote this epilogue to one of his plays: "Is it a good play?" the heroine asks the critics. "Whose is it?" they ask in reply. "I'll tell you that later," she says. "Oh, no!" they protest. "You'll have to tell us that now. If it's by a good author, it's a good play. If it's by a bad author, it's a bad play." But it's not alone in_ art and literature that our prejudices prevent us from seeing things as they really are. It is just as true in political and social life. If a man has made up his mind to admire PANdRAMA a certain politician, whatever the latter may do is correct and perfect. But if on the other hand another voter has convinced himself that this same politician is worthless, every move he makes will be wrong. The other day I heard someone say that an international treaty was despicable and even criminal-because he thought it had been drawn up by a statesman he disliked. Later, he changed his opinion in about five minutes -because he had just found out that a statesman he admired had written it. There are whole nations that we think of with hatred either because we have inherited the prejudice from our ancestors or because one representative of that nation has done us real or imagined harm. From the moment we hold such antagonisms we become incapable of reasonable judgment. We neglect or pass over in silence honorable actions of the hated group ; we overemphasize dishonorable ones. If we have chosen to be opposed to a nationsay, the Ruthuanians--the moment one of them commits a crime we say, "You see, that's just like those people." And we'll forget the millions of Ruthuanians who have never done a harmful action in their lives. And so? So-we should think for ourselves. vVe should judge everything-a work of art, a nation, a people, a political measure --on its own merits. Above all, we should make ourselves aware of the real facts of any situation, the motives that. compel human actions, before we come to a dec1s10n. For otherwise ou:r judgments will be swerved by human passions, and therein lies the seed of tragedy.-A ndre Jl..1 aurois, from This Week Magazine. * * * NOT A BEE THE landlady of the boarding-house was having a slight argument about her charges with a young man lodger. "I don't overcharge," she declared. "I have to work hard for my living. I'm always at work-busy as· a bee." , "You're not the least like a bee," said the boarder. "A bee can only sting a person once."-Parade. MAllCH, 1940 15 LIFE IN THE BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE I FIRST joined the Foreign Office thirty-seven years ago. I came into the Foreign Office, bursting with zeal, and with my head full of Talleyrand and Metternich; but all I had to do for a long while was to cipher and to copylong-hand. At last I saw in a corner on one memorable afternoon a thing covered with a dusty tarpaulin. I got the dusty tarpaulin off, and underneath was something that I'd never seen before--a typewriter. I thought, "Now, this is fun," and so, instead of copying a despatch in longhand, I sat down to hammer it out with one finger, when all my elders burst in upon me in a fury, exclaiming: "What are you fooling about with that thing for? Don't you know we're in a hurry!" Copying long-hand recalls one of those venerable grey-beards who were our Ambassadors when first I entered the service-incredibly old they seemed to a boy, of course. Once a week he used to put on his top-hat and go to see the equally venerable grey-whiskered Minister 16 for Foreign Affairs of the country to which he was accredited, and then come back and write it all down in long-hand for the Foreign Office bag, and the secretaries used to copy it in long-hand. His despatches ran, "I said to His Excellency," "His Excellency said to me," and so it went on. . . just like a game of "Consequences." But his last sentence was invariable: "I attach, however, no importance to anything that His Excellency says." But don't think the ancient Foreign Office didn't take itself .seriously. We took ourselves very seriously forty years ago. Men have always taken themselves seriously; perhaps that is why they have so often been , wrong. The organisation of our modern machine is not elaborate. The Secretary of State has immediately beneath him a Permanent UnderSecretary, himself assisted by four or five Assistant U nder-Secretaries, each responsible for a group of departments-these are civil servants; and, in a different category, a Parliamentary UnderPANORAMA Secretary to help him in his busines~ with and communications to the two Houses of Parliament; this post is held by a politician below Cabinet rank. At the side of the departments of the Office there is a small band (now four in number) of legal advisers for many of the questions which we have to handle are closely concerned with international law. The Consular Department deals with the. administration of the British Consular Service and the personal affairs of British subjects in all foreign countries. These affairs are of infinite variety, and may range from the repatriation of a distressed British elephant to an important claim against a foreign government arising out of a denial of justice. The Treaty Department and its subsidiaries, the Passport Office and the Passport Control Department, deal with a host of activities, ranging from treaty formalities to the repatriation of foreign lunatics; questions of ceremonial precedence, nationality, marriages abroad, and other conundrums of international law, not forgetting the administration of the King's Regulations governing the wearing of foreign orders by British subMARCH, 1940 jects, which has been a jealously guarded Royal prerogative since that far-off day when, it is said, Queen Elizabeth, confronted by two of her courtiers resplendent in the insignia of decorations conferred upon them by a foreign monarch, exclaimed in real anger: "l\!Iy dogs shall wear no collars but mine own!" and threw them into prison. The Librarian deals with requests Department for historical information, international, scientific, and literary congresses, and the legalisation and authentication of British documents for use in foreign courts of law. There are also other departments to deal with economics, the supply of information to the Dominions on foreign affairs, and the important Establishment and Finance Department. Although meetings of officials and conferences have their full place, most of the work of the Foreign Office is done on paper, by what is called "minuting." "When a despatch, letter, or telegram is received, it is registered and placed in a jacket, bearing on its front a typed synopsis of its subject. This is then provided with any previous papers on the same topic, and any other papers 17 containing useful precedents (our indexes are very good, and we can pick up all the relevant material at remarkably short notice), and sent to the junior in the appropriate department. Every opportunity is now given to young men to show their ability. Formerly their scope was far more restricted. The junior expresses his opinion as to the action which should be adopted, and passes the paper up to the official above him, who will then consider it and ordinarily send it to the head of his department. Most papers stop there; but the more important, of course, go higher still -to an Assistant U nder-Secretary, to the Permanent UnderSecretary, and the most important of all to the Secretary of State himself. The final decision once taken, the paper goes back again to the department for a draft embodying the action directed ; and this, after final approval by the head of the department or a higher official, is typed and sent off. We are careful not to work in water-tight compartments; we refer to such other departments of the Office as may be interested before taking the action we propose. This is done by sending papers 18 round in locked wooden boxes covered with red or black leather, to which comparatively few people have a key (the work of our own lock-smith). A paper label bears the name of the recipient ; if there is no great hurry in dealing with the matter, the label is of ·white paper; a green label means "get on with it fairly fast"; and a red label means "deal with it urgently." In the last half-century the business of the Foreign Office has greatly expanded. In 1902, the year in which I joined the Service, we received some fifty-four thousand despatches, telegrams, and letters to be dealth with officially, and the same number of communications were sent out of the Office; in 1938 the number of receipts was nearly a quarter of a million, and the out-going communications amounted to at least five times the number of incoming papers. You may well ask whether this is a sign of increasing efficiency or of man's increasing itch to complicate existence, and one day I may try to give the answer. You may ask how the staff of the Foreign Office has grown to meet this great increase in business. In 1902 the Office contained p,\ '\OKA MA about a hundred and fifty persons all told (of whom only eight were women, and they were typists) ; at the present time we have about four hundred and fifty women. The reasons for this great and enduring blizzard of papers are obvious; you have only to look round at the condition of the world today; and what a world! The Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service are now one. A young man on his entry goes backwards and forwards between the two for a good many years. The advantages of his amalgamation are clear; while in the Office, he sees how despatches from abroad are handled ; which are considered of value, and which belong to limbo; and then when he goes abroad he knows how and what to report home. A former requirement that a young diplomatist should have a little money of his own has now for some time been abolished, and there are many who live entirely on their official salaries. Entry into the combined service is by way of open competition. Before candidates sit for the examination they must appear before a Board of Selection-drawn from men of experience in all walks of lifewhich meets once a year and decides whether candidates have prima f acie suitable qualifications for entry. I have been able to give only a bare outline of the service of which I have spent my life. It is a curious profession, because it is the only one of which people outside are so often convinced that they know more than those inside. This illusion does not apply to Science, or Art, or Commerce, or _Law; but then our profession looks so easy because it is dependent on the imponderable background of experience.-Sir Robert Vansittart, condensed from The Listener, London. * * * JUST LIKE THE BOYS THE GIRLS have taken away from the boy almost everything he possessed that could be removed. They have taken his hat and his shoes, his sports and his haircuts; they have taken all his vices and would have taken his virtues if they could have discovered any. The boy remains merely another human being, with nothing to distinguish him as a boy.-Your Life. MARCH, 1940 19 IN THE SOVIET LAW SCHOOL VIENNA, Paris, Oxford and Berlin are commonly accepted as places in which American students complete their studies, but few think of Moscow. Partly because of the novelty of the venture, but more particularly because of the importance of the study, I readily accepted the proffered opportunity to do my graduate work in the Soviet Union. Fresh out of the Harvard Law School and the New York Bar Examinations, I thought that three years at the Moscow Juridical Institute would provide a combination of experiences almost unparalleled within the profession. Subsequent years have proved the supposition well founded. For the young American the Soviet system of legal education presents many contrasts with what he has known. All legal education in the Soviet Union is provided by the state; for the private law school so familiar to the American scene is thought to have no place under socialism. The Soviet state operates its law schools 20 through the Commissariat of Justice, which took them over in the early thirties from the less specialized Commissariat of Education. Since that time there has been developed a whole chain of schools, of which Moscow is the most important. Up until recently the law was scarcely a popular profession, for every one associated it with the old regime and believed that lawyers would soon be archaic animals. But since the publication of the Stalin Constitution in 1936 speakers, exhibits, movies and the radio are teaching the average man that Soviet society can prosper only if its laws are precise and strictly obeyed. Teachers who opposed this conception have been ousted and their places filled by men who have caught the new spirit exemplified by Stalin's statement to the 1936 Constitutional Convention, "We need stability of laws now more than ever." Legal journals are carrying editorials demanding the training of men and women who may assure administration of PANORAMA law in keeping with the guarantees of the new Constitution. Newspapers call for respect for courts and attorneys. In consequence the law schools are filling up, and boys and girls think of the legal profession as being on a par with engineering, medicine and pedagogy. It is to Moscow, with its outstanding faculty and its favored location, that the budding law students aspire. They come up annually from all parts of the country to take the entrance examinations under which only some two hundred can be admitted. Lucky students with superior averages in school may be admitted without examination. From the very outset it was clear that going to school under the Soviets was not to be a mere repetition of my American legal education. At Harvard we have delved into torts and contracts at the very beginning. At Moscow the strictly legal subjects were reserved for a later date. We had first to master the general cycle of background courses-political economy, history of the state and law, history of the Communist Party and dialectic materialism. 'Vhile no Soviet teacher would think of beginning the study of MARCH, 1940 legal details before the student understands the part law is believed to play in society, American Law schools have long taught law without relation to policies of government. Comprehension of this basic difference in outlook sets the stage for an understanding of contrasting points of Soviet and American law curricula. Most Soviet students enter technical schools at eighteen, after having completed the ten-year course in what amounts to elementary and high school work. Because of this low age level, much of the nonlegal training acquired in college before the American student begins law study must be placed directly in the curricula of the Soviet law schools. But differences in curricula are not the sole points at which Soviet and American systems of legal education vary. There is the contrast of teaching methods. American law professors pride themselves on the development of the "case system" under which the principles of law are searched for in the decisions of courts. The professor serves only as a guide to direct and correct the student as he reports upon his search before the class. Soviet professors do not 21 use the "case system" but retain the lecture method familiar to all nineteenth-century law teaching. The advantage of discussion, which seems to be the chief attribute of the "case system" as developed in American schools, is not wholly lost;· for Soviet curricula have been introducing small discussion groups into the law schools. Each group of twenty-five students supplements the lecture by discussing with an instructor the problems raised. Often the group is aided by one of the newly prepared texts which incorporate facts of recent cases without including the court's decision. Students are expected to argue the merits of the case from every angle, and then the class writes an opinion. "Culture" was also a muchused word in our law school. Students were invited to improve their cultural background by attending the optional classes in the enjoyment of music, literature and art. · Under the auspices of the trade union, various series of afternoon lectures were arranged in these subjects. To an American like myself the effort to achieve this cultural background seemed incredible, for few American law students take time even for the 22 newspapers. Soviet students look upon such an approach as ridiculously narrowing. Comparative law and jurisprudence played much more 0£ a role in every class discussion than they play in most American law schools. Soviet students puzzle over charts depicting the legal systems of Germany, France, England and the United States, while on the other side of the Atlantic a student thinks he has done well if he learns the system of his own state. The result of the comparative study is manifest in the Soviet student's approach to legal principles. He accepts no legal principle as immutable, but sees each in relation to the economic and social conditions in which it has developed. He is ready to use the experience of others in planning his own legal system. Annually the Director of the Institute called a special session for complaints, which provided not only an opportunity to criticize but considerable entertainment. Any student could rise from his seat and mount the platform to ask why a particular course had been included in the curriculum, or why the Professor of Public Law did not prepare his PANORAMA lectures better or at least make them more interesting. One year a fiery girl from the Ukraine stood up to accuse the Commissar of Justice to his face for coming each year, listening to complaints about dormitories, textbooks and food, and never doing anything to improve the situation in spite of his promises. Short, vigorous, baldheaded Commissar Krylenko could only admit that the girl had struck home. Students had a very practical training in addition to their work with theory. Every year the Director arranged for a regular ·trial to be held in the great hall while classes were stopped to permit us all to attend. One year the case concerned a student in an electrical engineering institute. He was accused of murdering his wife's lover. Another year the defendant was a medical examiner from the Commissariat of Internal Affairs. He was accused of murdering his wife and distributing her remains in suitcases left at various places in Moscow's suburbs. Both defendants denied their guilt, and m consequence the trials gave students an opportunity to see details painstakingly brought out and pieced together by prosecutors, MARCH, 1940 while defense attorr•eys struggled to show that circumstantial evidence was not trustworthy. After such trials as these the presiding judge would come to school to tell his impressions. He would criticize or praise preparation. He would note errors in procedure. He even had to submit to criticism from students who thought he had been too partial to one witness or too critical of another. This session in which a judge faces a critical student body is without parallel in the American system. Practical experience for these students went farther than trials in the schoolroom. Arrangements were made to place them temporarily in a court, prosecutor's office, lawyer's cooperative society, investigator's office or legal department of a state enterprise. They were thus given an opportunity for one month during their third year and another month during their last year to take part in actual legal work. During this period they learned at first hand something of the concrete problems which they were eventually to face, and they returned to their studies with a fuller realization of the importance of the 23 classroom. Examination periods were no more delightful than they have been in American schools. They came at the end of each course, but there were also state examinations at the end of the four years. Procedure was nothing like that I have known in American schools, for the questions were answered orally. We would walk into a room when our name was called and select a card from a little pile in front of the teacher. C>n the reverse side of the card would be two or three typewritten questions: Compare Soviet and bourgeois law. Explain the use of contracts to implement the economic plan. C>utline the Soviet and bourgeois approach to the elimination of prostitution. State the laws relating to overtime work. Not all questions were so direct, for often there would be a problem case to be solved. After twenty minutes of preparation while other students were reciting, we would take the seat before the professor and his assistants and begin to talk-being interrupted at every turn. Those tests were for most of us the most frightening of our lives, for we were reciting in a language m 24 which we were not wholly at home. Fortunately the examiners took that into account, to such an extent that our Russian companions used to chide us for stumbling with the language when they believed our difficulty more basic. Examinations are important to a Soviet student; for not only do scholarship stipends vary in accordance with the grade, but assignment to a job hinges upon the result achieved. It was the rare case when a student was dismissed from his studies unless it was obvious that he was a loafer or wholly without the capacity to carry on, but this fact did not dim initiative and ambition, since every student had his eyes pinned upon a hectic week during the spring of the final year. It was during this week that students were assigned to their jobs. Each student had previously filled out a form in which he had set down the facts about himself and expressed his preference for a place in which he wished to practise. Few of the students had expected to find themselves in Moscow or Leningrad, but they had not looked for assignments in Asia. For every student was required by law to serve five years PANORAMA at a post to which he should be to that work. E a r I i e r gradassigned. This service rested upon his duty to repay the government for the education he had received and for the stipend delivered him throughout his course. Success of past graduates of the Institute has given heart to those who have finished in recent years. Many of the past graduates are now the outstanding· prosecutors of the country, while others have advanced to positions on the supreme courts of the separate republics. Hardly any had become defense attorneys, although several hoped eventually to be transferred uates have returned as delegates to the Supreme Soviet. Still others have become teachers of law in the local law schools of the various Asiatic republics, teaching in the native languages. It is to these schools that the Soviet government looks for the training of the mass of lawyers who will be needed. Moscow can serve only as a central teaching center. It cannot and perhaps should not attempt to train most of those . seeking careers in the newly popular profession of the law.-fohn N. Hazard, condensed from Asia. * * * COULDN'T STUMP HIM AN invitation to dinner had been sent to the newly-settled physicians. In reply the hostess received an absolutely illegible letter. "I must know if he accepts or refuses," she declared. "If I were you," suggested her husband, "I should take it to the druggist. Druggists can always read doctor's letters, however badly they are written." The druggist looked at the slip of notepaper, went into his dispensary and returned a few minutes later with a bottle, whiCh he landed over the counter. "There you are, madam," he said. "That will be 75 cents."-Kablegram. MARCH, 1940 2S 'lfGe'rmany's -Corregidor GERMANY'S TROUSER BUTTON "THE sound of heavy gunfire was heard over the North Sea during the early hours of this morning. It was believed to come from the direction of Heligoland)' Denmark has twice flashed this message to the world since the war began, but there has been no official communique to account for the firing-no story of any naval engagement or an attempt to penetrate the German coastal defences. Before the last war Germany spent £35,000,000 converting Heligoland, an innocent fishing island, with its tall, red cliffs and crowded cottages, into an armed fortress. Engineers extended the wharves into the shallow sea to make a huge advance base for patrol vessels and submarines. Two Zeppelin sheds were built on the island, and great batteries of guns prevented the approach of enem,y craft. Heligoland, just a mile m length and not more than 600 yards broad at the widest point, was constantly a thorn in the side 26 of the British Navy. Let us examine its strategic pos1t10n. Situated about 30 miles from the German mainland, and almost equidistant from the borders of Denmark and Holland, Heligoland is a natural defensive outpost of Hamburg, Bremen and the Kiel Canal. It is a powerful sentinel guarding the entrances to the Rivers Elbe and Weser, where in the harbours of Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, and Wilhelmshaven, can lie so many of Germany's fighting ships. The ex-Kaiser once described the island as "the trouser button that holds the whole German suit together," and promptly spent vast sums fortifying it .. After the last war the lnterAllied Commission had the task of demolishing the fortifications. Nearly 2,500 guns were cut to pieces; massive emplacements of concrete and steel and large quays and jetties were destroyed. It was the largest demolition scheme ever undertaken, and 300,000 lbs. of explosives helped to rip the button from the German PANORAMA suit. There were then mne quiet years on the island until Hitler decided to sew on the button again. He ordered the island's refortificatio!1, striking out another clause of the Versailles Treaty. To-day Heligoland bristles with huge guns. The sandstone cliffs have been buttressed with ferroconcrete and the breakwaters rebuilt. Underground passages have been reopened and the gunners who have replaced the evacuated inhabitants watch over the North Sea from behind a wall of solid steel and concrete. The Germans regard Heligoland as being impregnable. No warship dare approach within range of its guns except in thick, misty weather. It dominates that part of the North Sea. Naval opinion in this country differs as to the island's real military value. Many experts consider that it is invaluable as an advance post for sea and aircraft, especially for refuelling submarines, as well as being the North Sea "eye" for the German ports behind. On the other hand, some declare that the vast sums of money MARCH, 1940 spent on the fortifications of Heligoland have been misspent. They point out that in the last war almost the whole of the blockade of Germany was carried out by the Tenth Cruiser Squadron which operated on the 800 miles stretch of sea between the Orkneys and Iceland-at least 1 ,ooo miles from Heligoland and its neighbouring fortified islands of Borkum and Wangeroog. Heligoland could not prevent the ~lockade, and its guns, in ·fact, fired hardly more than a couple of salvos. Officially, they were never in action at all. Yet can we afford to sneer at Germany's spendthrift policy there? It may not be in a position to bite at our navy, but one has only to study one naval record of the last war to appreciate its true value-as a watchdog waiting with bared fangs. In 1914 the Admiralty decided to strike a blow at a considerable force of German light cruisers and torpedo craft lying under the shel-· ter of Heligoland. The subsequent Battle of the Bight of Heligoland, described by the Admiralty as "a fortunate and fruitful action," resulted in the destruction of four German vessels and the loss of nearly I ,ooo members of their crews. Now he has many towers there -towers of guns-and because of these Heligoland, the once peaceful maritime island, may yet be the scene of a major engagement. Heligoland escaped bombardment throughout the last war, and not long ago Hitler, in his most expansive dreams, spoke of calling it Hitler's Island. He planned to erect there a 700 ft. tower with the most powerful light in the world-the Light of Hitlerism to greet all vessels entering the German ports just as the Statue of Liberty welcomes them to New York. To quote an old naval friend; "It has asked for it, and this time may get it." The British Navy may yet have something up its sleeve to rip off for ever the trouser button from the German suit.-Condensed from The Newcastle Journal. 28 * * * WHAT'S AN ORATOR'! A NEGRO met an acquaintance of his, also colored, on the street one day and was surprised to see that his friend had on a new suit, new hat, new shoes and other evidences of prosperity. "Hey, boy," he said, "how come you dressed up this way? Is you got a job?" 'Tse got something' bettern any job," replied the other, "I'se got a profession." "What is it?" "I'se a orator." "What's a orator?" . "Don't you know?" replied the resplendent one in surprise. "Well, I'll tell you what a orator is. If you was to walk up to a ordinary nigger and ask him how much was two and two, he'd say 'four,' but if you was to ask one of us orators how much was two and two, he'd say, 'When in de cou'se of human events it becomes necessary to take de numeral of de second denomination and add it to de figger two, I says unto you and I says it without fear of successful contradiction, dat de result will invar'bly be four.' Dat's a orator."-Kablegram. PANORAMA CELLULOSE CELLULOSE, being a fibrous derivative of wood pulp, . is but one product of material capable . of yielding clothing and sheltereven food-as well as chemicals of varying purpose. Cellulose is to wood what the string is to a string bean, and all that is not water in celery; it is the main constituent of vegetable textiles like cotton and linen. In fact, cotton, linen, and filter paper are almost pure cellulose. It is the main ingredient in the sandwich part of safety glass. It provides women with rayon for stockings, dresses, coat linings, and hats. As a plastic it makes high heels scuffiess, provides inexpensive buttons, tool handles, ornaments and gimcracks more or less unbreakable. As cellophane it rivals paper for packaging, and affords some protection from snow and rain when made into coats and umbrellas. In acetate form it is the relatively new film that has brought safety to photography and motion pietures formerly dependent upon combustible celluMARCH, 1940 lose nitrate. It paints your car; as newsprint it spreads the news. Add nitric acid to cellulose, and as guncotton it blasts out quarnes. Cellulose is composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and therefore belongs to the same group of compounds as sugars or carbohydrates. Boiled with acids, according to methods perfected in Germany by Frederick Bergius, about 60 per cent of dry wood (cellulose) can be changed into grape sugar mixtures about equal to barley for cattle fodder. Carrying the process further purifies the sugar sufficiently for human consumption, or it can be fermented into alcohol for industrial use. Chemistry is at the bottom of all this, chemistry the handmaid of industry, always trying to make something out of something else. Paper chemists have long known the sulfide process, whereby wood is barked, chipped, and boiled under pressure with a solution of calcium and magnesium acid sul29 fites. This frees the cellulose from its bonds and after washing and bleaching it is ready to be felted into sheets. In one sense the treatment of cotton by "mercerizing" it changes it into something quite new. By this method cotton fibers (almost pure cellulose) are given a glossy finish and greater power to absorb moisture, by treatment with caustic soda. In rayon there is no doubt about the finished product being entirely different from what the chemist started out with. Here is a synthetic product in which the original fiber has been entirely destroyed and the molecules reassembled to produce a continuous, smooth, symmetrical strand whose properties can be largely controlled. The viscose process is responsible for most of the rayon used, and most of such yarn goes into dress goods, curtains, drapes, and similar yarn goods. It is the lowest-cost process known, yielding a satisfactory yarn mainly because of the lowcost raw materials. The cellulose comes in packages like so many newspapers done up in a bundle, each sheet about the consistency of 30 heavy blotting paper. The sheets are treated first in a bath of caustic soda, then crumbled into shreds, and turned to a thick orange sirup of "viscose" by the addition of carbon disulfide. As viscose the cellulose has lost all resemblance to wood fiber. It becomes synthetic yarn by forcing the fluid through about 90 tiny holes in a platinum "spineret" submerged in an acid bath. After much automatic washing, bleaching, and other special treatments to produce the specific type of yarn desired, the finished product is wound on bobbins ready for the weaving mills. Today a great deal of clothing and much of the decorative yard goods in our homes is of this type rayon, the generic name for all synthetic cloth. By "synthetic" we mean something new produced by the combination of synthesis of two or more ingredients. We don't mean "inferior," a connotation which unfortunately arises too often in the public mind. About 1910, when the automobile industry really began to spurt, the demand for leather sent its price sky-high. Scarcity continued until artificial leather was devised. Pyroxylin-coated fabrics, with du PANORAMA Pont's Fabricoid at the head of the list, meet most of the old demands; in fact, better than leat!1er for many uses. Fabricoid is made by applying coat after coat of lacquer to a fabric base. Color or embossing can be applied to suit demand. In 1939 I 10,000,000 yards of cotton cloth were changed into leather-like fabrics, mostly for automobile and furniture manufacturers. The modern automobile 1s a grand example of cellulose applications. Not only the upholstery but the dashboard, gear-shift handle, knob, distributor head, plastic gadgets, and even the finish, were . probably sheets of cellulose once. Imagine the automobile industry today spending six weeks to apply the paint and varnish job to an automobile body. But it was necessary once, until chemists found a way to convert nitrocellulose into a fast-drying lacquer that could be applied with a spray gun. Now the job is done in one day. That's one reason why motorcars can be produced now within the buying range of millions. Have we exhausted the uses for cellulose? Not by a long shot. A conservative estimate places the list at about 10,000 and we've talked about a dozen or two of the most important. Cellulose is one of nature's most bountiful gifts and the product of her own particular brand of plant chemistry.-H erbert B. Nicholas, condensed from The Christian Science Monitor. * * * LADDER ALONE AN excited female voice came over the phone: "Two - · boys are trying to break into my room through the window." "Listen, lady, you've got the wrong number," answered a voice. "This isn't police he;i.dquarters, this is the fire department." "I know," she answered, "but my room is on the second floor and they need a ladder."-Froth. MARCH, 1940 31 WINGED HOSTESS THE average passenger has come to consider the airline hostess quite as essential to a flight as the pilot and the plane. From the time he arrives at an airport and checks his reservations until the moment he reaches his destination he is under the affably watchful eye of a hostess, who creates the impression that she is employed solely for his benefit-to wait on him hand and foot, to answer his inquiries and to see that he is comfortable and happy. Yet as a bus,iness opportunity for girls the airline hostess job is still almost brand new. It was less than ten years ago that the Boeing Air Transport gave this country its first regularly scheduled airline with a hostess to serve meals and otherwise see that the passenger was comfortable. The spread of the custom is a tribute to the young women who made good on that job. To become a flying factotum a girl needs to be a registered nurse between the ages of 21 and 25 years. She must be not less than 5 feet 2 inches nor more than 5 32 feet 5 inches tall. She must weigh between mo and 125 pounds. She must be cheerful of disposition, attractive in appearance and unmarried. Airlines report that women meeting all these requirements are not too plentiful. Once an applicant passes her interview with a district official of the airline she is sent to the line's hostess training school for an intensive, all-inclusive course of from six to twelve weeks. First of all, because her position is in one of its phases comparable to that of a railroad conductor, she is initiated into the intricacies of handling passenger reservation sheets. She is taught how to serve hot meals, to make berths and to control the heating and ventilation of planes. She takes a brief course in .airplanes and engines, the better to answer passengers' questions. She must know how to help air travelers make the best possible connections with airlines and railroads; she studies the points of geographical and historical interest along her route, so that she may call them to the attention of her charges. PANORAMA During the training period she is paid '1"2.50 a day, and for her first three months of actual flying she receives $100 a month. During the next three months she is paid $1I5 a month and thereafter $125 a month. She is allowed $4 a day expenses while away from her base. Her flying time is restricted to not more than I IO hours a month, and her days off depend on the length of her run. If her regular flight is a long one, she works two days and is off two; if it is a short hop, she works two days and is off one. At the beginning of a flight, after seating the passengers, the hostess walks along the aisle to distribute chewing gum and see that seat belt are fastened for the takeoff. "What is the gum for?" many travelers ask. "That," the hostess replies, "is to help protect your ears against the change in air pressure." In flight the hostess spends much of her time answering questions, some of them simple, others highly technical. A few years ago the question most often asked was: "\Vliat makes a plane stay up in the air?" That was easy to answer, but now passengers want to know about substratosphere flying, radio equipMARCH, 1940 ment, instrument flying, the engines powering the craft, and meteorology. Perhaps the commonest questions today are: How high are we? How fast are we going? and What tim:e will we get there? To meet· these particular "passenger needs'~ the pilot jots down at intervals data on altitude, speed and location and the estimated time of arrival at the next point. The hostess then makes out a "flight record" and passes it among the passengers. Sometimes the hostess must give the information verbally. A majority of people who travel on planes want to talk, and hostesses are almost unanimous in the opinion that men are more talkative than women. Though the conversation may range from literature through politics, sports, religion, and the weather to home cures for practically every ill that flesh is heir to, most men start off with their business and after many digressions wind up with accounts of their domestic life, whether happy or otherwise. Nearly every passenger, whether man or woman, talks in a purely autobiographical vein. Hostesses agree, too, that 'most passengers-:show no dulling of appetite during flight and that complaints about the food are rare. Steak: and chicken vie as the most popular meats. The hostesses report that air travelers, as a class, are congenial, courteous and cheerful. Individual passengers shy in those qualities can usually be brought around with a smile and a little extra attention. This even holds for fuss-budgets. One little man called the hostess to him as the plane neared an airport and said: "Go up there and tell the pilot to be sure and put down the landing gear." She explained that it would be unnecessary, but when she saw that he was deeply frightened she stepped into the cockpit, waited a minute and returned. The passenger heaved a sigh of relief and thanked her. Evidently he had read or heard of a plane landing with its wheel retracted. There have been times of accident when hostesses have turned heroine. That happened, for example, to Nellie Granger in April, 1936. Miss Granger, who weighs only IO I pounds and stands 5 feet 2 inches, had been a hostess for Transcontinental and Western Air for only six months. When she 34 left New York: that Spring morning eleven passengers were aboard her California-bound plane. The next stop was Pittsburgh. Miss Granger chatted ·at one time or another with all of the passengers one of whom was a woman. The flight was smooth. The sky was overcast, however, and just before the big plane cleared the last ridge of the Allegheny Mountains the pilot started to "let down" through the fog. :Miss Granger was sitting on her little "jump seat" in the rear of the plane chatting with the woman passenger, who occupied one of the last seats. Suddenly a wing of the plane sliced off a tree top. The next instant the heavy craft was cutting a wing-wide swath through the forest. At the end of 500 yards it smashed its nose against a rock: and turned over on its side. The next thing Miss Granger knew she was lying on the ground clear of the wreckage. A few wisps of smoke spiraled up from the twisted metal and a low moan issued from the jumbled mass that had been a plane. Struggling to her feet, the hostess rushed to the wreckage, and half hauled, half carried a large man, who was dazed and injured, PANORAMA and the_ woman, whose legs were broken, some distance from the plane. By the time she had done this the wreckage had burst into flames. tess, badly dazed and cut, returned with help to the two survivors. Miss Granger summed up her part in the disaster later by saying: "I just did all I could; that's all." Administering first aid to both her charges, she covered them with blankets she had snatched from the fire and started looking for help. She fought her way four miles through underbrush and over rocks and logs to a phone. After getting work to Pittsburgh, the little hosFortunately, it is not often that hostesses are called upon to meet the situation that confronted Nellie Granger, but somehow one feels they would all do just as she did.Frederick Graham, condensed from The New York Times, Magazine. * * * BABIES AND SPEECH THE human race owes much of its speech to animals. Especially is this true in the case of a baby, the most interesting of all animals. The baby, like many other animals, is responsible for its own name. The Oxford Dictionary says it is obviously imitative of the repeated syllable ba-ba, one of the earliest articulate sounds made by infants. The oldest form of the word baby is "baban," used in the 13th century. During the 14th century it was r.educed to babe, the only form used in the Bible. However, during that same period, the word baby also became popular. The usual baby-word corresponding to mamma is papa. Dad is only a variation. The Oxford Dictionary records papa ·from the end of the 17th · century, and mamma a hundred years earlier. Babies, as they grew older, shortened these to pa and ma, which eventually became peter ( paytare) and meter ( maytare) in Greek, and pater and mater in Latin.-Kablegram. MARCH, 1940 35 LITERARY BOOSTS A FORMER public schoolboy, who confessed that he turned burglar to get colour for a novel he was writing, was bound over for two years in London the other day. There have been many strange methods adopted by authors to get publicity for their litera·ry work ... When some years before the war Miss Edith Alanby, the head mistress of St. Anne's School, Lancaster, committed suicide in order to secure publication and publicity for a book she had written, she resorted to a strange form of advertisement which has not since been imitated. Popularity at such a price is scarcely worth obtaining, although Miss Alanby was not the first schoolmistress to conceive the idea of sacrificing her life to win fame for her literary offspring. In March, 1900, an ambitious American woman, who was the mistress of a Kakota school, went to the length of marrying a Sioux Indian for the sole purpose of advertising a novel she had written. This work treated of the life of the Sioux, and the marriage was intended to be a real-life illustration of the climax of the story. 36 Americans have no equals in ongmating ideas for booming hooks, and some of their methods are not as legitimate as they might be. In order to attract the public, a bogus suicide has in more than one instance been advertised of which the following, which appeared in a New York newspaper, is a fair example. "Stirling. By suicide in the Hudson River, poet and man of age. Chicago papers please copy." A few days later the diary of Stirling "man of genius" was placed on the market. Then, in leading articles, the good faith of the poet began to be questioned. Finally it was definitely established that there had been no suicide, the report being published with the sole object of calling attention to the book. Another transatlantic genius hit upon a novel means of getting local colour for a book. It was a romance based upon a certain murder mystery that had not been solved. When half the work was written the author gave himself up to the police, as the perpetrator of the cnme. News of the surrender soon PANORAMA spread, and great satisfaction was felt that the criminal would at last get his due. But when in the police court the real facts became known, satisfaction gave way to anger, and the artful writer had a narrow escape from being lynched. On the score of scruple no fault can be found with the manner in which yet another American author sought to advertise his work. He bought a large stock of expensive cigarettes. On each of these the title of his book appeared in letters of gold ; he then sent packets of cigarettes to his friends, with a request that they should be delivered in quarters where they would do his book most good. A very smart business ruse is attributed to the late Mr. John Maxwell, a London publisher. At the time when "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was at the height of its popularity, he brought out a new edition of thirty thousand copies the success of which appeared to be threatened by a rival firm of publishers. Having slipped a Bank of England note for £so into one of the copies the night before the issue of his edition, he inserted an advertisement in the Times to the effect that a note for this amount had got by mistake into one of the volumes of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," published that MARCH, 1940 night, for the return of which he would pay a reward to the finder. The result was that the whole edition sold ; and, although the missing not~ was never returned, the astute publisher had every reason to be satisfied with the success of his novel advertisement. A very clever way of booming a book was taken in the Australian capital. In the Lower House of the Reichsrath, the Pan German representatives took advantage of the seventieth birthday of the German humorist, Wilhelm Busch, to inquire why his work, "St. Anthony of Padua," was not allowed to circulate in the Austrian Empire. Moreover, they produced in the House a copy of the book, which consequently had to be read to the assembled legislators. By this masterly manoeuvre, the object of the Ministerial prohibition was turned to profitable account. How true this will be better realised when it is pointed out that the unusual proceedings were reported at great length in all the leading newspapers not only of that country but of Germany, which quoted largely from the forbidden work, and thus gave it the benefit of a splendid free advertisement.-T. F. Moynihan, from The Australian Digest of ·World Reading. 37 WORLD'S STRANGEST TALES IN spite of the records, prominent characters who have met tragic deaths are often believed to have survived almost miraculously. To this day large numbers of Americans hold the notion that Booth, assassin of Abraham Lincoln, was not killed as history states, but lived on, disguised and unsuspected for many years to die of natural causes. After the French Revolution, the little Dauphin, heir to the throne died in prison of abuse and starvation, but millions of Frenchmen and others were led to believe that he escaped, and lived out his natural course of life. When the Bolsheviks murdered the entire Russian Family, they made a complete job of it. Yet the yarn keeps cropping up that one little Princess, Anastasia, managed to crawl out of the shambles unobserved and still lives to this day. These impossible or bizarre tales which people pass along to others, take hold of popular fancy because the stories usually deal with somethjng which great masses of people want to believe. Dr. Karen Horney, the eminent 38 Chicago psychoanalyst, has just written a book, New Ways in Psychoanalysis, in which she states that people believe the impossible fictions because the episodes deal with something which the majority of hearers themselves have been wanting to happen to people. Stories constantly come from the Continent asserting that Hitler was killed long ago and that a double is carrying on in his place. This, of course, is not true. The man who is strutting and storming around to-day is the original and only Hitler. Yet, it is not too strange to be true. Both he and Dictator Josef Stalin of Russia are said to have several doubles to impersonate them on .. dangerous occasions when someone might possibly get a chance to toss a bomb. Madame Lupescu, sweetheart of King Carol of Rumania, has em.ployed a whole corps of red-headed doubles ever since a bad man with a bad aim put an undesired wave in her tresses with a bullet. One of these doubles was actually kidnapped and held for twelve hours PANORAMA before the mistake was discovered. The l~te flirtatious old King Leopold of Belgium had a double, not to foil assassins, but as an alibi, to be seen sitting piously in church while the real monarch was philandering. Mythology hands down to modern times many stories which have been revised constantly and which preach the moral of hospitality. Poor but generous souls gave their last crust to a tramp, who turned out to be a prince, king or god in disguise and made them rich for that small investment. The same type, though reversed, is the awful punishment visited upon those who maltreat a guest. Many are extremely ingenious but none quite as fantastic as the purely fictional tale of Carl Mauser, the poor Austrian boy who went to Chicago, made good and decided to visit his poor old mother, bringing a present of 300 pounds. Three hundred pounds was no startling sum for an American working-man to have, but well he knew that in Eur.ope, at that time, it was a fortune. He could imagine his mother alternately weeping and laughing for days over all that money, more than her ancestors had MARCH, 1940 ever seen at one time. And how his younger sister's eyes would bulge. To make the little drama more perfect, he would make his visit a surprise and, if possible, he would hide his identity from them until they had told him about their hopeless poverty. Then he would reveal himself. This gentle deceit would be easy, because he had left home a skinny, ragged "bag of bones," whereas now he was a fat man in expensive clothes. So he crossed the ocean, travelled by train to Innsbruck and climbed the mountainous path he knew so well to the little old Mauser Inn which probably w6uld not have a single guest for the entire winter. The door was opened by his sister whom he barely recognized and who did not know him. She curtsied and said : "Yes, indeed, there is a room for the wohlgeborener Herr." He almost cried out at the sight of his poor, broken, hungry-looking mother, but again there was no recognition. When he said that he had no baggage, he would pay a day in advance, the poor woman ran her eye over his expensive clothes, his buoyant, successful 39 manner and then said it would be the equivalent of £1 a day. Carl almost laughed in her face because he knew from her letters that this was about five times as much as they got even in season. She was robbing her own son, and how he would tease her about it. Deliberately, he took out his £Joo, shuffied it through to find the exact amount. He he~ard a sort of tortured sigh from his mother, but did not look up for fear she would see his mouth twitching. Then the old woman led him to a room which he could have found with his eyes shut-it had been his as a boy. He had given her an American name and said that he was from Chicago. She wanted to know if he had met her son, her beloved boy, such a good boy-he had promised to visit her soon. No, the guest had never heard of anyone by that name. Long aftet the guest had put out his light old Frau Mauser sat with such an expression that it frightened her daughter. The gii-1 went to bed but not to sleep, and a little later saw her mother stealthily moving towards the guest's room with a long kitchen knife in her hand. The girl begged her not to do what she had in mind, but the +o mother said : "It is the chance of a life-time. It will save us from losing the inn, or if we like we can join Carl in America. Why should this American have all that money and we have nothing? I am determined." She silenced her daughter's protests with the threat of her knife, went into the room and stabbed the sleeping guest through the heart. Then, after taking the money and hastily dressing the body, the two women tossed it into a nearby ravine. A path ran along the edge of the ravine which would make it look as if he had been attacked by robbers there. The next day came an officer of the law, but Frau Mauser was sure her story would prevent suspicion. The officer looked more sad than suspicious as he asked : "Did you have a son, Carl Mauser, who went to America?" "Yes, indeed, I have," replied the mother, delighted at the chance to discuss her favourite topic instead of the other. "Then prepare yourself for a shock," said the officer. "He was robbed and murdered last night. There is his name and picture on his passport." Old Frau Mauser took one look PANORAMA at the bloodstained photograph of her guest, uttered a dreadful cry and dropped dead. Her daughter told them the rest. With pages and pages of atmosphere and building up, Edgar Allan Poe may have equalled in fiction this short and simple tragedy, but it is doubtful if he or anyone else has beaten it much. But it never happened. It has been told before -with the locale in almost every land. Like other "classics," it bobs up every few years. Trust and generosity towards strangers also have unhappy endings. There is the "Spanish Prisoner" classic. Thousands of people for a century or more have been told of a fabulously rich man held prisoner for ransom in a castle in Spain, while his relatives are slowly collecting the millions demanded to save hiin. However, the man who whispers the story happens to be in touch with someone who knows that for a mere £100 or so, the prisoner's guardian could be bribed to let the man escape. This would be a kindly act and besides, the grateful rich man would doubtless reward his liberators with at least £10,000 each. Nobody knows how many thousand pounds have been swindled out of people to free that mythical Spanish prisoner. Suicide tales, both true and imaginary, come out of gambling resorts, especially Monte Carlo. The management of the Casino is sensitive about news stories of suicides who have killed themselves after going broke gambling. Therefore it is said that when a suicide occurs, an agent of the Casin{) gets there ahead of the police and stuffs a few thousand francs into the dead man's pockets. This seems to prove that the person was not broke and thus takes the blame from the Casino.-Donald A. Laird, conaensed frorrz The American Weekly, New York. • • • FEBRUARY, 1940 THE FRANK MAN CURIOUS: "How many students are there in the university?" FRANK: "About one in every ten." 41 YOUR WALK BETRAYS YOU WHEN WOMEN'S skirts starting fluttering up to their present level, at least one group of scientists was pleased. "Each sunny sidewalk will soon become a perfect proving ground for our theory that a person's character can be judged by his, walk," they told each other. "Knee-action will be as easy to observe as ankle action is now." Trained observers equipped with cameras already had studied male pedestrians. What they recorded had been used at New York University to help men get ahead in their careers. And now the eloquence of the feminine step . is receiving the attention it deserves. Science has kept right on watching the world walk. Footsteps, from the first tottering ones of babyhood to the last tottering ones of old age, have been studied and classified along \vith hip action, arm motion and general posture. The resulting discoveries, although incomplete as yet, are interesting. The girl who trips along is ~2 popular at parties, but the chances are that she won't be able to balance the budget at home. She's superficial. The girl who walks with a panther-like slide will be unpredictable. She'll be happy one minute, sad the next. As her unnatural walk indicates, she's putting on an act. Science suggests that b o y s dhoose for companions the girls who walk firmly without appearing to stride along. Their shoes should move in nearly parallel lines. Their legs should be held almost straight, but not stiff. Heads should be high, yet held easily-on straight shoulders. Girls who have a gait like that, investigation has shown, are usually calm, sensible, pleasant. As their walk indicates, they won't turn out to be the giggly type. Because boys have been studied more than girls, a girl can choose a suitable friend with even more certainty. Naturally, each boy's walk presents a different picture. It was only by observing large groups PANORAMA that the scientists could make these general rules : Most boys who land hard on their heels have a frank, courageous, honest disposition. The "toe walker" is just the opposite. He's sly, probably. His head and body, bent slightly forward, add to the impression of secretiveness. In general, a man who walks with quick, short steps is nervous and easily annoyed. But this characteristic must be balanced against other walking features before a complete judgment is made. Between the stroller and the staccato walker is the ideal boy. But scientists warn against dealing too much in generalities. Foot position, arm motion and posture all must be considered. For instance, the boy who swings his arms energetically when he walks is a most ambitious fellow. If the arm-swinger is also a light-stepper, he is unmistakably an idealist, the type who dreams up castles in Spain, but may not be able to pay the rent. A boy of the opposite type allows the arms to hang like lifeless weights. These leaden arms indicate a lack of will-power and sometimes they mean downright laziness. The boy who walks with his MARCH, 1940 toes turned inward is usually introspective. He's all wrapped up in his own thoughts and his own problems. He'll be successful in his personal affairs, but almost a total loss at a party. On the other hand, the boy who walks with his toes turned out is usually a sociable soul. He's observing the world instead of himself. He'll listen to a tale of woe and symphatize with the bearer of it. Of course it's possible for a person to walk with his toes pointing in and still be as interested in other people as in himself, but this, science has found," is the exception. The ideal boy, like the ideal girl, walks with his shoes sharply parallel. His head is erect. His chest· protrudes, without appearing to be held out purposely, and his shoulders are back. He swings along without rolling. He puts his feet down firmly. When he walks fast he doesn't appear excited, and when he strolls he contradicts ariy impression of laziness by his erect carriage. The best way to start learning such an easy carriage is to stand against a wall. The heels the hips, the shoulders and the back of the head should all touch the 43 wall. Walk away, holding this you'll find that this effort, plus pos1t10n. Then maintain it, trying not to be stiff. your improved carriage, is making you more natural, calmer and even more self-confident. The most encouraging discovery in this whole study of walking is that when you improve your walk probably you're strengthening your character at the same time. Try to walk easily, naturally, swinging from the hips. Soon Gradually, science says, your character may be aided. It's hard to feel lazy or secretive or despondent with your head up and your shoulders back.-Condensed from Everybody's Weekly. 44 * * * LINCOLN IMPROVED THE following is the way a conference of some advertising executives might handle Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: Fourscore and seven years ago (say "eighty-seven") our fathers brought forth ("founded" would be a better word) on .this continent a new nation (let's get the name in there big) conceived in liberty (sounds awkward. Say "with the idea of freedom") and dedicated to the proposition that all men (we ought to have "women" in there, too. There are a lot of women in this country; it's a big field) are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war (make this the first paragraph-we take too long to get into the story) testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived (see above) and so dedicated can long endure. (Endure what? Make it "last.") We are met (say "have met") on a great battlefield of that war. (Put in the name.) We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place (don't beat about the bush-say "cemetery") for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. (We're sorry, Mr. Lincoln, but this simply won't do. Take it and think it over, and see if you can't give us good, hard-hitting, straight-from-the-shoulder copy.) - Typo Graphic. PANORAMA PRINCE SAIONJI WHENEVER a ministerial upheaval occurs in Japan, as . in the recent instance when the Abe Cabinet resigned en bloc and Admiral Y onai and his selected Ministers took over the helm, the name of Prince Kimmochi Saionji always appears in the limelight. Although this aged statesman is· no longer so active in Cabinetmaking as was the case some years ago, his opinion as adviser to the Throne always carries weight. As a fact in no instance is the Imperial decision made without first requesting his views. Prince Saionji, who will in all probability be the last of the Genro--Elder Statesman-has for the past decade or so lived ''above the clouds," except when his presence was demanded in lower regions for special reasons. This is but befitting since the house of Saionji is one of the most closely related to the Imperial family, perhaps, with the exception of the Konoye family, the closest outside those of Imperial blood. The Genro was born in 1 849, MARCH, 1940 four years before the arrival at U raga of the Commodore Perry's fleet of Black ships, in one of the most ancient families in the country. The name of Saionji was derived from the Saion Temple, erected in Kyoto by one of his ancestors, Kintsune, a Court noble who died at the age of 7 4 in 1 244. The temple was burned in a fire and on its site Shogun Yoshimitsu of the Ashikaga Dynasty ( 13531408) built the present Golden Pavilion. As a family of politicians, the Saionjis have been characterized by their practical policy, free from any ideological prejudice. His ancestors acquiesced in Shogunate regimes without, however impairing the dignity of the Imperial Household. After the May 15 Incident in 1932 in which Premier Tsuyoshi lnukai was assassinated, Prince Saionji recommended t o t h e Throne as his successor Viscount Makoto Saito, who transcended all prevailing pol~tical ideologies. Perhaps the Genro allowed the family tradition of practical policy 45 in doing so. It is said that the Saionji Family has played a very important part in all epoch-making events of the country since the family came into existence. Prince Saionji himself, distinguished himself in the Meiji Restoration by siding with the Satsuma and Choschu clans. At the age of only 20, he was appointed commander of the forces who pacified the Japan Sea Coast early in the Meiji Era because he was considered an extremely plucky youth for a Court noble. Prince Saionji hates all forms of pretention. Those who pretend to be gentlemanly, artistic or pedantic are despised by him particularly. He himself has never tried to look anything other than what he really _is. He behaves as he likes and speaks freely of what is in his mind. People sometimes misunderstand him because he is so frank. One of his good friends was Tsunetada Kato, a diplomat, who was educated in France. Prince Saionji, who is a good connoisseur of European wines and liqueurs, used to drink with him quite often at his villa in Tanaka Village, near Kyoto. Their friend46 ship was especially deep because they had a common French taste and love of good wines. It is said that the Genro was trained to drink at the age of only seven. He is also said to have been taught how to act in the company of ladies at an age when this kind of training is generally considered unnecessary. It was m I 894 that Prince Saionji was given his first Cabinet portfolio, that of Education. He was then appointed Foreign Minister. His foreign policy followed that of Prince Hirobumi Ito, advocating harmony with Britain, the United States, France, and other Powers and gradual expansion of Japanese national prowess . . . another instance of his practical principle. Prince Saionji was the Japanese Minister in Berlin around 1890, when Bismark was still in power. He once said that even Bismarck showed a weakness of old age when he twice told one person the same story of one of his exploits in the Prussian war. Despite his highly advanced age, Prince Saionji can still think clearly and has a good memory. A writer who visited him recently said that the Genro still has better brains than PANORAMA any member of the Cabinet. At his well-known Zagyozo Villa at Okitsu on Suruga Bay, Prince Saionji is now leading a very quiet life, seeing few people. Though his mind is as active as a young man's he has grown physically weak. Probably he will never come up to Tokyo again. His hobbies include engraving seals and raising bush-warblers (Japanese nightingales). He is well versed in both of the delicate arts but says that he is but a clumsy amateur. He has also a taste for potted plants. Although he is fond of Paris, French books and wine, his taste in literature is fundamentally that of a refined Japanese gentleman of the old school. He is particularly well versed in Chinese classics. During his IO years' stay in Paris he is reputed to have been a man about town. There is a popular story that he smashed windows in a Parisian cafe. But it seems doubtful for he was a refined pleas~re-seeker, hobnobbing with Georges Clemenceau and other politicians. When a French friend of his could not believe that the samurai's method of suicide was to cut open his belly, Prince Saionji is said to have thrust a knife into his left hand to prove Japanese fortitude. His hand shows to this day the scar of the wound, it is said.Condensed from Japan Times Weekly. * * * CORRECT! I REMEMBER a friend of mine in Moscow trying to explain. life in the outside world to a Russian boy. He told the boy about freedom of the press. The boy was amazed. "You mean that several papers on the same day, on the same news-stand, publish different views on the same question?" When assured that such was the case, the boy exclaimed: "But what a waste of effort when there is only one correct answer to any question!" -Eugene Lyons. MARCH, 1940 47 GOLD ON THE PEAKS OF DEATH ALL the malignant genn of the Incas are awaking from their slumber of many centuries in the recesses of their caves of gold, for adventurous prospectors are again after the hoard which they have guarded so jealously and so efficiently for so long. This new effort to track hidden fabulous wealth is due to the initiative of American S t o c k Exchange speculators, who have become interested in the shares of a gold mining undertaking,_ and it is now genuinely intended to work at last the greatest of the gold mines of the earth, which so many Europeans and Americans failed to find. We have knowledge of a mysEuropeans and Americans prefer to trust the stamina of their hearts trained for sporting performances, and torely on the diet of raw liver recommended by modern medicine for expeditions of such a strenuous character. Mountain sickness is the greatest danger in those parts. Gold may be found by the roadside, but Death keeps watch over it. The hunger for gold of the world is growing apace and it is no mere coincidence that prospectors, finding the waste spaces of Alaska and of Canada barren, are now transferring their attentions to South America and chartering aircraft to take them high up amongst the peaks of the Andes. The Incas terious road once built by the In- . engaged by them as guides in the cas for their potentates, which led to a height of some 1 7 ,ooo feet in the heart of the Andres, near Caxamarca, Peru, where the sources of the gold supplies of the Incas are reputed to have been located. Whenever white men now venture there under the guidance of natives, the latter provide themselves plentifully with cocoa, whilst 48 valleys are being paid enormous sums, so that the quest for gold seems to be meeting with success. Yet people who have been acquainted of old with the Andes and their perils remain sceptical, for it is the old story all over again. Years ago two Americans turned up, climbed up the mountains, found a place where the ground PANORAMA yielded 50 grammes of gold per ton, incurred tremendous expenditure to establish a giant company, and called hundreds of engineers and an army of thousands of gold diggers. Enormous cargoes of machinery were brought by steamers. The "provisional" expenditure ran into millions of pesos. High up in the mountains resthouses were built along the Inca roads, ropeways were built to overcome the mountain ranges more quickly, and the prospectus of the company told no lies when it said that its gold mine was the richest in the world. There was Some excuse for the beanfast held, down in the valley, to mark the solemn opening of the mine. The fly in the ointment is that the mine proper is at an altitude of some 14,000 feet, and the problem of finding out how the ancient Incas could possibly work in the rarefied atmosphere of those heights has not yet been solved. They may have had some secret medicine unknown to the modern scientist enabling them to perform an impossible task. However that may be, when the white man tackled the task of working the mine the result was tragic. Of the three thousand miners and engineers sent up there, MARCH, 19+0 forty-five were dead after two months. A thousand others soon left a place which held, to them, no prospect other than a lingering and painful death. The company was at its wits' end. The working hours were reduced and the wages increased to save the human material, yet the dream of working the largest gold mine in the world was slowly but relentlessly shattered, for wha~ is the use of a mine, even if it contains all the gold in the world, if men are so weakened as not to be able to wield the tool with which they have to extract it? The position had eventually become so serious that the working day was only four hours. At long intervals a handful of heroes struck the trail which led from the coast to the peaks of death, but twice as many met them on their downward journey, a prey to dread disease. The working day shrank to three hours, worth £2 to the men who held out, but the newly arrived miners collapsed after thirty minutes, reduced to impotence by persistent haemorrhage from the ears and nose, and had to be removed. The spectre of mountain sickness had prevailed. The native Incas, true heirs to +9 all that inaccessible wealth, stood by, like impassive bronze statues, as the beaten whites retreated once more to the coast. They knew, and a savage joy glistened in the eyes of many, for high up there the avenging spirits of their race had again struck a mighty blow, and the bones of many of the invaders would bleach among the peaks. Meanwhile the new attack on the gold of the Incas appears to be carried on in a far more scientific manner, largely inspired by the bitter lessons of the past. Prior to being sent up to the goldfields miners and engineers are put through a period ot acclimatisation with a cocoa and fresh liver diet. Care is also taken that no one exceeds a spell of more than four weeks, and is then sent to recover at a kind of sanatorium situated at a much lower altitude. In spite of the enormous increase of working expenses which this organization entails, the wealth of the mines is such that the company can well afford it, .and, in any case, unless such measures are taken no one will ever be able to live long enough on those heights to tear an ounce of gold from the bowels of the earth. Will the attempt succeed? Stock Exchange quotations will soon tell us~-Condensed from The Argentine Magazine. * * * so SO SIMPLE "It's surprising," said the professor to his wife at breakfast, "to think how ignorant we all are. Nearly every man is a specialist in his own particular line, and in consequence we are all as narrow-minded as it is possible to be." "Yes, dear," said his wife. "I, for instance," he continued, "am ashamed of my failure to keep abreast of modern science. Take electric light, for example. I haven't the slightest idea how it works." His wife gave him a patronizing look, and smiled. "Why, Herbert, I'm ashamed of you, too. It's simple! You just press a switch, that's all."-Kablegram. PANORAMA WORK YOUR IDEAS EVERY DAY, on every hand, we hear someone say, "I've got an idea." But rarely does this person add, "and I'm putting it to work." Most of us human beings are content to sit back and toy with our ideas, dismissing them as unsound or absurd without even having a try at them. Yet, to dismiss an idea as unworkable without putting it to test is to be defeated before you begin. Too many people are overshptical of their own ideas, as well as the ideas of their associates. As a result, they miss many an opportunity. History is studied with examples of men who fought against great odds and won ; not entirely because they had "something on the ball," but because they did get out and start the ball to rolling. Their ideas weren't astounding, perhaps, but these men took such ideas as they had, and forced them to go to work. Consider the case of F. W. Woolworth, who became the dime-store magnate. He was not MARCH, 1940 the first to dream of selling miscellaneous low-cost items under a single roof. , He was, however, the first to work that idea. He turned his back on the titters that greeted . his experiment-and he failed three times. He made a fourth venture--and you know what happened. A novelty manufacturer recently told me of how, a few months before the coronation of George VI of England, he had conceived the idea of a coronation deck of playing cards. "Wally," he explained, "was to be the joker ... " He had figured it out in every detail, but he kept putting it off. Whenever the thought of getting down to business entered his head, he dismissed it. Then a competitor brought out a coronation deck and "cleaned up." "But he missed the real ideathe idea of the joker," my friend remarked with a wag of his head. And I, too, wagged my head, sadly, at my friend. He is no exception. It is safe to say that his experience is the Sl rule. All new ideas are shy when firSt: introduced among 0iur old ones. "Every new idea," according to Samuel Butler, the English satmst, "has something of the pain and peril of childbirth about it." Restaurant men laughed when a young San Franciscan introduced the "bottomless cup," or all the coffee you can drink, for a dime-but when the innovation proved to be a big booster of the !'>ales-check average as well as bringing in more patrons, it gained nationwide popularity in the trade. The point is that the "bottomless cup" was not a brain-child of the young San Franciscan. Weary of hearing some friends discussing its possibilities, he gave it a try. This was his only contribution, but he received the reward. A Long Island dairyman, walking one day in the rain, got the bright idea of marketing "eggs laid while you wait!" The idea was so silly, he says, that he told none of his assistants about it. Nevertheless, he started to advertise "Eggs Laid "V\Thile You Wait" and sales, he says, showed an increase of 42 per cent for the first week. Andrew Carnegie once said that 52 people overestimate the ability of the successful business man. "Business," he said, "fairly bristles with energy, resourcefulness and devotion to routine, but none of these is quite so valuable as the spirit o'f experiment, the quality that made Edison famous." The mere mention of Edison, that grand old man of science, brings to mind any number of tragic cases concerning little Edisons, men in every walk of life whoby calling or by avocation-are turning their talents to scientific creation. Most of these inventors fall down on the most important part of their undertaking-the part that calls for executing what they have conceived. An insurance solicitor m a Midwestern town invented a little gadget designed to reduce static on the average radio. It worked. He made several "static eliminators" for his friends, and all of them agreed that the little gadget did wonders in taking the "grinding teeth" out of the reception of programs. But the solicitor never marketed his product and, when friends urged him to do so, he made answer by saying, "Oh, people don't mind a little static." But it seems that people PANORAMA do, for when someone did bring out a static eliminator only a few months later, it was extraordinarily successful. There's my point. We have no scarcity of ideas. Probably every thinking boy, girl, man and woman already has conceived enough ideas to last for a lifetime. Getting an idea is almost without importance. To come across a man who actually is setting out to put his idea to work, however, is a human experience that is rare indeed.-Don Samson, condensed from Forbes. * * * WHO'S LOONY NOW? ONCE there was a man who said: "I have devised a scheme that will completely do away with all submarine disasters." "It can't be," they objected. "Too many people have tried unsuccessfully.'' "I will guarantee," said the man, "that if my plan is adopted, not a single life will ever be lost inside a submarine." "O.K.," they said, "but how many billions will it cost? Money these days does not grow on trees." "The best feature of my plan," he retorted, "is that it will not cost a single, solitary cent." "Incredible," they objected. "But anyhow, what is your plan?" And he said: "Don't build submarines." They put him in the asylum because anybody could see that he was obviously crazy.-Tracy Perkins. * * * CHANGED HER MIND A LITTLE girl, sitting in church watching a wedding, suddenly exclaimed: "Mummy, has the lady changed her mind?" "What do you mean?" the mother asked. "Why," replied the child, "she went up the aisle with one man and came back with another."-Parade. MARCH, 1940 53 THOSE SLINKING, CRAFTY ORIENTALS ''THOSE crafty Orientals ... " is a comment not uncommon in the western half of this globe. The deeds of Dr. Fu Manchu and Charley Chan of movie and story fame color the Western mind with reference to those who inhabit the Far Eastern and Asiatic sections of the world, and the Japanese, who in appearance and race -are of that category, are not infrequently included in the dishonorable listing of slinking, mysterious beings with bloody murder in their hearts, unforgetful of an injury done that must be expiated with the thrust of a gleaming .dagger in the dark. All too prevalent is the idea behind the smiling mask lurks the demon of hate, that underneath the suave and polished exterior seethes a boiling inferno which bodes ill to those who are not of their race, creed or whatever else it is that they sadly lack. That in musty, incense-smelling dens of opium and vice, nefarious plots are being hatched, all pointing to tha~ day when the yellow claw of the mystic East encircles its deathly clutch 54 around the unknowing throat of the West. If you are of the above coterie that avidly eat up this sort of bunkum, journalistic, cinema-photographic or otherwise, forget it. Get a new slant on the whole business by reading, travelling-anything that will knock out of your medulla oblongata the misconception that the· Japanese, who occupy a small portion of the Asiatic territory, are human dynamite. You don't have to take my word for it. Trot over to the nearest public library and C>pen a few books that describe this Japan. If you think that's propaganda, hunt. tip residents in your community who have been in Japan and know something about what they are talking about. From the amount of tourists that have passed through the country in recent years, there ought to be a few within handy reach. All this, however, is not to say that the Japanese are angels. . . far from it. The main thing is that though we are not villains at heart, we are subject to all the frailities PANORAMA that human beings all over the world are heir to. . . and it adds up to quite an imposing list. It is a trite but true fact that no matter where it may be, the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" beset our way, try though we will, and human nature being what it is, the natural reactions always become evident. Hence, when a Japanese drinks, he becomes boisterous, cries, passes out or wants to fight. The errant husbands who spend the night out instead of perching in the family roost of an evening are too many to mention. We laugh when we are happy or amused, cry when sorrowful and hate lik:e the dickens when necessary. . . but ... whether it is to our advantage or loss, it is admitted even among the most ardent rationalists that we as individuals are easy to kindle but a little too quick: in cooling down. Commentators to the contrary notwithstanding, it has been proved too often that the Japanese cannot k:eep an urge· in their hearts long enough. The Japanese soldier, for instance, on a charge is irresistible, say the Chinese, but the fact that these bayonet excursions don't keep on forever has saved many an enemy life. By temperament, they lik:e MARCH, 1940 to finish a job in as short a time as possible. Too much hammering at one object, however, seems not to be to their liking. When the order to advance on to enemy lines is given, it seems that all the pentup excitement within the ranks expresses itself in one mad forward movement. Hence a battle on level terrain, where the going is comparatively smooth, is made-toorder, but tortuous climbing of mountains, laying mines, anywhere that the objective requires time and patience seems too trying a task: for them. It's just a part of the Japanese characteristic and characteristics will out. There may be not a few who think we are cold and reserved among ourselves as well as strangers. Relieve yourselves of the worry. There is hardly a story or movie play in Japan that doesn't have a love interest and that's being conservative. The crater of Mt. Mihara on the island of Oshima, the fall of Kegon in Nikko, where people have the sad habit of ending it all, have no equal in any other part of the globe, and th~ majority of the leaders are victiins of unrequited or some other phases of love. This race of great lovers, these capable of so much affection, SS can hardly be classed as enemies of humanity. In fact, that's another of our more evident weaknesses. We are too sentimental! Statistically speaking, there is no doubt that more gallons of tears are shed in the movie and playhouses in Japan than all the rest of the world combined. We are too easily affected by our surroundings so that we are liable to be considered insincere. More colored tape was hurled at departures (until the Government put a stop to it) than anywhere else in the world and the enthusiastic welcomes, to which visitors will attest, is unprecedented in feeling and scope anywhere. The beauty of the whole thing lies in the fact that it is not a faked demonstration. We really and sincerely feel it at the moment. How long the sentiments temain at this pitch is another matter. Peaceful by nature and history, Japan wants to be left alone to work out her destiny in quiet. Discrimination, boycott and suspicion have dogged her footsteps in many foreign lands. It has roused her people to indignant frenzy, to cries of war and retaliation. But these are passing phases in the life of the nation. Inherently, Japan pos56 sesses neither the treachery nor the warlike spirit with which she has been credited. All she asks is to be treated like any other human. The hand of understanding, mentally as well as physically, extended from overseas will meet with overwhelming reciprocation. It is a wise nation that utilises this tender spot in the Japanese makeup in striving for a better world. The sly, slinking oriental is an inept picture of the Japanese. Look back on her past relations with the Western nations of the world. It is true that she has borrowed the incandescent lamp and the motorcar along with a lot of other modern conveniences, learned to speak the glib tongue in international conferences and a few other accomplishments, but in other matters of so-called diplomacy and tact, she is still behind the rest. The true Japanese is still almost primitive in his expression ; stated in more complimentary terms, he is childlike in his simplicity despite the thousands of years of training in reserve and self-constraint. Under such circumstances nothing explosive boils in the Japanese pot. If anything, a spontaneous desire for goodwill bubbles at the top, a sincere wish that the nations PANORAMA of the world will associate with her in a more friendly spirit of helpfulness, discarding the smoke of suspicion, threat and misconception that mar the sunny side of the Japanese outlook on life.-Condensed from The Japan Times, Tokio. * * * THE WOMAN OF FIFTY AT FORTY a woman has climbed the hill. The age of forty reminds one of harvest time: it is hot, often sultry and full of work. It is still summer-and youth. The age of sixty is like the month of October : the days still warm and sunny, the nights already cold and hoary. But fifty years is an intermediate age, a neutral zone so to speak. To the right woman in the right place it brings the well-earned calm and it does away with the uncertainty of the forties. The woman of fifty has learned to see clear. The influences and factors which could have obscured her vision in younger years have disappeared. She no longer overlooks existing deficiencies and flaws, not even in her own children. But she has arrived at a point where she realizes that not she alone can be made responsible for the results, because, side by side with her, manifold forces and influences, have been at work shaping the minds and souls of the younger generation. The woman of fifty has the wisdom of experience. She is a stone in the edifice of the State and has a right to be listened to. The woman of fifty knows what sacrifice means. Life does not hold out many more threats for her. Her soul is tempered. Perhaps loneliness is· what she fears most---spiritual !onliness, of course. An incomprehensible and cruel custom compels the woman of fifty to confine herself to the company of her sisters. But much as she may have in common with other women, she will still long for the company of men. The woman and not the female in her will long for the spiritual completion and fulfilment that only the companionship between man and woman can give.-Christa Niesel-Lessenthien, condensed from W estermanns M onatshefte, Berlin. MARCH, 1940 57 SUPERSTITIONS OF THE FAMOUS ---~~ 58 SUPERSTITIOUS beliefs are prevalent among all sorts and conditions of men. Instances of it are to be found in the lives of great musicians, authors, statesmen and generals-lurking, sometimes, in the minds of men whom we should least expect to be influenced by such fancies. The great Dr. Johnson counted his steps before entering any place, so as to arrange that his right foot should always· precede his left. He also touched ·every post which he passed along a certain route, fearing that, if he missed one, some misfortune would befall him. Rubinstein, the pianist, had a horror of setting out on a journey either on Monday or Friday; the dreamy and sentimental Chopin fancied that he saw spirits, and Shelley • shared this belief. Bismarck feared the number 13. Napoleon was a firm believer in presentiments. Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, became nervous and superstitious about the most trivial incidents connected with her life. At the Palace of Versailles was a mirror in which the unfortunate queen saw her headless reflection. Owing to a peculiarity in the construction of the glass, she saw only her body without a head. The shock to Marie Antoinette's already shattered nerves was extreme, and she considered that her fate was sealed. Her presentiment came true. She was executed during the French Revolution.-Sunday Statesman, India. PANORAMA PANORAMA QUIZ THIS feature is intended to test your fund of information on matters that an educated person should know. Read each question carefully. Check the answer you think is correct. After you have gone over afl of them, look up the correct answers on page 63. 1. Last January a very important commercial treaty between major powers came to an end, thus affecting the relations between: ( 1) Germany and France; (2) Germany and Japan; '(3) United States and England; (4) Japan and United States. 2. The Anti-Comintern Pact is an agreement concluded by some European and Asiatic states directed against: (1) Japan; (2) Mexico; (3) Germany; (4)" Russia; (5) Spain; ( 6) England. 3. British warships are capturing Italian. merchant boats because these boats are said: ( 1) to be violating the British blockade on Germany; (2) to carry contraband goods to Germany; ( 3) to carry the German flag; ( 4) to supply Finland with arms in the war against Russia. 4. Cremona is an unimportant city to most people but to artists it is quite famous because ( 1) it is the "birthplace of many well-known opera singers; (2) the place where the drama was revived in the Middle Ages; MARCH, 1940 ( 3) the city where the famous Stradivarius 'Violins were made; ( 4) the island of famous myths. 5. One of the outstanding operas entitled Tosca was written by an Italian named (1) Jlerdi; (2) Puccini; (3) Beethoven; (4) Mozart; (5) Paganinni. 6. Emily Bronte wrote one of the most stirring novels in English which was recently filmed, its title being (1) Gone With the Wind; (2) Wuthering Heights; (3) Grapes of Wrath; (4) The Light That Failed. 7. He looked . at the statue and said: "What a surprising replica." By which he means: (1) a serpent; (2) 11n annoying reply,' (3) a true answer; ( 4} an astonishingly faithful copy. 8. Recently Joe Louis, the heavyweight world boxing champion, was almost defeated in a bout in which Louis failed to score a knock-out, his opponent being Canzera, (2) Godoy, (3) Garci11, (4) Lee, (5) Firpo. ,59 9. The Balkan's biggest customer is (1) Russia, (2) Italy, (3) Germany, ( 4) England. 10. During the last World War, one of the following nations remained neutral: (1) Belgium, (2) Italy, (3) Japan, (4) Holland, (5} France, (6) Russia. 11. As a result of the last \Vorld War, most European nations became indebted to the United States. These debtor countries after the \Var failed to pay their debts except: ( 1) Poland, (2) France, (3) Finland, (4) England, (5) Italy, (6) Germany. 12. South of the United States are seventeen independent states; and out of them all only two have no seacoast. These two are ( 1) Ecuador and F enezuela, (2) Guatemala and Salvador, (3) Bolivia and Paraguay, (4) Peru and Chili~ 13. You know that the word diner is not equivalent to dinner, and so you should know that dinar is ( 1) the corrupted word for diner; ( 2) the currency of Yugoslavia; { 3) an edible bird's nest; ( 4) a certain class of porcelain plates; ( 5) a useful beast in India. 14. The name of Samuel Pepys is closely associated with ( 1) old guns, (2) digestive materials, (3)- wellkept diaries, ( 4) etiquette books. ~o Get the Sweepstakes Spirit BUY YOUR TICKETS EARLY for the next draw, April 21. P585,000 IN CASH PRIZES on a sale basis of 'P'l,000,000 BE AN AUTHORIZED RE-SELLER and make money in your spare time, P'3.76 commission for each booklet of twelve ( 12) tickets sQld, plus che following big prizes: P'5,000 to seller of First Prize winning ticket. 3.000 to seller of Second Prize winning ticket. 1,000 to seller of Third Prize winning ticket. 500 to sellers of any Fourth Prize winning tickets. 100 to sellers of any Fifth Prize winning tickets. ACT NOW AND SEND THE COUPON BELOW Save A Life and Win A Prize Philippine Charity Sweepstakes - - - - - - - CUT AND SEND - - - - - - - Philippine Charity Sweepstakes P.O.Hox 141, Manila Philippines Inclosed is !" ............................ for which please send me ................... . tickets . booklets at the price of r2.02 per ticket or 1"20.24 per booklet. (Name) (Address) PANORAMA ++++++++++++++++++•••••••••••++++++++++•+++ Panoramic Views DEMOCRACY ends where the persecution of minorities begins. Each of us belongs to some minority. It may be our turn next. -Dr. Christian Gauss. * :MANNERS don't count if they are only gestures.-Margaret Fishback. * WAR NEWS has no ·place in the classroom unless it is definitely tagged as rumor.-A lexander J. Stoddard. * MAKING an issue of little things 1s one of the surest ways to spoil happiness.-C. Conrad. * To take Christ seriously would entail the disbanding of our armies, the scrapping of our navies, the sacking of our judges and lawyers, the closing of ·our prisons, and the provision of equal incomes for all irrespective of work done.-C. E. M. load. * IT is said, with some degree of truth, that no man 1s a villain when you know him.-Dr. Hamilton Fyfe. * THE eternal struggle: keeping your earning capacity up to your wife's yearning capacity.-Kiwanis Magazine. * To be happy a person needs to know two things: close the eyes and open the hands.-A French writer. +++++++ + + t t + + + + + t I + + + t + + t + t t + t + + + t I + + + + I I + + MARCH, .1940 61 READERS' COMMENT College of Medicine, U. P., Manila -My subscription renewal for PANORAMA has already been paid for. PANORAMA'S condensation of articles worth reading is a masterly performance. So I will be PANORAMA'S permanent reader.-Dr. Jose .4/bert. * * * be the best we have at home, becaus6. it is the only magazine that my brothers and sisters widely read, although I have two more magazines that come to me monthly. I highly appreciate its educational value. It is indeed informative and interesting. It is the most enjoyable Baguio-Sending pesos for my magazine to read so that reading yout subscription to PANORAMA. This completes my payment in full for 3 years. I enjoy reading the paper.Ernesto L. M. llbellera, M.D. * * * Baybay, Leyte-Enclosed you will find Postal Money Order No. 493/2416, for Three Pesos (P3.00) for which kindly renew my subscription for PANORAMA, for one year and one year for CONTACT. Allow me to express to you, through these lines, my most sincere gratitude and thanks for your fine magazines.-!. Sievert. * * * marvelous PANORAMA has become my hobby.-Florencia Patron. * * * Isabela Sugar Co. Inc.-I have received my first copy of the PAt.;.,RAma, January Issue of which I am very much delighted as I consider this little magazine as one of the best in the Islands and one worthwhile having.-Pirgi/ia P. Enriquez, * * * Calapan, Mindoro-I have received my first copy of your PANORAMA and have read all of its contents. The articles were all interesting and very Palnipinon, Luzuriaga, Neg r o s informative from cover to cover.Oriental-Your magazine proves to llgustin Tengtio. * * * 62 PANORAMA Panorama Quiz-Answers 1. Japan and United States 2. Russia 3. To be violating the British blockade on Germany. 4. The city where the famous Stradivarius violins were made. 5. Puccini 6. \Vuthering Heights New Fields of Endeavor Radio and Electricity are indispensable for • NATIONAL DEFENSE e WAR OPERATIONS e PROPAGANDA • COMMERCIAL COMMUNICATIONS • BUSINESS PROMOTION & PUBLICITY • & OT~ER PURPOSES These fields afford ample and ~ cellent opportunities for any ambitious young people who are looking fo1 a PROFITABLE AND DIGNIFIED CAREER, as well as those who merely want to become AMATEURS of a HIGHLY INTERESTING, EDUCATIONAL AND THRILLING MODERN INl'ENTION. Enroll at the National Radio College 700 Rizal Ave., Manila, Tel. 2-92-25 Summer Classes-April 8th MARCH, 1940 7. An astonishingly faithful copy 8. Godoy 9. Germany 10. Holland 11. Finland 12. Bolivia and Paraguay 13. The currency of Yugoslavia 14. Well-kept diaries SCHOOL OF BRIEF ENGLISH SYSTEMS Dept. 301, 310 Roces Bldg. (formerly Plaza Hotel) Plaza Goiti, P. 0. 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