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Show Prevailing Opinions 1- Comment of tht American Presi 1. Outlawing Chain Gengt Georgia is starting to do away with her famous or infamous 1 convict chain gangs. The' completion comple-tion by the public works administration admin-istration of a new 11,300,000 prison is expected grestly to facilitate the process. And growing public sensitiveness to the adverse publicity pub-licity the chain gangs have given the state is counted upon to com-. com-. plete it. For the sake of civilisation. It Is to- be hoped that the other southern states which still maintain main-tain chain gangs soon will' follow suit. The chain gang is essentially barbarous in principle and almost always it has resulted in practice in the piling of cruelty upon cruelty. It is bad for the prisoners, guards and the general public: the infliction or witnessing of crueky to human beings alwsys tends to beget sadism. As California has proved with her convict road camps, it is possible pos-sible to put prisoners to work at useful labor under conditions which make for reform rather than brutalisation. Sacramento Bee. Alient and Relief As has been noted in the news, an amendment to the relief bill bars relief to sll alien who have not taken out first papers of cltl-senohlp. cltl-senohlp. There are varying estimates as to how much money will thus be saved for relief to Americans how many aliens of this character charac-ter there are on the roller but the most conservative places the sum in the millions. It is not heartless to hold to a belief that this country should not be asked to take over relief work which belongs to other lands. If we have no responsibility toward aliena who have not taken out first citizenship papers, it is the fault of the aliens who have either had no desire to become Americans Ameri-cans or are here illegally and dare not take out papers. In general, the number of aliens has decreased steadily during the last few years. Mere strict quotas, a disposition to take out papera that they may share in certain state legislation and because of fear of such sn amendment as has been adopted, as well as the departure of many for their own lands during the depression, have lessened the total When we refuse re-fuse relief to those who have refused re-fused the opportunity to become oitisene no question' of cruelty is Involved, We are simply stooping a system under which, at the ex- 1 pense of our own people, we have been supporting citisens of other lands. Oakland Tribune. The Coiti of Empire Japan'a Invasion of Manchuria, Jehol and north China, which was expected by. the Japanese people to help solve the Japanese eco- nomic difficulties, is declared by Dr. Hng Chih-tao merely to have complicated those difficulties instead. in-stead. Dr. Heng Chih-tao, a Portland Port-land visitor and one of the speakers speak-ers st the institute of International Interna-tional relations at Reed college, asserts that Japan still suffers from the "surprise'' of this failure. fail-ure. And what of Italy? Mussolini's armies took over Ethiopia a few months ago, with the' Italian people peo-ple all excited by this addition to the empire's possessions and expectant ex-pectant of some magic economie effect. There has been an effect, but in reverse. The costs of improvement improve-ment and exploitation are beyond estimated returns for years to come. There is a new body of privileged overseas officials whose salaries and expenses must be paid. An army must be kept on acUve service. Both Japan and Italy are beginning be-ginning to understand why the United States is willing to surrender sur-render the Philippines. Portland Oregooian. Gaifronomic Note Like a voice from the oft-lamented "good old times" comes the news that restaurant men are ' fighting free lunches In saloons. Perhaps this will mean the development de-velopment of some supersuper-' dining places as it did in the days when eating was a fine art and the free lunch an American institution. in-stitution. Los Angeles Times. , |