OCR Text |
Show WHO'S NEWS THIS WEEK I I By LEMUEL F. PARTON (Consolidated Features WNU Service.) MEW YORK. Birthday inter- views with venerated patriarchs patri-archs of this land are usually given to bland optimism, though the mm i heavens be Morgenthau, 85, Iamng. if3 Gazes on World an old Amer- Without Blinder, cus'm-Henry cus'm-Henry Morgenthau Mor-genthau Sr., just turned 85, has been an exception. We haven't seen his customary chat with the reporters this year, but when and if it is recorded re-corded we may be sure he sees what he sees and isn't trying to slick J things up. Not that he's a pessimist or defeatist I remember meeting him on Mt. Desert Island, Maine, a few years ago and was tremendously tremendous-ly impressed with his faith, ardor and fighting spirit. He knows a lot about wars and trouble. It was our Civil war that brought him here from his native Mannheim, Germany. His father was a prosperous cigar manufacturer. Civil war tariffs put him out of business and the family came to this country when Henry Morgenthau Morgen-thau was nine years old. He was a lawyer at 23, turned to real estate and finance, and had his money-making over at 55, with time, means and mental equipment to turn to the humanities, human-ities, to philanthropy and good works in general. Now he has a son In the cabinet, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and the unflagging energies en-ergies which are the reward of an abstemious life. If there's a dark side, he isn't afraid to look at it. He was back from Europe in 1933 with the simple conclusion that the world was heading head-ing into another war. "There is, in Europe," he said, "no honest moral desire for peace." In 1913, his friend Woodrow Wilson made him ambassador to Turkey, which post he held until 1916. Thereafter, he helped pick up the pieces, in the ruin and chaos of the middle east. He has been both observing and studious and unhappily for easy-going optimists, singularly clearsighted clear-sighted in his prophetic look ahead. THERE'S a tale of a professor who grew old writing a history of civilization. Late one night he finished fin-ished it Then, after a brief survey of the result Thorndike Now 0I his ardu-Holds ardu-Holds Intelligence ous labors, Can't Be Tested he he,aved great sigh and threw the history in the fire. "What's the matter?" asked his wife. "There isn't any civilization," he replied. Dr. Edward L. Thorndike, author of the famous Thorndike intelligence test, probably wouldn't say there isn't any intelligence, in-telligence, but he does say intelligence in-telligence can't be tested, according ac-cording to news reports of bis address before the American Philosophical society at Philadelphia. Phila-delphia. Dr. Thorndike's apostasy apos-tasy no doubt will set up some new measuring standards. If we don't learn much, about keeping out of wars and such, it isn't Dr. Thorndike's fault A professor pro-fessor at Columbia for 37 years, he is the author of a shelf of books in the general field of the psychology of learning. He has just about surrounded sur-rounded the subject of "How We Learn." The question of what we learn seems to be still wide open. From Williamsburg, Mass., he went to Wesleyan university, Harvard Har-vard and Columbia and taught at Western Reserve before joining the Teachers' college faculty in 1897. He is 67 years old. THE word is getting around that the founding fathers could fight well because they were supercharged super-charged with vitamin B,. They ate . anything Get Courage in handy and Bottles, Baskets got the thia-In thia-In These Days n of the B, which is to be found mainly in roughage. Prof Russell M. Wilder of the Mayo foundation is alarmed over our shortcomings in this regard. He says, "Continued deficiency of the J thiamin content of American diets N. may have led to a certain degree of irremediable deterioration of the national wilL" His conclusion is one of many in which it is insisted that we must look to the drug store and the grocery gro-cery for the real fighting urge. Courage comes in bottles or baskets in these fantastic days. Dr. Wilder is one of the country's leading specialists on nutrition and diseases of metabolism. Born and reared in Cincinnati, he was educated educat-ed at the University of Chicago, and Rush Medical college; practiced in Chicago and has been with the Mayo foundation since 1922. He was a medical gas officer in the World war. |