Miscellaneous Mentions

John J. Pershing, General, U. S. A. retired, smiled last week without teeth. It was announced at the Walter Reid Hospital in Washington that he has in large measure recovered from the illness which forced him to return home from Chile, where he headed the Taena-Arica plebiscite commission. Following the extraction of his teeth, his blood pressure has fallen from 185 to 140 or 145 and the toxic poisoning has been reduced.

Comptroller General McCarl last week saved the Government $25 by ruling that a man's lifeblood is no commodity. One gob, Charles A. Smingler, recently contributed liberally from his veins to save by blood transfusion the life of Lieutenant Commander Thomas M. Cochran, ill unto death. The Navy Department issued an order to pay Smingler $25. Mr. McCarl overruled the order, maintaining that Smingler's act was a personal service, "not the sale of a commodity."

Charles E. Hughes, onetime Governor of New York, onetime associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, onetime nominee for President, onetime Secretary of State, last week washed his hands of another business. Last November voters in New York adopted an amendment to the state constitution for the consolidation of the 119 departments, commissions and bureaus of the state government into 20 or fewer departments at the discretion of the legislature. A commission headed by Mr. Hughes was appointed to draft a consolidation scheme. Last week it recommended cutting down the number of departments to 18. It is expected that the recommendation will be promptly approved by the legislature.

In Washington, appeared the first issue of the United States Daily, a newspaper reporting exclusively what goes on in the Federal Government each day. An edition of 30,000 copies was reported sold out in the first day. Its slogan is, "All the facts, no opinion" (it has no editorial page). David Lawrence, newspaper correspondent, is its publisher. All its news is indexed prominently. The list of "founders" includes: Owen D. Young, Mrs. Medill McCormick, Otto H. Kahn, Edward W. Bok, Robert Lansing, Albert Lasker, John W. Weeks, Bernard M. Baruch, James W. Gerard, E. T. Meredith, Julius Rosenwald, C. Bascom Slemp, Mary Roberts Rinehart, E. M. House, Clarence H. Mackay and John W. Davis.

Ruth Hanna McCormick, daughter of the late Mark A. Hanna (Republican Senator from Ohio) and widow of Medill McCormick (Republican Senator from Illinois), announced that she would support Senator William B. McKinley of Illinois, who is seeking re-election in his state. Senator McCormick was a confirmed isolationist. Senator McKinley voted for the World Court. Senator Borah and other isolationists recently made speeches in Chicago against the World Court. Evidently Mrs. McCormick did not approve this attack on Mr. McKinley in his home territory.

George F. Brennan, Democratic boss of Cook County (in which Chicago is situated), announced last week that he would be a candidate for U. S. Senator from Illinois on a wet platform. Mr. Brennan is a follower in the national arena of Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York. Quidnunes guess that Mr. Brennan hopes to capture a seat in the Senate while the local Republicans are falling out with one another over the World Court.

Governor General Wood vetoed 24 bills passed at the last session of the Philippine legislature, one of the chief of which was a proposal for a plebiscite on independence. And Henry Morgenthau, former U. S. Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, issued a statement to the Filipinos through the press as he left Manila:

"For God's sake, stop playing with high explosives. There is a cyclone of sentiment for immediate independence being created. If it burst, it will spend all its fury in the Philippines. If you really want happiness and genuine freedom, retain your junior partnership in the United States and do not try to navigate the troublesome seas of international affairs without a pilot."

A day or two later the Methodist Church in Manila passed the following resolution: "Whereas some of our Protestant missionaries have been misunderstood and misquoted on the question of independence, and

"Whereas certain newspapers have contained comments, contrary to the real attitude of the Protestants, and

"Whereas certain unjust allegations have been lodged against our presiding Bishop Mitchell, therefore be it

"Resolved, That we missionaries, pastors and laymen of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Philippines put ourselves on record and reaffirm our actions of 1922, that we are in entire sympathy with the national aspirations of the Filipino people."