DISARMAMENT AT HOME

With two weeks of the London Naval Conference already past, the delegates still have the major problems before them. Aside from a baseball game between America and Japan with Lady Astor as the probable referee, and the popularization of erstwhile famous restaurants by visiting delegations, the situation remains at an impasse. As the New York Times runs special comments daily the London papers maintain their policy of indifference. However the eyes of the world, and especially those of the United States watch every new development to the exclusion of everything domestic.

In the meanwhile, five bombs explode in Chicago; the Windy City is bankrupt because of inefficient management and the high cost of protection of life and limb, and the gang wars continue their campaign of terrorization. Ten years of prohibition has resulted in the loss of thousands of lives, the introduction of machine guns, armored cars and well-trained killers. Bullet-proof vests are still very much the vogue among all experienced racketeers. Every worthwhile gangster carries his revolver and the necessary accessories.

While America worries about cruisers and forgets isolation policies, the large cities of the nation are overrun with all the accoutrements of modern warfare. The unofficial standing army which overruns New York, Chicago, and Detroit is the proper place to make a large-sized cut, sending a good deal of the emigrant desperadoes engaged in looting the metropolitan centers, back to their native land. The rise of gangland to despotic rule has reached its peak of expansion at least. Disarmament -- like charity -- begins at Home.