Dry Goods

In the department store basement of Manhattan's R. H. Macy & Co., Powel Crosley Jr. this week put his new midget automobiles on sale. First purchaser: Mrs. W. Averell Harriman. Box score for first day's sales: four coupes ($365), twelve sedans ($389), no trade-ins.

Napoleon and Human Nature

Napoleon Bonaparte, who needed great soldiers, was firmly convinced that a man would walk through hell for a ribbon to wear on his chest. So French soldiers are among the most decorated fighting men in the world. Finding that Napoleon had judged human nature right, France now gives 25 kinds of civilian decorations,* medals (and lapel ribbons) for rearing big families, turning out a good beet crop, running a business-like prison, doing an average job of teaching school (about half of all French teachers have the Palmes Academiques), putting out fires, collecting taxes.

By analogy the U. S. should long ago have begun distributing decorations to those responsible for most great American accomplishments: businessmen. Now particularly, if Napoleon was right, the U. S. needs great businessmen to combat depression and unemployment. But last week, it was France, not the U. S., which instituted a new decoration: the eight-pointed star of the Order of Commercial Merit, for doers of great business deeds.

* French writer Andre Gide once sourly said: "It is impossible to imagine a Frenchman reaching middle age without getting syphilis and the Cross of the Legion of Honor."

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