Two thirds of the steam and electric power used in the United States is controlled by less than one hundred corporations, the Stone & Webster interests of Boston standing at the top of the list of interlocking companies, according to a statement in the report of the secretary of agriculture, made in response to a resolution of the Senate and laid before that body. Eighteen corporations control over half the water-power, exclusive of steam-power, in the United States, and six corporations control more than one fourth of the water-power. Furthermore, the secretary declares, there is evident "a marked tendency toward association or community of interests, particularly between the principal holding companies, that cannot be viewed without concern."

The report will make, when printed, a massive volume in which graphic charts will tell the story of the interlocking directorates of power companies with banks and with other big corporations. The secretary points out that the concentration which his experts have discovered has taken place most rapidly in the states where power sites are largely on public lands. Revised figures of the potential waterpower resources of the country place them at the minimum of 27,943,000 horse-power, and the maximum of 53,905,000. The national forests are stated to contain 30.4 per cent of this minimum and 31.4 per cent of the maximum, while over 72 per cent of the country's total is found in the mountain and Pacific states.

In a decision of wide effect to water-power development throughout the United States, the Supreme Court holds that states possess the power to enact laws authorizing condemnation of power sites and water rights by right of eminent domain. The decision was announced by Justice Holmes in upholding the constitutionality of the Alabama water-power condemnation statutes in a case touching the improvement of Tallapoosa River. "The principal argument," he said, "is that the purpose of the condemnation is not a public one. In the organic relations of modern society it may sometimes be hard to draw the line that is supposed to limit the authority of the legislature to exercise or delegate the power of eminent domain. But to gather the streams from waste and to draw from them energy and labor without brains, and so to save mankind from toil that it can be spared, is to supply what, next to intellect, is the very foundation of all our achievements and all our welfare. If that purpose is not public we should be at a loss to say what is."

The constitutionality of the legislation in Massachusetts upon which minimum wages for women in industry is based, will be contested before the supreme court of the state in an answer filed by the attorney for four laundry proprietors. Upon the outcome of this case will depend whether or not further advances can be made in establishing minimum wages for women in the state, and in fact whether or not rates already being paid under decrees of the minimum wage commission can be enforced. Claims of unconstitutionality of the minimum wage law, and decrees under it, will be made in answer to a petition of the minimum wage commission for a mandamus to force the four laundry employers to produce their books so that the commission may get facts as to the condition of the laundry industry, the ability of these employers to pay the eight dollars a week which the decree imposes for experienced women workers, but which these four employers, along with many other laundry employers in the state, have refused to pay.

The ownership and operation of munition plants by the United States Government is being advocated in the Senate by Senator A. B. Commins of Iowa, to minimize the probability of war by eliminating war profits to private factories. "It ought to be made impossible," he said, "so far as the power of the Government can be exerted, for any man or corporation to make money out of war. Our people will in the future, even more than in the past, be in constant contact with all the powers of the earth. There will be controversies to be settled, either by conference, mediation, arbitration, or war. In the management of these difficulties our Government will need not only the highest statesmanship, but behind it and impelling it a public opinion untainted and uncorrupted by the selfish influences, seen or unseen, of the business profit which will come from war."

The plans for an art museum for Kansas City, Mo., adequate to the needs of the city, are near realization. In the settlement of an estate, the residue of which was bequeathed the city for the building, the executors have reached a point where they can assure that about $350,000 will be available for the purpose. The park board has offered a site on a commanding rise of ground facing the new Union Station on the south, and the landscape architect of the board has prepared plans. The will provided that if the building was placed on public ground it should be part of a plan for a civic center. The board's action in setting aside the site is believed to forecast a plan for such a center, where ultimately other public buildings will be grouped. The city already has the nucleus of an art gallery in paintings now hung in the Public Library Building.

The Supreme Court of the United States upholds the constitutionality of the income tax law. Chief Justice White gave the court's decision, sweeping aside all the many objections to its constitutionality in whole or in part. The decision was announced in connection with the case of a stockholder of the Union Pacific Railroad, who sought to enjoin the company from paying the tax on the ground that it was unconstitutional. Most of the opinion was directed toward overruling the contention that the income tax amendment provided a hitherto unknown power of taxation, whereas as a matter of fact it was a power recognized to exist from the beginning of the government, and thus decisions defining the taxing power previously rendered were applicable to it.

One of the final steps toward linking the United States and its foreign possessions by a great chain of wireless stations was taken the other day when the secretary of the navy approved a contract for the equipment of the big radio stations now under construction at San Diego, Cal, Cavite, Philippine Islands, and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Completion of these stations within the next year will pave the way for radio communication from Washington, not only to the insular possessions, but to almost any point in the world where there may be a receiving plant. The new stations at Pearl Harbor and Cavite will be the most powerful in the world. They will be equipped with apparatus for exchanging messages over an area of approximately forty-seven hundred miles.

One of the first quail and song-bird preserves in Ohio will be established in Hamilton County. The land is located near the experimental farm, Mount Healthy, and the owners have given permission for the tract to be used as a preserve for birds. The work is being conducted under the auspices of the fish and game department of the state board of agriculture. Ohio has adopted a rather novel method of obtaining control of large areas of territory at practically no expense to the taxpayers. By this method farmers agree to lease their lands for the propagation of quail and song-birds for at least five years.

The growth of the automobile industry in Rhode Island is indicated in the annual report of the state board of public roads, presented recently to the General Assembly. The report states that there is one automobile for every thirty-five persons living in the state. Three years ago the proportion was one vehicle for every fifty-eight inhabitants. There are 17,000 machines and 23,000 licensed operators.

The Latin department of the University of Wisconsin is cooperating with the Wisconsin Latin Teachers' Association in presenting to the public the purpose and practical value of the study of this language. A publicity committee has been appointed and an active campaign has begun.

Representative James A. Frear of Wisconsin has introduced in the House of Representatives at Washington a bill providing for a national waterway commission. It puts all waterway projects under control of a national commission with wide powers and jurisdiction.

The grain crops of Canada in 1915 showed the most abundant yield in the history of the Dominion. The value of field crops amounted to $800,000,000, of which grain brought $586,161,900; potatoes and sugar beets, $36,739,500; and fodder crops, $192,768,100.

The thirty-fifth annual meeting of the American Forestry Association was held in Boston recently. There was an attendance of several hundred delegates, coming from all sections of the country.

Copper mining companies of northern Michigan set a new record for the district with a total output for the year 1915 estimated at 261,000,000 pounds.

The coronation of Yuan Shi-kai as emperor of China has been postponed indefinitely. The reason given officially is the uprising in southern China.