Newspaper Page Text
News Review of Current
Events the Wor Id 0\ er
Negotiations for Settlement of General Motors Strike—
Six-Year Public Works Program Offered
Congress by President.
By EDWARD W. PICKARD
(£} Western Newspaper Union.
D ROUGHT together by Gov.
Frank Murphy at the demand
of the White House, representatives
of both sides in the General Motors
strike were in al-
most continuous
conference seeking
a way to settle the
controversy. The
corporation was
represented by Wil
liam S. Knudsen,
executive vice pres
ident, and John
Thomas Smith of
the legal staff. Act
ing for the strikers
were John L. Lewis,
head of the C. I. O.,
John Brophy, its director, and
Homer Martin, president of the
United Automobile Workers.
It was reported that at one time
the conference was near collapse.
Then Governor Murphy received a
message from the White House say
ing the President expected a settle
ment.
During an interim the governor
said both sides were in earnest and
doing their best.
Judge Gadola in Flint had issued
an injunction ordering the sit-down
strikers there to leave the plants.
The sheriff served notice to the
men and they jeered him. They
then sent to Governor Murphy a
bombastic message to the effect
that they would resist eviction to
the death. The mayor, city man
ager and police chief of Flint, as
serting the people were tired of
strikes and violence, organized be
tween 500 and 1,000 police reserves.
The police chief warned Lewis he
"had better call off his strike if he
doesn’t want another Herrin mas
sacre.”
Application for a writ of attach
ment for forcible expulsion of the
strikers was postponed by the G. M.
lawyers.
TV/f ARITIME workers on the Paci-
fic coast ended their long
strike by accepting working agree
ments that had been negotiated in
San Francisco and the 40,000 men
returned to their jobs. Ships in all
the ports, long idle, got up steam
and prepared to resume business,
and the ticket offices were thronged
with passengers.
Shipowners issued a statement as
serting the end of the walkout would
mrtn a business revival for 1,000
industrial plants and 500 export of
fices up and down the coast.
ESPITE the warm opposition of
Democratic Senator J. W. Bail
ey of North Carolina and others,
including the few Republicans, the
senate passed the house deficiency
relief bill carrying an appropria
tion of $948,725,808.
Senator Bailey spoke in support of
his amendment which would require
a means test, or “pauper's oath,”
as some have called it, for states,
counties, and their political subdi
visions to secure federal aid for
their relief requirements. The
amendment was rejected without a
record vote.
Out of the total allocated in the
bill for “relief and work relief,”
about $650,000,000 was expected to
be given to the Works Progress Ad
ministration. From this fund aid
will be given to victims of floods in
the Ohio and Mississippi valleys.
Harold Ickes
CECRETARY of the Interior Har-
^ old Ickes and the national re
sources committee of which he is
chairman have produced a public
works and national
water program for
the next six years,
and it was submit
ted to congress by
President Roosevelt
with the recommen
dation that it should
be adopted. It i n -
volves the expendi
ture of five billion
dollars and calls for
lump sum annual
appropriations under
the regular budget for a list of ap
proved projects, and allocation of
the funds to a permanent public
works or development agency.
As the chief part of the plan, Mr.
Roosevelt presented congress with
a list of some $2,750,000,000 worth
of water conservation projects, in
cluding a $116,000,000 flood-control
program in the inundated Ohio and
Mississippi river valleys.
In his transmission message the
President warned congress against
considering each project as a sep
arate entity. The report, he said,
“should, of course, be read in con
junction with the recommenda
tions for highways, bridges, dams,
flood control, and so forth, already
under construction, estimates for
which have been submitted in the
budget.”
The need for the program Mr.
Roosevelt said, developed during the
government’s emergency spending
drive against the depression.
“During the depression,” he told
congress, “we have substantially in
creased the facilities and developed
the resources of our country for the
common welfare through public
works and work-relief programs.
“We have been compelled to un
dertake actual work somewhat hur
riedly in the emergency.
“Now rt is time to develop a long-
range plan and policy for construc
tion—to provide the best use of our
resources and to prepare in advance
against any other emergency.”
The committee that drew up this
program includes, besides M r.
Ickes, Secretary of War Harry H.
Woodring, WPA Administrator Har
ry Hopkins, Secretary of Agricul
ture Henry A. Wallace, Secretary of
Labor Frances Perkins, Secretary
of Commerce Daniel C. Roper,
Frederic A. Delano, uncle of the
President, and Charles E. Merriam,
University of Chicago professor.
Senator
O’Mahoney
TpO FINANCE for another year
1 the social security board, vet
erans’ administration and about
thirty other federal agencies, the
house appropriated one billion, for
ty - six million dollars. The bill,
passed without a record vote, car
ried a last minute amendment pro
viding that none of the funds ap
propriated should be available to
pay for the expenses of any con
gressional investigation. This
amendment was aimed at senate
investigations such as the La Fol-
lette and Wheeler inquiries.
IJ EARINGS were held by a sen-
* * ate judiciary subcommittee on
the O’Mahoney federal licensing bill
designed to give the government
control over busi
ness; but it is prob
able this will be
supplanted by a
measure that is be
ing drafted by Don
ald Richberg, for
mer head of the
NRA. The Richberg
bill will be less reg
ulatory than O’Ma-
honey’s and presum
ably will be intro
duced as an admin
istration measure.
So far little is known of it except
that it will cover minimum wages
and maximum hours and outlaw
child labor. Probably it will also
include the licensing features con
siderably modified.
Some officials in Washington re
gard the O’Mahoney bill as a “feel
er.” It would require corporations
doing business in interstate com
merce to obtain federal licenses
which would include stipulations on
wages and hours of employees and
prohibit the use of child labor.
But actually the bill would go
much farther, including almost ev
ery reform in labor relations, trade
practices, and corporation structure
and financing that has ever been
proposed during the past 25 years.
A more sweeping, drastic, and all-
inclusive proposal could hardly be
drafted. It was warmly indorsed
by the American Federation of La
bor.
The O’Mahoney bill would vest
the licensing power in the federal
trade commission, enlarging the
present board of five members to
nine. It was thought likely that
the Richberg draft would eliminate
the commission and vest the licens
ing power in a new board or com
mission created to administer the
proposed law.
C' EVERISH work, day and night,
* by 120.000 pick and shovel la
borers all down the Mississippi from
Cairo appeared to have won the
fight to save the fertile lands along
the river from the great flood. But
engineers warned that the danger of
inundation was not yet over. How
ever, most of the levees were hold
ing and the winds that had been
driving the waters against them
were subsiding. About 200,000 in
habitants of the valley had been
forced to abandon their homes, but
the Red Cross and other relief agen
cies were caring for them. At Cairo
and Hickman were plenty of coast
guard boats and barges ready to
rescue the people if the embank
ments gave way.
Floodwater from a break in the
Bessie Landing, Tenn., levee all but
encircled Tiptonville, Tenn., and
spread over adjacent thousands of
acres. Backwaters continued to har
ass lowland dwellers in Mississippi
and Louisiana but engineers re
mained firm in the conviction the
worst definitely would be over when
the crests pass Arkansas and Ten
nessee.
Harry Hopkins, WPA administra
tor, and other members of the spe
cial flood relief committee named
by President Roosevelt, went to the
flood areas with the expressed in
tention of seeing that-the job of car
ing for the refugees was well done.
Mr. Hopkins indicated he was pre
pared to spend $790,000,000—the en
tire deficiency work relief budget—
for flood relief if necessary.
Nazi Activities
in U. S. Bared
German-Americans
Forced to Drill
for Army Duty
in Old Country
By EARL GODWIN
W ASHINGTON. — The de
structiveness of the Rus
sian Bolshevik propaganda
is more or less recognized,
but sooner or later congress and
the executive branch of the govern
ment must crack down on the im
pudent German attempt to propa-
i £ate the Nazi hatred of religion
| and love of war in this country. Con-
I gress investigated the matter slight-
| ly in the last session, but it is rife
i again, and Representative Dickstein
; of New York, a member of the
| previous congressional committee
| on un-American activities, reminds
! the government that Germany has
; gone so far as to utilize social or-
| ganizations here for military drill
purposes—and is calling on Ger
man-Americans to reply to a ques
tionnaire as to whether or not they
are available for military service.
A copy of the questionnaire has
been printed in the Congressional
Record.
This is a Hitler attempt to milita
rize as many Americans of German
blood as he can find; and whether
an American citizen or not, the
man with German blood will be told
by the German consul that he owes
his allegiance to Hitler. This amaz
ing impudence goes to the extent of
the German government apparently
believing that even if a man is born
in the United States, if he has Ger
man blood he should rush forward
to help the present German govern
ment if need be.
German propaganda carries with
it the idea that Nazism is fighting
Communism; hence the United
States of America should be inter
ested. The trouble is that Nazism
in Germany is anti-Christian, anti
democratic and a complete enslave
ment of the individual. The present
German type of government looks
on the government of the United
States as half-witted. Moreover, this
present German government is as
arrogant in its disregard of inter
national decencies as the Kaiser’s
government was. Splendid as we
know the German character to be
here in America, the diplomatic
and military Germans of the old
country are completely ruthless in
their attitude toward their own
aims. There is collossal impudence
in the fact that there are between
ten and twenty thousand Germans
drilling for Nazi military purposes
in thi^ country, equipped with Ger
man uniforms and information.
German-Americans in the East are
being hounded by German consuls;
being browbeaten into German uni
forms which they utilize in social
clubs—much of it is under threat
and compulsion. Germans here have
relatives in Germany — and the
American-Germans are ordered
to “come across” or something may
happen to the folks in the Father-
land.
All this is distinctly nauseating.
This government knows it. Sooner
or later there will be a clean-up,
but there’s a lot more to it. The
world is facing a show down soon—
with true Democracies on one side
and the dictatorships of Com
munism, Fascism and Nazism on
the other. Roosevelt hints of this
horrendous world war every now
and then—and hopes to keep us out
of it as far as possible. But allied
to us in ideals of religious and
political freedom are England,
France—and smaller countries like
Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Fin
land, ahd Switzerland. Of course
the South American republics are
nominally democratic—and they are
clinging to the good old United
States of America — but German
and Italian influences are at work
on some of these South American
neighbors; and they may have to
be attended to with a big stick. The
point I want to make is that while
our present position is strictly neu
tral in European matters, while we
cannot lend money to Europe until
and unless they make satisfactory
arrangements to repay us the war
debts—where would the freedom
of the whole world be if the dicta
tors started war upon France and
England and the little European
countries? England and France
would need our help. What would
America’s position be?
• • *
FLOOD CONTROL.
Now comes the flood control poli
tician in all his glory! Every time
the country is visited with a devasta
ting ruin by river, members of con
gress from the stricken areas pile
billion dollar flood control bills high
on the desks of the Vice President
and Speaker in congress—and noth
ing comes of them but floods of talk.
Floods bring forth proposed re
medies of several sorts; one group
wants the floods prevented by plant
ing trees on the mountain sides
where lumbering operations have
denuded the hills and allowed rains
to pour down into the streams; an
other group favors small ponds to
collect excess waters at the heads
of streams; another group wants
dams along the rivers; another
wants the extension of huge levee
systems, retaining walls to channel
ize the greater rivers and keep back
the rising waters; still another
group wants a series of vast reser
voir lakes into which the rising
waters can flow and thus relieve
the water courses of their great
burden.
We need all of these in one unified
plan. For more than sixty years the
river courses, Mississippi and Ohio
particularly, have been at the
mercy of rains resulting in fifty-
five floods, each one of which has
brought disaster and prolonged agi
tation for flood control. I might
say parenthetically that the army
engineers have complete plans for
flood control, but after the agitation
dies congress, the legalizing agency,
apparently forgets a unified scheme
and gives money in a scattered dis
jointed manner. For a brief moment
last spring congress saw a vision
of unified flood control for the Mis
sissippi valley and O. K.’d the
spending of $592,000,000 for 200 proj
ects in 40 states containing streams
feeding the Mississippi in the upper
half and for dikes, etc., in the
lower valley. I said congress O. K.’d
the plan; but it forgot to appropri
ate the cash. Of course, scattered
flood control operations are going on
all the time—but what we need is
a unified, nation wide, long range
operation which includes everything
necessary—from replanting the de
nuded hillsides to dams and levees
and reservoirs to take up the floods
in the larger streams. Deep down
in the President’s plan for reform
ing the governmental functions is
a place for a national planning
board to plan the use of govern
ment resources. That’s what is
needed; and that’s what the con
gress will have to act on this ses
sion.
Present great example of how a
unified plan prevents floods comes
to light in the vast Tennessee Valley
Authority work along the Tennessee
river. From mountain top to river
bed the engineers have worked out
a plan—and there is no flood men
ace on the Tennessee river. Two
dams on the Tennessee have cut
down the flood stage of the Ohio
river at Paducah by a foot. These
two dams, the Joe Wheeler and the
Norris Dam hold back one hundred
and forty-five billion gallons of
water, saving Chattanooga alone
$750,000 by preventing the flooding
of a thousand acres of city property
with a population of 5,000. Last year
the holdback at Norris dam cut
down the flood waters at Chatta
nooga by four feet.
When the work on the Tennessee
river is completely finished by the
TVA—greatest government power
and conservation enterprise ever
undertaken anywhere — the flood
crest on the Mississippi will be
reduced by two feet. Not only dams
to hold back excess water, but there
is tremendous replacement of soil
on the slopes and mountainsides.
Eroded soil which shed rain into
the river by the million gallons has
been covered with grass and other
crops, which absorbs the rainfall in
stead of shooting it into the river to
make floods.
The whole development in the
TVA will prevent forty-four out of
every hundred gallons of rainfall
from passing immediately into the
streams. In wet weather the excess
water is impounded behind the
dams in billion gallon lots, and in
dry weather this water is released.
• * *
GRAND TUG-OF-WAR.
Behind the scenes in Washington
a grand tug-of-war is going on be
tween the proponents of the old
time method of financing home-own
ing and the new, stream-lined meth
od which does away with the second
mortgage and the special fees in
volved in the age-old struggle to
finance a home. The struggle cen
ters on the administration’s desire
to extend the life of the Federal
Housing Administration, which has
already helped a million people to
buy homes and is responsible for
many more than that number re
pairing and repainting old homes
that were run down at the heels.
The “FHA,” as we call it here,
helps you to buy a house with one
mortgage only, to be paid off month
ly like rent—with no trick fees or
charges anywhere. The loans are
made chiefly through ordinary com
mercial banks. If you buy a ten
thousand dollar house you put up
$2,000 cash, and your bank lends
you $8,000, while the United States
government through FHA stands be
hind the transaction and insures
the bank against losing any part of
that $8,000, which may be paid off
over a period of twenty years- There
need never be any further financing
—no second mortgage* with their
heavy fees and refinancing charges.
The FHA power to help in this way
expires June 30. It must be extend
ed by congress.
Certain building and loan associa
tions have cut down their interest
charges, but there are large sec
tions of the building and loan busi
ness, also many old time nine and
ten percenters, second mortgage
bankers, etc., who don’t like the
FHA policies; don’t like the idea of
losing all that business, who are be
ing blamed by administration offi
cials with conducting a powerful lob
by against further extension of FHA.
If the FHA does not insure these
individual home purchasers the
commercial banks will not handle
the loans, and home building will
again have to be financed on the
old time two-mortgage plan, with
its attendant heavy fees.
President Roosevelt, I am in
formed, is exceedingly anxious that
FHA continue, and that in addition
there be a widespread adoption of
the one-mortgage plan of financing
ordinary town and city houses.
£ Western Newspaper Union.
Irvin S. Cobb
what f I L
about:
Hie Plight of Spain.
DEVERLY HILLS, CALIF.—
In the bloody task of utter
ly destroying herself Spain can
not complain that she lacked
for hearty co-operation on the
part of some of her sister coun
tries.
Openly or secretly, half of the
great European powers are contrib
uting to the bloody
ruination, so that,
: when the finish
J comes, they’ll have
I spoils or dubious
! prestige or both and
that ill-fated land
will be a burying
ground and a deso
lation.
A fellow gets to
wondering why this
or that government
chooses for an em
blem some noble
creature when the
turkey buzzard or the grave-rob
bing hyena would be so appropri
ate.
Fierce winters and devastating
floods may be curing us here on
this side of the water, but at least
we have been spared the affliction
of having for our next-door neigh
bors certain nations.
• • •
Kidnapers’ Ransoms.
IT’S all well enough to pass an
A act making payment of ransom
to a kidnaper a criminal offense—
as though heartbroken parents would
hesitate to pay ransoms to get
their babies back, no matter what
the penalty for so doing might be!
And can you see any American jury
convicting those parents? The au-
tljor of the law is no doubt well-in
tentioned but there is another law,
called the law of human nature,
which most surely would defeat his
purposes.
By the way, a person who should
know what he’s talking about, tells
me that three out of every four
known kidnapers during recent
years have been ex-convicts with
records as repeated offenders.
So, instead of trying to penalize
agonized parents for obeying a na
tural instinct, how about a snappy
little law to curb certain parole
boards which seem to delight in
turning ’em out as fast as the courts
can clap ’em in?
• * *
Optimism De Luxe.
T LIKE the spirit of a gentleman
A in New York who started dredg
ing operations in East river. He
set out to dig up a minimum of $4,-
800,000 in gold and silver from the
ooze, and to date has salvaged 96
cents, two rusty frying pans and a
penknife—and is still probing.
For gorgeous optimism I can
think of but one case to match this.
I was on the French Riviera one
summer. They’d been shifting the
railroad tracks along the Grand
Corniche. This left a disused tun
nel. So, week after week, a beard
ed gentleman sat at one mouth of
the empty bore with a sign over his
head reading: “This property for
sale.” When I left he was still
there, waiting for somebody who
was in the market for a second
hand tunnel.
* • •
South American Explorers.
F RECENT years, those hardy
w adventurers who set forth to
invade the last great unexplored
area, interior South America, seem
to follow a regular routine, to wit,
as follows:
First—They start off.
Second—They get lost.
Third—They are rescued.
But wouldn’t it save wear and
tear and nervous strain if the rescue
expedition went on ahead so it could
get settled down in camp all nice
and comfortable and be waiting for
the explorers when they staggered
in, exhausted from toting all those
tons of material for future lec
ture tours? The modern discover
er is gaffant, but apparently has
no more sense of direction than an
egg-beater and seemingly could get
lost on top of a marble-top table.
Or possibly the tropic sun has an
addling effect on the human brain.
Anyhow, since nearly always he
is in an intact state when res
cued, this would seem to indicate
that the head-hunters of the Ama
zonian jungles are now getting
fussy about the types of heads they
collect.
• • •
The Charms of Music.
/K CCORDING to a medical pro-
* fessor in Pennsylvania, sam
ples of whisky, when subjected to
a musical sound treatment for sev
en hours, produce a liquor which
equals one that has been aged in
wood for at least four years. But
why get excited about this? I’ve
known certain brands of classical
music which, in one evening, have
aged a grown man to a point where
he figures the present Christian era
must be about bver.
Only a few weeks ago, being soft
ened by the spirit of the approach
ing holidays, I suffered myself to be
lured to a Chopin recital and got
jammed in and couldn’t escape
and finally staggered forth into the
night feeling that Methuselah had
little if anything on me.
IRVIN S. COBB.
Copyright.—WNU Service.
Striking Wild Rose
Design in Cutwork
Simplicity of design—simplicity
of needlework combine to make
these wild roses effective in cut-
work. Do the flowers in appliq U( T
too — it’s very easy to combine
with cutwork. Use these designs
on sheets and pillow cases — on
scarfs and towels — on a chair
back. Dress up your own home or
make them as gifts. Pattern 1337
Pattern 1337
contains a transfer pattern of a
motif 6% by 20 inches, two motifs
5 by 14% inches and pattern
pieces for the applique patches;
illustrations of all stitches used;
material requirements; color sug
gestions.
Send 15 cents in stamps or coins
(coins preferred) for this pattern
to The Sewing Circle Needlecraft
Dept., 82 Eighth Ave, New York
N. Y.
Write plainly pattern number,
your name and address.
XlncLe ]&hiL
£gu6:
Life Is Short
Life appears too short to be
spent in nursing animosity or reg
istering wrong.
Love of money is the root of all
evil; but curiosity oft leads to
wickedness.
If you don’t think you can do it,
try it anyway. Then you will find
out why you can’t.
People who haven’t morals al
ways say morals are a matter of
geography.
Correcting Errors
Correction of error is the plain
est fruit of energy and mastery.
Think about it pretty often and
one will daily find a gratifying op
portunity of being kind.
We believe in applying the mind
to art, culture and literature—but
not every instant. Sometimes we
like to think of corned beef and
cabbage.
/jet LUDEN’S
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