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BRISBANE THIS WEEK. We Know How to Spend Only the Electric Chair Anglo-French Rift Surprise ior Blue Eagle IJncle'.Sam is .learning: to spend. J few lines tell you that the Bunkhead . . . . bill, maklDK the gQvernraeht g u a r antee p loan of one thousand million dollars to help ten ant farmers buy "their farms, 1b passed. No fuss or excitement about It. Senator King wanted to cut the one thousand mil lions to two hun dred v millions, but w a 8 "shouted down." Do you recall the excitement w hen Arthur Brisbane uneoaore Roosevelt wanted to build the Panama canal for two or three hundred millions? Now "one billion" is almost "small change." Some young criminals, apparently, can be adequately managed only by the electric chair. In their case It seems useless to talk of reform, or "another chance." They are distinctly of the rattlesnake class. Consider a twenty-flve-year-old ma chinist, captured In Peoria, who con fessed to murder when the clothing of a dead girl was tossed Into his lap "Yes, I did It," he sobbed. This young murderer kept a diary, which In one month recorded 18 attacks on young women. The electric chair should cure his sobbing. In the lute of Anglo-French friend ship and understanding there come9 a rift, wide enough to let a c?nch and four drive through. England, dealing directly with Germany and Hitler, now rejects the French suggestion of a "consultative pact," which would com pel Britain to consult France before reaching any Important diplomatic con clusions. That?ought to Interest this country, which agreed to consult everybody on earth before building more ships, or tilting Its big guns to the most ef fective angle. It Is stated, bluntly, by British of ficials: "Britain Is placing greater stress on friendly co-operation wltfi Germany, closer consultations with the British dominions, and n steady drift toward co-dperatlon with the United States." News from the Department of Com merce would surprise the recent de ceased Blue Engle, and others: "Busi ness shows sharp upturn throughout country since death of Blue Engle." This Is the skeleton announcement ; the details show retail sales Increas ing, . in spite of abominable spring weather, in some of the big cities. Union labor demands that all United States Railroads be nationalized, owned by the people, run by the government Reason? Private owners do not know how to run them. The ronds would be bought, not confiscated, presumably, which would moan twenty to thirty more billions of national debt. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and T,nura La Plante ? surely you know her ? after work on the set near Monte Car lo's gambling room dressed up and pre sented themselves for an evening's en tertainment. The" doorkeeper snld bluntly: "You work In, Monaco, so you may not enter the gambling rooms. That's the rule." To thelt* amazement they did not enter Hie gambling rooms, although young Mr. Fairbanks is snld to have threat ened to buy the whole Institution. Monte Carlo wisdom Is In that rule. The Casino spreads money among Mon aco's Inhabitants, but will not take the Inhabitants' money, and so avoids trouble. Another wise ruler Is Mr. Brndley, who owns the tourists' "wide open" gambling -house at Palm Beach, hut will' not allow natives to lose in his place. When yon gamble, you know, you lose. If you do not know It, try. y Mussolini has a habit, annoying to Britons especially, of digging up past history. He is oxpeeted to tell the British : "I want a protectorate over Ethiopia, with a free hand, and I, In vlto you to remember what happened to Germany's colonies after the war. Yon promised to give Italy her share If she Joined th?i allies, which she did. Tho war ended, and you British gob bled up nil the Oefmnn colonies worth having." Sheriff Miller of Martlne*, Calif., knows that the weakest, thing In superstitious man is his mind. Attack that and yon havo him. Anacleto Tor rest said he had not killed Area Cab rera.i ih a locked drawer In a cell occupted by Torrest tho sheriff con cealed a loud speaker, muffled to make It aotind ghostly, and continually Torrest, not knowing whence It camo, heard a voice snylng In Spanish : "You killed me. X em Area's ghost. Yon had better confeaa. Yon know joo killed toe." Torreat thonght It nnwlse to Ignore the o'- a ghost and confessed accordingly,;/ . ?. ? ?. Kins FfRturM Syndicate I no, WfilJ Sarvlc*. i. ' \ \ . V'V' v ;%*' ? r.* -"T? VIVv~o>^ * *? \ ' ' r^" ? tr ; -,% ? ?? 4 >,, "? i* .??* ff ?*$ /?} > fy ? 4 '. Scenes , and Persons in the Current News 1 ? Scene at AuRtln, Texas, when floods nnd high winds devastated the region, taking 13 lives and doing vast dam age. 2 ? Street car burned during strike riots In Omaha, Neb. 8 ? Speaker Byrns giving to Mrs. John S. Bennett, chair man of women's division of the better housing program, a spade to break ground for new homes In Virginia and Maryland. Many Homeless in Flood Area Suffering in Midwest When Levees Break i The most serious flood danger In half i n dozen nildwestern states menaced by I raging waters centered In Arkansas j and Oklahoma as swollen streams mounted to new highs and devastated j thousands of fertile acres. | More than 300 families were home : less in the bottom lands In the Kort ! Smith (Ark.) area, which was entirely inundated. Various sections of Ar kansas, totaling approximately one third of the state, were cut off from the outside world after reporting they had been struck by a destructive Btorm. The rampaging Arkansas river smashed levees at three points in the northwest section of the state. The released water swept over 30,000 more aercs of lowlands, raising the estimat ed total of inundnted land In \rknnsas and Oklahoma to more than 40,000 acres. Three persons have died In the Okla Speed Control Device for Autos J. J. Huebscher of Minnesota la shown with his regulating rheostat mounted on the cowling of a car Just Inside the windshield. The position of the dial determines the maximum Rpeed of the car. A white light on the left burn^ at proper speeds, and a red light at right burns when the speed Is excessive. hoina-Arkansas high waters, and 14 are known to be dead In Texas floods. However, waters were receding In the I*one Star stnte, the Colorado river be? Ing the only Texns stream still causing trouble. New Supreme Court Chamber Nearly Completed Thin shows the almost completed chamber for the United States Supreme court In the new building. Justices and their staffs nre expected to start moving Into tho new building In tho near future. The first sitting of the high tribunal in the new quarters wlli be In tho fall. At this session Is expected another momentous decision affecting tho new deal, that concerning the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, of vital Importance to overy farmer. This new Supreme court building Is conMi!??r?>d a masterploce of architectural art and Is one of the outstanding features of the program to beautify tho National Capital. Girl for Every Gob at the San Diego Exposition I ? When the fleet came In at San Dlejfo, Calif., after manetiTera. the ttallorN enjoyed t'emaelve* nt the California Pacific International etpoaltlon, and found that the flower gtrla of the fair wore the bent of plnymntea. SEEN-"-' HEARD around th? National Capital ' 1 By CARTER FIELD&SSH5S Washlngton. ? Whether President Roosevelt's new tux program for big Inheritance levies is put through at this session, or goes over until next year, there Is little doubt of its event ual enactment. Hie answer to that is simple. It Is just that there are. and probably would be In almost any upset which might occur, enough votes in both houses of congress to Impose high taxes on big fortunes. lliis fuct is realized now pretty well by holders of these same big fortunes, so the most important thing at the moment Is what they will do to cir cumvent the effects, or soften the blows, that are certain to come. One of the most serious aspects af fects such Institutions as the Ford Mo tor company. There are many others, though all of them are smaller, but the idea is the same In every case where h big business is owned almost ex clusively by one small family. No one Is authorized to say, of course, what Henry Ford will do, as he sees this thing coming. Rut the opinion of shrewd business men as to what he will be forced to do is inter esting. The problem would be what Edsel Ford could do If his father died sud denly and the government demanded, for example, in both estate and in heritance taxes, g!iy 80 per cent. How could the cash bo provided with which to pay this tax? Obviously by doing what Henry Ford has fought against all his life, and fought against successfully, by refusing to have se curities of his company sold through Wall Street. If. for instance, In view of the cer tainty of heavy Inheritance taxes, Ford should decide not to have such a ter rific problem put up to Edsel, some day, for Immediate decision? perhaps at a most inopportune time ? the thing to do would be to sell to the public shares of his stock, or bonds In his company. Simple Solution If the stock and bonds were on the market, had a recognized value, and were being constantly traded In. the problem would be comparatively sim ple. Enough securities could be sold to pay the taxes. This would not en tirely eliminate the possibility that there would have to be a great sac rifice of values. The public would know that these stocks and bonds must be sold In a very short time, and the probability Is that the price would decline to far below normal. It would be strictly a buyers' market. ? This sort of thing has been Illustrat ed time and again In smaller enter prises. In fair sized cities, say of nround half a million people, it often develops that everybody "in the know realizes a large block of some local stock must be sold. Always the price declines In advance, and the person who must do the selling for one rea son or another nets far less than the Actual value of his securities. In fact, one of the reasons many investment bankers have always ad vised clients to deal only In securities listed on the New York Stock exchange has been that ? merely been use of its bigness? there was less of that sort of thing possible than in the case of .se curities In smaller enterprises, where the Interest in buying was confined to a small territory. Rut In the real big cases, such as Ford would be, New York would be come Just as bad as many of the small er communities are now for small en terprises. Wall Street Knew President Roosevelt's recommenda tion of high inheritance taxes was mnde directly against the advice of nearly all his congressional advisers. Within two hours after he had toll) newspaper correspondents that there Just might lie a message to congress during the day, though he declined to say what it would be about, Senator Pat Harrison, chairman of the senate financo committee, and Chairman Doughton of the house ways and means committee, denied to reporters any knowledge of a move by the White House to obtain higher Income taxes and inheritance taxes. Which would seem to prove that the two chairmen mentioned, heads re spectively of the committees in house and senate which would handle the legislation desired by the President still hoped until the message actually arrhed Mint they had dissuaded Hm> President. Rut, what is really of great Interest to newspaper men In particular and the public In general, the tip on which these two chairmen were questioned came directly from Wall Street. In fact, smart brokers operating on the New York Stock exchange kneu almost the precise pattern of the President's t?.x plan at the very mo ment the President was declining to take newspaper men Into his ronfl dence as to what his message would bo about I '1 here have been many leaks of |t). formation In Washington. There have been evidences again and again that speculators on Wall street had ad vanco Information as to what the ad ministration would do. There In noth Ing new about this. There have been many Investigations, one of the most interesting of which, and Incidentally one of the most typical, being the fa mous "leak Investigation" by the house rules committee back In Woodrow Wil son's administration. On thtat occasion news that the Pres Ident would make a move to obtain peace In Europe ? this was In the late x fall of 15)10 ? before the United States got Into the war ? was known In Wall Street, and occasioned a terrific crash In tlie stocks of companies manufac turing munitions for the allies. Thom as \\ . Lawson of Boston, of frenzied finance fame, charged tlmt certain peo ple had made millions on advance in formation. Bernard M. Baruch was put on the stand, and admitted niak*, ing half a million the day the news broke, though he convinced the com mittee that he acted on news froio London, not Washington. Pinned on Reporters But the point Is that at the end of that investigation some tlve or six news paper men were pilloried as the real source of the leak. Some of them lost their Jobs. Some were Just reprimand ed. All were In disgrace. The whole tiling was construed as a terrllic re flection on newspaper ethics. Everybody in Washington knew there had been a real leak ? that the telegrams sent by the newspaper men thus besmirched were just an alibi ? In short that Thomas W. Law son In es sential was right. But this administration, havlng^l watched the Lawson and other leak Investigations, is taking no chances. This was evidenced by the fact that at 11 a. m., on June IP, the President would not admit what his message that afternoon would be about. Yet hours before the stock market ' closed this writer and several others were working desperately to confirm tips from Wall Street reporters In their organizations that the President was about to propose high Inheritance taxes and bin advances on the higher brackets on Income taxes! And If readers will pardon a hum hie confession, the Washington report ers were not able to confirm the re port ! But the smart Wall Street op erators knew. You can draw your own diagram of what that means. Relief Plan in Peril The $1,100 per man limitation which President Itoosevelt has imposed on the work relief program, as far as the selection of projects Is concerned, not only promises to force a general blow up in the whole scheme, but to make a lot of trouble., politically and other wise. l or Instance, the big water project for central California, for the San .luaquln and Sacramento rivers. Ue cently Senators Johnson and McAdoo called on the President. They urged him to lift the $1,100 ban on this proj ect. The President ln>lsted that he had only $ 4,000,000,000, and that this M ,01)0 ,000,000 must provide worlc for three and a half million men. Hence each project must put a man to work for every $1,100 spent. The senators urged the President to consider that purchases of materials, machinery, etc., would provide work far In excess of the Jobs actually provided on the site of the project. But the President was unmoved. Later on, however, he had a qualm, and wrote Public Works Administra tor Ickes, inquiring whether the $1,100 would actually ban the project, and suggesting a restudy of the whole sit uation to determine this point. Ickes himself would not "fudge" on the fig ures. But he gave some of his subordi nates a chance to Juggle them. At last accounts the assistants de clined to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. They made lengthy reports call ing attention to the value of the proj ect, and to the tremendous amount of employment it would provide Indirect ly. One of f hem even called attention to the fact while most of this Indirect employment would be outside the state A of California, some of It would be In side the state. That would be cement. Curious Paradox Which brings up a rather curious paradox In the mental processes of the President and some of his advisers ? particularly Harry Hopkins. (It must always be remembered In this connec tion that Ickes himself has no sym pathy for this policy ? he approves this particular California project, and l? keen for providing employment Indi rectly.) The country has been divided for re lief work purposes Into some three hundred odd districts. Apparently the administration Is trying to conduct them as though they were water-tight compartments. The number of unem ployed In each has been surveyed, and (he idea Is to provide soflleient employ ment in each to take care of that situ ation. This policy does not take Into ac count the fact that a district whlcl^^ happens to be big In steel manufactu^^^ Ing would not need work relief enough work relief projects requiring steel should be approved. In that case the unemployed men In the steel dis trict Would have Jobs automatically provided for them Jobs paying much better wages than work relief ?giving them the opportunity to spend more money, and thus provide Jobs for still others, etc. All of which Is In strange contrast, to the President's bltt< r complaint against the Supreme court decision In ^ the N'itA case. For he talked of the country's being relegated to the horse and buggy days, and harped on the point that with Increasing speed of commnnlcat Ion and transportation, nothing could happen In Maine that would not affect Oregon. There In the sharpest division among his advisers as to this $1,100 por marv limitation, and observers are predict ing that the whole work relief program will bog down In the next few months simply because of the Impossibility of > finding enough projects worth doing ' where the cost per man employed will tome within $1,100. Copyright ? WNU Rorvlc*. . ,