Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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-V, >>' ' - ■V ■ a, ■ 1 ‘* \ _ . ?\ .<'• ,, ^ of Currenlr' Events the World Over jr\ » • ’..y professor Tugwell’s Defense gof the New Deal—Troubles of the American Railways—President Formulating Plan to Help Silver. -Ar-” By EDWARD W. PICKARD M EMBERS of the American Society of Newspaper Editors assembled In Washington heard a warm and elab orate defense of the New peal dellv ered by Prof. Rexford Q. Tugwell, as sistant secretary of agriculture, who Is In part responsible for most of the recovery measures adopted by the present administration. Denying that those who are advising the President seek to bring about radical changes In the life and economic policies of the American people, Professor Tugwell described himself as a "thorough con servative.” "We have a saving Irreverence of authority,’’ said Professor TugweU In speaking of the characteristics of the American people, “which gets us out of holes These basic traiti deterame the structure of our laws and of our government. No one, with the slight est sense of history, would try to tit such a people into a regimented scheme, would try to think for them Instead of getting them to think for themselves. . ^ ' “Time will tell which In these times Is the best American—those who be lieve that the racketeering, the finan cial juggling, the exploitation of work ers and consumers must be ended once for all, and that continuity of In dustry must be definitely assured by whatever orderly political means can be found; or those who believe it more Important that some few Insiders should be allowed to manipulate ma terials, natural forces and social instl- tatidbs For their own good" pense of all the rest “Democracy has been living a pre carious life among our business Insti tutions; Its enemies In this country were in a fair way to have It strangled and laid quietly aside until the New Deal came along. For they did not realise that real democracy cannot be destroyed without provoking a re volt on the part of Its practlttonera -^’’Farmers were being starved off their land; workers were denied ac cess to Idle factories. A kind of spe cious and purely formal political proc ess was being used as a stalking horse for privilege and threatening oligarchy. I have never lent myself to this su preme chicanery and I am not likely to do so as long as I keep any realistic sense at all, “The New Deal Is not something which can establish Itself In the mind of a dictator or a small governing group. That was the fatal theory of the system from which we are turning away. Its base has to be as broad as the economy which has to be brought under control and as deep as the blinds and the hearts of the people whom it affects.” there was no indication the govern ment wilt embark on such a policy. The President Indicated a desire to have further talks with the silver sen ators and there will be other confer ences, according to Senator William EL King, Democrat, of Utah, chairman of the silver committee, and other sena tors who attended the conference. It was quite evident Mr. Roosevelt was not In favor of any mandatory legLfr lation, at least, at this time. Later It was reliably stated that the ^ 41 " 4 delusion.-They prove the r\ T8ARMAM15NT negotiations trader present conditions are futile, ta the official opinion of the French gov ernment, and It will have nothing-more to do with them, returning Instead te Its old plan for national security founded on armaments and. allies. This Is the gist of a note delivered to the British government whligi Is held to be a death blow to any accord on armaments,. The blame for failure of negotiations is laid by the French on Chancellor Hitler and his Nazi gov ernment of Germany. The note described the Increased German military budget as i “men ace” and declared the German gov ernment, without awaiting the results of negotiations In progress, has shown its-determination to continue all forms of rearmament In violation of the treaty of Versailles. 'The German government,” the note charged, “intends to Increase imme diately on a formidable scale not only the strength of Its army but also Its naval and air forces. “Whatever explanation may be ad vanced, facts of such exceptional gravity can lead to only one observa- Presldent was maturing a plan for In ternational stabilization of currencies and that silver figures prominently In it. Mr. Roosevelt, It was revealed, fa vors the inclusion of silver In the met al base of currency Issues to the ex- tent of 30 pef cent, the remaining 70 per cent to be gold. This change can be safely made, however, the President points out, only by international agree ment whereby all the signatory nations would admit silver to their reserves against which paper money Is Issued. German government has made Impos sible further negotiations.” , Foreign Minister Barthou has advo cated an armaments agreement even If the French had to make great sac rifices, but the Nationalist members of the-cablnet. Including Marshal Petala, minister of war, and Andre Tardleu, vice premier, overrnled him and forced the writing of the note In ac cord with their views. Barthou has now gone to Poland to try to break up the girowing ae- . .. , . , cord between that nation and Oer- in the London economic, and mono- . . . . . ..... / many; and In Paris the Rumanian for tary conference Senator Kby Pittman Alirn xj,, hn1na BRISBANE THIS WEEK No Cash for Uncle Sam The Wirt Mystery The Tiger’s Immortality Poor Old Trotxky Mr. Chamberlain, in charge of Brit ish finances, tell* happy fellow coun trymen that conditions are good In England: “The past fiscal year has shown a profit of 1200,000,000,” and The atmosphere Is distinctly bHgbter.” It Is not brighter for your Uncle Sam. Mr. Chamberlain also announced that “he did not propose to make any provlalon for the payment of war debts to America,” and the statement was loudly cheered. It Is to be hoped that President Roosevelt wfll, In his own time, make a reply that will be Toudly cheered” on this side of the water. Money can be collected from Eng- land and other couutrles by a tax on all shipping entering our \)orts. We still own the ports and the docks —at least that Is the popular theory. _ They could not well retaliate, since we own little shipping. The United States would like to hear President Roosevelt say to the British, the French and the others, “There are several ways of skinning a cat, and I propose to show you one or two of them.” L i Washington.—Anyone who attempts to Interpret Washington sews dr appraise Its effects meets ft Dr. Wire* circumstance f r e- Charge* \ q'lently where the only course Is one of watchful waiting. There is no alterna tive. Complex situations must work out; ulterior purposes must be dis closed to a slight^ degree, if there are such purposes, and somd, scent must be had of the factors and Influences at work. Otherwise, appraisal of the potential effects usually will miss Its mark under circumstances of that kind. Of such a type were the charges by Dr^WHHam A. Wirt, the schooi aoper- Intendent from Gary, Ind., who as serted that “brain trusters” of, the Roosevelt administration were seeking to Overthrow our form of government and establish a communistic or Rus sian Soviet state In its place. Doctor .Wirt’s acciiMtlnnw came out of th* offered such a plan, proposing that cen tral banks keep 20 per cent, or one- fifth, of their metal cover or reserve for currency In sliver. The proposal was not acted on at 4he conference. J OHN DILLINGEtt, the notorious outlaw, and several members of his gsng fought their way out of a trap laid by federal agents and possemen . .ten miles, east , of Manltowlsh, In north ern Wisconsin. In three desperate gun battles three men were killed and eight wounded, and the bandits escaped Into the woods. Three wom en who had been with the DUlitiger gang were arrested. Two others were beiTeveff to have fled with the desperadoes. These two came from Minneapolis and were thought to have warned Dllllnger of the impending raid on the camp where he had been for several days. Some hours after the battles in Wis consin three members of the gang were seen by three deputy sheriffs In a suburb of St. Paul, Minn. A Tunning gun fight ensued and one of the gang sters apparently was wounded, but the trio escaped and stole an automobile elgn minister Nicholas Titulescu, was helping to reinforce the alliance be- ! tween France and the little entente. British government officials were still hopeful of results from the dls- armament conference, but the chances oFTts success were still further mini mized when Fhlvlo Suvlch, Italian undersecretary for foreign affairs, had a talk with French Premier Gaston Doumergne In Paris. The latter relt- eratetf 4hftT"PWfl<^ would refuse to Toting ladles attending the fateful Virginia dinner at which Doctor Wirt thought he beard somebody call Presi dent Roosevelt “only the Kerensky In the revolution, soon to be replaced with a genuine Stalin,” testify that nothing of the Kind was said. In fact, the young ladles agree that the dinner started with a monologue . by Doctor Wirt which outtasted the ? arge8 before attempting to analyze dinner. Nobody else could say a word. * ein or t0 them Into other things ,• ' ; that have been happening to make a The -circus kept a big striped tiger com P* e te picture Hls appearance be- named “Boss” locked In a strong cage. r: J re of loqulry blue sky, so to speak, because there was no advance notice of them. Of course, there were thousands of per sons who were uneasy about the trend of events and the plans of the New Dealers. Apparently, however, most of them were QDwUIing to make them selves a target for the unbelieving by becoming vocal about their opinions. So, the setting In which Washington observers found themselves was, to say the least, a new one. With these facts In mind, I have ■waited an exposition of Doctor Wirt’s ‘legalize” rearmament of Germany or undertake to reduce her own military strength under such conditions. The premier made It plain that France .would not dlsquss Mussolini’s arms limitation scheme or any other plan except at Geneva With Germany re^ resented. fp John Dllllnger M L. WfLSRjN, director of the dlvr- * 8100 of subsistence homesteads of the Departtnent'of the Interior, has issued a warning to the public to be ware of speculative land settlement promotions “masquerading as projects of the government's subsistence home steads program.” He says many pro motions have come to the attention of his division, continuing: “Through suggestive advertisements or by means of strongly colored sales talks, promoters have reported that strong enough to keep the tiger In, not strong enough to keep death out Death entered, and “within tea min utes the tiger was on his way to be made Into a rug.” That will be fer the tiger a sort of immortality. Fire left normfig to be d&flred In the dra- matlcs. He was there, accompanied by that famed attorney, former Senator James A. Reed of Missouri, which'was. In Itself, a surprise. And Doctor Wirt stood up against the barrage of at tempts to discredit him! He never and moths permitting, hls beauty may survive for 50 years, made perfect by | ® Inched : ? 1e fought back, and he was artificial eyes, toftth and tongue, grow- * #FP*fently convince^ of hls own find-. Ing gradually dimmer. Man has no ,np8, a fact that K n ^ e . him added such certainty of eternity, apart from coara » e - faith, except In hls children. They do I supply what might be semi-eternal representation on earth. Parents of certain modern children, however; ~ might well say, “I should^ — DdcMf Wirt wasted no wfirds In tell- Ing of the famous party In a nearby Virginia home where Lawrence Todd, Washington representative of the Rus sian Soviet news agency Tnss” and they have the backing of\the federal government through the subsistence . ., . . . . . ... homesteads program wh^re their !". wh _ ,< i l,ea . ,le, ! ,or the brldse claim, arc entirely false. These promoters are preying upon at hand. They face the possibility of a general strike, and the President has warued them that If they do not reorganise their debts at the expense of their stockholders and sta bilize their labor con- d 111 o n s, government control or ownership may be the result. The wage controversy came to a head when the railway labor of ficials rejected Presi dent Roosevelt’s re- SKIP J. B. Eastman ,,u “ t t '; at , | the '° per cent reduction be con tinued, and the railway executives said they would not consider any settle ment more favorable to labor than • this. Joseph B. Eastman, co-ordina- 1 tor of transportation, who had been carrying on the negotiations, Immedi ately withdrew as mediator, saying there was nothing he could accomplish. He asserted he believed the negoti ations would continue under the pro visions of the railway labor act. But A. F. Whitney, president of the Rail way Labor Executive association, was far less hopeful. " \ . a,., “Our only alternative appears to call for a atrike ballot In order to prove our point in this matter,” said Whit- »ey, "and if thla Is done there can be but one answer from the men who have been receiving such a beggarly stipend.” President Roosevelt appointed Secre tary of Commerce Roper, Secretary of Labor Perkins and Attorney General Cummings, a committee of three, to study the matter of stabilizing rail road labor and financial policies. He feels the railroads must wipe out the threat of receiverships by scaling down their fixed charges, and must settle their disputes with labor finally. Holding that the railroads are far overexpanded because of their 1915- 1929 building boom, the President feels that the carriers may never again be Rbie to earn the interest payments on the bonds which were floated to finance the building of tracks, stations, and rolling stock. S ENATORS who urge the remonetls- ntlon of silver held a conference with President Roosevelt but received from him no encouragement for sliver legislation, though no conclusion was reached. The possibility of silver par- chases was discussed and the President Indicsted i disposition to give this matter consideration, hot on the whole JNSkLkz "£!/• . ; „ '' , * s' ■y. \ y ' „ across the Mississippi river. Federal ami local officials through out all that region were on the lookout for the Dllllnger gang with the tacit understanding that the desperadoes would be shot on sight VfARIOUS writers In magazines and » newspapers tell us that the chance of war In Europe Is remote, but al most dally circumstances come to light that contradict this optimistic view. Here are some recent Instances: Orders have been sent out for the twenty-year-old youths of Germany to report for duty In military or labor camps, which would Indicate that Chancellor Hitler’s Nazi government is quietly but efficiently providing mil- famllles who desire to leave the city for rural or semirural living and they serve to Impede the progress of the division’s program. Even a cursory examination of the representation^ of these promoters Indicates they are ut terly lacking In good faith.” rather be made into.n.-Uig and get my ( .J Beveral “ sa * e ^^ e8 ” the brain tr eternity that way.” " wer * a t dinner with the Indiana edu- 1 ^ cator. He quoted Todd as the au- You feel sorry for poor old Trotzky, thority for the statement that I’resl- despite the color of hls politics. Fate dent Roosevelt was the “Kerensky" put him In the Russian revolution, of the present revolution and that raising him to the heights. Stalin presently Mr. Roosevelt would be s threw him out. Into Turkey. He wan- planted by a “Stalin,’’ even aF oc- dered to France and guilelessly start- curred in Russia, ed organizing a “fourth. Internationale” Gf course. Mr. Todd tm^ho part in to “put an end to all organized gov ernment.” The French government puts him out of France, and he doesn’t know where to go. He thinks of the United States, but what with Professor Wirt and one thing and another he can hardly hope Itary training for all these young men the same as If military conscription for a full-sized army were permitted by international agreement. Young men employed in factories and shops must belong to storm groups. Only storm troopers get Jobs. Labor camps provide military training for those who, for some reason or other, did not become storm troopers. Many of these labor camps are virtually military fin ishing schools for storm troopers. Tar get practice and similar military maneuvers are staged. Michael Kalinin, president of Soviet Russia, has demanded the “inrtenslvn militarization” of «11 rural Russia as J3 EACE In the automobile Industry was disrupted again when the work ers In the Fisher Body plants in Cleveland and St. Louis and the Chevrolet plant In the latter city went on strike. It followed a three months’ appeal by the American Federation of Labor union for recognition, accord ing to federation officials. • \ FAR as the Democrats go, the o° ^ Wirt affair is ended, the^ Demo cratic majority of the committee of in vestigation deciding to report to con gress that the Cary t educator’s charges of a .red plot to over throw the government are unfounded. Mc- Gugin and Lehlbaeh, ! the Republican mem bers of the committee, formulated a minority report expressing their opinion that the In- * quiry should bebroad- ened In scope. Me- 1 to get In here. England used to re ceive all revolutionaries, but some other countries may reject Trotzky ■void offending the younger, powerful Stalin. Vcheer up. If your hotise Is, mort gaged. Uncle Sam discovers, after 158 years of national life since 1778, that, be has a poeketbook and meant to ui»e It for you. Some of hls hun dreds of millions will be used carrying along your mortgage until you hava had time to pay It off. Even If It If not a "distress” mortgage, he may help you. The mortgage holder will be asked to reduce hls Interest rate and to extefld the mortgage to ten or even fifteen years. In return he will have the government's guarantee that the mortgage will be paid. Mortgaged home owners will ask, ••Am I dreaming?” Some real estaters will say, “Let me get my real estate mortgaged to my brother-in-law quickly, and let him get a government guarantee.” the government, official/, and a good, many of those who scoffed at Doctor ’Wirt originally contended the charges were Just “hp\(\\\vyT~ RnT he m the statements under oath and their effect now is the thing with which we are cohcwned,—For to say that -the ch part of general preparations for de-’ Miss Kneeland (jugin asserts there is tense against war. He says: “We also pi en ty of evidence from many sources must have a strong rear Hne con- , to prove ^ certain members of the nected with the front by thousands of brain trust are seeking to overthrow threads. The chief task is to trajn » h « eetahllshad social order of ttm women and children and others not fit United States. Representative Hamil- for military service to carry out the ton jrigh 0 f New York told • gather- work of collective farming when all able-bodied persons are mobilized, so that normal functions will not be In terfered with. Those who remain on the collective farms must be prepared for everything. It Is not sufficient that they know how to use gas masks. It won’t be enough that they be able to Ing of Republican women that Doctor Wirt failed to prove hls case became hls sources of Information were too remote, but that he, Mr. Fish, was go ing to prove It so there would be no doubt about It. Regardless of patriotic motives, the Republicans In congress are* not'to abandon just yet the cam- manage a gun. They must have a good paign material supplied by the Wirt knowledge of the physical geography ca*®. of their regions and ^ we ' 1 versed In when the Bulwlnkle committee all orms of knowledge regarding the mailed before It the six who were with repelUng of attacks; on the civilian wirt at the dinner In Virginia they all, with astonishing unanimity, de nied practically everything that Wirt said occurred that evening. Each of them asserted that the doctor monopc* Used the conversatfon, talking mainly about gold devaluation, and that It was almost Impossible to Interrupt him. They verified pnly ojpe statement which Wirt had ascribed to kiss HU- degarde Kneeland, a division head In population. Particularly they must know how to resist ^alda from the air." A LRRADY suffering Severely from ** drought, large parts \>f the Middle NorthWest were afflicted by a destruc tive dust storm, said to be the worst In 20 yean. The Dakotas, Min nesota, Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa got the v^orst of It, the dry soil being the home economic of the Agrlcnl- carried by high winds and in some tore department This was that ahe had objected to Wirt’s proposal that .the goal of the government should be a restoration of conditions la the country aa they were in 1926. • • Mr places deposited In heaps greater than the snow banka of the winter. Farms, many of them already seeded, were denuded of fertile top soil Winter wheat was badly damaged. .Ihna.far.the covery experiments \has spent five thousand million dollars for relief of various kinds. It could spend ten thou sand millions. It would not cost a would prior and pay out the money Uurtead of Is suing bonds that are fictitious, since bankers do not rea'ly pay for them, the interest doubling the amount paid out ges have had no effect Is to make statement that the moon Is made of green cheese. • • •—*— To those of us whose job It Is to keep a finger on the pulse of public sentiment. It has been Reaction apparent for several Set$ in months that a reac tion against many of the New Deal principle^ had set In. I. for one, however, was unable to gauge It accurately.* * 1 could not tell, how deeply rooted jthese convictions were. It required some such incident as the Wirt charges to focus attention on the fact that there were doubters before most of us here could gain an Idea of the “oppositionist” movement that appeared to exist. Let me say at this point, too, that It Is apparent Mr. Roosevelt Is not the only target; the criticism seems to be more of the Ideas prompted* by hls brain trust ad visers than the President s own re form or recovery principles. There Is a decided difference, one realizes, be tween the two, for one xroup In the Is promoting reform and another recovery. * \ Here is where the Wirt testimony becomes important In Its effect. By making the charges. Doctor Wirt dl- Kew York city has 67,000 tenement houses In which 2,000,000 people live, because there is no other place for them to live. Of the 2,000,000, 90 per cent live In fire trap*, according , to official report There la, however, a ■liver lining to this cloud, from point of view. When tenement be born down, and tenants burn up, the landlord gets hia Insurance. If the law forbade insurance on flretrapa, aa It ahonld do, the owner would be ew the spot night and day to prevent Ira. And there would be less afton. la a new treatment for pneumonia fresh air la pumped Into the pleural cavity ef the patient, “giving the af fected long a chance to rest and reetst Infection." Also jt brings *o the "crisis" 48 bears sooner, before the disease has ■ids the patient too weak to fight • Wtae raatan reeled attention to the two schools ot thought. In effect, he has caRed upon the country to distinguish between re form and recovery programs, and has asked the question whether we shall sacrifice recovery In order that ref ideas may be forced down the of those who fin|d It dlfflculFfb swah~ low untried theories. There can be no doubt that several millions of Americans who, hereto fore, were willing to trust Mr. Roose velt to run the whole show, are now making Individual examinations of the ■e which the New Dealers have, or propose to, set up. 1 think It equal ly tnif as well that these exam loa ns by ^individuals will result tn a Hiring of opinions more than has opened op to this time. They un- lly will find some good and some bad, aome workable and some no ble, items smong the New Deal That ought to be a wholesome thing for the country. History feems to prove that a cross section of ear national mind la nearly always correct after the hysteria dies down. Thus the opinions I gather around Washing ton streas the Importance of the re form that obviously la going te result from New Drill method* Bnt they em- \ phaslze equally the Importance of the Wirt testimony In- balking an onrush- Ing wave of so-called reforms that ao many persons, consider to be actually destractive of the basic and proved practipes of our commerce, and indus try- *. And. after all, that Is the point at issue In this country today. Doctor Wirt quoted Mr. Todd as having said that “Roosevelt Is tn midstream and the current Is too strong for him to turn back." 1 still have faith in our system of government and I have more faith In a majority opinion of the peo ple of the United States. Since Dee* tor Wifi .testified, they are on their guard, ft may be that -the sun of the brain trust theorist Is setting. One more observation about the Wirt affair: tn a long service In Washing ton, I have seen few Badly hearings as badly Muddled muddled by a com - mlttee of congress. Each of the members of the committee knew, of course, that the atmosphere was surcharged with politics. Some bf the Democrats Obviously were afraid that Doctor Wirt was go ing to explode a bombshell of poli tics that would do their p^rty no good at all. and some of the -Republicans were afraid that Doctor wlrt would not explode that bombshell. Conse quently, there was haggling without end. I believe the consensus among the hundred-odd - correspondents wbe were reporting the hearing was that Representative Bulwlnkle of North Carolina, a Democrat and the chair man. reflected no particular credit upon himself or the committee aa In quisitors. Criticism of Represents- tlve McGugln, a Republican from Kan sas, also was heard, for Mr. McGugln went just as far in supporting the wit ness as $lr.* Bulwlnkle did In bar- rassing him. In the background of the committee, haggling, stood the tall, gray-haIred figure of “Jlnj” Reed. Senator Reed. when he was In the senate, wasytfrob- ably the most feared of all debaters. -HTTWrimre 'fewis ‘a nd cpfting state ments seldom failed tfy make spines quiver. Hls presence as Doctor Wirt’s counsel faRed at first to check Mr. Bulwlnkley-but the fact that-h# ■e- fH^mdod Mr. McGugln with «« f waa^-there pn assurnnee/of help In any battle of words. tain evidence of people’* views ays is reflected in congress rather quickly after changes In semlme^A take place, and It Is no different now. There was a time durifig the firs* months of President Roosevelt’s ad ministration when anything he sent to congress was put through, and no questions were asked. Currently, how ever. there Is a disposition among qf both political parties—hr congress to~Iftq»frf^lnto the character of legislation they are putfirurtTrrrmgh. For example, the hill tlmt Hie Preat I he dent wanted for controlling the se curity exchanges, like the New York Stock Exchange, was advertised "by Democratic leaders at first as being ready' to go through without question. Mr. Roosevelt said he wanted “teeth" In It, and teeth were put In It plenty of them. Indeed, the proposed legis lation would have left little of tho stock exchange to operate. Rigid con trol was a mild expression compared with that original stock market bill. • * * . Stock exchange members, brokerage houses and plain Investors suddenly awnkeped to the fact Wake Vp, that thpt-blll was go- Then Fight ,np to do th,n B* to them. They started to fight. They found responsive chords In the house and senate. Reason and logic, as opponents of the bill under stood those words, began to prevail and, presently, rumors of proposed changes in the meaaure began to crop up. And what’s more, the changes be gan to be accepted by a majority of the committees that had the bill In charge^ripsplta frequent reiterations by Senator Fletcher, chairman of the sen ate banking committee, and Chairman Rayburn, of the house Interstate Com merce committee, th,at the President -anted the teeth teft Th. It Is to be admitted. T think, that there was a lot of monkey-doodle busi ness going on among some members of security exchanges. My belief Is that they did not always give the Individual investors In stocks a fair shake. Bat some of the reformers Included In the administration’s brain trust appear to have overlooked the good in whatever amount It exists In the stock ex changes. But, to get to the point of the story. Many persons hold to the view that the government should not spread a par-, ental wing too far over private offatn. It baa been done already beyond the antldpetkm of a majority of the peo ple. They want to be free to deal In stocks, to speculate, even to gamble; If you please, without .having burean- cracy here In Washington to tell them what to do. .. The legislation will go throngh event ually. Of that there'la no doubt in* Its final form, however. It wlM not be the handiwork of ttye reformers. There will be reform* brought about by It oaly they will be for-the purposes of correcting abuses and txK far the pose ef trying out theories body's money. • SS WMIWB HBWPMIl gl— ■ f mh • 'v •A : J