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F ( m i 1 News Review of Current Events the World Over ' Grand Jury Asked by Ickes to Investigate PWA Graft Charges—Future of NRA Hangs Upon Outcome of Suit Agaihst Little Sawmill Operator. By EDWARD W. PICKARD C. We.tern New.paper Union.* K § Wy K- OTJONEST HAROLD” Ickes has been subjected to lots of abuse by congressmen and others, but he does not Intend to let anything be put over on the Public Works administration, of which he Is the admin istrator. At his re quest a special grand Jury has been sum moned to meet In Washington on Feb- uary 6 to Inquire Into charges of graft In the PWA. Assistant ^United States Attor- Sec'y Ickes ney J ° hn W ‘ Fihelly sec y ickes hag t , 1? Diat ter In hand for the government and will present first testimony concerning the $4,000.(1(10 canal project In Texas. It was asserted that the contract for tills project was withdrawn after Mr. Ickes’ Investigators had un covered evidence that there was a huge conspiracy to defraud the United States. Klght or ten persons, Includ ing federal officials, are said to be In volved. Mr. Ickes himself said: “The Public Works administration In vestigation division has made a long and careful Atudy of the Texas project upon the direction of the administrator (Ickest 'and presented to the proper prosecuting officials of the governmtipt a full report for such action ns they deem proper to take.” This Texas case may consume sev eral weeks, and afterward the grand Jury is expected to investigate some other projects and also charges of fraud In the War department. Part of the money may be used to put the government Into the filling sta tion business. Senator Rimer Thomas (Dem., Okla.) revealed. Gasoline sta tions may be erected along "self- flquldatlng” highways, he said. The government may also purchase land ad joining these'highways and Improve It with houses for rent or sale. “ Little hope Ts seen In reportlngTheT measure out before February 10 when the relief funds on hand will expire. The only hope of meeting this emer gency, It Is pointed put. Is in the pos sible segregation of the 880 million dollar cash relief provision from the main blit. One development which was of Inter est to many was that the measure was prepared under the supervision of Mr. Bell, the budget director, thus making him a candidate for the ‘‘physical hang ing” advocated by Senator James Cou- zons of Michigan. T HOSE who View Russia's growing military strength with' alarm were oot comforted by a statement made by the vice commissar for defense before the seventh All-Union congress of Soviets In Moscow that the Red army has grown from 000.000 to 040,000 men In four years. *- Fortifications along the eastern and western frontiers have been strength ened, and all branches of the military service, particularly aviation, have been Increased, the vice - commissar stated, and more will be spent for de fense In 193S than was spent last year. The delegates, who were meeting to re-. view Bolshevist progress since 103T, greeted the vice Commissar’s speech with roars of applause. A LMOST unnoticed among the spec- fncnlnr Issues of the day. yet of momentous Importance, the case of the United States against Belcher wilt he set for hearing by the Supreme court within n few days. This case opens up discussion on the constitu tionality of the heart of the entire NRA experiment—the power of the federal government to regulate wages and working hours through codes. Upon this refusal of a small Ala bama sawmill operator to comply with the code hangs the entire fate of the NRA, for If the government loses there will be nothing left of NRA except an empty statement of desirable business ethics. If the government cannot con trol wages and hours In the produc tion of goods Intended for Interstate commerce, there Is a strong likelihood that the course of legislation to extend the NRA beyond June 16 will be strong ly affected. Other cases now pending before the court touch upon certain portions of the vital question, but this case goes straight to the basic power of the recovery act. It affords a clear- out determination of the fundamental Issues, becnusl* there Is no dispute as to facts, no technicalities of law upon which the issue can be avoided. The case comes almost as an original case, •Ince the attorney general took advan tage of legal machinery permitting an appeal directly to the Supreme court from the decision of a federal District court without recourse to a Court or Appeals. The defendant openly violated the lumber code. Instead of adhering ,to code provision requiring payment of 24 cents per hour for a 40-hour maximum week, he admitted paying Ids men 10 to 15 cents i>er hour and that he worked them as many hours us he saw fit. What the government’s line of de fense will be Is not known. The case Involves all the constitutional objec tions which might be raised against the recovery act. Decisions of the court In the recent oil cases did not touch upon the constitutionality of the main body of the act, but Involved only a qpeclal section. CMSARING the anger of their aroused * constituents more than the adminis tration's whip, the senate kicked over the traces to defeat ratification of the world court protocols’.”'The final count was seven votes short of the necessary two-thirds. Frantic efforts to force the measure through were made by the administra tion. Several revolting senators were called to the White House, and the I‘resident even agreed to amendments to the resolution, hut was unable to overcome the effects of thousands of protesting telegrams which had been pouring into Washington from citizens all over the country. - » In private, many Democratic sena tors who face re-election’In 1936 heaved sighs of relief as the measure was de feated. Administration forces accepted the verdict, apparently without rancor, although the long memory of the man In the White House Is well known. Seemingly the Issue Is dead, for the present at leqst. \ Senator William Borah, who with Senator Hiram Johnson, led the at tack on ratification, was jubilant over the outcome, declaring that It was a great victory for the American people and for this country’s traditional policy of keeping aloof from foreign entanglements. Observers at the capital refused to view the world court vote as any In dication of a spreading revolt against Roosevelt’s policies, since the court controversy cut deeper than party lines. Several senators who opposed the tribunal will undoubtedly support the administration on other measures, although victory of the small band of Irreconcilable* who led the tight has undoubtedly added to their prestige. Bruno Hauptmann "VX/'HEN tlie senate passes the $4.- OOU.OOU.OUO work relief measure, as it certainly will after all the ora tors get through, there need be no fussing as to who is to administer the huge fund. President Roosevelt him self, according Ju an authority high in administration circles, will undertake that Job and will' allocate the money to the various agencies as he sees fit. • There will be no new set-up* for this purpose, unless It may be a small group of advisors selected by Mr. Roosevelt. TMse may be members of the cabinet or technical experts—more likely the h.ter. This Information was given the senate finance committee as It be gan consideration of the bill, and was i designed to quiet some of the opposi tion and also to curb the ambition o^ certain gentlemen who had hoped to .handle the $4,000,000,000. It did not. however, silence those senators of both parties who still contend that too much power Is given the President when he „ ts handed such a vast sum to dis pose of as be pleases. . -/ A strong possibility Is seen that the btt) may be split Into two separate ^Llparta, so that the 880 million dollars needed for relief purposes may be passed without delay, and the senate can then take Its time In considering the extraordinary measure which gives ^ the President such unprecedented pow ers In spending toe four billion dollars. serio-comic “civil* war” In Huey Long's domain is becoming ■more serious than comical and almost any day may develop Into real war-, fare. It was cen tered for the present at the state capital. Two hundred armed i men, directed by lead ers of the Square Deal association, | seized the parish court; house in East Baton Rouge and held it un til assured that one of their friends who had been arrested was. re leased. ^hey then Hu *y Long .. dispersed with a warning from one John Appel to “be sure you have enough ammunition and be ready for„ the call at any time.” The Klngtish was In. New Orleans at the time, but he hastened to Baton Rouge while Governor Allen called out some troops and proclaimed partial martial law In the capital. Huey im mediately ordered the recently ap pointed Judge J. ■ D. Womack to start an IrTvesUgWon of WlfaT Tm de scribed as a plot t# murder him, in which “four shtfflfs and a district at torney” were involved. The senator declared: * “We picked up two men. one of them was going to drive the murder car. It was all fixed up. He was going to block my car on the highway between here and New Orleans, make It stop and force me in the ditch,, and then 14 or 16 were going to come along In an other car and kill me. “We found all the stuff, in the fel low’s car.- There was sherifTs equip ment, and everything.” Maybe Huey was right, for one Sid ney Songy testified at the Inquiry that i»e had been given a gun, ammunition and gas bombs to kill the senator. Long blamed the Standard Oil com pany for the armed assembly of his enemies tn Baton Rouge arid said that unless the company stopped the “vio lence” his compromise with it over the 5-cent oil refinery tax would be called off. Despite this warning another armed group of Square Dealers gathered at the .Baton Rouge air field; but some one betrayed‘them and a detachment of the National Guard advanced on them In battle array. The sight of machine guns was enough for the citizenry ; they surrendered, and were disarmed I N AN effort to build up an alibi for Bruno Richard Hauptipann his at torneys have called a strange collec tion of witnesses—a minor league boot legger, a speakeasy op erator of various names, a young Swede whose-sto 1 been somewhat vague and conflicting, and a man who has admitted that he served severe! lull sentences—a not pit rtleulnrlwlmpresslve Inf upon which to de pend when you are fighting to escape death In the electric chair. One of the peculiarities of the trial Is the number of persons who only saw Hauptmann for a few minutes or sec onds. but who are able to Identify him more than two years later. The man accused of killing the first Lindbergh child Is not outstanding In appearance or one who would be likely to Indel ibly Impress himself «n a person’s mind, but both the state ami the de fense have been able to produce per sons who swear he was the man they saw the day the or imp whs rommitted. The battle of handwriting experts has also begun, with the state pro ducing experts to swear that the hand writing on the ransom notes does not resemble that on the admitted writing of Hauptmann. Their statements are Just as positive as were those made by the-.ilafonse witnesses, and It.' all proves Just a little confusing to the Jary. „ Considerable comment was caused when one of the Jurors, a woman, smiled broadly at Hauptmann as he left the stand following his examina tion, and some wagers have been made that a hung Jury will be the outcome of the trial. Such predictions are hardly In order, since a single hit of testimony may yet change the entire course of the case. D URING the debate In the house ou an administration bill to increase by $9,000,000,000 the amount of long term securities the treasury can Issue. Representative ReeitLot New York quot ed Secretary Morgenthau assaying that the treasury could not Hdance the work relief program unless congress broad ened Its bond-issuing authorUyx x Se the bouse passed the measure at unde. — The bill, prepared by the Treasury department, places the administration squarely against inflation. It provides authority to raise money necessary for the public works, &ciah security and similar measures, meet federal deficits, and -night even " be used tb provide funds for payment of tfie soldiers’ bonus. Hinder provisions of the measure there would be ten-year bonds in amounts as small as $25, and as ex plained by the Treasury department, wp.uld be sold below par. There would be no ifiterest, but each six months the bonds would appreciate In value at the rate of 2^ per cent, plus com pounded earnings. Huge sums are involved: first, the creation of a revolving bond authoriza tion fund of $2.5U0,UUU,UUU; and sec ond, the consolidation of the two pres ent revolving funds of $H),UU).UU0,UD0 each Into • joint $20.900,01NMXX) fund for bills, certificates and notes. BRISBANE THIS WEEK - A Baby Grows Up Senate's Good News Five Little Girls $4380,600,000 Fifty-three years sgo • good Amer ican mother, weak, but happy, received In her arms a small baby, with pink face and littl* hahv That baby s \p©w lives In the White House, face bronzed by ocean air, hair thick at fifty-three years of' age The baby has grown to be Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States. One hundred and twenty-five million Americans are grateful to his mother, who, happily, has lived to see her son move up, from the cradle In which she first placed him, tov earth’s mosT Im- portant place among men. Congratulations and thanks, first of all, to President Roosevelt’s ..mother; good wishes, congratulations and k long life to President Roosevelt The people of the United States are to be gongratfilated that by the de cision of the senate they will not be pushed into the back door of the League of Nations through the World court. Mr. Hull, secretary of state, wanted the United States to go Into the World court and submit important matters affecting this country to foreign judges sppointed by* nations that have swin dled this country out of ten thousand million dollars. Why, in heaven’s name? Those marvelous Canadian babies, the Dionne quintuplets, ejght months ©Id, are healthy, happy, each one a separate little lady of intense Individ uality. All pretty, all Intelligent, with good foreheads, well-shaped heads. What a wonderful family! It seems almost a pity that they cannot remain babies, now, and above, through all eternity. J APANESE forces continued to $d- vance In their drive. Two towns were captured by troops operating In weather 34 degrees below zero, and the forces appear fo be converging on an area of disputed territory which lies south of Manchul) and Hailar, where northwest Manchukou overlaps Outer' Mongolia. The tndeflnifeness of the border is blamed for the conten tion. v . Intimations that the Japanese gar rison in Manchukou inighc be in creased were made in the Japanese diet, based upon assertions that the Soviet government ‘had continued to enlarge Its army in the Far East, and, that Soviet penetration Into -Ouler Mongolia has resulted In virtual com- inunlzation of that territory.« There has been no decided change In the attitude of Chinese leaders to ward Japan. Recent Interyiews with Generalissimo Chlung Kai-shek were said to tuive brought about no accord between tfie two nations. Meanwhile the Far East contlnpes to be one of the Intdresting news spots on the map today. • " 4 „ R ichard washburn Ghild, former ambassador to Italy, at torney, and author, died of pneumonia at his home In New York. He left a post as editor of Collier’s Weekly In 1921 to take that of Ambassador to Italy, where he gained prominence the chief representative of the United States at the Genoa and Lausanne conferences in 1922. He was the anthor qf several works and collaborated with Premier Benito Mussolini on thd Italian leader’s auto- Mography la 1827. ; The house of representatives, 329 to 78, gives the President four thousand eight hundred and eighty million dol lars. to he spent In accordance with hj^i best Judgment to fight depression and unemployment. In early days the little,- “small change" eighty million dollars, tacked on at the end of the large figure, would have astounded the country, for la those days millions were respectable units. Now our government unit Is the billion—one thousand millions. When wlU the trillion start its career? The printing press cojrld bring It Not content with being reduced from a great empire to a small “backyard** by the last Hapsburg, Austria thinka It wanta another emperor and Prince Starhemberg will say when little prince Otto shall mount the throne. That will mean Unhappiness, eventually for the young prince, and a good actor spoiled for Hollywood. ^3en. Wilham* Mitchell, commander of all our flying force In the big war, 1 * knows Wre about national defense than anybody in this country. He writes to a friend seventy years old, as follows: “During your Dfetiqm have come the electric telegraph and telephone, the gasoline engine with Its accompani ment of automotive vehicles, the air plane and submarine. The vtarld la now only one-sixth as large as when you appeared. If this development goes on, it Is difficult to say what may take place In the next seventy years. Will the biological supremacy of the yellow races dominate, or will the mili tary supremacy, so far, of the white race be able to maintain our culture and standards? The world is growing Bo small and so Increasingly popu lated that one or the other will un doubtedly become master.” National Topics Interpreted by William Bruckart - National Praas Building Washington, D. C. Washington.—AP last after years of talking, a social security progranr Is —-—— b e f o re congress. Social ' And now that it Is Security before congress ; there Is‘a brand new outburst of talk, because It seems the “social securers" never can agree among themselves. The' result is that leadership In the house and In the senate Is trying Vainly to follow ad ministration, Instructions, and has run afoul of all kinds of difficulties. The end is not yet, but It is safe to \say without fear of anjr necessity- fee- -re- Mr. J. Pierpont-, Morgan, whose fa ttier collected pictures and other works of art, baa decided to sell six pic tures. The price asked is said to be $1,500,000. The older J. P. Morgan evidently bought good pictures. Two of the six pictures, already sold to the Metropolitan museum, are a portrait of “Anne of Austria,” by Ppter Paul Rubens, and an altar piece by Filippo Lippi. Nobody knows how much was paid originally for either picture. A rare ten-dollar gold piece, that Bold at auction for $530, might offer a suggestion for government profit. At that rate, our $8.000.000,000 r worth of gold could be changed Into $400,000,- 000.000 worth, nearly all profit. Who could contradict the government If It •aid that was the value? Industrialists that put 25,000,000 au tomobiles on the roads In this country helped their frovemraent last year. The federal tax on gasoline alone paid more than $170,000,000. Col. Roscoe Turner, who, does all •ort« of things with airplanes, plans a real flight around the earth, 25.000 miles, following the equator all the way, starting at Panama. This will be tue first real “around the world" flight, the others having been flights around the northern end b£ thl world. • flight ; thAT grows smaller as you go farther north. Equatorial heat will not bother Colonel Turner, la irpUne you can pick out the altitude and the temperature that you waat \ -’ - •“-VSS'tRSS-’*"* traction that the social security pro gram will not go back to President Roosevelt as a law in the form it was presented as an admiinlstratlon bill. I find everywhere among those not charged with responsibility for the so cial security legislation that there Is. much confusion and lack qf under standing as to what the President hasj proposed. It is easily understood. Any time that It requires thirty thousand ^words to explain a piece of legisla tion obviously that legislation must be complex. To comprehend what the length of Mr. Roosevelt’s social se curity message Is. It Is only neces sary, I think, to remind readers that the message with Its explanation of the legislation would fill approximate ly thirty-five columns of an ordinary newspaper. Mahy persons naturally will fall asleep before they wade through that much material. — But, -Jet- trs attempt ~to summarize the social security bill. It provides, first, for a national system of com pulsory contributory ' old age Insur ance; second, it authorizes appropria tions to he used ns federal subsidies (plain gifts) to the individual states to help them pension the aged who cannot be brought under an insur ance system predicated upon their service In commerce’ and Industry and, third, a voluntary system of old age annuities Is set up. The system of compulsory contribu tory old age Insurance Is designed to protect those who are no longet- able to work but who hare done their turn on the payrolls of industry. ‘An old age fund is set up In the Treasury of, the United States. Initially, the money comes from the Treasury but thereafter there Is a tax operating on payrolls of all those who employ workers In numbers exceeding four. This tax will start January 1, 1937. at a rate of 1 percent. It is increased to 2 per cent as of January 1, 1492 : 3 per cent as of January 1, 1947 ; 4 per cent as of January 1, 1952, and 5 per cent after January 1, 1957. The em ployer pays the tax but he collects half of It by a deduction from the payroll of the Individual worker. The age of sixty-five years is fixed as the time when a worker shall. re tire and receive this pension. The pen- ^jiioner can receive as much as $30 a month. If the Individual dies before retirement, his dependents receive back the amodnt paid in In his behal£ As a part of the old age pension^ system the legislation sets up an, old age fund in which workers may pur chase an annuity but they never may acqyire more than a total of $9,000 maturity value—the ultimate amount —from which their income may be In creased. - Then there ip the much discussed unemployment insurance. This also is predicated upon a tax on industrial payrolls but it Is a state proposition. That the federal government Is at tempting to encourage individual •tates to enact legislation which will protect the worker in periods such as that through which we have passed since 1929. In other'words, this phase of the legislation Is designed to cause workers and their employers to lay aside a certain percentage of their Income while they are employed, to he used when times are hard. There are countless subdivisions in the bill...none of which are simple, that seek to protect the many who for one reason or another not qualify under the general terms of the legisla tion. For Instance, aid to dependent children la provided. Federal health subsidies—a kind of health Insurance -“Is proposed. :~Maternal ald if ar ranged, .and extraordinary cases are 1 covered, such as aid to crippled chil dren. There are other subdivisions much too Intricate to analyze here for the reason that their application la decidedly limited. The drafters of the legislation sought to covef' all. Whether they’ have done so can be determined only after the legislation baa been in operation some years. • • • * * 1 I have been unable to compute the cost of this legislation to the federal and state goverq- Counting ment and no one, of the Co$t course: “ban approxi mate the expense' It will be to Industry. It ts one of those ’hlngs so far reaching In Its effect as to make utterly Impossible advance calculations of the cost An dollars and cents. Suffice it to say that all through tbq bill aa It now wends Its way through legislative channels are fre quent paragraphs where money either ts appropriated or authorized to be appropriated In the future. One wag covered- the money phases of the bill the ether day with a .remark that it was not unllke-Hhft conversations be tween Asms .and Andy, the radio come dians, for there la five million, three million, twenty million, seventy-eight million and so on through the list. Yet It Is not the money phases that constitute the difficulties In the legis lation as the leaders In congress see them. The bill sets up an In tricate system of administration against which even the present far flung list of New Deal agencies palea Into Insignificance. ^ First, there is the pbnderous organi zation for administration to he created here in Washington.' Beneath that therb are state organizations In every state, regional and county organiza tions and even city administrative bu reaus. I think It takes no stretch of the imagination to foresee how many workers will be necessary Ho do just the plain chores of keeping a record of all the Individuals on the government payrolls, federal and state, for administration of this legislations Here In Washington, we will have a Social Insurance board, a group of three members, receiving $10,000 a year each and serving for six years. The federal emergency relief adminis trator will have duties to perform In conjunction with the social’ insnranc® board as well as apart from It. The secretary of labor is given Jurisdiction over spme -phases of the administration and the pubHc—health service la “charged with conduct of the, health insurance phases.’ This is not all. The secretary of the treasury "Is charged with tire manage- " ment and investment of a!1 «*f the monies under the various funds and It Is he who must see that they are properly disbursed. ^ • V • In congress, considerable jealousy has arisen among committee chairmen, party wheel-horses Jealousy and those who would Aroused enjoy being admin istration spokesmen. Some of them. It hardly need be said, believe their political salvation lies In following the administration blindly and in addition there Is another seg ment of legislator^ who keep theif eyes on the historical significance of passing events. This group wants to have a leading part In enactment of the social security legislation because. It must he said, this Is the greatest of all experiments undertaken at any time by the American government. From lobby conversation- It Is perfectly evi dent that there are many men In the house and senate who would be willing to retire to whatever rewards their po litical service has given them only to become known as the father of the social security leglsiatkm. This condition has precipitated sev eral humorous circumstances. Sena tor Wagner of New York sponsored the legislation In the senate and Rep resentative Lewis of Maryland pro posed It In the bouse. Senator Wag*‘ ner’s committee arranged to start hear ings on a stated date In the senate and that date was announced rather sud denly. No sooner bad the Wagner committee hirings* been announced than Representative Doughton of North Carolina scheduled similar hearings before his ways and means committee In the house. He -set the hearings one day ahe)»d of the senate and the-rivalry between I the two for headline wit nesses has been, to say the least, a source of many jokes. . i - ‘ I 1: s ( -i U T Rouble Ahead periment in Some weeks agO I reported to yog that there were rumblings of difficul ties ahead for the President's gigantic public works pro gram, as his new ex- recpvery efforts Is de scribed. He asked congress for a lump sunf’of $4,800,000,000 with which to re vive the heavy Industries and other lines of commercial endeavor that they may absorb some of those unemployed now on relief rolls. It will be remem bered that In his annual message to congress he said with emphasis that federal aid to the destitute must stop; that tbq giving of relief directly was a state responsibility. _ The first hitch encountered by the administration wheel-horses In guiding the <>ublic works hill through congress developed In the house when the lead ers, anxious to pass the legislation as the White House dictated, sought s special rule which limited debate to a couple of hours and made It almost Impossible for individual members to amend the bill. Several scores df Democrats and alFof the Republicans balked. For several days the house leaders fought gallantly to keep the stubborn opposition from running away wjth things, but 'the defections from that a compromise had to he offered. It was accepted and the Republican critics and Democratic opponents were successfully squelched. — One result of the near revolt against the bouse Democratic leadership .was the exposition oFfeeling against Sec retary Ickes of the Department of the Interior who also curries the titles of public works' administrator and oil a mi nisi rat or. A let of Democrats like' Mr. ickes for what they political aloofness. Apparently has not yielded ro their demands for patronage appointments and- naturally men seeking elective offices bold out That ploin as bait'to voters. /•, W«*Urn Newipaper Union , !