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- V Iw"****-* • ' ■ «. The Barnwell People-Sentinel, BarnwelT, S. C* Thursday, June 13, 1935 X f K c w I Sl v 1 i BRISBANE THIS WEEK! Goodby, NRA Wall Street’* Dormouse v Good Wage*, Short Houra Lottery Swindles , The Supreme court unanimously de clares NRA unconstitutional. High' Judges, whose decision no body can veto, short of a constitu tional amendment, say congress must do its work and cannot abdicate to favor of the Chief Executive. The most Impor tant decision In many years, this probably makes further argument about extension of NRA unnecessary. Arthar KrUbaac ^ ^ extend that which is dead. American busi ness men may now resume business ,not led by the kindly light of profes- Jiors and others. i Alice’s puzzled Dormouse, at the Mad Hatter’s tea party, could not un derstand his watch, that would not keep time, although the Dormouse did everything. He dipped the watch in bis tea, put butter in the works. “It was the best butter/* he said, “but nothing seems to please it" The stock exchange is something like that watch-nothing seems to please It, either. At first stock broker ^gentlemen, whose “Kaaba stone'* is the stock tick er, began a weird dance of Joy when they heard that NRA was dead, and pushed up stock prices. Then, suddenly, as the day wore on, one broker * asked another, and every broker asked every other broker, “How do we know what is coming next?” And then they put the prices down. News Review of Current _ Events the World Over Supreme Court Kills NRA and Farm Mortgage Mora* torium Act-—New Dealers, Congress and Business Uncertain About Future Action. By ED WARD JW. PICKARD C WMtern N«w*pa.p«r Onion. I •f. ’ i lx f It Is announced, but not by Mr. Green, head of the American Federation of Labor, that a great strike will be called in protest against the Supreme court’s NRA decision. Mr. Green is too wise to permit, if he can prevent it, a strike against the United States Supreme court He may, should, and probably will, take a wiser course and work, as organized labor has worked success fully for generations, to improve work ing conditions. Some union men know that wages, hours and other conditions Improved In the old way are more durable, than increased pay based on political flat Jt is necessary for some one to pro vide as well as for some one to take It Peddlers of tickets In the Havana lottery send out “come-on” letters, try- Ing to sell tickets to foolish Americans. On one such letter this Is printed: “Arthur Brisbane says large sums of money . . . are won by Americans buying foreign tickets." , What Arthur Brisbane has said, and now repeats, Is that througli foreign lottery schemes Americans are swin dled out of large sums. He who In vests in a lottery throws away his money, adding foolishness to incapa city. The Havana lottery is as much of a trap for fools as any other lot tery. Postmaster Farley’s plan to hasten •Ir mails allows a crowd of 10,000 to see a whirling autogiro drop down on the roof and deliver mail, another au togiro coming to get mail bags and car ry them away. Mr. Farley’s plan is to have the au togiro fly between outlying flying fields, where high-power, fast planes land, and carry mall bags to the roofs of 'city post offices, saving time lost In slow street travel. One branch of the Standard Oil com pany, the New Jersey branch, man aged by Mr. Teagle, notifies 6,000 of a bonus of 5 per cent added to their pay envelopes to meet the higher cost of living. ~ l With no sign of smoke, flame, crater —nothing to Indicate an extinct vol cano a new and live volcano sud denly begins eruption in an out-of-the- way place In Iceland. A great hole appears in the earth, flames and red- hot lava rise. No overflowing of neighboring farms as yet. What would natives have thought had this happened in earlier days, when everybody believed that hell, the devil and all his wickedness were Just beneath our feet and heaven Just over our heads? Postmaster General Farley thinks of printing on all postage stamps, Sur *um Corda, which means “Lift up your hearts." He sees a great summe> ahead, “a summer of content.” * “Car loadings,” says the postmaster genera], “are up,” Incomes reported, by sur taxpayers “are up," “more peopje are buying automobiles than before^ For some, the big news Is that Little, the San Francisco golfer, has defeated Doctor Tweddell, the British chal lenger. For others, more Important news Is the killing of 300 Chinese by Japanese troops. The 300 killed are said to have been professional bandits. The killing of 300 armed Chinese, bandits cost the lives of only six Japanese which sounds like efficiency. fe Klac FeaturM Byadleata. 1m. WNU flarviM. T HREE unanimous decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States shook the New Deal to Its very foun dations. In the first and most. Im portant, read by Chief Justice Hughes, the heart was cut out of the NRA, for the court ruled that the entire code structure of the act was invalid, the c’ode making provi sions being an uncon stitutional delegation by congress of Its au thority to legislate to persons not connected with the government’s _ legislative functions. By the ruling the exercise~6f~cbn-~ gresslonal powers over commerce was definitely restricted to interstate com merce, or to such activities as have a provable direct connection with inter state commerce. The court held that no economic emergency could Justify the breaking down of the limitations upon federal authority as prescribed by the Constitution or of those powers reserved to the state through the fail- .ure of the Constitution to place them elsewhere. Chief Justice Hughes may be made if there is “imminent Next in importance was the decision danger’’ to public health. — read by Justice Brandeis, bolding un constitutional the Frazier-Lemke farm mortgage moratorium act This law provided for a five year moratorium In the case of collapse of efforts to scale dqwn a farmer’s debts to a figure that would enable him to pay off his mort gage. The court held that under the Fifth amendment to the Constitution private property could noL be taken without Just compensation. There has been no previous Instance, the court said, -where a mortgage was forced to relinquish property to a mortgagor free of lien unless the debt was paid in full. In the third decision President Roosevelt’s dismissal of the late Wil liam E. Humphrey from the federal trade commission was held Illegal be cause the President did not remove Mr. Humphrey for the statutory grounds of Inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but, as the President stated, because their minds did not meet upon the policies or administration of the commission. The court held that trade commission ers’ terms are fixed by law. T HERE was cbnsternation and con fusion among the administration forces in Washington, ana no one could say immediately Just how much the New Deal had been damaged or wb^t could be done to repair the damage to its structure. Donald Richberg, chair man of the national industrial recov ery board, after a White House cob-, ference. Issued a statement saying that “all methods of compulsory enforce ment of the codes will be immediately suspended." The question of the constitutionality of" the Wagner Jabor^ disputes—bill passed by the senate, was raised by the NRA decision. The opinion was widely expressed that collective bar gaining now cannot be enforced in any business enterprise by federal statute. In the senate demands were voiced to recommit to the committee on agri culture the amendments strengthening the AAA. Senator W. E. Borah said that the NRA decision clearly raises the question of the validity of much AAA procedure. B USINESS was as confused as con gress and the administration after the killing of-NRA. Heads of many large employing corporations intimat ed they would not make wage reduc tions or lengthen the work hours Just because the way was open for such ac tion, but always there was the qual ifying statement, "It depends on what our competitors do." The big concerns would prefer to maintain the code hours and wages, but the smaller mer chants and manufacturers, who were hardest hit by the code requirements, might depart .from them enough to de moralize prices. Among the dozens of national trade association! whose oflicers urged mem bers to. maintain wages and otherwise to continue the status quo are those of the automobile manufacturers, auto mobile dealers, chemical industry, re tail dry goods dealers, cotton manufac turers, cement makers, oil industry, wholesale grocers, and grocery chain store distributors. Harper Sibley, recently elected presi dent of the Chamber of Commerce of fhe United States, called upon Amerl- •an Industry and business men to pre serve for the present wages and work hours established under the NRA. Instead of cutting wages Standard Oil company of New Jersey and the Pide Water Oil company announced an increase of 5 per cent In salaries and wages, effective June 1. The United Textile Workers, 350,000 m number, tlireaten to strike if any mills cut wages. And there Is also a chance that 450,000 bituminous coal Miners will go on strike because there s no wage agreement/with the oper- itors and a scale conference collapsed. The liquor business was thrown vide open without any federal regula tion except that exerted by the Treas ury department in the collection of taxes. Officials of the federal alcohol control 'administration said that the Supreme. coufPa'“^NRA ruling took away 'from the FAOA every iota of control It had over the distilling busi ness. . A CTING with surprising suddenness, *Mhe senate passed the Copeland- Tugwell food, drug and cosmetic bill, which had been modified to meet the objections of Senators Clark, Bailey and Vandenberg. Dr. Copeland said he believed it would get through the house without difficulty. President Roosevelt favors the measure. The bill greatly increases the scope of the 1006 food and drug act, in the dClTrflTi(7n8br'aauTferafed“6f'mTsbTand- ed articles, and provides penalties of a year in jail or a $1,000 fine for viola tions. It was designed originally to permit the secretary of agriculture to order wholesale seizures, which would per mit _the destruction of a business, if he deemed the articles in question adulterated. As amended, however, only a single article may be seized pending a court hearing. -Exceptions Originally, also, the bilL provided se vere penalties for publishers and radio broadcasting companies. a$ well as ad vertisers, for violations of regulations to be laid down by the 1 Department of Agriculture. This was changed so that no publisher, radio -broadcasting com pany, advertising agency, or other me dium for the dissemination of adver tising may be deemed to have violated the “false advertising’’ provisions un less they refuse to furnish the name and' address of the advertiser. F RANK C. WALKER’S present Job as head of the division of allot ments and information In connection with the work-relief program is hot so important as had been expected, and proba bly by the end of the year or earlier he will be able to delegate his duties to others. Then, according to current 'rumors, he will enter the President's cabinet as postmaster general, to succeed Jim Farley. Mr. Farley has defi nitely decided to re- -tlre_ from the eitbine* H AWAII was treated to a magnifi cent display of American naval pqyver-urTfie Pacific that continued through Jwo days. First the forty planes that had taken part in the mid- Pacific maneuvers retqjmed and the entire armada of 225 planes participat ed in an aerial review/ Then the ves sels of the fleet returned and moved to Pearl Harbor, the great naval base, which they alj>entered in a crucial test of tfaeTiarbor’s capacity as an an chorage. The navy’s largest subpia- rines were with the battleships and cruisers, and there were 700 marines on the target ship Utah. Navy Memorial day in Japan, the thirtieth anniversary of Admiral Togo’s destruction of the Russian fleet, brought forttf' a pamphlet from the navy’s propaganda bureau., which made significant . allusions to the United States. It said: ^ s ~ ‘“Then Russia was the rival and the danger. Today that is changed. We had. to face In another direction. We are confronting another great sea power which is Increasing its navy wltp Japan as the target. “We need a navy sufficient to pro tect our sea routes to the continent of Asia and to face the menace in the direction of the great ocean. That,is why Japan demands parity with the greatest navies. If Japan’s Just and reasonable demands are rejected by the powers, causing failure of the ef forts tp reach a new naval agreement and leading to a nnvaT constflTCtron race, the responsibility will not be oUrs. In such case the only thing for Japan to do is to resort to resolute measures for seif-protection.” '"pHOUGH the League of Nations -J^council ended its session in Geneva with the hope that it had arranged matters so that war between Italy and Ethiopia would be averted, the prospects for such a settlement | are not bright Under pressure from Great Britain and France. Mussolini consented to recognize the league’s Jurisdiction over the quarrel and agreed to arbitration. But Imnve* dlately thereafter ‘-'ll Duce told the cham ber of deputies in Rome he would not allow Germany to make of Ethiopia “a pistol perennially pointed at us in case of trouble In Europe" and assert ed he was ready to take the supreme responsibility to sustain by every means Italy’s position In east Africa. He alluded bitterly to Britain and France, and Indicated that he believed that Ethiopia was perfecting Its army with the help of European powers i inimical to Italv. Following this address, Mussolini ordered the mobilization of thousands of officers and technical experts of the class of 1912. Benito Mussolini Frank C. Walker —voluntarily, it is said —so that, he can devote all bis time and energy to directing the campaign of Mr. Roosevelt for renouiinatlon and re-election. He expects to remain not only as chairman of the national Dem ocratic committee but also as chair- man of the New York state committee. In order that he may have an income he plans to make a business connec tion with an Important organization/ There has been a lot of talk about Mr. Farley’s alleged ambition to be gov ernor of New York. Melvin C. Eaton. Republican state chairman, dares him Jo run for that position. O NLY nine states of the Central West will send delegates to the "Grass Roots” convention of the Re publican party which opens June 10 In Springfield, 111., but the meeting will never theless be rather na tional in scope, for it will be attended by unofficial delegates from other states and by national leaders of the party. It was be lieved that Harrison E. Spangler, national committeemair Tr o in Iowa, would be made temporary, chairman A ’ M ’ Hyde and a* such would deliver the key note address. Others on’ the tenta tive program for speeches are Arthur M. Hyde, former governor of Missouri and secretary of agriculture In the Hoover cabinet, and Edward Hayes of Decatur, HL former national com- mknder of the American Legion. The keynote address, according to reports, wlll ; take inventory of Ameri can affairs under, the Roosevelt New Deal and indicate the trend of the party in opposition. Mr, Hyde Is to talk on the Great Emancipator at the Lincoln tomb in Oak Ridge cemetery, and fclayes is expected to deal with the theories of the Republican party on constitutional government T* A DOLF HITLER has proposed that Germany,, Great Britain, France, Italy and Belgium enter into a mul tilateral western European pact against aerial aggression. It follows, the lines of the proposed Anglo-French air 'pact and would ,do'-for th&-stations named what the Locarno- pact does with the land forces for France, Ger- many and Belgium. I/'ELLY PETILLO of California won the 500-mile auto race at the Indianapolis Speedway, setting a new record with an average speed of 108.24 miles an hour, . Clay Weatherly of Cincinnati lost control of his car and was killed. S AN DIEGO’S beautiful world’s fair, the California Pacific exposition, was thrown open to the public practi cally completed. Thousands of visl- tors moved ajong'the ancient El ino Real to Balboa park on the open ing day and viewed with delight the handsome buildings and interesting exhibits. The climax of the opening ceremonies came in the evening when President Roosevelt addressed the throng by radio from his study in the White House. ■i. a 0 National Topics Interpreted 1 by William Bruckart National Press Bunding Washington, D, C. r APAN, ready to take control over more Chinese territory, delivered to the government at Nanking an ut- timatum charging that Dictator Chiang Kai-shek, as well as Gen. Yu Hsueh- cljung, chairman <ft Hopei province and commander of Chinese troops in north China, were directly responsible for a long list of alleged infractions of the Tangku truce signed May 31, 1933, marking the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese hostilities over Mqn- churia. Dispatches from Tokyo said Japa nese officials admitted plans had been made to include Peiping,and Tientsin within the demilitarized zone, which at pr^Rent lies north of the two cities. Threats were made to bomb and oc cupy both those cities. F IGHTING desperately to savft the franc and prevent Inflation, ♦Pre mier Flandin of France staked every thing on a demand that he be given dictatorial financial powers until the end of the year, and lost. The Cham- ber of deputies voted against him, 353 to 202, after a dramatic'•debate, and Flandin and his cabinet Immediately resigned. M. Fernand Boulsson, who was committed to the support of the franc, was called on to form a new government. D R. ALAN ROY DAFOE, Judge J. A. Valin and Minister of Welfare David Croll of Ontario, guardians un der the king of the Dionne quintuplets, put on a party for those famous babies on their first, birthday, and there was a great crowd of visitors In the little town of Callender. But Mr. and Mrs. Dionne, resentful because the Infants have been removed from their charge and home to a special hospital across the street, refused' to, attend the fes tivities. The five little-girls, who are In good health and growing rapidly, were displayed briefly and jwer! per mitted to crow or cry Into the radio microphfNl®. C ARLOS MENDIETA, president of Cuba, has announced that he. will not be a candidate next winter to suc ceed himself. Therefore the race Is expected to narrow down to Miguel Mariano Gomez, twice mayor of Ha vana. and Mario G. Menocgl, formei president of the Island republic. - general of the United States, has had his bookkeeping sleuths at work on the records of the Tennessee Valley authority. It being a government cor poration. Mr. McCarl was not con cerned about the yardstick for power rates nor was he interested in experi ments designed to qjrove the value of government ownership in the power field. His Job was to determine what had happened to all of the money that had been taken from the treasury and spent In the effort to transform the -Tennessee valley into a modern Gar den of Eden. It happened that Mr. McCarl’s re port on the audit of TVA affairs was made public coincidentally with a movement by the TV A directors for new legislation—amendments *to their basic law which would give them addi tional authority. This circumstance resulted In the TVA and Its yardstick being examined by a congressional committee under the strong lens of a magnifying glass. I believe it is gen erally agreed that TVA* suffered in prestige, and government ownership advocates came off second best be cause disclosures before the commit tee were of such a nature as to con vince most sound thinking observers that there la a colored gentleman in the TVA woodpile. For instance, Mr. McCarl showed In his report that the federal govern ment had expended a total of $132,- 792,000 In development of the power facilities, equipment and necessary appurtenances. This property was transferred by the federal govern ment to the Tennessee Valley author ity, a corporation, and is carried on the corporation books at $51,000,000. This is 38 per cent of the actual cost to the taxpayers of the property trans ferred. Disclosures of this fact brought many charges in the course of the committee hearing and led to the con clusion hy several house members that no- electric rate based upon 38 per cent of the cost of the production fa cilities could be considered honest. In other words, the thought was that a yardstick based on such a method of calculating Investment necessarily would have to he made of rubber. • • • Mr. McCarl told the coiuuilllee also that he had found various haphazard and “trick" methods “T rich” - of bookkeeping and Bookkeeping t»'«t he had found it necessary to disal low ex|>enditures of something over two million dollars which he.said were illegal. The comptroller genera) did not refer to these exi>enditures as hav ing been fraudulently made but he told the committee it was his opinion that the law had to be st er far by any spending agency to con strue the payments as Justifiable. The comptroller general took sharp exception to the bookkeeping meth ods used by the TVA. It Is upon these records that the electric rate is based. Likewise it Is upon the basis of these records that the TVA must show whether it has earned a profit. “Despite' 'the apparently excessive depreciated value at which the Muscle Shoals property was taken up on the books, the authority is not using the valuation basis for depreciation but •Instead is basing depreciation on the eaVnings from the sale of power hy charging 10 per cent of the gross rev enue to operations as depreciation and accumulating the amount of such charges a» a reserve for depreciation. VAssuming a very conservative rate of valuation consumption for example, 2 per cent, the amount of depreciation, properties in question were capital ized by the authority, would be ap proximately $1,000,000 per annum. “A larger revenue will proportion ately Increase the reserve for depre ciation at the present 10 per cent method of amortization, but to ac cumulate a reserve on the 10 per cent plan equivalent to the amount that would be charged to depreciation on a valuation basis at 2 per cent, the gross revenues would have to be more than ten times the present amount or about $10,000,000 per .annum. “There is very Httie basis for as suming that revenues will ever reach such a figure.” * * * The comptroller’s report touched on many other phases of TVA affairs which he found sub- main. Likewise, such a plant Is not required to consider Interests on the investment in the shape of dividends to the stockholders who, in turn, pay taxes on their income. Doctor Morgan and othef directors Washington. — President Roosevelt Announced a year ago that the Ten nessee Valley su- Probing thority and the ex- the TVA periment of govern ment production of t/utiu* -— electric power on a huge scale was to of the TVA were subjected to ques- serve as a yardstick on electric rates tioning of a type about as severe as charged by private power companies, any witnesses before a house commlt- 7 J. R. McCarl, comptroller tee in recent months. They had friends on the committee who at tempted continuously to shield them from the fire of TVA opponents,-bot apparently Chairman MoSwain was unable to choke off the attack by such men as Representative McLean of New Jersey and others who doubt the ad visability of the federal government engaging in power production. There appeared just no way at all in which friendly members of the house committee could Justify the ac tion of the TVA board in its attempts to block private power devel opment the course It was shown in the course of the hearing that the TVA had gone far* away from its base of operations to buy two small parcels of land^-Offe not much larger than a city block and the other only a few acres in extent Under questioning, TVA directors ad mitted this land lay In the middle of a proposed reservoir planned by a pri vate power corporation. In acquiring the parcels of land the TVA made It Impossible for the private interests to proceed with their power development because the land in question would have been in the middle of the reser voir 300 feet under water. The pri vate Interests could not force the TVA to sell and, without that land the whols reservoir program was destroyed. The TVA probably will win and ob tain the amendments its board of di rectors desire. There are public own ership advocates in sufficient strength' to carry out the President's idea In going ahead with the TVA develop ment. It is made to appear, neverthe less, that as a result of the disclos ures before the house committee. TVA may not henceforth proceed in a man ner quite so arrogant. • • • Politics is politics and apparently politicians will play the game always. If better proof he Playing needed, it seems to tke Game the demonstra tion over immedi ate payment of the rnsti bonus to war veterans will suffice, The bonus has been Tfeked for this session of congress "Hilt all indications point to a belief that the country may not bo so lucky in the next session of con gress which is not far ahead of the 1936 elections. ’ An—organized—minority^the—World - \ war veterans—were very close to suc cess in forcing congress to appropriate $2,000,000,000 and pay It over to them. They failed because President Roose velt—like three Presidents before him —had to view the problem from the standpoint of the country’s welfare and not the welfare of this minority. Credit is due the President for the stand he took Just as credit was due Presidents Hoover, Cooildge and Hard- He win ne criticized Tand—At tacked by this local minority Just as the others were criticized and at tacked. While a veto message is re garded by many as not being as strong as It might have been, nevertheless Mr. Roosevelt was firm and his firm ness pave courage to enough senators to avoid the debacle of additional waste. —^ 7 I am informed that the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and various and sundry other organi zations of former soldiers, sailors and marines are prepared for a bitter fight next year against those representa tives and senators who dared to 'op pose cash payment of the bonus now when it Is not due until 1945. The sol diers’ lobby Is the greatest and most expensive lobby in Washington now. It knows its power and it does not hesitate to -characterize opponent* of * - .. . the cash bonus as traitors. The lobby based upon the value At w c e ^4gt* are certain to go Into every state ,t /utoatlrm vpre rnnitfll- and congressional district nexi. sum mer and seek to defeat those who dared to follow their own conscience and vote against this raid on the treas ury. As a result of thp vote on the bonus and the subsequent Presidential veto some keen political observers have be gun to calculate In their own minds what the view of the country is. It was pointed out, for example, that a maximum of four million would be en titled to a bonus. At the same time attention was called to the fact that- new voters are arriving at the age of franchise at the rate of approximate ly two million a year or almost thirty- six million since the end of the World war. These observers contend that the new voters and those who are not en- wnicn ne lounu buo- Mach to ject .. crH^n, an, 'I/'!/ “tS Criticise it made mention of a factor that. It seems to me, jodght to be of vital im portance to communities throughout the country. That factor is taxation. It Is to be remembered that govern ment agencies, federal national, state or local, pay ho taxes into the treasury of its Jurisdiction. Consequently, the government which foster* a municipal ly owned power plant simply must forget, for taxation porposes. that suttb property exists within its do- ity. Thus, they seek to show that there is a great majority of the voters of the country unwilling to see such a sum of money voted to a minority, es pecially at a time when ’the govern ment Is taxing its citizens and bor rowing In billions to give relief to all whether they fought for tMr country or not The question Is then whether the politicians will wake up in time to represent the majority or be fooled by the pbwer of a highly organized minority. • T • WsaUm N«wsp*p«r Osles.