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* Tbe Barnwell Pnnpln-Sentincl. Bamwell. 8. C, Thursday, September X 1936 BRISBANE THIS WEEK Honor Dead at Vimy Spanish War Pitileaa Russia Aids Loyalists Hitler Watches Spain The dedication ol the magnificent war monument, designed by a Ca nadian artist, re cently unveiled by the king of England in mem ory of the Cana dian soldiers that fell at Vimy Ridge, is impor tant to all our friends north of the boundary in Canada. It will interest, also, all Americans that were sent abroad in that famous fight, with which we had nothing to do except lose our men and our money. American soldiers, who liked the Canadian and Australian troops better than any others they met, according to statements made by many, testify to the courage with which the colonial Englishmen fought at Vimy Ridge and else where. Arthur BrUbanc Statistics of the war show that, on the side of the allies, the per centage of death was higher among the Canadians than among any oth er troops involved, excepting the French themselves, who fought at their own frontiers to defend their cun homes. Sixty thousand Canadians lie bur led, each one an "unknown sol dier," around that great monument. The king of England, after a long and really admirable speech of ap preciation. lowered the flags that htd the monument which, as he said, will forever honor the cour age of the Canadians that fought and that he dead and buried The war that killed so many mil- bona, blowing them to pieces, leav ing them to die shat tewed and agon ising on the battlefield, suffocating, making them insane with the poi son gas just coming into fashion, aaawMd between 1914 and Itlt aa horrible as any war could be But the civil war. the worst, most e«\ age. pitiless and ferocious of all wars, now going on m Spam, makss the big war comparatively mild. Lued Rothermere e London Dally Mail eclipses m the horror of one published statement all stories of horror in the war and goes beyond anything that could possibly be be lieved When the French newspaper the Friend of the People, described fighters foe Madrid a radical gov ernment digging up and throw mg from their graves the bodies of Catholic nuns, that horror seems beyond belief But Lord Rothermere • new spa per print* the statement that other nuns ALIVE were seised—three of them their clothing saturated with gasoline, and burned to death The Daily Mail also quotas the statement that in the city of Barce lona. when the radical forces had conquered the ebellious insurgent inhabitants, "any Catholic priest m the city was butchered without mer cy • Russia is. accotdmg to reliable reports, in constant communication with the Madrid government by ra dio Newspapers in England, and the more conservative newspapers in France, declare that Russia, in ad dition to advising Madrid concern ing the immediate civil war and helping the Spanish government by the purchase of Spanish bonds, is also sending by radio detailed in formation as to the organization in Spain of a "Soviet government” similar to that existing in Russia. France, thanks to the existing al liance with Russia — resented by many of the old-fashioned French men. who ask, "Is Stalin the real ruler of France?"—is under pres sure from Russia to help the Ma drid government against the insur gents. If Spain should become really so- vietized. under the guidance of Rus sia. the Spanish peninsula would be practically a branch and a depen dency of Soviet Russia at the south west corner of Europe. Russia, whose planes have been taking information on manufactur- ing poison gas and buildii.g fac tories to the nations that are friend ly to her in central Europe, might build up a chain of Communist states too powerful even for the dic tator governments of Italy and Ger many, and the remaining "demo cratic" government of Great Brit ain. It is not a happy time for Europeans, or for any interested ir Europe’s future peace and welfare. Hitler is reported on the point of siding with the Spanish insurgents against the radical Madrid regime, because of savage attacks made on Nazi officers in Spain It is reported that a woman in charge of the Hit- Mg Office was threatened with death if dte Would not reveal the where abouts of her principal; dragged in to the streets, her dress was soaked with gasoline. An interruption pra applying the match. IUmm Vi!l a News Review of Current Events the World Over a — Russian Conspirators Against Stalin Plead Guilty—Italy and France Sparring Over Spain—Roosevelt Primed for Dronth Area Tour. • By EDWARD W. PICKARD C Western NewepAper Union. Gregory Zinoviev CIXTEEN men, arraigned in Mos- ^ cow on charges of plotting the assassination of Dictator Josef Stalin and the seizure of power in the Soviet republic, calmly pleaded guilty. Two of them, Gregory Zinoviev and Leo Kamenev, were members with Stalin 13 years ago of a triumvirate that governed Rus sia and are well known to the outside world. The confes sions did not end the trial, for the de fendants contradict ed and accused one another until the case was in a jumble. Some of them, like Zinoviev, proudly ac cepted responsibility for the plot, which was said to have been engi neered by the exiled Leon Trotzky. It was believed all sixteen would face the firing squad. Twelve more men and one wom an, the government announced, were held for examination and probable trial. Some of these were involved by the confessions of the sixteen conspirators. In the case on trial the defend ants revealed the fact that not only were they plotting the assassination of Stalin and four others, but planned also to betray Trotzky and place Zinoviev and Kamenev in su preme power. Trotzky. at Hoenefoss, Norway, scoffed at the Moscow proceedings as "humbug." "For political ven geance." he said, "the trial puts the Dreyfus scandal and the reich- stag fire in the shadow. The confes sions were forced by the *Ogpu‘ (secret police), which gives the ac cused a choice between confession according to the Ogpu's desires and taking lesser penalties or <M«th." PREMIER MUSSOLINI, insisting • that neutrality m the IjpMMI war must mean absolute noninter vention. suddenly put Italy’s air force of 1.500 war planes in readi ness for flight to the aid of the Span ish rebel* if France would not abandon her support of the Madrid regime News of this stirred the People's Front government of France to in dignation Officials in Parts said if Italy sent arms and munitions to the rebels ta Spain or othorwtne openly aided them. France would have to abandon her neutral posi tion and he'n the socialists For a day this MlmHon alarmed the statesmen of Europe, but soon It was stated in both Rome and Paris that negotiations for the neu trality accord were going forward nicely with prospects for a satis factory agreement that would in clude boil Italy and Germany Whether Germany would come tot, however, was still in doubt Ber lin was further provoked against- the Madrid government by the stop ping and search of the German steamer Kamerun by Spanish war ships off Cadiz. German warships were ordered to protect German shipping "by all means" and the German charge d'affairs at Madrid was instructed to "protest imme diately and in the sharpest form against the action of the Spanish warship, which constituted a vio lation of all international law." m V irgilio Cabanellas PySPATCHES from the French border said Spanish rebel war ships finally had begun the long threatened bombardment of San Sebastian and Irun, and that the loyal ists were carrying out the threatened execution of the 1,900 Fascist hos tages they were holding there. The battleship Espana fired a lot of heavy shells toward Fort Guadalupe but for a time at least was apparently not try ing to hit that stronghold because many of their sympatnizers were held prisoners in the fort. The Guadalupe garri son was hesitant in returning the fire for fear that shells would fall on French territory. Already the French government was angered by the dropping of bombs on French border towns, though it was disput ed whether they came from loyalist or rebel planes. The Fascists captured the impor tant town of Badajoz, near the Por tuguese border, at the point of the bayonet, and were reported to have executed 1,500 government adher ents taken there. The rebels ?lso reported a victory near Zaragoza after a bloody battle. General Franco met General Mol* and "President" Virgilio Cabanellas at the northern rebel headquarters in Burgos and planned for further ad vances of their southern and north ern columns on Madrid These will be supplemented by 4,000 Moors and foreign teg ion veterans marcb- m* oast ward from Badajoa /^ATALONIA, which for four years ^ has been an autonomous region within the Spanish state, and which has been supporting the Madrid government against the Fascist reb els, sees in the present conditions the opportunity to establish its full independence. The generalitat or government council decreed confis cation of all private property; and then, "to eliminate dual con trol and place all responsibility in one place," all magistrates, judges and othars appointed by the Madrid government were relieved of their duties. The council also announced it would act henceforth in complete independence in maintaining order. The Catalonian decree promulgat* ed plans for a single tax and speedy suppression of multiple taxation. The basis for the new tax plan, al though undecided was presumed to be income, not land, as the large agricultural properties are to be collectivized. DOPE PIUS XI, addressing pil- 1 grims from Malta, took another whack at communism. Alluding ev idently to the civil war in Spain, he says: "The world is upside down, and tick from a grievous malady which threatens to become graver and more dangerous still. It is not necessary to say to you Maltese what this illness is, because you have a definite part in the tribula tion. "There is only the hand of God to aid humanity and put an end to the horrible massacres which are go ing on knd all the offenses against humaqfraternity, against religion, priests «kd God " PREPARATIONS for ' Roosevelt’s trip th i Arm. >de- of demoora- \ oslovakia, which is ' structible lighthouse cjr." said President Eduard Bene* in a speech at Reichen- berg But he told the German minori ty which he was ad dressing particular ly. that he hoped that in the fall "the Locarno powers will be able to work out a plan for general European cu-oper*- _ .. . lion and that good Frsrtgst neighborly relations * ***** will be established between Ger many and Czechoslovakia." Leaders of the German minority in Czechoslovakia charge that unem ployment in their part of the coun try is greater than anywhere else in Czechoslovakia—73 unemployed per 1,000 population, compared with the state average of 38 per 1,000. They charge that this is partly the result of the government’s fail ure to place orders in German Bo hemian factories and failure to give state jobs to members of the Ger man minority. COIL conservation compliance is to ^ be checked by a system of aerial photography, if the experiments now being carried on by the AAA are satisfactory. The plan is stiL only on trial but several millions of acres have already been photo graphed, it was learned today. So far it is proving cheaper and more efficient than the usual way of checking farmers’ soil conservation compliance. The rir pictures also are being extensively used by the soil conservation service to map erosion and soil depletion and to de termine remedies. S EVEN minutes of lively fighting put Joe Louis of Detroit once more on the road to the heavy weight championship. He made his come-back by knocking out Jack Sharkey, one time title holder, in the third round at New York. The Lithuanian sailor from Boston was plucky enough but proved no match for the much younger negro. Louis now wants an immediate re turn match with Ilex Schmeiing, but the German insists his next fight must be with Jim Braddock. T .IERE is enough wheat In the United States for the usual do mestic requirements of the season of 193647, according to the mid summer report of the bureau of ag ricultural economics, but the supply of red spring wheat and durum is short and consequently importation of those varieties will be continued. The amount, however, will not be large, Secretary Wallace stated. "It is probable the spring wheat mills in the 1936-’37 season will use a larger percentage of hard red winter and Pacific northwest wheat than last year," said the report. "A larger than usual quantity of soft red winter wheat is also likely to be used in bread flour. As a re sult, imports of milling wheat may be less than in 1935." Wheat prices in the United States may be expected to average about as high relative to world price lev els as during the 1935-’36 season, when the price of No. 2 hard winter at Kansas City was 15 cents over Liverpool, the bureau said. During the last three years short crops to gether with other influences result ed in wheat prices in the United States being maintained unusually high relative to the world market price. "Farm prices probably have been 20 cents to 30 cents higher than might have been expected with more nearly normal yields in the United States," the report contin ued. "A return of average or great er than average yields in the United States would result in an export sur plus and prices would adjust to ward an export basis. "The acreage seeded for the 1936 crop, 74,000,000 acres, was the sec ond largest in history, end seedings as large for the 1937 crop would produce fully enough wheat for to tal domestic utilization even if yields should turn out to be one- fourth below average." President trip through the drouth region of the Middle West were practically completed and the Chief Executive was supplied with all the facts and figures needed to give him a comprehensive under standing of the situation before starting This information was fur nished mainly by WPA Administra tor Harry Hopkins, who was selad ed to accompany Mr Rooaevelt on the tour. Mr. Hopkins told the President that in the drouth area M.000 persons already are on the WPA payrolls and that the number eventually mill be 190.000 to 130.000. the relief wo'k being continued through the *‘u«er At this tim« the coat per man is about 950 a month. Estimates of the amount of mon ey deemed necessary to meet the situation in the "dust bowl" were given the Preaievnt by Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau and Acting Budget Direruw Daniel Bell. V*EITHER Fascism nor Commu- msm will be tolerated in Cxech- Presideat Rooaevelt PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT was at 1 his best as a radio orator when he addressed the summer camp at Chautauqua, N. Y., on foreign rela tions. He expressed his deep concern about tendencies in other parts of the world and spoke bit terly about the vio lation of boJi the letter and the spirit of Inter national agreements "with out regard to the simple principles of honor." "Our closest neighbors are §omi neighbors." the President said. "If there are remoter nations that wish us not good but ill. they know that me ore strong; they know that we can and will defend ouiaelf and de fend our neighborhood " Mr. Roosevelt said he hod seen war on land and sea. "I have seen blood running from the wounded." he said "1 have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen 100 limping, exhausted men come out of line the surviv ors of a regiment of 1.000 who went forward forty-eight hours before. I hove aeon children starving. I have aeen the agonies of mothers and wives I hate war!" Germ ana feR that Mr Roosevelt's speech was aimed at them and re sented his criticism. A Mexico City newspaper saw in R evidence that the Monroe doctrine was to be re vived CTART1NG its 1937 building pro- ^ gram, the Navy department opened bids on twelve new destroy ers and six submarines. The bids came from private shipyards and estimates were submitted by navy yards, according to law. The latter were not made public. It was found that the coat of con struction hat advanced approxi mately $1,000,000 per vessel in the last year. A year ago contracts for destroyers averaged $4,000,000, and $2,500,000 for submarines. Present bids were about a million dollars Higher on each type of craft. 0 0 National Topic# Interpreted by William Bruckart National Proas Bulldlns Wankl nc ton, X>. C. F OLLOWING the recommendation of Father Charles E. Coughlin, the National Union for Social Jus tice. in convention in Cleveland, in dorsed the candidacy of Represent atives Lemke and O’Brien, heads of the Union party ticket. But. also on the advice of the priest, the Lemke platform was not indorsed. The 25,000 members of the N. U. S. J. present enthusiastically and unanimously elected Father Cough lin president of the organization. Lemke and O'Brien both appeared before the convention, delivered speeches and were given a rousing reception. A N EQU\TY suit attacking the constitutionality of the com modity exchange act, chiefly on the ground that it seeks to regulate in trastate rather than interstate com merce in violation to the Constitu tion, was filed in the federal dis trict court in Chicago. The suit was instituted by Wil- ilam S. Moore, a member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and names the exchange, its board of directors, and the following as de fendants: Henry A. Wallace, secre tary of agriculture; Leslie A. Fitz, supervisor of the commodity ex change administration in Chicago; Daniel C. Roper, secretary ut com merce; Homer S. Cummings, Unit ed States attorney general; Michael L. I goo. United States district attor ney of the northern Illinois district, apd Ernest J. KVuetgen, Chicago postmaster. In his petition Mr. Moore askeC that the commodity exchange act be declared unconstitutional, void and unenforceable.. Washington.—President Roosevelt has come out again with a statement that the burden of No New taxes is regrettable Tax Leviet end that there must be no new levies nor tax increase by the next con gress. He chose to get his views to the public by staging a confer ence at the White House the other day when he summoned Chairman Harrison of the senate finance com mittee and Chairman Doughton of the house ways and means com mittee for a breakfast meeting to discuss the subject. He followed this almost too quickly by releas ing a statement, a letter from Sec retary Morgenthau that substantiat ed the spoken word of his two con gressional leaders. But somehow the word from the White House prompted many ob servers here to pick flaws in the pronouncement; they began at once to find several places in the new picture that appeared to have been smeared over by the paint brush, and, in addition, there was a sud den yelp from the Republican na tional committee which did not help Mr. Roosevelt’s plans to ahow the country that the tax burden had reached its peak. The Republicans were quite harsh because they called attention to the fact that Mr. Roosevelt on three previous occasions had assured the country there would be no new taxes, and that in each instance new tax legislation somehow or oth er had been enacted by congress. Aside from the presidential dec laration that there would be no new taxes nor increases in the present levies and that there would be a study of the general tax structure, the President made the point through Secretary Morgenthau's letter that there were a good many hundred millions in "recoverable assets " He also urged upon the country that business has improved so rapidly that additional federal income may be expected from the present tax rates. This latter, of course, is true providing business holds its own or moves to higher levels but It is with respect to the recoverable assets that many ques tions now are being asked. For the sake of clarity, it may be ex plained that the recoverable assets to which Mr. Rooaevelt referred consisted of the loans of federal money by the various emergency agencies for relief and recovery purposes There are the .millions loaned by the Reconstruction Fi nance corporation; the equally large amounts loaned by the Works Progress administration and the Public Works administration to states, counties and cities for relief or for job-making construction In addition, there are loans by the Home Owners' Loan corporation, the Federal Farm Credit ad ministration. loans for crop produc tion. for mark Hu.: and countless other types. These are all earned on the books as recoverable assets and their total may amount to as much as $1,000,000,000. The policy of the New Deal ad ministration Is to consider these at their face value. It is the claim of the White House consistently that the»e loans will be repaid and that they can be used to retire an equal amount of the national debt, which, indeed, is true if the loans ever are repaid. So. whenever the New Deal is called on to defend itself against charges of imposing a gigantic bur den of tax or an equally gigantic burden of public debt, its spokes men attempt to demonstrate that the public debt figure as well as the taxes must be considered in their relationship to these recover able assets. To explain the Roosevelt position further, one may recall that a month ago when the public debt reached the staggering total of $33,- 779,000,000 the Treasury secretary contended in a public statement that against this sum there should be offset the cash assets in the gen eral fund of the Treasury, then to taling $2,681,000,000 and the $2,000,- 000,000 of gold that is sterilized in what is known as the exchange ster ilization fund. “In addition," Mr. Morgenthau added in his statement, "we have certain assets representing obliga tions due us upon which the Treas ury will realize cash and which will ultimately be available for debt re tirement. These recoverable assets —millions to home owners, to farm ers, to railways, to banks and in surance companies, to states, and cities—now total more than $4,000,- 000,000. These three items—cash on hand, stabilization fund and recov erable loans—provide an offset of $8,750,000,000 to the $33,779,000,000 public debt." It thus is made to appear direct ly in issue how completely the Roosevelt administration calculates using these recoverable assets in retiring the public debt. Having gone so thoroughly on record, it is difficult to see how "there could have been such a mistake made as de veloped from the White House con ference on taxes. I refer to the Default Likely inclusion in Secretary Morgenthau’s letter of a reference to the recover able assets as one of the reasons why no new taxes will not have to be levied. Some critics have stated boldly that the White House state ments on the recoverable assets cannot be justified. Their assertion is that if the Treasury properly in cluded recoverable assets as a thing to be used in offsetting the public * debt, then by the same token those recoverable assets, or repayments of them, cannot be used to reduce , the tax burden. In other words, the money represented by those assets cannot be spent in two different ways. Either it must be used to retire public debt or it must be used for current spending by the administration. It seems to be sim ply a refusal to believe the old adage that you cannot have your cake and eat it too. If I should attempt to analyze the situation in the light of a personal equation I think I might properly say that if I loaned $500 to a friend and at the same tifrne if I borrowed $500 from a bank, I might properly say the $500 loaned to the friend could be used to pay off the bank loan. So far, so good. But if the friend repaid $250 to me and I spent that $250 and had no other resources, I can’t quite figure out how I would pay the bank the $500 I had bor rowed from that institution. Although perhaps my worries as an individual about government policies may not be very important because I am just one individual. I entertain considerable fear about those recoverable assets in another respect. For some reason—and I think I can state it—I doubt that a very large portion of those recov erable assets ever will be collected. I have a hunch that in the next fifteen or twenty years the bulk of those debts which the Roosevelt ad ministration counts as repayable will be cancelled or defaulted. In either event. I think I see how poli tics is going to play an important part and I am convinced further that Mr. Morgenthau and Mr. Rooaevelt as well, if he shares Mr. Morgenthau’s belief, is overlooking that very vital influence when he holds these loans as likely to be repaid. • • • I recall that the late Albert C. Ritchie, four times a Democratic governor of Mary land. predicted that the money loaned for the various pur poses outlined above, would never be paid back Indeed. Governor Ritchie, who was a very practical man and who thoroughly disliked deluding himself, used the word "repudiation" in connection with these debts. He said they would be handled just like the $11,000,000,000 of war loans mode to European na tions. It is a noble thought, of course, that the loans will be repaid, yet tt is quite apparent that a cancella tion drive is already under way. I think most of those who do me the honor to read my column will re call that more than a year ago I directed their attention to the re duction in interest rates which con gress had ordered on many of the loans. That is simply the first step. Cancellation proposals, undisguised, are bound to follow. Unless I am mistaken, the astute Jesse Jones, chairman of the Re construction Finance corporation and a man who never kids himself, already has kissed good-by to many of the millions that have been loaned by his agency. Of course, the Reconstruction Finance corpo ration carries those loans on its books and counts them still as val id. But I am of the opinion that Mr. Jones probably regards those items as dead debts. But to go further with the idea of cancellation, it takes no stretch of the imagination to say that the Home Owners’ Loan corporation, for example, will soon have a good many thousand foreclosed proper ties on its hands. It takes no more imagination to say that politicians who have ridden into office with promises to help those people whose homes have been foreclosed will carry out their promises by further voting interest reduction or curtailment of principal. A more striking illustration, it seems to me, can be found in the case of the loans to states, cities and towns. Who among the poli ticians is going to have the courage to cesist the tumult and the voting of their constituents to avoid in crease in their local taxes when they call for cancellation of the loans? While the bonus for the ex-serv ice men is a dead issue, every one knows how representatives and sen ators capitulated to the demands of the veterans’ lobby. Picture for yourself, if you will, how much stronger the demand will be when a whole community sets up a howl to have the funds it has borrowed from the Jaderol government final ly declared to have been just a gif) and not a loon. Uat«.