Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

McCORMICK MESSENGER, McCORMiCK, S. C., THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 1938 News Review of Current Events YARNELL DEFIES JAPS American. Admiral Refuses to Remove His Warships From the Yangtse River . . • Congress and Politics Here Japanese soldiers with fixed bayonets are seen rushing a Chinese position in a part of Sncbow which the Japanese artillery had reduced to flaming rains. There, as elsewhere, the defenders practically destroyed the city before retreating. W. PuJcvtA r ^ SUMMARIZES THE WORIiD’S WEEK • Western Newspaper Union. Japan's Demands Rejected A MERICAN warships will remain In the Yangtze river and will go to any place where Americans are in danger. This despite the de mands of Japan. Naval officials of Japan asked that all foreign warships leave the Yangtze river area between Wuhu and Kiukiang because the invad ers were about to start an offensive toward Hankow, provisional Chinese capital. But Admi- Admiral ral Harry E.YarneU, Harry Yarnell commander of the United States Asiatic fleet, rejected the demand sharply. Further more, he at once planned an in spection trip up the Yangtze and through the war zone, and he did n6t ask Japan’s permission. These three ‘‘principles” of Amer ican naval operations in Asiatic wa ters were set forth by Admiral Yar- nell in his note to the Japanese: The United States navy will re tain complete freedom of movement on the Yangtze, and will proceed to any place where Americans are in danger. . The American command will not change the color of its warships, which are painted white, to conform to any color scheme suggested by the Japanese. The United States does not regard the warning of Japanese naval of ficials relative to the Yangtze as re lieving the Japanese ‘‘in the slight est degree” of responsibility for damage or injury to United States warships. v Chinese claimed the drive of the Japanese on the central front was held up by Yellow river floods. Chengchow, once a prosperous rail way center, was still held by the Chinese, but had been reduced to ruins by Japanese shells and bombs and by the Chinese themselves in pursuing their “scorched earth” policy. Japanese air raids on Canton con tinued by day and night. Perhaps 10,000 persons haa been killed there, many thousands were injured and the metropolis was shattered. A great portion of the population fled from the city. *— Kennedy to Resign? A MBASSADOR J. P. KENNEDY left London for the United States ^and, according to the London Daily Express, he intends to report to the President as soon as he arrives in Washington on his plan to settle the British war debt, and then will resign his post. He has held the position only three months. * Healing Party Rifts 'T'HOUGH it was believed Tommy Corcoran and his “eliminating committee” would, continue the ef forts to “purge” the Democratic party of opponents of administration policies, the Presi dent himself under took to repair some /of the breaks in the party ranks. For in stance, he invited Senator Gillette, Vic tor in the Iowa pri mary, to the White House where they took off their coats, ate luncheon togeth er and, according planned common action against the Republican enemy in November. Also, it was disclosed, Mr. Roose velt had sent word to the New York Democrats that the renomina tion of Governor Lehman would be acceptable to him. He has not liked Lehman since the governor came A. P. Sloan Jr. Gov. Lehman to reports, out against the court packing bill. There had been a plan to run Leh man for senator and Wagner for governor, but this switch presum* ably is now out. * Railway Aid Postponed Y/l/ r HEN the leaders of the sen- v * ate and house made up their minds to adjourn congress not lat er than June 15, they went to the White House and told the Presi dent the proposed legislation to ex pedite the reorganization of rail roads would have to be postponed to the next session. They agreed, however, to put through two other railway measures. One permits RFC loans to railroads without in terstate commerce commission cer tification. The other establishes a special unemployment insurance system for rail workers. * Sloan on Wage Law A LFRED P. SLOAN Jr., chair- man of General Motors, told the stockholders of the corporation that federal legislation for mini mum wages and maximum hours will increase unem ployment, penalize small business and further unbalance the entire national economy. He criti cized the spending lending program as recovery medicine and said “There certainly is nothing in the picture to warrant optimism so far as the immediate future is concerned, or to establish my confidence as to any intelligent solution of our dif ficulties.” Sloan said that one of the two major contributing causes of "the present depression has been the un stabilizing of the national economy by too rapid an increase in wages and too rapid a shortening of hours in many key industries—thus un balancing purchasing power in rela tion to prices. The second cause, superimposed on the first, Slpan continued, “is the fact that there has been developing a growing lack of confidence and a fear as to the attitude of government toward business, as well as to eco nomic policies that have been enact ed as affecting the national economy and penalizing the operating effect iveness of industry.” * Martin Suspends Five PRESIDENT HOMER MARTIN of * the United Automobile Workers suspended five members of the un ion’s international board on the ground that they were disturbing un ion harmony. The five were Vice Presidents Richard T. Franken- steen, Wyndham Mortimer, Ed Hall, and Walter N. Wells, and Secretary- Treasurer George Addess. * Lindberghs on Island C OL. AND MRS. CHARLES A. LINDBERGH- and their two sons are now established in their new home on little Illiec island just off the Brittany coast of France. Illiec island is large enough only for its castle, formerly the home of the opera singer, Mme. Adelina Patti. It is near St. Gildas island, home of Dr. Alexis Carrell, Amer ican scientist with whom Lindbergh developed the mechanical heart. * Son James Won't Run TAMES ROOSEVELT, son and •“* secretary of the President, re jected a citizens committee’s re quest that he run for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, declar ing “I feel that I have an obliga tion above all else to remain at my duties in Washington.” Nazis Win in Elections TJENLEIN’S Nazi Sudeten party -*• won an overwhelming endorse ment from voters in Czechoslo vakia’s German districts in a land slide decision which featured the country’s final municipal elections In the Czech districts President Benes’ party gained substantially, while the Socialists and Agrarians held their own. Communists also showed a gain in the Czech areas Few incidents of violence marked the day and no Czech troops were in evidence. Great Britain, acting to avert a fresh war crisis, received permission from the Czech govern ment to station observers through out the larger election districts. * Our Slump Worst A CCORDING to the monthly bul- ** letin of the federal reserve board, the present business depres sion is more severe in the United States than in any other industrial country in the world. The manufacture of war materi als in other countries was pointed out, however, as one of the prin cipal supports to business activity, many other industries showing al most as poor results as in the Unit ed States. The social security board report ed that during March two out of every thirteen persons in the United States received some form of pub lie aid, federal, state or local. The total number was estimated at 19,- 700,000. The statistics did not em brace farm subsidy payments, the federal housing program and other planned economy measures. *— Plan Relief Politics Quiz TJ ARRY HOPKINS, head of the A WPA, asserted that the renom ination of Senator Gillette by Iowa Democrats showed that his vast or ganization was not playing politics. But prominent Demo cratic senators are not so sure this is true, or will be true during the remain der of the year. Ten of them signed a resolution, intro duced by Millard E. Tydings of Mary land, calling for the appointment of a senatorial commit tee of three to investigate any charges of politics in relief that may arise during the 1938 election campaign. The resolution made no reference to the Iowa prirpary in which Hopkins backed Otha Wearin, the loser. The ten signers of the resolution, including both supporters and crit ics of the Roosevelt administration, were, besides Tydings: Adams of Colorado, Bulkley of Ohio, Burke of Nebraska, George of Georgia, Ger ry of Rhode Island, Hatch of New Mexico, King of Utah, McAdoo of California and Wagner of New York. Senator Hatch said he would try again at the next session to impose restrictions on participation by re lief workers in party conventions or other political activities. * Senator Tydings House Unseats Jenks A RTHUR B. JENKS, Republican, who had served 18 months of his term as representative from New Hampshire, was unseated by the house and replaced by Alphonse Roy, Democrat, who was declared defeated in the 1936 election. The vote to oust Jenks was 214 to 122. When it was announced, all the Re publicans, Progressives and Farm- er-Laborites and some Democrats marched out in a body as a gesture of protest. The action by the house was ap parently taken to aid the campaign of Senator Fred Brown of New Hampshire for renomination. Roy has a large following among the French population of Manchester, N. H. * Eight Army Flyers Die tpiGHT army airmen from Cha- ^ nute field in Illinois were caught in a storm, lost one wing of their big bomber and crashed in a farm field near Delavan, 111. All of them were killed and the tanks burst into flame. Three of the victims were commissioned officers. * Kidnaped Boy Dead T ITTLE James Bailey Cash, five years old, who was kidnaped from his home in Princeton, Fla., was found dead by federal agents, his body lying in a clump of palmet to. The $10,000 which his father had paid for the lad’s ransom was recovered. Franklin Pierce McCall, twenty- one years old, a truck driver, was arrested by J. Edgar Hoover and his G-men and confessed the crime. He said the boy was accidentally killed by suffocation before the first ransom note was delivered to his parents. * Huge Navy Plane Planned * I 'HE house appropriations com- ± mittee included in the second de ficiency bill an additional million dollars for construction of the world’s largest military plane, and the navy department is now ready to go ahead with the construction of the monster, which may weigh 50 tons. The original model will cost upward of $3,000,000. Rear Admiral Arthur B. Cook, chief of the bureau of aeronautics, said the new plane would exceed considerably the 5,000-mile range needed for a nonstop round trip from San Francisco to Honolulu. WHO’S NEWS THIS WEEK By LEMUEL F. PARTON 'NJEW YORK.—France is begin ning to think she has another Clemenceau in Premier Daladier, and she still has Marshal Philippe _ . Petain, one of the How retain f ew survivors of Keeps Fit the great generals a f g2 t* 1 ® World war. Two or three years ago, General Petain was counseling peace and conciliation with Germany. Now he warns the French people of their “serious sit uation in Europe,” and urges them to consider realities. It is quite possible that rope-skip ping is mainly accountable for Gen eral Petain being alive, trim, fit and active at eighty-two. He is an inveterate rope-skipper, ejected from his apartment in 1914, be cause he jarred the plaster from the walls. This writer’s record as to that goes only to 1934, but, in that year, he was still skipping diligent ly. Joffre, Foch and Maginot, among the French, Von Mackensen, Ludendorff and Hindenburg among the Germans — non-skippers all— have passed, but Marshal Petain lives on, venerated by his country men. It was he who said, “They shall not pass”—on February 5, 1916, to be exact. He was the savior of Verdun, and, in this connection, a deft historian might discover that rope-skip ping saved France. The gen eral spent a solid week in an Automitralleuse without sleep, and the London Daily News commented at the time that no man who was not in perfect physical condition could have survived such ordeals. It was suggested that his energy and endurance had turned the tide of war. He was born Henri Philippe Be- noni Omer Joseph Petain, the son of a baker in Couchy a la Tour. j' H Man Mountain Dean, the wrestler, running for the legislature in Geor- n gia, is after only uean one seat> b ut jjg Girds for will need three or Ballot Bout four he is elect - ed. In retirement on his farm, near Norcross, he still weighs 317 pounds. It is a unique contest for him, with no chance for his running broad-jump attack, in which he hurtles his body against his opponent. His career seems to have been mostly his wife’s idea. Born Frank Leavitt, in New York, known as the “Hell’s Kitchen Hillbilly,” he did a hitch in the army and thereafter engaged in some desultory wrestling and mauling as a Soldier Leavitt. Nothing much came of it, and he began placidly taking on weight as traffic cop in Miami, Fla. Doris Dean married him and began prodding his lagging ambition. He started grappling again, in Boston in 1933, with fame still elud- »» m » ing his half-nelson. Doubled for when a German Film Star promoter took him as Henry VIII on a tour of the Rhineland. This was more successful, and brought him to the attention of Alexandre Korda, who needed a double for Charles Laughton as Henry VIII in the wrestling scene. Thus came the famous whiskers, an important de tail of his wife’s clever showman ship in the build-up of the Man Mountain. It was she who persuad ed him to take the name Dean and who managed the histrionics which made him a fabulous creature. He was born in West Forty-third street in 1891, weighing 16% pounds. G eorge slight, tacled man Alcatraz, is He Sent Capone to Alcatraz would flush dren back ably, to the lieves, and havior. E. Q. JOHNSON, the self-effacing, bespec- who sent A1 Capone to devoting his life to so cial betterment. He wants to make cities less fertile soil for crime, and to that .end, city and country chil- and forth, interchange- benefit of each, hd be- the nurture ot good be lt was as United States at torney that he deftly enmeshed Capone in a silken spider-web of evidence, laboriously gathered and spun. The next year, Her bert Hoover made him a federal judge, but he stayed on the bench only a year and then went back to his law practice. He broke the gangs in Chicago. His story of how he snared Capone, told before the senate judiciary committee, with its tales of trap doors and secret panels, was Gradd A melodrama, but he didn’t make it sound that way. He is a modest man, with no instincts of showmen- ship. €> Consolidated News Features. WNU Service. Washington Digest d National Topics Interpreted By WILLIAM BRUCKART NATIONAL PRESS Bl D G WASHINGTON D 111 WASHINGTON.—The most impor tant news story in Washington and throughout the Relief— country now is the Politics use of relief funds for political pur poses. It is not only the most im portant news at this time, but has been the most important and will continue to be the most important for weeks to come. This is so be cause the amount of money involved is vast and the number of votes possible to be influenced by that money is so great. The stakes are high and the unscrupulous are go ing to play for them to the limit of their capacity. I think that per haps the corruption of the Harding administration with its shameful oil scandal was more sensational, but surely no one condones the present situation any more than the scan dals of the earlier malfeasance of office holders. In the Harding oil affair, there was perhaps 5 per cent as much money involved. Few, if any, votes of private citizens were at stake; certainly, no votes of persons who through no fault of their own found themselves destitute. It was the late Thomas Walsh, Morftana Democratic senator, who conducted the earnest fight to purge the country of the crooks at that time. And now that the senate again has taken notice of the conditions, one cannot help but wonder whether there will be the same high-type of statesmanship displayed, the same courage shown by some Republican or Democratic senator. For the sake of the country, I hope that no stone will be left unturned by the senate investigation which, though ordered belatedly and after an irri table reaction from the country, nevertheless was ordered by the senate. The senate deserves no credit for having moved to expose the condi tion which Senator Wheeler of Mon tana described as “playing politics with human misery.” It had three chances to show its courage and its statesmanship before it would take, hold of what many recognized as a political firebrand. It ran from those opportunities in the most cowardly fashion, under the lash of New Deal leaders in the senate. On three occasions, I repeat, the senate had a chance to assert control over the $5,000,000,000 borrowing-spending lending bill and prevent, to some extent, the further use of taxpayers’ money for electioneering purposes. And, I repeat, each time the vote was against inclusion of preventa tive clauses in that appropriation measure. So, none can say the credit should go to the senate even though now it promises to uncover facts which anyone, with an eye half open, knows exist. There can be no credit to the ad ministration because President Roosevelt spoke not a word in be half of use of fluids for relief and for the removal of politics. Indeed, he praised his relief administrator, Harry Hopkins, for publicly backing Representative Wearin, the New Deal candidate for the senate no-mi- nation in Iowa. Mr. Wearin was well licked by Senator Gillette, an old line Democrat. Nor did the Pres ident tell the senate publicly that he favored a curb on the use of the money. Quite the contrary. Wheth er the President urged them to do so or not, his board of strategy (the new name for the brain trust) put the steam on and made enough sen ators vote against the amendments to curb politics to insure defeat. They even forced Senator Barkley of Kentucky to take the floor in fa vor of the use of money in any way the relief overseers want to use it— and Senator Barkley is seeking re nomination in his native Kentucky. So, no credit for the move to draw back the curtain can possibly be given to the White House or any of the President’s advisbrs or strate gists. • • • No credit for bringing the situa tion to the attention of the country can go to the Dodged house of repre in House sentatives. It did not even consider any restrictions on the use of the money when the bill was up for passage there. The leadership in the house is controlled by Mr. Roosevelt, but even then it was sur prising to see such upstanding, square-shooting men like Speaker Bankhead and Majority Leader Ray burn of Texas sidle around the hot spot. Sam Rayburn is one of the really splendid men in the house of representatives, but he dodged on this thing and it is not com mendable. Then, where must credit be giv en? Why did the senate finally thke the bit in its teeth and set machin ery in motion for putting out the fire .before adjournment? The answer is that the people “back home,” and that means largely in smaller towns and in the country, finally caught up with the fact that they are being victimized. They let their feelings become known, and with them near ly every newspaper in the country criticized the senate until the sen atorial ears must have burned to a crisp. Anyway, it brought action and for that the country ought to be thankful. It might be well to review the sen ate action when it ran away from an honest job on the relief appropri ation. First, there was the amend ment by Senator Hatch, Democrat, New Mexico, which was to prevent use of relief funds for political pur poses by the simple expedient Ot dismissal for the official who had control over such funds; second, there was the amendment by Sena tor Lodge, Massachusetts Republi can, which would have required a distribution of the relief funds on the basis of the number of unem ployed in each state and which, thereby, would have prevented use of vast sums in some states where the political battle might be going against the candidate with a New Deal blessing, whether the opponent be an old line Democrat or a Re publican; third, there was the amendment by Senator Rush Holt, Democrat, of West Virginia, which merely proposed to make all federal relief officials responsive to civil service laws insofar as political ac tivity was concerned, and fourth, there was the amendment by Sen ator Austin, Republican, Vermont, which would have made it unlawful for any person whose compensation comes from relief funds to solicit, or authorize the solicitation of, funds as contributions to any political party. Well, as I said, the senate ran away from them and it seems to me that any senator who voted against those amendments has a pretty difficult job to explain that vote. As much as I admire Senator Barkley, the basis of his argument was so sour that it smelled to high heaven. The Kentuckian told the senate that the amendments would destroy senators and give all of the political power into the hands of state political machines which could use that power against sena tors seeking reelection. Senator Barkley is being challenged for re- nomination in his state and, I sup pose, the matter strikes right close home with him. Whether senators who voted against those amendments so in tended or not, what they have done, when the picture is examined in an unbiased fashion, is to put the whole Roosevelt administration in a ridic ulous position. It was their action which makes the record show that the whole administration is willing to let politics run riot in relief; it is against a fair and equitable al location of money among the states in accordance with the number of unemployed who must be fed. • » • As to the phase of conditions “back home,” the word seeps i-t *? it through to Wash- 1 he t oiks ington that a good 4 Back Home? many persons who are seeking house or senate nbminations against New Deal aspirants are finding strong WPA organizations against them and in favor of the New Deal candi date. And the full import of that strength comes to mind quickly when one thinks what a hungry per son will give up in order to have food. Senator Tydings of Maryland is the sponsor of the move to clean up the mess in relief. Of course. Senator Tydings, while a staunch Democrat, seldom has done any thing to cause the New Dealers hap piness ; on the contrary, he was marked for “liquidation” long, long ago. It is much better that an out standing Democrat should have pro posed the investigation than to have had the proposal come from a Re publican. Had a Republican intro duced the resolution, the thing would have been called political, purely. But it would have been a move calculated to demonstrate the genuineness of the New Deal if some Roosevelt 100 per center would have brought up the proposition. There is a great opportunity for this new senate committee to serve the country well. It can, and should, go into every report its investiga tors obtain to learn to what extent taxpayers’ money is being employed to influence elections. It has an out standing piece upon which to work, at the very start. Did not Mr. Hop kins horn into the Iowa primary? And everywhere there was the ques tion whether the WPA and other re lief workers in Iowa would not con strue the Hopkins announcement in behalf of Mr. Wearin as an “or der” for them to support the same man. But more important than Mr. Hopkins, this investigation—if it is seriously made—can point the tr*?- mendous fallacy and danger of re lief being administered from Wash ington instead of from the states and the counties where the money is spent. If the country is made fully aware of true conditions, I believe there will be changes in the relief methods that will allow more than 60 or 70 cents out of each dol lar expended to be used for food and clothing as is the case now. C Western Newspaper Union.