HALL, PA.
WHO'S
NEWS
THIS
WEEK
By LEMUEL F. PARTON
NEV YORK.—Many years ago,
i this writer, quite unintentional-
ly, aided in making Dr. Ben Reit-
mann of Chicago the first king of the
. hoboes, by some
Bindle Pete newspaper stories
Seeks Hobo written with no
King’s Head
partisan or politi-
cal intent. For
some reason or other, my name got
on the hobo mailing list as a “jungle
judge’ or ‘shack’ or something
and, from time to time, there comes
fraternal greetings, campaign liter-
ature or news of the order. The
latest, from one ‘‘Bindle Pete,” is
quite violently prejudiced against
Jeff Davis, the present king, and
says he is to be deposed because he
rode to Europe on the Queen Mary
and because he ‘has been working
at Hollywood, helping coach the di-
rectors in studies of hobo still-life.
This department has been quite
indifferent to the hard luck of kings
in recent decades, but it would seem
too bad if King Jeff Davis were de-
throned. He has been a likeable
monarch, bald and genial and dili-
gent (perhaps that's the trouble) in
the interests of his kingdom, and
not making any trouble for anybody.
His father, James Davis, was a
journeyman of newspaper mechani-
cal trades in Cincinnati, and young
Jeff took to the road at the age of 13,
covering more than 1,000,000 miles
in his subsequent 40 years of ram-
bling. He assails radicalism in the
hobo brotherhood and says he will
keep it 100 per cent American. He
made more than 2,000 speeches on
Americanism during the World war.
How could a hobo ride these slick
new chromium trains with the cat-
fish faces? King Jeff probably is
working on that.
* * *
V J HEN she was bad, she was
very, very good, and when she
was good she was horrid. Not ex-
actly, but, in a rough general way,
. that was the story
Bette in of Bette Davis.
Scarlett Hence, while other
Marathon stars shy away
from the hell-cat
Scarlett O'Hara, as not their type,
Bette Davis may take her on. Early
in her career, Miss Davis played
charming hellions with great effec-
tiveness and didn’t seem to mind.
She was Ruth Elizabeth Davis, a
Massachusetts school girl, changing
her name to ‘‘Bette’’ at the age of
12 in preparation for her stage ca-
reer. She later changed her hair—
it is brown—and her general make-
up. Entrance to the theater came
easily, after a course in a dramatic
school. She went to Hollywood in
1932. Her first play, “Broken
Dishes,” brought few cheers, but,
with coaching by George Arliss and
better casting, she hit the up-grade.
Trying a break-away from War-
ners in London in 1936, a ruthless
British court condemned her to con-
tinued servitude at a top salary.
She is one of the few actresses who
like unsympathetic roles and she
plays them well.
* * *
TNTIL recently Franz Lehar was
living in Vienna. The news that
he is rewriting ‘“The Merry Widow"
makes one wonder whether he finds
Vienna still merry
Lehar Now —whether young
Rewriting
writers still write
Merry Widow
their plays in the
cafes along the
Kurftenstrasse, as he did in 1905.
The world has waltzed along quite
a way in the interval between the
original and rewritten versions.
Herr Lehar got $300,000 from his
overwhelming New York success in
1907. He waltzed it all right into the
stock market and bade it good-by.
He returned to his native Buda-
pest, lost another lump sum of $75,-
000 and then became a good busi-
ness man. His thirty or more operet-
tas, five of which have been pro-
duced here, have made him rich.
He is, or was a member of the
Vienna Rotary club, attending
luncheons faithfully, singing club
adaptations of old tunes, wearing a
two-inch button with his name on it
and engaging in friendly back-slap-
ping—big and gregarious, 68 years
old, with his lush mustache touched
with gray. He was a ‘knapsack
child,” as he put it, the son of a
wandering musician. He was a child
violinist. Dvorak persuaded him to
hang up his fiddle and take to com-
posing.
© Consolidated News Features,
WN rvice,
The Grave of Confucius
The grave of Confucius is in a
large rectangle separated from the
rest of the K'ung cemetery, outside
the city of Q'iuh-fow, in China. A
magnificent gate gives admission to
a fine avenue, lined with cypress
trees and conducting to the tomb, a
large and lofty mound, with a mar-
ble statue in front, bearing the in-
scription of the title given to Con-
fucius under the Sung dynasty: “The
most sagely ancient teacher: the
all - accomplished, all - informed
king.”
Agriculture
Since 1933, Franklin Roosevelt's
administration has enacted three
major agriculture laws, spending
$3,000,000,000 to end the woes of 30,-
000,000 people on 6,000,000 Ameri-
can farms. Chief victim of this
headache is Iowa's onetime Repub-
lican, Henry A. Wallace, who turned
New Dealer in time to become Pres-
ident Roosevelt's one and only sec-
retary of agriculture.
No business can live by spending
alone. To match its $3,000,000,000
outlay, Farm Relief’s five-year in-
come has been only $969,258,000, ccl-
lected in processing taxes before the
Supreme court outlawed AAA in
1936. To replace AAA, congress en-
acted a soil conservation measure
calling for periodic land retirement.
Last spring this was incorporated
in an intricate crop control law
drafted by the Farm Bureau fed-
eration.
By last week it looked like this
latest panacea was failing. To Hen-
crops, surpassing last spring's most
fervent hopes. Prices were drop-
ping, but that was only part of the
problem.
bought U. S. wheat, corn, cotton and
tobacco have started buying from
countries.
crops, approaching self-sufficiency.
That Henry Wallace deserved
sympathy, was plain. Whether he
department
farm income
his
that
fending
qharges
AGRICULTURE'S WALLACE
He needed still more panaceas.
dropped back to 1932 levels. His
figures: 1938 income would
000,000. Not forgotten was the fact
with government subsidies.
war status, Secretary Wallace left
Canadians a way of splitting the
America’s two nations. When he
gets back there will be more in-
vestigation into the McAdoo-Eicher
bentures, generally opposed on the
grounds that price fixing against
processors would place a new hid-
den tax on consumers.
But next winter, when Farm Re-
lief is again thrown at congress,
there must be discussion of the only
panaceas yet remaining: export
subsidies, federal price fixing and
compulsory limitation.
Domestic
Since 1927, Mexico has seized $10,-
000,000 in American-owned farm
lands. Last spring Mexico did even
better, confiscating $200,000,000
worth of American-owned oil lands.
A month ago, Secretary of State
Cordell Hull addressed a courteous
note to Mexican President Lazaro
Cardenas, asking what his nation in-
tended to do by way of repayment. A
few days later came the blunt reply,
stating in effect that there is no law
or treaty making compensation ob-
ligatory, but evincing a desire to pay
when, and if, it is economically
feasible.
Cordell Hull mulled this unprece-
dented answer through his mind for
two weeks, then decided to try again
with another tack. Scolded he: “It is
proposed to replace the rule of just
compensation by the rule of con-
fiscation. Adoption . . . of any such
theory . . . would result in the im-
mediate breakdown of confidence
and trust between nations.”
Politics
Not since early July had Franklin
Roosevelt seen James A. Farley.
Since then the former had made a
cross-country tour, fished the Pa-
cific and wished for the defeat of
anti-New Deal legislators in Georgia,
South Carolina, Maryland, New
York. The other had been on his
own fence-mending expedition,
soothing ruffled New Deal nerves as
only Jim Farley can do it.
Last week Teacher Farley came to
Hyde Park to see his most success-
ful political student once more. Be-
hind closed doors the President and
postmaster general talked all after-
noon, all evening, part of the next
morning. Though no early official
announcement was forthcoming,
newsmen got their heads together,
decided Jim Farley had urged the
President to push his ‘purge’ of
Maryland's Sen. Millard E. Tydings.
Less enthusiastic, thought newsmen,
was Jim Farley's reaction to
“purge’ efforts against Georgia's
Sen. Walter F. George and South
Carolina's Sen. Ellison D. (“Cotton
Ed’’) Smith,
® In Mississippi, where Democrat-
ic nomination is tantamount to elec-
tion, all seven incumbent congress-
men were renominated by primary
voters.
Religion
In a cabin near Merced, Calif.,
Mrs. Ola Irene Harwell sat read-
ing the Bible to her husband and
two small sons. In the Book of
Matthew, Chapter XVIII, she read
the eighth verse:
“Therefore if thy hand or thy foot
offend thee cut them off and cast them
from thee; it is better for thee to enter
life halt or maimed than having two
hands or feet to be cast into everlasting
fire”
She read the ninth verse:
“And if thine eye offend thee pluck it
out and cast it from thee; it is better
for thee to enter into life with one eye
into hell fire.”
Finishing, Mrs. Harwell picked up
her scissors, walked to the wood-
shed and gouged out one eye, hacked
off one hand. Next day at a
ced hospital physicians said
would live,
she
By seven o'clock one night
Soldier
field was filled with 100,000 jitter-
bugs come to enjoy a jam session.
Outside, as police closed the gates,
milled thousands of ot}
who could not
20 dance orches
er swing ¢
dicts get in
watch amateur
it. The mob
gates, tore across
ded
til early next morr
SWINngs
grew,
the
turf where be
had
had gone hon
8
sodding, many
Chrysanthemum,
To cope with military-mad Adolf
Hitler has been France's
problem since the Nazi war leader
As Ger-
fortifications
Paris
designed her
But fort-
night ago when Adolf Hitler
advanced her
the French frontier,
took counter steps,
many
ny's largest peacetime war games,
Premier Edouard Daladier was
Jerkin
their midsummer sluggish-
ness, he suc
ing the 40-hour week to 48 hours,
thereby boosting war industries, in-
creasing general manufacturing out-
put and aiding recovery.
If he expected radical France to
take this pronouncement quietly, M.
Daladier was badly mistaken. Two
cabinet members quickly resigned.
Next day, Socialist Leader Leon
Blum, whose cabinet was over-
SOCIALIST LEON BLUM
“The hour is too grave ...”
thrown last spring, threatened to
withdraw government support of his
party. Paris labor unions met, plan-
ning a countermove., Two hundred
thousand miners threatened to
strike by September 15. Along the
Mediterranean coast, all stevedores
struck and troops took their places.
By week's end a potentially dan-
gerous situation was apparently
smoothed out. Said Leon Blum'’s
party newspaper: ‘“We do not ex-
ploit the difficulties which Daladier
himself has created. The hour is
too grave for that, Next evening M.
Blum and M. Daladier talked half
an hour over the telephone, seeking
conciliation to avoid a crisis while
Germany is strutting her military
strength. Still unsolved, however,
was the problem of finding jobs for
340,000 unemployed now on relief—
30,000 more than a year ago. Appar-
ently a longer week would only
make this number larger,
Labor
Last week American workers
could look to September as the big-
gest month of their year, That wide-
ly observed Labor day falls in Sep-
tember was incidental. What proms
ised to make news was another out-
break of the tiff between William
Green's American Federation of La-
bor and John Lewis’ Committee for
Industrial Organization.
At Atlantic City, A. F. of L.'s ex-
ecutive council made plans for its
annual meeting in Houston. At
Washington, C. I. O. thought about
C. 1 0S JOHN LEWIS
Will he bow to the ladies?
titutional convention
atively in September
That each group would
the other was a certainty,
but the biggest lambasting could be
expected not at Houston or Wash-
but at Mexico City. There,
on September 5, Mexican and South
American labor unions meet
Vincente Lom-
a Mexican labor
its first con
or October.
lJambast
. Green says is
3
st or extremely
succeed
leaders have fai
led.
Sweltering in 140-degree heat,
Japanese troops captured Juichang
for their first notable victory since
the occupation of Kiukiang on July
26. Still 110 miles from their objec.
tive, Hankow, Nipponese warriors
anticipate
from 1.000.000 soldiers
strong resistance
and 200,000 ci-
mobilized.
@® For more than one year England
] labored to perfect a 27-nation
for withdrawal of foreign
troops from war-torn Spain. Last
ship pact carried an “‘unwritten
agreement” that Benito Mussolini
would co-operate in this ambitious
plan. But fortnight ago Rebel Gen-
eralissimo Francisco Franco blunt
ly rejected the non-intervention
idea, effectively shattering the An-
gle-Italian pact.
At Rome one day last week, Brit-
ish Charge d'Affaires Sir Noel
Charles paid a visit to Count Gale-
azzo Ciano, Italian foreign minister.
Count Ciano formally announced
that Rome is sending new reinforce
ments to Generalissimo Franco,
Simultaneously, 80,000 rebels were
hurled against Catalonia’s western
ist divisions.
Aviation
ard Campbell entered an airplane,
delayed their takeoff while a friend
gave Commander Hawks a four-leaf
clover for ‘good luck.” Minutes
later their ship soared, tripped over
telephone wires, crashed. At a Buf-
falo hospital died the man who set a
non-stop Los Angeles to New York
record in 1929. Later, Broker Camp-
bell also died.
@ Forty-five per cent of the stock
in China National Aviation company
belongs to Pan-American Airways.
One day last week, Pilot Hugh L.
Woods was flying a China National
liner near Canton when Japanese
warplanes hove into sight, forcing
him to the ground. While Pilot
Woods watched, helpless, 14 Chinese
passengers were machine-gunned to
death. Next day Pan-American
asked the United States government
for protection,
People
In January, 1937, Columbia uni-
versity's Roswell Magill left his aca-
demic post, became the United
States treasury’s chief tax expert.
Last week Roswell Magill made use
of his previous understanding with
Franklin Roosevelt, resigning to
teach law once more,
Senator
Persons to Be Hit.
considerable amount of courage for
an active politician to talk about
it is a hopeful sign when one tells
the truth about such a politically
When Sen. Pat
Harrison, the veteran Mississippi
Democrat, announced the other day
that new taxes are coming, there-
fore, it became a matter of mo-
ment. It was significant first that
Senator Harrison, speaking as chair-
man of the powerful se finance
committee, should boldly say there
nificant in the second place because
Benator Harrison has not always
stood shoulder to shoulder with the
New Dealers.
But there is another federal
treasury deficit of something
like $4,000,000,000 staring us in
the face, and the size of it indi-
cates that no progress has been
made whatsoever in curtailing
federal spending. It tells us,
too, that the much ballyhooed
business recovery of a year ago
is yielding less in taxes than
had been calculated by the wish-
ful thinkers.
Thirdly, the probable
seems to show there
some merit in the ass
Senator Harrison and otl
gress last winter that some of th
L
New Deal are g the
was at
ertions
ers In Corn
licies
the levies
taxes must
More Persons to Be
Hit by Federal Taxes
TL -
vwhat
sources; opie who never hav
paid the federal govern-
ment before are going to pay
hereafter. I am referring to income
taxes, directly, but the way the pic-
ture looks to me, there will be more
taxes that are indirect—and they hit
everybody.
taxes Ww
them
there will never be any chance of a
balanced budget, and if the future
does not bging forth a balanced
budget, we may as well kiss our
democratic form of government
good-by.
The reason 1 say there must be
additional * taxes,” levies
that are included
consumer such as the cigarette tax,
is that Senator Harrison's own state-
den
Waste, wreckage, nit-wit plans and
| programs—all have cost billions of
| dollars.
As everyone knows, new
| taxes are added, a greater perce
| age of the country’s
tants are included.
So, maybe the
Harrison has a two-fold purpose
mind, and it takes courage for hir
to have either one of the two ideas
because he is i
sees the neces
curtailment of federal sg
realizes at the s:
life of a polit
when
veteran
nding
aver
some
or
»
Bankers of Country
Some tim
ngress
n how th
oney. It was
since It ¢
sharp practices of which some
ers had been guilty.
| On top of
months
basted
d law
this law, some 10 or 1
lat 2 x 1 = Sh
later, Mr. Roosevelt X
4 avs ie
ie Danke
ier on those of, say, $10,000
income and above.
revenue gained in that field
that there are not enough of those
taxpayers. Bureau of internal rev-
enue statistics prove that about 60
per cent of the country’s income
earners have less than $2,000 per
family. As the laws now stand, a
person who is married and has an
income of $2,000 or less need pay no
tax. So it is seen that only a mere
drop in the bucket of new revenue
can be obtained in that direction,
wholly because if all of them were
taxed the amount still would be
small. Yet, any serious attempt to
taxes that apply generally.
To Search for New
Tax Possibilities
Senator Harrison's committee will
search through all of the various tax
possibilities in the next three or
four months. It will have to do
that. The house committee on ways
and means, which considers tax leg-
islation in the house, will not have
the courage to go as far in adding
to the tax burden. It nevur has had
that much courage for the reason
that its members come up for elec-
tion every two years—and, again,
taxes are unpopular things for a pol-
itician. Thus, we will have to look
to the Harrison committee if prog-
ress is made in bringing the nation’s
tax receipts into some relation with
its spending.
The addition of new taxes is a
serious matter, yet it appears that
new taxes capnot be avoided. We
have had our play time, our fun.
We have danced; now, the fiddler
must be paid. When new taxes are
added, the buying power of every
person paying the tax is reduced by
that amount. But through five
years, money has been spent by the
government in ways that put to
shame the famed drunken sailor
ashore for the first time in a year.
288,
1 think the time will
when the country will regret
law, but that is neither here
{ there. It is on
and the fed 1 deposit
corporation has a fun
hat banks are properly run.
wi 1 rm
wu
Another Depression
Was the Result
There came the time when Mr.
Roosevelt's policies failed to work
ny better than those under Presi-
dent Hoover, and we had another
depression on our hands. Mr. Jesse
Jones, chairman of the Reconstruc-
tion Finance corporation, either of
his own volition or by White House
urging, made several speeches and
statements to the bankers as the de-
pression got really bad. He sought
to stem the tide by persuading the
bankers to make more loans. Some
of us here got the impression that
Mr. Jones wanted the bankers to
shove out the money and ask later
on whether they could get it back.
Anyway, the sum and substance of
the situation was that Mr. Jones
was urging the banks to find ways to
loan money.
Then came the climax, the peak,
and the laugh. Hardly had Mr.
Jones concluded his series of lec-
tures to the bankers (who, accord-
ing to the Jones picture, really did
not want to make money) when an-
other government agency gets into
the play. The Federal Deposit In-
surance corporation had something
to say about the bankers, and Chair-
man Crowley issued a statement to
all and sundry bankers.
Said Mr. Crowley, in substance:
Bankers, the FDIC insures your de-
posits up to $5,000 per depositor;
thus they are protected. But that
does not mean you can take a
chance on unsound loans. You can't
take any greater risk than you would
if there was no insurance of the
deposits. Just remember that, boys
be careful and don’t Voit
© Western Newspaper Union :