Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 2, Number 25, DeMotte, Jasper County, 12 January 1933 — News Review of Current Events the World Over [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

News Review of Current Events the World Over

Nation Mourns Death of Former President Coolidge— Japan Again Attacks China —Democrats Push Domestic Allotment Bill Through House.

By EDWARD W. PICKARD

CALVIN COOLIDGE, former President of the United States, has passed away, and the whole country mourns his going. Thursday noon he

w’as found dead by Mrs. Coolidge at their home in Northampton. Mass. He had not been seriously ill. and his demise was a terrible shock to his family and friends. Swiftly as the wires could carry them, messages of condolence came from President Hoover, Presi-dent-Elect Roosevelt, countless other men and women of prom-

inence, and the governments of many foreign nations. Funeral services, Simple and unostentatious. were held Saturday in Northampton, President Hoover and many other dignitaries attending, and the body was then taken by automobile to Plymouth, Vt., and laid in the Coolidge plot in the old cemetery. The grief of the nation was expressed by the President in a proclamation ordering 30 days of public mourning. Mr. Coolidge, who was sixty years old last July, had been in the public service nearly all of his adult life, advancing from councilman of Northampton in 1899 to the highest position in the nation in 1923. when he succeeded to the Presidency after the death of President Harding. He was elected President the following-year, and declined to be a candidate fori a second elective term. He first became nationally prominent while serving as governor of Massachusetts, which place he held for two terms; he was then chosen Vice President on the Harding ticket. Though never con sidered '‘brilliant,” Mr. Coolidge was oh^ of the ablest and wisest of our Presidents and was unflagging in his devotion to his high duties. Since leaving the White House he had engaged in the insurance business but also had found time to act as head of the commission named to study the problems of transportation, especially the railroads. \

JAPAN has resumed its ruthless course against China, and the rest of the world thinks it can do nothing about it except to express regrets. . As

a matter of fact there is little or nothing that can be done. Mill tary intervention is out of the question and financiers, mer chants and munition makers would make loud and probably es fective wails if an economic boycott of Japan were proposed. The League of Nations has already demonstrated its comparative helplessness in

such international emergencies; Resumption of hostilities between the two Oriental nations began at Shanhaikwan. the gateway city between China and Manchuria at the end of the Great Wall. Marshal Chang Hsueh-Hang. former war lord of Manchuria. according to the Japanese, was gathering there troops, arms, and munitions and transporting them 'thence into Jehol province, which Japan intends to . add to Manchukuo. Furthermore the Japanese conveniently found two bombs in their gendarmerie station in Shanhaikwan. This was enough excuse for them. So they first bombed the city from airplanes and then occupied it after making three assaults by sea and land. Chang’s troops resisted bravely but were forced to retreat after ldsing from 500 to 1.000 men. Large numbers of civilians also were killed orlwounded and the city was badly battered. The Japanese losses were officially reported as eight dead and 13 seriously wounded. Marshal Chang reformed his soldiers at Changli under protection of three armored trains and defied the Japanese. He advised their commander at Tientsin. General Nakamura^ to address all communications to Nanking, not to him. rejecting the Japanese contention that the Shankaikwan fighting was a local incident that could be settled by local negotiation. Quo Tai-chi. Chinese minister to Great Britain, announced in London that the Chinese delegates to the League of Nations would deliver an ultimatum demanding a league verdict on Japan’s action. If this is Insisted upon Japan may carry out its threat to withdraw from the league.

IN ILLINOIS, too, warfare long smoldering was resumed, this conflict being between the United Mine Workers and the rebel union known as the Progressive Miners of America. The scene of the encounter was a coal mine at Kincaid, a small town near Taylorville. A body of Progressive miners met an equal number of United Mine Workers coming from the shaft and in the resulting clash a machine

gun, rifles and revolvers were used freely. Two persons were killed, one a United miner and the other a woman. The wounded were numerous. The superintendent of the mine insisted that operations would not be suspended, and the authorities were expecting further trouble there and at other points in the coal belt The new union is strong in that particular locality, though It has not made much headway in the southern Illinois coal fields. The fighting broke out again the second day, two men being wounded. The sheriff of the county ordered picketing stopped and forbade public meetings of the Progressive union. Five companies of state troops were sent to the scene.

FARM relief as conceived by the Democratic majority of the house was being hurried to a vote in the house. It was in* the form of the do-

mestic allotment bill introduced by? Marvin Jones of Texas, chairman of the committee* on agriculture, and in plain language it calls for a sales tax on necessities for the benefit of the farmer and, according to its sponsors, of the na tion at large. Its foui main provisions aret 1. To levy on the four basic farm com-

modifies of wheat, hogs, cotton, and tobacco, and on silk and rayon a manufacturers’ sales tax which, in the case of wheat, will amount to 290 per cent of the present farm price and which, in the case of hogs, wHEapiount to nearly 50 per cent of the current price of pork. 2. To give power to the secretary of agriculture to fix the prices of the four commodities by determining their "fair exchange value” and to determine the “fair exchange allowance” necessary to restore the purchasing power of the commodities to their 1909’14 level, 3. To bring about inflation by handing to the farmer in the shape of “adjustment certificates” a negotiable cer tificate of government indebtedness secured by the tax revenues and redeemable by the government. 4. To g’ve to the secretary of agriculture power to control the production of wheat, hogs, cotton, and tobacco by granting him authority to determine the percentage of production required for domestic consumption; to disburse adjustment certificates only to those farmers who cut production 20 per cent; to decide how this curtailment of production, shall be determined. and to decide what use the farmer shall make of lands so taken out of production.

Dairy products were not included in the measure, though a hard fight for this was made in committee. It is provided that the measure be in effect for one year, with the President given authority to continue it for an additional year. President Elect-Roosevelt, as is well known now, is opposed to a general sales tax, but the domestic allotment bill suits him. The manufacturers affected have insisted that their industries cannot absorb the tax called for and that It must be passed on to the consumer and the farmer.

MR. ROOSEVELT, having turned the state of New York over to ^Governor Lehman, Is devoting most of his time to preparations for assuming the office of President. Thursday evening he conferred in New York with the Democratic leaders in congress and a program for balancing the budget was decided upon. The Treasury department figures fixing the 1933 deficit at 492 millions were accepted and it was agreed to effect an additional saving in the budget estimate of 100 millions, to enact a beer hill estimated to produce 125 millions, to continue the gasoline tax 1 cent per gallon to produce 137 millions, and to increase the income tax rates to produce 150 millions.

PRESIDENT HOOVER’S program for rebrganization of the federal government is being absolutely blocked by the house Democrats, who intend that Mr. Roosevelt shall be empowered to make such changes as he thinks fit after his inauguration. This development angered the President and on his return from Florida he told the correspondents that all recent reorganization moves on the part of congress were merely make-believe and the proposals of the Democratic leaders a backward step. He asserted that any real reorganization “sensibly carried out” will sooner or later embrace the very executive orders which he Issued lately and which the Democrats in the house planned to veto. These would regroup 58 separate agencies into nine divisions. Chairman Cochran of the house expenditures committee ^was unmoved by Mr. Hoover’s protest. He said It would be “unjust and most unfair" to Mr. Roosevelt to make so many changes only a few weeks before he takes office.

Calvin Coolidge

Chang Hsuehliang

Marvin Jones