Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 8, Number 1, DeMotte, Jasper County, 2 December 1937 — Edward W. Pickard [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Edward W. Pickard

SUMMARIZES THE WORLD’S WEEK Western Newspaper Union.

Trade Treaty with Britain IN WASHINGTON and London it was officially announced that the United States and Great Britain had agreed to negotiate a reciprocal

trade treaty, which has been sought by Secretary of State Hull ever since he started his reciprocal program in 1934. The negotiations are expected to begin before the close of the year. American administration officials believe such a pact may lead to a com-

mercial union of all English-speak-ing peoples and will be a powerful influence in preserving world peace. London looks upon it as an instrument to form a front which all nations may enter later on conditions of most-favored-nations reciprocity, and therefore as an indirect reply to the new German-Italian-Japanese alliance. Principles said to be already agreed upon provide that Great Britain would receive reduced American tariffs on textiles and coal. In return she would grant the United States lower tariffs oh foodstuffs, certain raw materials, iron and steel and other essentials of a rearmament program. Immediate opposition to the proposed pact developed among the statesmen in Washington. Senator James Hamilton Lewis of Illinois, Democratic whip, protested against any British accord until the English pay off their defaulted war debt to the United States. He called the proposed pact “trade treason." Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Massachusetts Republican, served notice he would sponsor a resolution halting negotiation of all new trade treaties until congress can determine whether they are responsible for the current business recession. Representative Allen Treadway, Massachusetts Republican, denounced the proposed treaty as certain to prove disastrous to American business. He warned it would throw “more Americans out of their jobs.”

Governors Ask Tax Repeal GOVERNORS of the six New England states, in conference in Boston, adopted resolutions severely criticizing the tax and tariff policies of the administration. They demanded repeal of the. capital gains tax and the tax on undistributed corporate profits, and denounced the pending reciprocal trade agreement with Czechoslovakia as imperiling the jobs of thousands of American citizens. The governors who took thiis action were Lewis O. Barrows, Republican, Maine; F. P. Murphy, Republican, New Hampshire; George D. Aiken, Republican, Vermont; Charles F. Hurley, Democrat, Massachusetts; Wilbur L. Cross, Democrat, Connecticut, and Robert E. Quinn, Democrat, Rhode Island. Plotters Alarm France FRANCE was in a great dither over an alleged plot of the Cagoulards or “hooded ones,” and other rightist groups to overthrow the republican government. The secret police have been making many arrests and have uncovered secret arsenals and depots of the conspirators. Among the men they seized was Jean de la Meuse, wealthy textile manufacturer of Paris. In their pursuit of the plotters the police went as far as Switzerland, persuading the government of that country to oust the count of Paris, who would be heir apparent of the throne of France if there were any longer such an institution. He had been holding conferences with royalists.

After Labor Racketeers FOR four months Eliot Ness, the young safety director of Cleveland, Ohio, has been investigating labor racketeering in Cleveland, es-

pecially in the building trades, and then he made a report of his findings that resulted in a special session of the Cuyahoga county grand jury to hear the stories of scores of business men who allegedly have been terrorized by labor union officials. Ness said these men were

prompted to volunteer their information because of the security offered them and the knowledge that many others were prepared to testify. In addition to protests from business men that they were being shaken down, Ness also had numerous complaints from rank and file union men that their leaders had obtained dictatorial control of the unions and had used it for racketeering purposes. This resulted in hundreds of men being thrown out of work, impeded legitimate business, and kept hundreds of thousands of dollars in new industries out of the city, the Ness report was said to have stated. At a meeting of the Cleveland Federation of Labor, Don A. Campbell, president of the Painters’ District council, who had been mentioned in connection with the investigation, called the entire case “a lot of newspaper propaganda which has been passed around since the labor movement began,” and added that “it’s high time this stuff was stopped.”

Harrison Backs Water PREVENTED from considering the pending government reorganization measure by a filibuster against the anti-lynching bill, the

senate engaged in a lot of talk about tax revision. Pat Harrison, chairman of the senate finance committee, after conferring with Secretary Morgenthau, declared that additional revenue to compensate for modification of the undistributed profits tax could be raised only by broadening

the income tax base or by a general manufacturers’ sales tax. Mention of a sales tax aroused Senator Borah and others, and the Idahoan prodded Harrison until he backed down and said he did not quite mean what he had said. “If, in the revision of the tax laws, we should lose some revenue, I do not believe, with the spending program that is now going on, that we would help business,” Harrison told the senate. “I think the goal should be to try to balance the budget at the first opportunity. I believe the wise way to do it is to curtail some of the emergency expenditures.” Harrison proposed a return to the old normal income tax on corporations and, if necessary, to increase the rate to 18 or 20 per cent instead of the former maximum of 15 1/2 per cent.

Bullet Kills Howard Coffin HOWARD E. COFFIN, who was chairman of the World war aircraft production board and sponsored the development of the Liberty airplane engine, was found shot to death at his winter home in Sea Island, Ga. Beside his body was a hunting rifle from which one shot had been fired. It was assumed his death was accidental.

Crop Control Opposed IN ITS annual convention in Harrisburg. Pa., the National Grange voiced opposition to crop control legislation, but named cotton and tobacco as possible exceptions. “Drastic curtailment of production or destruction of large quantities of food products in the United States,” said a resolution adopted by the delegates, “eventually will result in bringing about a condition detrimental to the whole people. “We believe the problem now facing American agriculture cannot be brought to a satisfactory conclusion by either of these means, but lies in bringing about better distribution systems and increasing the purchasing power of the whole people/’ Senators Smith and Byrnes of South Carolina have declared themselves against Secretary Wallace’s proposal for processing taxes for cotton and wheat, considering them in reality sales taxes.

Rand Is Acquitted JAMES H. RAND, JR., president of Remington Rand, Inc., and Pearl L. Bergoff of New York were found not guilty of violation of the Byrnes act by a jury in the United States District court in New Haven, Conn. The verdict was a blow at the government’s first attempt to enforce the act, which forbids the transportation of strikebreakers across state lines with the intent of interfering with peaceful picketing.

Another Judge Wanted SENATOR MINTURN of Indiana introduced a bill authorizing the President to appoint an additional judge to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals at Chicago. That court has jurisdiction over the seventh circuit, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana, and has had one vacancy since the retirement of Judge Samuel Alschuler last year. Both Senators Lewis and Dieterich of Illinois said they had no candidate for the place.

New Land Speed Record CAPT. GEORGE EYSTON of England set a new world record for speed on land when he drove his 24cylinder automoile, Thunderbolt, two miles on the salt bed speedway in Utah at an average speed of 311.42 miles per hour. This is the fastest man has ever traveled in a motor car.

Chinese Flee from Capital ANKING, capital of China, was abandoned as the seat of the government because of the rapid advances westward of the Japanese

forces. Officials were being scattered in several cities, the central point Hankow, on the Yangtse 300 miles west of Nanking. One army of the invaders was moving from Shanghai on Nanking, and another was about to attack Tsinan, capital of Shantung province in North China.

China, however, was far from giving up the fight. It was reported in Shanghai, that Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek had resigned as president of the executive council in order to lead his troops in a final effort to stop the Japanese and win the war. H. H. Kung, it was said, would succeed Chiang in the presidency. He is finance minister. Thousands of civilians and foreigners were fleeing from Nanking. But military authorities remained there and declared the city would not be surrendered to the Japanese without a desperate fight.

Peace Prize for Cecil VISCOUNT CECIL of Chelwood has been awarded the Nobel peace prize for 1937. It is worth $40,600. Lord Cecil was selected because of his work in behalf of the League of Nations, of which he was one of the founders. When informed of the honor he was in New York city receiving an honorary degree of doctor of laws from Columbia university. He had just attended a conference of the World Alliance for International Friendship Through Churches in Washington and was a week-end guest of President Roosevelt. Twelve years ago Lord Cecil, who is seventy-three years old, won the Woodrow Wilson peace prize.

Britain Woos Hitler VISCOUNT HALIFAX, lord president of the council in the British cabinet, was in Germany ostensibly for the purpose of visiting a hunting exhibition but actually to negotiate with Hitler and other Nazi chiefs for the establishment of more friendly relations between Great Britain and Germany. Public belief was that he was authorized to hint to Hitler that there was hope Germany might regain some of its lost colonies if Germany would abandon its economic isolation and co-operate with other European powers in a revised League of Nations. The British want to detach Germany, and Italy, too, if possible, from their alliance with Japan. Halifax was a fitting messenger to send to Berlin, for he is an outstanding friend of Germany among British officials.

Secretary Hull

Eliot Ness

Senator Harrison

Chiang Kai-Shek