Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 9, Number 13, DeMotte, Jasper County, 16 February 1939 — Page 2

By LEMUEL F. PARTON

XTEW YORK.—At the old beanery for the hired help in the New York World building, a few years ago, there was quite a stir and

Dream Book Came Through As Advertised

write a play; Louis Weitzenkorn had the same idea; big, jovial Phil Stong had written 16 novels, to the quite considerable indifference of all publishers, but Mr. Stong said all this was just a little practice workout and he promised to deliver later on. Swarthy, saturnine James Cain thought he might have the making of a book or two in his system, but said little about it. Young, whippy Dudley Nichols, a demon reporter, trained as an engineer, had a writing career neatly blue-printed. Paul Siftop, burned up by social injustice, was going to write a few plays and tear the lid off things in general. Ben Burman, whom Phil Stong could carry around in his pocket, was going to be a bell-ringing novelist. A kindly Destiny presided over the old beanery. The above playwrights, novelists and Hollywood big shots probably could have bought the then sinking world with their collective resources of today—although Mr. Sifton, after pulling two or three i lurid Broadway plays, now is sunk voluntarily in the somewhat undramatic federal wage j board, as its assistant director. 1 The spot news of this chronicle is that Mr. Burman has been honored with the Southern Authors award for his recently published novel, “Blow for a Landing.” This is the highest literary award in the gift of the South, in which non-fiction also was judged. His previous books include “Steamboat Round the Bend,” which . became. Will Rogers’ last screen play, arid several other Mississippi yarns. He has more or less qf a personal copyright on river tales. Mr. Burman once told me how his dream was almost He quit the World, to Income an author —with no luck, and, at long last, only a dime. The fragrance of freshly baked buns in a shop window dethroned his reason and he shot the dime for four buns. Back in his garret he found a letter from a magazine, saying they liked his “Minstrels of the Mist,” which they had had for months, and which he had given up as lost. Would he come up and consult them on a minor change? He would, but lacked carfare. "" He had seen a pretty girl in a nearby studio. He didn’t know her, but he told her his troubles. She was similarly situated, but staked him to three two-cent stamps. He raised a nickel on them at a stationery store, saw the editor and got not only a check, but a big hand on his story. And, naturally, he returned and married the pretty girl, who thereafter illustrated his books as they traversed, not only his pet river, but Damascus, the Sahara desert, Bagdad and other such mother-lodes of literary raw material. I OUIS SHATTUCK CATES, sil•L' ver-gray and semi-corpulent, and decisive, is a Bourbpn whose Wall Street office

Miners Salute Topnotcher in Copper World

yet thousands of small mining men up and down the Rocky mountains today are sending him congratulations.

The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers awards him the William Lawrence Saunders gold medal for “signal accomplishment” in mining and metallurgical enterprises. This honor goes to Mr. Cates as a depression-made leader in the copper industry. His methods have facilitated copper recovery from low-grade ore. i However, much ,of the cheering comes from the small mining men of the West for his successful efforts for a four-cents-a*pound import tax on foreign copper.

He is a miner’s miner and no swivel-chair industrial captain—this 57-year-old president of a $350,000,000 corporation. For every mile of bridle path which he may ride in suburban Connecticut today, he has spent long hours in the saddle years agd, directing mining operations in Utah and Arizona. He is M. I. T., 1902, a native of Boston. His dossier clicks off “timekeeper, shift boss, foreman, superintendent, general manager, vice president and president of the Phelps Dodge Corp.”—and now a medal ... .

WHO'S NEWS THIS WEEK

stew of ambition. Swapping dreams, one Maxw'ell Anderson was going to

looks out over the House of Morgan and the New York Stock exchange, and

Weekly News Analysis Federal Insurance Supervision May Follow Committee Probe

EDITOR’S NOTE —When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of the news analyst, and not necessarily of the newspaper.

Business As counsel for a New York state legislative insurance committee, Charles Evans Hughes made a name for himself in 1906 uncovering what he thought to be irregularities. The chief Hughes fear: That insurance company resources were so large as to make conservative, responsible management increasingly difficult. The Hughes remedy: Federal supervision of insurance investments. Since 1906 Mr. Hughes has risen to the U. S. Supreme court and may have s changed his mind. At least

CHARLES EVANS HUGHES The sins are now quadrupled.

nothing has been done about it and the vast insurance fund has quadrupled. Whereas Mr. Hughes suggested limiting new policies to $150,000,000 a year per company, some now' w'rite $2,000,000,000 a year. Today there are $110,000,000,000 worth of policies in effect and insurance investments cover a surprisingly wide field. Samples: Government securities, $4,500,000,000; railroads, $3,000,000,000; farm mortgages and corporation securities, $2,000,000,000; state, county and city bonds, $1,500,000,000. If this business was worth investigating 23 years ago it is even more vulnerable today. Just started in Washington is a 12-month probe by the ’temporary national economic committee, headed by Wyoming’s Sen. Joseph C. O’Mahoney and better known as the “monopoly investigating committee.” Chiming in is William O. Douglas’ Securities and Exchange commission. Pertinent question marks include (1) what influence insurance investments exert on U. S. money markets, banks, railroads, etc.; (2) how insurance executives are chosen; (3) possibility of interlocking directorates between insurance firms and utilities. Though the monopoly committee has often reiterated that it is not hunting witches, and although Mr. Douglas maintains he only wants to bring the Hughes report up to date, there is a good chance of new legislation providing federal regulation over all interstate insurance business. This would supplement state supervision,, now in effect. Adding to their discomfort is the demand by Montana’s Sen. Burton K. Wheeler that insurance companies take a greater hand in helping reorganize U. S. railroads. The Wheeler charge: That present insurance company negotiations with carriers feature repeated concessions to iftvestment bankers at the expense of bondholders. But if rail aid presents as many obstacles as insurance men claim, the probable solution of this problem-will not be a federal whipping post for insurance companies but revision in the railroad reorganization statute. Spain The fate of Britain and France marched with Rebel Generalissimo Francisco Franco into Barcelona, tagging along as he pushed northward through the rest of Catalonia to shut off an important sector in the two and one-half year old civil war. No sooner had Loyalist President Manuel Azana fled to Paris than peace rumors began. The probability is that President Azana

Wives in the News

GANDHI Mrs. Kasturibhai Gandhi, “faithful, silent” wife of India’s Mohandas K. Gandhi, has been arrested for participating in a civil disobedience campaign. FLEGENHEIMER Mrs. Arthur Flegenheimer, widow of New York’s late policy racketeer, “Dutch Schultz” Flegenheimer, testified she saw her husband in conference wfith James J. Hines, Tammany leader who is accused of selling protection. MOONEY —Mrs. Rena Mooney, wife of California’s ex-Convict Tom Mooney, promises to fight her husband’s reported attempt to divorce her.

By Joseph W. La Bine

was ready to surrender, but not Premier Juan Negrin. His terfns: (1) elimination of foreigners from Spain; (2) a plebiscite by the Spanish people to decide their future form of government; (3) no reprisals on either side. Those terms having apparently been rejected by the Insurgents, Premier Negrin prepared to fight to the finish in the large southeastern section of Spain his government still holds. Anglo-French concern over the Spanish w r ar may be expected to grow daily until that conflict is ended. As a last chance for peace with security, London and Paris jumped on the bandwagon for Negrinplan, realizing these terms held a scant promise that Spain might emerge from the w r ar as a sympathetic nation, rather than as a tool for Italy and Germany. But it would obviously be foolhardy for the Fascist governments to accept peace with partial victory when a full victory is so near. That accomplished, France will have totalitarian neighbors on three sides (Spain, Italy, Germany) and will be ripe for plucking by Mussolini. It is significant that Italian territorial claims against. Prance are being held up until the war is over. But the approach of this FrenchItalian struggle draws Paris closer to Britain each day. Before the house of commons, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain has promised full military support in case France is involved in war. Aviation U. S. and British airliners have been hopping the Atlantic in test flights for two years-, planning to start London-New York service simultaneously next summer. Last fall a reciprocal agreement was signed but the English, piqued because the U. S. refused to let Imperial airways ships land at Honolulu, shrank back in a pout. Anxious to start transatlantic service this year regardless of the British attitude, the U. S. opened negotiations with Paris and immediately arranged Paris-New York flights via the long Azores route. Meanwhile the British announced they would inaugurate independent service next June, But the Americans show r ed themselves better diplomatic pilots than

TRANSATLANTIC CLIPPER To London by March 31?

their English friends. Anxious lest London be left off U. S. transatlantic schedules, the British government has waived the treaty provision calling for a simultaneous start by U. S. and British planes. This clears the way for Pan-Ameri-can airways ships to start between March 15 and 31. Probable settlement, now that the U. S. holds agreements with both Britain and France, is a service from New York to Paris via London. Already undergoing observation flights for the civil aeronautics authority is one of Pan-American’s new 42-ton clipper boats, largest practical ship yet built. Carrying more than 50 passengers, complete even to a highly-publicized “bridal suite,” the new r clippers would make one flight a week in each direction at the start. Later, with more ships and experience, three weekly trips will be booked: People Demonstrated^ at Washington by Laurens Chicago inventor, a “novacord” piano-type instrument which reproduces sounds of most string and brass instruments. # Signed at Mexico City, by Cuba’s Col. Fulgencio Batista and Mexico’s Lazaro Cardenas, a pact to “defend democracy.” • Died at Washington, D. C., Frederick Steiwer, 55-year-old retired U. S. senator from Oregon, and 1936 G. O. P. keynoter at Cleveland. Pan-America German trade with Brazil grew by leaps and bounds last year thanks to the barter system, ie., German purchases were paid for with “askimarks,” which could be redeemed only by taking German goods in return. An upshot of December’s Pan-American conference was the realization that something must be done to safeguard U. S. trade with Brazil, crowded into second place by the aggressive Reich in 1938. Just arrived in Washington is Dr. Oswaldo Aranha, Brazilian foreign minister, for conversations expected to have four significant results: (1) U. S. financial assistance to Brazil via congressional loan, credits to American merchants or stabilization of Brazilian currency; (2) redivision of the world cotton market; (3) increase of U. S. sales to Brazil; (4) examination of mutual defense problems.

THE KANKAKEE VALLEY POST

Bruckart's Washington Digest Feeling of Unrest in Europe Reaches Our Side of Atlantic

Permeates Administration and, to Some Extent, Congress; Result Is Great and Increasing Mystery ; President’s Secrecy Approved; Facts About Plane Sales.

WNU Service, National Press Bldg., Washington, D. C.

WASHINGTON.—The feeling that has obsessed Europeans for weeks—that they are approaching toward some international crisis—seems to have spread to our side of the Atlantic. Right out of the air, so to speak, we are made to feel that great questions are about to take shape and that we, in this country, must be ready to decide them. The germ, or whatever it is, has taken up its domicile within our administration and, to some extent, in congress, and the result is great and increasing mystery. Most sources in Washington did not believe that the so-called settlement of the European crisis at Munich last September was, in fact, more than a stop-gap, as I reported to you at that time. The Munich failure has become more and more evident and the very atmosphere is charged again with exactly the same type of bated expectancy. In a general way, of course, we all know that the worldwide difference between the democratic forms of government and the dictatorships is at the bottom of the whole thing. We know, as well, that Hitler and Mussolini have challenged the European democracies by the boldness of their dictatorship actions in taking practically what they want in ffhe way of additions to their empires. We know, further, that the end decidedly is not yet insofar as the Hitler and Mussolini ambitions are to be considered. _ And wrapped up in all of this is the genuine friendship that the United States has for France and England. Beneath the surface, things have been going on in our own government. The President, the department of state and the military and naval services know what is taking place in Europe and they are advised as to what may be expected. Plans were being formed and developed so that steps could be taken here at the proper time. All of this was done in? more or less secrecy, as it always has to be done since public, discussion of such delicate matters could tilt us very easily from the frying pan into the fire. Genuine Danger of War, But Not Immediately Because of the necessity for avoiding wrong impressions which is a vital thing in international relations, President Roosevelt told the military affairs committee of the senate confidentially something of the inside story. I believe he did right in shielding those facts from general knowledge for no one knows how they could, or would, be distorted in German or Italian newspapers. But this air of mystery has backfired in a curious way. It has aroused certain portions of the country into a veritable frenzy—particularly, some members of congress—and they have seized upon a relatively- unimportant thing as their weapon in striking at Mr. Roosevelt’s foreign policy. They have jumped all over the President’s neck about the sale of airplanes to France, airplanes that were manufactured and are being manufactured by private plane builders and which are being sold for cash to the French government. It is made to appear that this is a terrible thing. The howlers are saying that Mr. Roosevelt has violated the spirit of the neutrality act and that he should never have given permission for the sale of the planes. There are other charges flying about, also, but they are unimportant here. I have dug into the situation as far as is possible, I believe, and I fail to get very much excited about the whole thing. There is, of course, the genuine danger of war, although I am not convinced that Europe is going to break out tomorrow. Sometime, probably, but not immediately. Such a clash of hopes and convictions and traditions and faith as obviously occurs between the philosophies of dictatorships and democracies is bound to lead to use of force but I think there is the probability that it is further away than this jittery feeling of the world now indicates. France y s Purchase of American-Made Airplanes To get back to this airplane thing, I should like to set out some of the facts. France is buying Americanmade airplanes—several hundred of them. She is doing this because her own airplane production has stalled and France has sufficient gold to buy them elsewhere. The French military service must have them in case there is that outbreak of force that seems so imminent on the surface for the reason that Germany and Italy are superior to France in the air. The contracts were let in this country after Mr. Roosevelt had talked over the whole question with his cabinet and with the war and navy departments and certain leaders of the airplane industry. They

By WILLIAM BRUCKART

were authorized after Ambassador Bullitt, in his reports from Paris, had laid bare the whole situation. I am told that Mr. Bullitt advised Mr. Roosevelt to treat the matter as a routine; that to talk much about it would excite people, unduly. Well, the Bullitt idea was working until the unfortunate accident out near Los Angeles when a big bombing plane fell, injuring a member of the French mission that is in this country buying the planes. Then, out popped the secret and out came the critics of the Roosevelt foreign policy. It is not within my power to say whether Mr. Roosevelts foreign policy is right or wrong. I do not believe anyone can tell yet. Any foreign policy is something of a gamble. If. it works, the author is a hero; if it fails, the author of the policy promptly is termed a sap. But of this phase, I can write; why should the howlers now arise and denounce the Presidents foreign policy on the basis of sales, of planes to France, when more than a year ago the British government began buying planes from our manufacturers? Why is it wrong to let the French buy and right to let the British buy? Or, to state the matter affirmatively, it seems to me that we cannot well differentiate between two nations with whom we have friendly relations. Foreign Policy Opposition Making Itself Look Foolish I do not regularly burn incense at the Roosevelt dais, but when I believe his opposition is making itself look foolish, I believe they ought to be called w r hat they are.' If they can show where the present foreign policies are ridiculous, now is their opportunity. If this criticism of Mr. Roosevelt were directed at his actions with respect to Spain or Japan, perhaps there would be something worth considering. It wall be recalled that the President persuaded plane manufacturers and many others as well to discontinue sales to. the Japanese for use against China. It . will be recalled also that indirect assistance was given the so-called loyalists in Spain, aid that surely must be looked upon—if done honestly—as help to the military forces although djsguised as provisions for those who suffered back of the lines. All of this was done while we have a neutrality act through which congress believed it was taking away certain powers from the Chief Executive., | So, I repeat that there is cause, it appears, for criticism of some of the President’s foreign policies, but it does not seem that critics have joined issue with the Chief Executive on any sound basis. I always have felt that there is too much secrecy in general governmental administration. Unimportant squirts, holding unimportant jobs, are forever and ever taking themselves seriously to the point where they would not admit it was pouring doy/n rain if it were raining cats and dogs. From that level of officialdom on up and dowm the line, one finds that sort of thing in our government. I saw a congressional committee chairman refuse, just the other day, to let newspaper men see a statement that he was inserting in the committee record, a record that is as public as the light of day It was silly, but it was typical. President Has Authority To Shape Foreign Policy When it comes to foreign relations, however, the situation is entirely different. The constitution, wisely enough, provides that such matters must be dealt with by the President. It allows him the power of negotiation but it curbs that power by requiring him to ask congress for a declaration of war. In other words, the President is provided with authority to shape and conduct the foreign policy, the dealings with foreign nations, but he must have the approval of congress, which represents the people, when the concluding phases of those negotiations are reached and the nation is about to be bound. That condition was arranged at the outset of our nation’s history. It has worked well.’ The rights of the people are amply protected. Think for a moment what the situation w’ould be if our foreign policies were in the hands of addlepated demagogues in the house or the senate! I hazard a guess that some of them would talk as long as Hitler did the other day and create just as much grief. So, I firmly believe there should be some secrecy about our foreign policy and that the President should have some liberties in working out arrangements with other governments. After all, any program that he has must eventually be published and debated by congress. 6 Western Newspaper Union.

CLASSIFIED DEPARTMENT

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Little Man Found More Trials Were to Come

A big man and a little man were having an argument on the bank of a canal. They got very hot about it.' At last, the big man said, “I could pick you up and throw you across the cut.” The little man replied: “You couldn’t. I bet you a dollar you couldn’t.” i The big man said> “Done,” picked him up, whirled him round, and pitched him righff into the middle. ° I The little man scrambled out, and said: “Where’s my dollar?” The other replied: “Dollar be blowed. I’m going to do it if I stay here all day.”

YOITTOO/SHOUIDTRY CREOMULSION For Coughs or Chest Colds Life Is Time Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of.—Franklin. AIIAIAMtFf For t!l0 Rel,ef due pependobleJj- o^^ The Bruise Weakens The least strength suffices to break what is bruised.—Ovid. t Children's Colds... Temporary Constipation may Increaaa the diecomfnf t of •ymptmni of Feverlah neaa. Headache, UpBat Stomach which frenuantly accompany early atagea W colds MOTHER GRAY’S SWEET POWDERS A mild laxative and carminative At all dragfhts. send for Free Sample and Walking DolL WNU—A 7—39 Ever Forward Forgetting those things that are behind I press on. Don’t Neglect Them! Nature designed the kidney* to do ft marvelous job. Their task is to keep the flowing blood stream free of an excess of toxic impurities. The act of living— life tlself —is constantly producing waste matter the kidneys must remove from the blood if good health is to endure. When the kidneys fail to function aa Nature intended, there is retention of waste that may cause body-wide distress. One may suffer nagging backache, persistent headache, attacks of dizziness, getting up nights, swelling, puffinesa under the eyes —feel tired, nervous, ail worn out. Frequent, scanty or burning passages msy be further evidence ©I Kidney or bladder disturbance. The recognized and proper treatment Is a diuretic medicine to help the kidneys set rid of excess poisonous body waste. ise Doans Pills. They have had mors than forty years of public approval. Are endorsed the country over. Insist on Doan's. Sold at all drug stores.