Syracuse-Wawasee Journal, Volume 3, Number 12, Syracuse, Kosciusko County, 23 February 1940 — Page 2

— Speaking of Sports Giant Chances Doubtful, Says Pilot Bill Terry By ROBERT McSHANE (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) JUST about a year and a half ago Manager Bill Terry of the New York Giants was growing very exuberant over the abilities of the newly acquired Zeke Bonura, first baseman extraordinary and harbinger of better days. Tetry’s enthusiasm wasn’t limited to Bonura. It was reflected in the complete Giant roster. Memphis Bill declared that his 1939 Giants were the most adroit, talented, dynamic and astonishing baseball players that it had been his good fortune to manage. The Giants did look that good when they were on the road during their western tour. It was their hottest streak, and one that saw them climb into second place. Bonura largely was responsible for the climb. His hitting was terrific. But he gradually cooled off after returning home. Truth of the matter was that Zeke couldn’t hit at the spacious Polo Grounds, where his long drives to left-center and center were just outs. But Terry had committed himself. The Giants were going to win the pennant. That the Giants failed to stay in the first division is now history. And Prophet Terry is a sadder, though wiser, man. Today the Giant pilot is a less venturesome long range forecaster. In a recent statement he admitted that “I haven’t the faintest idea where we’ll finish.” Problem Team “The Cards,” he drawled, “will be the toughest club in the league—tougher than the Reds. I’m not conceding any pennant to anyone. I don’t like to pick any team to win the pennant unless it is the Giants and this year—well, I don’t know.” The voice of Polo field also admits;. that the Giants are shot full of problems. Bonura is a dead issue in Terry’s book. He wants to. sell him, but Can’t find ready bidders. The Washington Senators are willing to take Zeke for the waiver price of $7,500, and the Philadelphia Phillies have offered cash and one x \ A Al / CARL HUBBELL player. But Terry insists that Zeke is worth that ipuch to the Giants even if he “only sits on the bench.” Bonura’s better-than-average salary won’t help him get a job on another major league club. Terry once hoped to send him to Pittsburgh, but the Pirates weren’t interested. Zeke has a big following in Chicago, and the Cubs might give him a chance, but when he came to the Giants there was an understanding between the White Sox, where he began his major league career, and Clark Griffith of Washington, that the big Italian would not be sold to the Cubs. The White Sox wanted this understood before they wafved on him. Terry expects Carl Hubbell to win 18 games this year, and has a large share of confidence in Pitchers Hal Schumacher, Cliff Melton, Harry Gumbert and Bill Lohrman. Giant Roster Asked about Paul Dean, the onetime St., Louis star drafted by the Giants from Columbus of the American association, Terry said it was nothing more than a long shot. “He pitched against us five innings last summer and had as much stuff as I ever saw. We got reports that he could go like a whirlwind in the association, too, for five or six innings. I I figured he would make us a good relief man.” Terry counts on Babe Young to play first base in Zeke’s place. Mickey Witek, purchased from Newark, is slated for second; Bill . Jurges will be back at short, and third base is wide open. Glen Stewart seems to be the favored candidate. Other jobs are filled by Catcher Harry Danning and Outfielders Mel Ott, Frank Demaree and probably Joe Moore. The third base struggle will be interesting. It narrows down to a free-for-all between Stewart, Alban Glossop, brought up from Jersey City, and Lou Chiozza. Chiozza, who was put out of action last season with a broken leg, will get first call if Ids leg has healed, but Stewart will start the season. feookie Johnny Rucker will get a trial in the outfield, and it’s “up to Joe Moore if Joe Moore plays the outfield in 1940.” The quotes are Terry’s, and it is doubtful that Moore will be replaced in the outfield.

LOS ANGELES.—Frank Frisch will be headed this way soon, bringing the Pirates out here to train, making his comeback as a big-league manager after a year’s absence from the lists. Just before I left New York 1 sat around with Frank one night and among the things we talked about were the days he broke in with the Giants under John McGraw. It was 20 years ago that Frank first went to a training camp but he remembers it all clearly. This is a good break for the young players who will report to him at the Pirate camp—just as it was for the rookies who came up under him when he managed the Cardinals. You see, with 20 years of success as a player and manager behind him he hasn’t forgotten when he was a rookie and had to fight for a job. He remembers that he, too, was a prey to all the misgivings that assail a kid when he finds himself tussling for a job with smarter, more experienced rivals. He Had Been Around “To begin with, I was lucky,” he said. “I joined the Giants in June of 1919 and spent the rest of the season with them. I broke into quite a few games as a pinch hitter or runner or as a replacement for Larry Doyle at second base and I was under fire in an important series. That was the six-game series -three successive double-headers —with the Reds at the Polo Grounds that really clinched the pennant for the . Jo* "Wftl FRANK FRISCH Reds. Doyle played the first two games, I played the next two and then he went back. “So I had some experience and had been arouAd long enough to know McGraw and the ball club by the time I got to San Antonio in the spring of 1920. But I still didn’t know what it was all about. “No young ball player can learn much in less than one full season. Looking back now, it seems to me that it was a long time before I learned anything. All I had on my side at San Antonio that spring were speed and willingness. I didn’t know how to play for hitters, but I usually could get in front of the ball and knock it down with my chest and pick it up and throw the hitter out. Somebody said about Pepper Martin a few years ago that if his chest held out he would make a good third baseman. That’s what I said about myself long before that. Moved to Third Base “You see, McGraw switched me to third base that spring. I had played shortstop at Fordham and broken in with the Giants as a substitute for Doyle at second, but during the winter Heinie Zimmerman, our third baseman, had been released,' so Mac moved me to third. “One of the first things he did was to tell me to throw away the glove I had and order a new one. My old glove wasn’t much bigger than a kid glove—a little, thin thing with no pocket in it, but Mac got a glove for me with which I could at least knock the ball down, and that gave me some protection. “Then he worked with me every day. He taught me hew to make my moves—when to play in, back, or half way—how to break for a ball—how to get it away with the least possible delay. There were days when I couldn’t seem to do anything right and I’d worry and fret, but he never lost patience with me. He not only gave me lessons in how to play third base but he also taught me how to work with a young ball player. “What’s the main difference in conditions as the rookies find them nowadays and as they were when you came up, Frank?” I asked. “They’re easier,” he said. “Kids come up faster and, although they are better paid, managers don’t seem to expect so much of them. In my time as a rookie, ‘you were just a fellow looking for a job. “You had to make your own way and get to know the other fellows as best you could. Nowadays they take a young fellow around and introduce him to everybody to make him feel at home. “I can’t say that anybody ever was disagreeable to me when 1 broke in—l came after the period in which the older players wouldn’t speak to the rookies and chased them away from the plate in batting practice. But today the other players are more helpful than they were when I broke In.”

WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS BY JOSEPH W, LaBINE Roosevelt Peace Bid May Delay Spread of European Conflict; Near Eastern Crisis Continues (EDITOR’S NOTE—When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) Released by Western Newspaper Union.

[ Bk GERMAN-OWNED KRUPP SHIPYARDS AT ISTANBUL Did this give the President an idea?

INTERNATIONAL: Mounting Trouble New war threats were spreading fast the day Franklin Roosevelt acted. The situation was especially explosive in the Balkans and the Near East. Turkey had seized the Ger-man-owned Krupp shipyards at Istanbul harbor (see photo above), ousted more than 100 Nazis and announced a sabotage plot against the Turkish navy had been nipped. Russia fortified her Turkish border, fearing a thrust against her oil resources. Greece’s Premier John Metaxas warned solemnly that his nation was being drawn into war’s meshes, making particular reference to the British-French troop concentrations along Russia’s near eastern frontier. (About 100,000 colonial British troops from New Zealand and Australia, originally bound for the western front, were dropped instead at Suez and dispersed to near eastern posts.) There seemed a general direction to this agitation. Even Italy, long an enemy of Turkey, was reported framing a trade pact with Istanbul, drawing Rome closer to Turkey’s friends, France and Britain. Italy is already close to the Balkan entente, which over the week-end had wooed and won Bulgaria away from Russian influence. It all meant that southeastern Europe and the Near East were being mobilized either (1) ■ HF' m kX'-sI til house and Welles A repetition of 1916? for defense against threatened Soviet-German aggression, or (2) for an allied-sponsored drive against the Russian oil wells which are supplying Germany. (Supplies will come faster than ever now, because the Reich and Soviet signed a trade pact whereby Moscow will swap oil and ores for German machinery.) Peaceßid Peace was already in the air when Franklin Roosevelt acted. A few days earlier there were persistent rumors that the Reich would offer peace terms to the League of Nations economic committee meeting in The Hague. But this was nebulous compared to Franklin Roosevelt’s action. Unexpectedly, as is his publicitywise wont, he announced that UnderNAMES in the news ... C. A Syracuse (N. Y.) university student analyzed speeches of great men, finding the pronoun ’T” used once every 53 words by=ASolkHitler; once every 83 by Benito Mussolini; once every 100 words by Franklin Roosevelt; once every 249 words by Neville Chamberlain. <L The senate approved President Roosevelt’s nominations of Marriner Eccles as federal reserve board chairman, and Chester Davis as a board member. <L At Detroit, it was reported Archbishop Mooney had warned Rev. Charles E. Coughlin, radio priest, against controversial broadcasts on political and racial topics. At the Vatican it was the development brought no displeasure. <L At Cairo, the Egyptian government announced its Queen Farida is expecting the birth of a second child late in March. C Ex-President Herbert Hoover, addressing Chicago Jewry, pictured the highlands of central Africa as a refuge for 10,000,000 victims of war and persecution.

SYRACUSE-WAWASEE JOURNAL

secretary of State Sumner Welles would leave immediately to visit Berlin, Rome, London, Paris and neutral centers, seeking a meeting ground for peace. Presidential critics frowned, remembering the last time a Democratic chief executive sent warring Europe such an envoy: That was in 1916, when Woodrow Wilson’s Col. Edward House failed to win peace, but brought home instead the makings of U. S. embroilment in the war. The President did two more things. He ordered his special envoy to the Vatican, Steelman Myron C. Taylor, to get going at once in the hope he could work for peace. Then he addressed the pinkish American Youth congress, for the first time denouncing publicly the Soviet invasion of Finland. He also took a light slap at Adolf Hitler. Anti-Rooseveltians were quick to criticize. This meant Sumner Welles would visit European capitals whose rulers already knew on which side of the fence the U. S. administration stood. On the other hand, however, why was it sinful for Ahe President of a Christian democracy to criticize the rape of Finland? Within a few days reactions began trickling in from Europe. Most nations were “interested”; France even expected Adolf Hitler to postpone his scheduled western front offensive until after Peacemaker Welles has come and gone. The Wars Northern Front. United Press' Webb Miller left the Finnish front for the first time in more than two months, sending an uncensored dispatch from Stockholm. High points: (1) Russia's Karelian isthmus drive was at last bogging down; (2) fast foreign planes were arriving in large numbers to aid the Finns; (3) plans are already underway to “blackout” the nation with bog fires next summer; (4) the Russian army is not so slovenly as most of the world believes. Western Front. French frontier posts bombarded the Germans—with loudspeakers blasting propaganda. CONGRESS: New Taxes? Forwarded to the President was the first evidence of congress’ rebellion, an emergency national defense bill from which had been lopped about $20,000,000. Os six appropriations measures handled thus far, a total of $260,000,000 had been cut, the latest being a $100,000,000 item from the billion-dollar navalexpansion program. But it was the same old story of house slashes and senate restorations. The independent offices bill was passed by the senate after restoring $39,50''. 000 of the approximate $95,00( 000 deducted by the house. Meanwhile agitation grew for senate additions to the farm bill, from which the house had cut $66,000,000. Not only did the farm bloc want this money restored; it also wanted $200,000,000 for parity payments, an item from which the President has kept hands off. If these tactics continue, leaders see little hope of avoiding the $460,000,000 tax levy which will be necessary if the national debt limit is not to be raised. Also in congress: CThe reciprocal trade treaty act was approved for continuation by the house ways and means committee. If passed, it would let the administration retain the right to make trade pacts without congressional consent. <LThe senate foreign relations committee, still working on a bill to aid Finland by boosting the Export-Im-port bank’s working capital, planned to pigeon-hole proposals for an economic embargo against Japan. Since China would also get a loan if the Export-Import bill were adopted, Japan would be slapped anyway. Sentiment also grew for the proposal to let Finland purchase military supplies with the money she has paid on her war debt. Meanwhile, Nebraska’s Sen. George W. Norris asked the nation to impose “moral” embargoes on Japan and Russia.

AGRICULTURE: Tobacco Ban? Sorely hurt were American tobacco farmers when Great Britain slapped a ban on imports of U. S. leaf. Reasons: (1) Britain needed her ships’ cargo space for war supplies; (2) Britain was wooing Turkey, which also had tobacco for sale. After several weeks of negotiations, Secretary of Commerce Harry Hopkins announced he thought the ban would soon be lifted. Britain’s action was no violation of the reciprocal trade treaty, it was decided, therefore no protest was possible on these grounds. But Mr. Hopkins figured the British government had to do something to halt the declining revenues from import duties, and to replenish declining stocks in British warehouses. Whether this announcement was based on wishful thinking or actual negotiations, no one but Mr. Hopkins could tell. But observers wondered how Britain could be expected to turn against Turkey at this stage of the diplomatic game. YOUTH: Pinkish Congress Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, its best friend, was in the audience when the American Youth Congress bpened its convention in Washington. As the congress made news, so did Eleanor Roosevelt. First shock came when the convention ejected the First Lady’s first cousin, young Archibald Roosevelt Jr., when he attempted to introduce a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Finland. This gave credence to the common belief that the congress is pinkish, but Mrs. Roosevelt will not believe it. Said she of her first cousin: “I think it is peculiar to get up in a meeting with an arranged program and say, ‘I want to speak.’ ” Next day the Roosevelts began a two-day campaign to straighten out their young friends. The President Jl!!| IH \\ U ■ MRS. ROOSEVELT Her cousin was peculiar. denounced Russia (see INTERNATIONAL). His wife said she knew all the arguments in favor of the Soviet invasion, having heard them from “her Communist friends.” But she still thought America’s sympathies should be with Finland. Still true to its pinkish past, the congress adjourned amid cheers, yells and stomping for continued American neutrality. COURTS: Omnipotent NLRB Earlier this winter the U. S. Supreme court opined that the Wagner labor act’s chief trouble was not in its administration by NLRB, but rather in the excessively broad scope of power delegated by congress to NLRB. This month, without saying as much, the high court intimated again that something ought to be done. Reviewed was a circuit court of appeals decision which reversed an NLRB ruling. Case involved the Waterman Steamship company, and was the outgrowth of A. F. of L.C. I. O. friction. It was the old story of company favoritism toward A. F. of L. and NLRB favoritism toward C. I. 0., but that was beside the point. The Supreme court ruled that federal courts have no right to substitute their own judgment for that of NLRB, a decision which left NLRB so powerful that congress will probably be jarred into clipping NLRB’s wings. POLITICS: G. O.P.Up Front Having named Chicago as their convention site, Democrats took a back seat to the Republicans in midFebruary, the G. O. P. launching its attack with a coast-to-coast series of Lincoln day speeches. Meanwhile Washington hummed with activity as the Republican national committee met to choose its convention site, chances being 100 to 1 that Chicago would get the bid. Possible convention dates: G. O. P., June 18; Democrats, July 2, providing a rousing July Fourth celebration which might end in Franklin Roosevelt’s renomination. ASIA: New Crisis What may be the prelude to a new Oriental crisis took place in Tokyo during mid-February. Japan government announced abrogation of its arbitration treaty with The Netherlands, leading observers to believe she may be contemplating expansion into Dutch-dominated South Pacific. Moreover, there was continued talk of abrogating the worthless nine-power pact guaranteeing China’s territorial integrity.

Bruckart*s Washington Digest 1940 Congress Sets the Stage For Executive-Legislative Battle Both Republican and Democratic Congressional Members Are Ready for Tussle Over President Roosevelt’s Budget and Spending Plans.

By WILLIAM BRUCKART WNU Service, National Press Bldg., Washington, D. C. WASHINGTON. — Congress soon will have completed the second month of its 1940 meeting and the most significant thing to come out of the session is a situation containing all of the elements necessary for another good battle between the legislative and executive branches of the government. It is much too early to enter a forecast President Roosevelt and his opponents—Democrats and Republicans—will come to grips. But a slip of even small caliber on the President’s part would throw him into the path of a substantial section of the congressional membership. That is exactly what some of the opponents hope will happen. It is, conceivably, a thing which Mr. Roosevelt and the New Dealers hope will be avoided. The condition stems from Mr. Roosevelt’s budget message. As I

reported to you early in January, the President’s budget declarations sounded real. A good many folks suggested, however, that these pronouncements had come at the very beginning of the session and predicted a change in the scenery before the end. Those observers appeared to feel that the

President Roosevelt

President was playing a bit of oolitics with the general subject of economy—spending. But congress, generally, decided :o take the President at his word. ‘lf,” they appeared to be saying, ‘the President really wants economy; if he wants to reduce government spending, boy, oh! boy, we will be with him in a big way.” So it has come to pass that the President’s own proposal conceivably can throw him into a place where plainly he does not wish to be, at least from a political standpoint. Heretofore, it will be recalled, there have been frequent declarations for reduction in government spending and each time it overcome by backdoor operations of New Dealers. Economy-Minded Legislators Dominate Scene As far as the play has progressed on the open stage, the economyminded members of the house and the senate appear to dominate the scene. They have cut deeply into several of the President’s pet projects. They have cut, or have proposed to cut, deeply into the President’s program for national defense for which Mr. Roosevelt had ideas costing billions as against former years when the cost of army and navy development was measured in hundreds of millions. Moreover, the legislators have shown courage in nicking agricultural spending for a good many millions, and that hurt Secretary Wallace and his crew. Now all of this has been going on when the “inner circle” of New Dealers still are clamoring for continuation of the fun they have been having in spending taxpayers’ money. There is some doubt, too, that Mr. Roosevelt has changed over completely. Attention might be called in this connection to the fact that, in the national budget itself, Mr. Roosevelt left numerous avenues of escape from what appeared to be a definite commitment towards retrenchment as stated in the budget message. Secretary Wallace touched off the match on one of these. Mr. Roosevelt said the agriculture appropriations had been squeezed down by the budget bureau to the very limit. If the funds were sufficient, according to the President, there had to be a continuation of good business. A good many of the folks in the department of agriculture have been saying both publicly and privately that the volume of business is going to slide off during the late winter arid spring. Thus, more money will be needed. Wallace Wants Share Os Government Spending In the complaints by Secretary Wallace is another tipoff. The secretary feels that there is no logic in cutting the total expenses of the government completely out of his share of the swag. He fails to understand STAGE IS SET While William Bruckart feels it is a bit too early to make a definite forecast that the President and congress will come to blows over governmental items like the budget, economy, waste, and spending, he feels that congress has set the stage for such a battle. Naturally, the President doesn’t want such a battle but his opponents don’t mind, says Bruckart.

why the cuts have not been made proportionately ip amounts of estimates for other agencies of government. I think he has his teeth in ,W y, W V! I Si&HK ■. ■ . SECRETARY WALLACE something, there; but why pass over this point to suggest that if and when the congressional enthusiasm for economy wanes it will be easier to vote money for the agriculture program than for any other. It is just plain good politics. I imagine many members of the house and the senate feel that way, too. They believe they can always find justification for voting money to farmers. While none can say definitely what goes on in the President’s mind, there are many who believe Mr. Roosevelt would have preferred to see congress raise the present debt limit from $45,000,000,000 to $50,000,000,000, rather than take him so seriously on the suggested reduction in spending. It seems logical. He offered three propositions in his message: retrenchment in expenditures, raising the debt limit, and laying new taxes. Now, most Anybody knows that congress will do very little about new taxes in an election year. That left a choice between the curtailment of spending and raising the debt limit. The debt limit is more than just a"*sore spot. It is practically a carbuncle on the neck" of congress, because there are so many thousands of letters coming in as a warning against getting the nation further into debt. Nothing was left, therefore, but the program that would reduce available funds for the fun-loving spenders. These things present a picture which seems to show that the President’s strategy may have failed. That is to say, he may have expected that congress would take the proposition of raising the debt limit as the easiest way out of its dilemma. It is sheer conjecture, of course; yet it has a basis in any sound analysis of what has happened. President Is Missing Economy ‘Sound Waves* Undoubtedly, however, the President’s advisors have failed to catch the sound waves that are reaching congress from '‘back home.” There is a tremendously heavy mail on the subject of waste and spending and debt, arriving in congressional offices. This reaction is highly important. It reveals something morri than just a desire on the part of many voters to see' the' government spending brought within bounds. It discloses, I believe, quite a definite trend away from New Deal ideals, because somehow, there is a growing conviction in many sections of the country that it is the reforms that are costing ffioney. This word from home has resulted thus far in offsetting the great pressure of various groups who are vociferous in their demands for more money. We had a flock of young voters—the American Youth Congress—around town ten days ago, and their leaders were unanimous in their calls for ‘‘more money. They were as well trained as any college cheering section that I ever have seen. Os course, they may win out yet, but at the moment they are not winning much support for added money. As of this time, then, congress surely has gone forward in a most determined fashion to cut off some of the excess spending. It has resisted pressure thus far. The battle lines are well formed—thus far. But, as I said at the beginning, one cannot predict with finality concerning the course of congressional temper when primaries are getting closer. The things to watch for are these: as time goes on and the days of the session beebme fewer, will there be a lot of messages from the President, asking 4 few hundred thousands here, a few millions for over there, a hundred-odd million for something else? Such as these were not included in the budget. They will be an extjra, added attraction, as the circus press agent says.