SEEN and HEAR )4 around the -3 NATIONAL CAPITAL! By Carter Field ^ FAMOUS WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT J Washington. — The taxpayers of the United States are subsidizing the gold miners of the world. The Treas ury is paying somewhere between $2 and $5 an ounce more for gold than the rest of the world thinks it is worth. Washington is practically the only buyer of gold in the world at the moment, leaving out the gold actually used in certain in dustries. The answer is simple. We are getting all the gold mined in the world because we are willing to pay more for it than any one else thinks it is worth. The British empire is the chief beneficiary, as it produces about 55 per cent of the world’s total. Soviet Russia has risen to second place, about 28 per cent. There is nothing picayunish about this sub sidy. The United States Treasury is buying right now at the rate of al most $1,400,000,000 a year. To make it worse, the govern ment is highly embarrassed by this flood of gold. It is so explosive from the inflationary standpoint that the Treasury has been "sterilizing" it To do that the government must sed short term obligations, on which it must pay interest, to get the dol lars to buy the gold it wants to “sterilize." These short term obliga tions in themselves tend toward in flation, but they also tend to boost interest rates, and in turn to de press government bond prices. Both these lead in a vicious circle towards higher interest rates for other money the government must borrow. As the government is now running on a basis which indicates a $3,000,000,000 deficit this year, this situation also is far from picayunish. Depression of bond prices is a dangerous signal to all banks, so the problem is what to do about it. Would Mean Big Loss One suggestion, which has raised cain in the world's money marts during the last month, is for the United States to reduce the price of gold to $32 or even $30 an ounce. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr., opposes this be cause of the loss the Treasury would then take— amounting to more than one and two-thirds billion dollars. It is not likely to be accepted. Another proposal is for the gov ernment simply to stop buying gild. Objection is made that this would throw the rest of the world into a state of financial jitters. It would certainly stop a lot of foreign buy ing of commodities from this coun try. It is the dollars obtained by selling gold to the Treasury that finances these experts in consider able part. That solution would seem to fit in, however, with President Roosevelt’s views about prices, which in many instances have soared because of foreign buying. In fact, it is a solu tion which is being urged very strongly, especially as it would in volve no paper loss to the Treasury. But it might, say its critics, prove far too drastic a curb on the boom which had been pushing prices up too rapidly. This remedy might be worse than the disease. Much worse. It might even be better to continue paying a subsidy of from $150,000, 000 to $200,000,000 a year to the gold miners than to risk it. There is some talk also of a free gold market once more—letting it really find its own level. Critics of that say they are not sure what would happen if the only big buyer of the world suddenly stepped out of the picture. Some even suggest no other government would care to buy gold—that it might drop to its commercial value, with Uncle Sam holding the bag—just as he did on silver. The chief difference between gold and silver in this subsidy business, aside from the volume, is that the Treasury is paying its subsidy only to silver miners inside the United States. It is paying most of its gold subsidy to foreigners. Big Disappointment Perhaps the biggest disappoint ment opponents of President Roose velt on the Supreme court enlarge ment plan have had was the special congressional election in Texas, where Lyndon B. Johnson, the can didate one hundred per cent for the President, was decisively vic torious. It was so disappointing because it was the action of the Texas legislature, coming so swiftly after the first announcement of the court program, which so heartened the senators and members of the house who were against '‘tampering" with the court. In fact, during the few days that intervened between the first an nouncement and the heavy majority cast in both branches of the Texas legislature disapproving the Presi dent’s plan, there was no hope in Washington on the part of critics that they could beat it. But then folks began recalling the League of Nations fight, which start ed out with only two open treaty "killers" and wound up in complete victory for opponents of the league. They began hoping that the country would manifest its opposition in the same way—that every special elec tion would show that the people were against the President. Outside of the special election for the legislature in New York state, however, there have been few signs pointing in that direction. There seems to be no doubt that a very large number of persons are op poser1 to the President, including not only those who opposed him in the last election, but many who warmly supported the New Deal in that fight. But there is nothing to prove that this number of opponents is formidable enough to force the switching over of senators now in tending to vote for the President’s plan. Timid Senators It is necessary to bear in mind, in appraising the importance of these signs from the country, that there are enough senators opposed to the court enlargement plan to de feat it by a wide margin if they dared vote their private sentiments. One senator from a Middle West ern state went to one of the leading opponents, who happens to be a very forceful orator, and urged that orator to make a few speeches in the Middle Western senator’s state. “If you would Just make that speech you just made in half a dozen cities in my state,” said the Middle Westerner, “I think I would be able to vote with you on the final roll call. I think you could convince enough of my constituents that there is real danger of a future dictator ship in this country involved in this court packing plan to make it safe for me to go along with you. The point is that now I am afraid not to go along with the President." Most of the senators sitting on the fence of course are not so frank about it. But there are very few sitting on the fence who would not like to be sure that they could vote against the President without risk ing their political futures. Unfortunately for the President’s opponents, however, the breaks do not seem to be going that way. Which makes the chances of the President getting his way—unless retirements should smooth the way to a compromise—considerably bet ter than before that Texas special election. Justices to Retire Supreme court "grapevines” are notoriously unreliable, but here is one that some of the administration leaders are highly encouraged about. It is that at a recent con ference of the nine justices, two announced to their colleagues that at the conclusion of the present term—early in June—they would re tire. Further, the "grapevine” reports that the two were from the follow ing three names: Justices Louis D. Brandeis, Willis Van Devanter and George Sutherland. The first of these is beyond ques tion the most liberal member of the court, has approved more of the New Deal’s progressive pieces of legislation than any other. In fact, the only two Roosevelt moves he voted to disapprove were N. R. A. and the removal of a federal trade commissioner—William E. Humph rey. The other two, Van Devanter and Sutherland, have almost invariably voted with the conservative side when the division was anything like close. They are exceeded in their conservatism only by Justice James Clark McReynolds. So that retirement of either of them would swing the court to the liberal side on all questions which have been decided against the ad ministration by five to four de cisions. The removal by retirement of both would swing the court to the administration side on all decisions which have been against the pro posed laws by six to three decisions. Hand-Picked Successor The point here is that whether Justice Brandeis should retire or not makes no difference in such cal culations. He practically always votes liberal anyhow. If he retired he would be replaced by a hand picked justice whose whole record and statements of views would have been gone over with a fine tooth comb by New Dealers. So that the only changes that would really count would be replacements of justices listed now on the conserva tive side, or in the middle of the road class. It is also a fact that the end of the present term of court will come —in all probability—before the sen ate can reach a vote on the Su preme court enlargement bill. Thus the retirements, providing they are announced at that time as the “grapevine” indicates, would sup ply an excellent excuse for the Pres ident not to compel the senate to hold a roll call on the measure at all. There is no authority for the statement that the President would accept these court changes in lieu of his proposed bill, but such lead ers on Capito! Hill as heard about this “grapevine” express the view privately that Mr. Roosevelt would not insist on his bill if the natural course of events provides this op portunity to change the economic complexion of the court without forcing through a measure which is so disrupting to his own party lines. C Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service. n EIjoxk |SOVL{ Iacilv I * Browsing Among Books an Outdoor Sport in Boston. ! Prepared by National Geographic Society, Washington, D. C.—WNlLScrvice. STUDY Boston from the high tower of the customhouse. It looks down on that cobweb maze of narrow, crooked streets which marks the "city lim its" of bygone days, when cows grazed on the Common and clipper ships traded with China and Bom bay. In the shadow of modern struc tures squat many old-style shops and "countinghouses,” already weather-beaten when John Hancock was governor. To Boston these are more than obsolete architecture; they are symbols of her busy, au dacious youth when she built and sailed our first merchant fleet. Modern Boston sprawls over more than 1,000 square miles and counts some 2,300,000 people in her metro politan district. Much of that is in the pattern of other American cities. But the old Boston, so like parts of ancient London, is unique in the United States. Come down from the tower now and see how certain of these streets are devoted to a particular enter prise. This one smells of hides and leather; along that one you see only the gilded signs of shoe manufactu turers. One section smells of fish, another of wool, and here is a wharf fragrant with bananas. Tu,rn up the hill toward the vener able Transcript, with its columns of genealogy, and you smell newsprint, fresh ink, roasting coffee, and sec ond-hand books stacked in the open air—any book from Gray’s “Elegy” to “Anthony Adverse.” Even the odd wording of sign boards harks back to earlier days. "Victualers License,” "Spa,” “Pro tection Department,” not fire depart ment, and street-car signs in quaint, stilted English. Old trades cling to old places. The Old Oyster House, live lobsters wrig gling in its window tanks, stands just as it was a hundred years ago. Aged Carver of Pipes. Before a window at 30 Court street crowds watch a wrinkled artist carve pipes. At eighty-seven, wear ing no glasses, he works as skill fully as when he began, seventy years ago. Monk, Viking, and In dian heads, skulls, lions, dogs—he makes them all. Give him your picture and he will cut its likeness on a meer schaum bowl. For a Kentucky horse man he carved the image of that rider’s favorite mount; he even carved the “Battle of Bunker Hill” with 50 brier figures on one big pipel Five workmen in pipe stores here abouts have a total service of more than 200 years. “A man is on trial until he has been here 25 years” is a favorite joke in one shop. Quietly another o 1 d sculptor works, making “ancient” idols, rel lics of the Stone Age, even a "petri fied man” for a circus in Australia! Turn back and walk through the cathedral-like First National bank and look at its compelling murals, with their dramatic themes of merchant adventures by land and sea or study the fascinating exhibit of historic ships’ models in the State Street Trust company. Then talk with men whose fam ilies for generations have helped shape Boston’s destiny, and you be gin to sense what significant events, affecting all America, are packed in her 300 years of history. Boston cash and engineering skill built several of the great railway systems of America. Chicago stock yards, to a large degree, were built by men from Boston. She founded the great copper-mining industry in our West; she was the early home of many corporations, famous now in the annals of finance, foreign trade, construction, and manufac turing. It was Boston brains and money that started the great telegraph and telephone systems that now girdle the globe. Miraculously, almost, she turned the jungles of Central America and the Caribbean isles into vast banana plantations, and built up the greatest fruit industry j the world knows. Bostonians Pioneered West. From Boston went groups of thrifty, energetic men to share in I the conquest of the West. To Kansas, especially, many colonists were sent by the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid company to circumvent the rise of another slave state under the Kan sas-Nebraska act. Lawrence, Kansas, is named for art old Boston family, and many a budding Midwest factory town drew its first artisans from that national training school for skilled mechan ics which is New England. Descendants of these pioneers form part of the army of 2,000,000 visitors, more or less, who flock back to Boston each season and swarm out to the historic towns about it. They want to see the old places where their ancestors lived, and spots famous in the annals of early days: Bunker Hill monument; Faneuil hall; the site of the Boston Tea Party; Old North church; Paul Revere’s house; the tomb of Mother Goose; the site of the Boston Mas sacre; the sacred codfish in the Statehouse; and near-by Plymouth Rock, Concord, and Lexington, and the Witch House at Salem. Today Boston prints more books than when she was pre-eminently a "literary center.” Manuscripts pour in to her editors. Novels, carloads of dictionaries, and schoolbooks in Spanish and English, Sanskrit and Eskimo, are shipped from here, of ten to markets as remote as Bagh dad. Her Golden Age of letters, when Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes and Lowell used to frequent the Old Corner Book Store, passed with the rise of New York as a market for manuscripts. But curious visitors still seek out Emerson’s old home at Concord; they prowl through the country house of Louisa M. Alcott—admis sion 25 cents—and drop a tear for “Little Women.” For another 25 cents they see the “House of Seven Gables” at Salem. In American letters Dana’s “Two Years Before the Mast,” Melville’s “Moby Dick” or “Typee,” and the brilliant historical work of Prescott, Parkman, Fiske, and Bancroft must long endure, as will other names, from Edward Everett Hale, author of “The Man Without a Country,” and Julia Ward Howe, who wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” to Thoreau and John Boyle O’Reilly. From Boston still come important magazines for both adults and youths. But it is the stupendous output of textbooks which astonishes. You can imagine the volume when you stop to think that between 25 and 30 million American children alone are enrolled in schools; that they must have some 70,000,000 books when schools open each Sep tember, and that Boston is one of the chief textbook-producing cen ters in the world. World Center for Textbooks. “There are many schoolbooks,” said an official of a publishing com pany, “whose sales make that ol a popular novel look diminutive. They are handled not in dozens of boxes, but in carloads of 40,000 pounds each. “While some of our novels, ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ and ‘Rebecca of Sun nybrook Farm,’ for example, have sold more than half a million each, our little school pamphlets such as ‘Evangeline’ and ‘The Courtship of Miles Standish' have sold at the rate of a million a year. “The task of getting sufficient schoolbooks ready to meet the sud den demand every September, when orders come in at the last minute by wire, means that publishers usually begin printing these books as long as ten months ahead.” “Books made in Boston are sent everywhere that English is used in schools," said another publisher. “More than that; in translation, they go to scores of foreign lands. Re cently orders came from Baghdad for thousands of our Craig’s ‘Path ways in Science.’ Arabic transla tions of Brcasted’s ‘Ancient Times’ and a number of our other books are used in the schools of Iraq. Not long ago we granted the govern ment of Iraq permission to translate Caldwell and Curtis’ Introduction to Science’ into Arabic. “You know that the British Isles are a citadel of the classics. We feel gratified, therefore, that our series, ‘Latin for Today’ is now in wide use in Scotland and England. These volumes are the authorized books in New Zealand and at least one of the states of Australia, be sides being much used in South Af rica. "Latin America is today using carloads of Boston textbooks. They are Spanish readers, geographies, arithmetics, hygiene books, al gebras, geometries, and others. “In Ottawa I saw a wall map with tiny flags that marked the sites of Indian schools; many were up within the Arctic Circle. All these schools use our books. This summer we had to hurry one new book through for publication early in Au gust so we might get it to these schools before ice closed naviga tion to the Far North.” If-1 “I Want My Man” By MARTHA SAMPSON © McClure Newspaper Syndicate. WNU Service. THE town gossip, known as “Old Ironsides” because of her heavy steel braces, seated herself in the cane rocker in Mrs. Jones’ kitchen. “Don’t you just love the smell of newly-baked bread?” she asked ex uberantly, her beady black eyes swimming richly and her heavy face beaming. “Yes,” replied the demure Mrs. Jones, lifting a pan of bread from the stove. “But I’m rather glad to see this is the last loaf.” “Yes, I suppose you are,” sym pathized the gossip. “Now you can sit down and rest a while and we’ll chat a bit about things.” Little Mrs. Jones seated herself very gently on the edge of a kitchen chair while “Old Ironsides” rocked expectantly. Mrs. Jones turned her head undecidedly for a few mo ments, and then began: “I think it’s a shame the way the girls carry on today. Why, you’d never believe how silly they are until you have one of your own. Take that Sadie of mine, now—why, from morning till night that child hasn’t a sen sible thing in her head. She gets up in the morning with just a few min utes to spare; she slips on a few flimsy rags and plasters on some paint and calls herself clothed. She drinks a cup of coffee and chews a bit of toast and calls herself fed; and then she rushes qff to the train as fast as her spindle legs can take her. She goes into the office and types all day; but I doubt if she puts a moment’s thought on her work; it’s all on parties and dances. I don’t see how she can give a respectable day’s work to her boss. And the hussy tells me all the girls are the same.” This was Mrs. Jones’ usual tale of woe, and when she concluded it, she heaved a sigh of relief. The buxom gossip leaned forward on her elbows. “It’s a fact; that’s all they do. I’ve been around to all the ladies of the neighborhood and they’re all complainin’. Now take that daughter of yourn, what is she aimed for? It’s a shore thing she ain’t following no career or studyin’ for no profession. Her mot to is that of the rest of the shop and office girls, ‘I want my man.’ “Take that Ellie Brown from down the road away. She was one of those office girls, trottin’ off to the city every day, runnin’ out to dances and parties. She kept going pretty fast—too fast, according to some of the stories that were going around, outlandish stories that I wouldn’t have told of no kith nor kin of mine; and I’m glad I ain’t got no chick or child in these wild times—but she managed to hook up with this Jimmy fellow, and let me tell you that this Jimmy boy is about the same type, travels fast and light-hearted. “They’re all up to it. It ain’t like it use tuh be when we was young. But the certain shame of it is that these wild girls get the men. Now if for some reason they stopped get ting the men, they’d tone down a bit; but with the men coming free and easy, everything's hunky-dory with them.” “Yes,” sighed Mrs. Jones. "I sup pose it’s all true. I suppose that’s all Sadie’s aiming for; and she doesn’t care about anything else. But I’m anxious as to whether or not she’ll get a decent man—you hear so much about these heart breaking sheiks now-a-days, and with the girls as frivolous as they are, goodness knows \Vhat’s going to happen to them. They’d just as soon run off with any man that stares at them even though it’s only a glass eye he’s staring with.” “Indeed!” broke in “Old Iron sides,” “I know of one young lady who saw a man in the subway she thought she’d like to know. Of course, she couldn’t speak to him. But this young lady had a queer habit, unconscious, you know, of blinking her eyes, very catchingly, too; and, my land, that man fol lowed her for some stations and then spoke to her and today he’s married to her. Queer!—Queer world!” And the old gossip shook her heavy head. "I’ll admit there isn’t much for mality to the present generation. They point at things and babble at the top of their voices. I asked Sadie one day, ‘Why do you talk so loud?’ and she came right back in a voice that would startle a mule, ‘Oh, ma. how am I gonna make myself heard in a wee, quiet voice when everybody else is screeching at the top of their voices?’ “I know several young fellows that I’d like to have interested in Sadie. But she doesn’t take to the idea of me fixing it up for her. She says, ‘Let me pick my own. Those of yourn are dead ones.’ I do hope she does pick out a good man.” The conversation was interrupted by the slamming of the front door. There was a stirring of two pairs of feet, a whispered conference. Then a girl’s voice broke out, “Oh, ma’s a darling.” "Why,” gasped Mrs. Jones, "that’s Sadie. So early in the aft ernoon. Something must be up. Oh, I hope it‘s nothing serious.” The curtains between the kitchen ] and the living room was spread I apart and Sadie’s head appeared with tousled hair and rouged cheeks. "Oh, mom, I want you to meet Mr. Munton,” throwing wide the cur tain, “my husband. We were mar ried this afternoon.” AROUND the HOUSE Items of Interest to the Housewife • 'fit * • it Boiling Old Potatoes—Old pota toes sometimes turn black during boiling. To prevent this add a squeeze of lemon juice to the wa ter in which they are boiled. ¥ * * To Remove Threads. — When basting sewing material, try plac ing the knots of the thread on the right side. They will be easier to pull out when the garment is finished. * * ♦ Stuffed Orange Salad — Allow one orange for each person to be served. Cut through the skin three-quarters of the way down in inch strips, being careful not to break the strips apart. Remove orange pulp and cut in neat dice. Combine with pineapple and grapefruit, dice and fill orange shell with mixture. Drop a spoon Ask Me Another 0 A General Quiz © Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service. 1. Where are the “pillars of Hercules”? 2. What Greek god correspond ed to the Roman Jove or Jupiter? 3. What is “earmarked” gold? 4. What is an amoeba? 5. What article of the Constitu tion set up the Supreme court? 6. What Napoleonic general be came king of Sweden and Nor way? 7. What is a tidal bore? 8. What Supreme court decision was disregarded by Lincoln? 9. Was the art of camouflage first used in the World war? 10. What is the largest country in the world? 11. What section of the country has the heaviest automobile travel? 12. What states designate them selves as commonwealths rather than states? Answers 1. On either side of the Straits of Gibraltar. 2. Zeus. 3. Gold held by a bank or treas ury for account of another. 4. A microscopic, single-celled animal. 5. Article III. 6. Bernadotte. 7. A high-crested wave caused by the meeting of tide.;, or a tide and a river. 8. The decision holding uncon stitutional Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. 9. No. Maine historical records show that the art was practiced by the St. Francis Indians prior to the American Revolution. 10. Russia. It has an area of 8,144,228 square miles. 11. The American Automobile association says that the area around New York city has the heaviest traffic in the United States. The entire length of route No. 1 carries the greatest volume of traffic in this country. 12. Massachusetts, Pennsyl vania, Kentucky and Virginia. ful of heavy mayonnaise on top of each salad and garnish with a maraschino cherry. Another good mixture for stuffing the orange shells is a combination of orange sections, dates stuffed with cream cheese and nut meats. Mask with mayonnaise. • * • Left-Over Liver—Liver that is left over can be converted into an excellent sandwich filling if it is rubbed through a sieve, well sea soned, and moistened with a lit tle lemon juice and melted butter. • * * Cleaning Wood-Work—To clean badly soiled wood, use a mixture consisting of one quart of hot wa ter, three tablespoons of boiled linseed oil and one tablespoon of turpentine. Warm this and use while warm. , * * • Washing Table Silver—Much of the work of polishing table silver can be saved if the silver is placed in hot soapsuds immedi ately after being used and dried with a soft clean cloth. Melting Chocolate—Chocolate is easy to burn, and for that reason should never be melted directly over a fire. Melt it in the oven or over a pan of hot. water. * * * Hanging Pictures—Is your pic ture hanging on a nail which keeps breaking the plaster and so falling out? Before you put the nail in next time, fill the hole with glue, the plaster will not crumble. * * * Jelly Sauce—One glass jelly (crab-apple, red currant, grape, etc), quarter cup hot water, one tablespoon butter, one tablespoon flour. Add hot water to jelly and let melt on stove. Heat butter in saucepan, add flour and grad ually hot jelly liquid. Cook until smooth and serve hot over almost any pudding. * * * Butterscotch—Two cups brown sugar, foui tablespoons molasses, four tablespoons water, two table spoons butter, three tablespoons vinegar. Mix ingredients in sauce pan. Stir until it boils and cook until brittle when tested in cold water. Pour in greased pan. Cut into squares before cool. WNU Service. DON'T TAKE I CHANCES I INSIST ONI GENUINE [ OCEDARf , Don’t you accept substitutes! | Y O-Cedar Polish protects \ and preserves your furni Y ture. Insist on genuine O-Cedar, favorite the world over for 30 years. • • • TIME TO CHANGE • 4 Your car, too, feels the stir of Spring and needs a change. Follow this treat ment. Have your dealer drain the old Winter oil. Give it the best Spring tonic...a refill of QuakerState Motor Oil of the correct Summer grade. Then, you will... rTfTrTTa*! GO FARTHER BEFORE YOU NEED A QUART Quaker State Oil Refining Corp., Oil City, Pennsylvania Retail price, 35 i a quart