SEEN and HEAR)
around the w
NATIONAL CAPITAL!
By Carter Field ^
FAMOUS WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
Washington.—Most significant in
connection with Gov. Herbert H.
Lehman’s attack on President
Roosevelt's Supreme court enlarge
ment bill was the fact that the Pres
ident has turned, one by one,
against so many of his former close
advisers and lieutenants.
The recent fight for leadership of
the senate Democrats, to fill the
place made vacant by the death of
Senator Joseph T. Robinson, dem
onstrated this in a striking way.
For all the four years of his first
administration, Roosevelt's closest
confidant among senators was very
generally regarded as Senator
James F. Byrnes of South Carolina.
In fact, if Senator Robinson had
died a year ago there would have
been little doubt on Capitol Hill that
selection of Senator Byrnes as lead
er would be the thing the White
House wanted.
Actually Senator Byrnes discov
ered, shortly after the recent bat
tle began, that all the White House
wires were being pulled for Senator
Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky. Sen
ator Byrnes found he had no chance
at all. He was caught between two
millstones. So he retired from the
race, and Barkley was chosen.
The most effective supporter the
President has had on Capitol Hill
has been the very non-talkative Vice
President, John Nance Garner. The
Vice President was really ousted as
one of the President’s advisers
months ago, when he became very
vociferous, in the privacy of the
President’s office, in insisting that
the government should take a strong
stand on the sit-down strikes. Sena
tor Byrnes lost his popularity at
1600 Pennsylvania avenue for the
same reason.
Favored Barkley
Neither Garner nor Byrnes had
ever liked the court bill, but they
were following the President on it,
Just as Joe Robinson and Pat Harri
son were.
But the President knew their
hearts were not with him on this
issue—to him the most important of
all. That is why he was for Bark
ley for leader, instead of Harrison.
He has always known he could de
pend on Barkley. Back in 1932 he
was so anxious to get Barkley for
temporary chairman of the national
Democratic convention that he
agreed to let Jouett Shouse be per
manent chairman if Shouse and his
friends would not oppose Barkley
for temporary chairman.
This agreement was made with
Robert Jackson, then secretary of
the Democratic national committee
(the New Hampshire Jackson, not
the Robert H. Jackson of New York
who is now assistant attorney gen
eral). Listening in on an extension
telephone was Harry F. Byrd, now a
senator from Virginia.
The importance of a vigorous tem
porary chairman at a political na
tional convention is extraordinary in
any close contest. On him depends
the job of overseeing the selection
of the permanent list of delegates!
Senators Sherman Minton of Indi
ana and Lewis B. Schwellenbach of
Washington were called in with
Senator Barkley and Senator Key
Pittman of Nevada after the death
of Robinson. This gave a clue to
the present situation. They are
among the most radical men in the
upper house.
Wages and Hours Bill
f
The average senator and repre
sentative. in trying to figure out just
what he should do to play safe on
the bill regulating wages and hours,
is like a golfer about to drive. He
must remember to get his stance
right for direction, his grip as the
pro told him to keep it, also to keep
his left arm straight. Just which part
of his anatomy to move first in
pivoting, and above all to keep his
eye on the ball.
The only trouble with this illus
tration is that in worrying about the
wages and hours bill there are con
siderably more things to remem
ber, forgetting any one of which
may prove far more disastrous than
when a golfer tops, hooks, slices or
whiffs.
Who could have foreseen, for in
stance, that freight rates would be
important?
It started when some Southern
congressmen, insisting that the
South must have a differential to
permit its employers to work their
labor longer hours and pay them
less than their competitors in the
same line in the North, gave as one
reason for the necessity of this “ad
vantage” that the South pays higher
freight rates.
It so happens that the interstate
commerce commission is now dig
ging into that question, under active
prodding of certain commercial in
terests in the South.
Insiders predict—though predict
ing what the I. C. C. will do is al
most as dangerous as forecasting
court decisions—that there will be
orders from the high court of com
merce adjusting freight rates in the
South. This would have the effect of
depriving the Southern congressmen
of one of their arguments in favor of
the differential, if the decision of the
L C. C. is as predicted. But U will
not end the discussion. It may even
provide an unexpected bit of trouble
in annoying the security holders of
some of the Southern roads. It is
almost certain to bring agonized
cries from the truckers who will be
forced by competition to reduce
their rates.
Muddied the Water
Meanwhile, of course, everybody
knows that the freight rate argu
ment was just thrown in to muddy
the water—that nobody was really
weighing these freight rates serious
ly as an argument for the differen
tial in favor of the South on wages
and hours regulation.
For of course no change in freight
rates is going to change the situa
tion with respect to the colored
workers on whom the South depends
for such a large proportion of its
labor. The fact that a farmer may
be able to send his crops to market
at a little lower charge for freight is
not going to make him willing to
pay his workers more—not if he can
get out of it. And he is going to be
just as sore on his representative
and senators if they vote to do that
to him as if there had been no
charge in the freight rates what
ever.
So no decision by the I. C. C. isj
going to modify the course of those
fighting for a differential favoring
the South. It is merely going to
deprive those advocating the differ
ential of a sideline argument, and
deprive them of it just about the
time they are tired of talking any
how.
All of which makes it just a little
clearer why so many senators and
representatives would like to put
this bill, and a good many others,
over until next session. It may be
just as ticklish then, but they would
like to stop worrying now!
Very Few Left
Once there were plenty of Re
publicans in high public office, not
ably in ttye senate and house of rep
resentatives. who had the same gen
eral ideas about their party that
Joseph T. Robinson had about his.
There are mighty few, if tiny, left,
and those who even come within
striking distance of Robinson's bat
ting average are without exception
so branded as "reactionaries” and
"Tories" that in presidential cam
paigns they are regarded by candi
dates and national chairmen as lia
bilities rather than assets.
Robinson believed that the most
important thing to determine about
nny official act of his was whether
it would help or hurt the Demo
cratic party. Absolutely consistent
on this, he never allowed any per
sonal view or prejudice to influence
him in the slightest if if seemed to
him to run counter to the chances
for electing a Democratic President
at the next election.
The best illustration is prohibition.
There may live a man who can say
flatly that if Joe Robinson had not
been in politics he would have been
a dry, or a wet. But most of his
friends around Washington and Lit
tle Rock doubt it. Robinson was
never one of those politicians who
make public speeches one way and
talk privately the other. When Rob
inson embraced an issue, whatever
may have been the original reason
for his taking that side, he went all
the way. He made speeches for it.
Then with extraordinary speed he
changed to the new position, and be
came just as fanatical about that.
| Loyal to Party
Prohibition was mentioned be
cause it is one of the most easily
demonstrated cases. Robinson was
born bone dry under the party lead
ership of William Jennings Bryan.
He became wet when the party
turned in that direction at the 1928
Democratic national convention.
Like many others, Robinson was
convinced by the 1928 landslide that
the country was overwhelmingly dry
and hence that any national party to
win on election must be dry.
So at a national committee meet
ing the following year, held at a
Washington hotel, when John J.
Raskob proposed a new plan open
ing the door to repeal, Robinson
made one of the most stinging
speeches ever delivered at such a
gathering.
"You shall not nail the skull and
crossbones of an outlawed trade to
the masthead of Democracy!” he
shouted.
But three years later, when the
Democratic national convention
went all the way wet in its plat
form and then nominated Franklin
D. Roosevelt, who accepted the plat
form, Robinson became an ardent
wet again!
What few Northerners and West
erners understand is the cause for
this extreme party of loyalty. It is
sound politics in the South because
of the generation-old-feeling—ever
since reconstruction—that success
of the Democratic party is the most
vital issue in the world—that every
thing else sinks into insignificance
when compared to it.
It has been just about 45 years
since there has been any compara
ble feeling about the Republic party.
£ BeU Syndicate.—WNU Service.
THAMES TELLS ITS TALE
Weighing a Shipment of Eleph ant Tusks on a London Wharf.
From Every Corner of the Earth
Come Ships That Ply This River
Prepared by National Oaogrnphlc Society,
Waahlnirton. D. C.—WNU Service.
THAMES traffic makes
London the world’s fore
most river port. Since Ro
man galley days—when Brit
ons traded grain, slaves, and
dogskin for European salt
and horse collars — com
merce has flowed between
London and the continental
countries along the Schelde,
the Rhine and the Elbe. Aft
er Drake nerved England to
smash the Spanish Armada,
London ships gained in time
the lion’s share of ocean
borne trade.
Names immortal in discovery and
conquest are linked with this water
front. From here Frobisher went
seeking the Northwest passage, and
Hawkins to Puerto Rico and Vera
Cruz; from here Lancaster made
his voyages to the East, before the
downfall of Portugal and the rise
of the British East India company.
Raleigh sailed from here to explore
the Orinoco, to popularize tobacco
and, tradition says, to start the Irish
planting potatoes.
It was London’s daring money
which sent Sebastian Cabot to found
the Russia company, opening trade
with that land. London merchants
and skippers promoted the Turkey,
African, Virginia and Hudson’s Bay
companies.
London emigrants helped colonize
in the Americas, in Australia, New
Zealand, China, India, Africa and
the rich islands of the sea.
English Spread from Here.
From this water front went the
English language. In Drake's day
only a few millions spoke it. Now
it is a world tongue. Of all letters,
telegrams, books and papers print
ed now, it is estimated that 70 per
cent are in English. London alone
uses enough newsprint every day
to cover a ranch of 9,350 acres—
or nearly 15 square miles of paper.
“The smell from that big paper
mill at Bayswater is one of the
marks I steer by on foggy nights,”
a Thames pilot will tell you.
Exploration of London’s crowded
docks reveals not only what amaz
ing piles of food a great city can
normally eat, but also what odd
items, from live bats to rhino horns,
are mixed in the life stream of
world commerce.
Imponderable, in variety and
magnitude, are these fruits of man’s
barter. Here, too, his work ranges
from rat catching and opium sam
pling to dredging the Thames and
handling annual cargo enough to fill
a road with loaded trucks from the
Yukon to Patagonia.
To say that every day some 500
craft, big and little, pass through
the Thames mouth tells only half
the story. More significant is what
happens on the docks.
Commission Ends Confusion.
Even London people themselves
don’t dream what incredible activity
is here. Few ever see it. Confusion
on this crowded river, in days gone,
grew so intense that waiting boats
often lay unloaded for weeks; goods
were piled in disorder on river
banks, and pilfering was enormous.
One river bandit stole almost a
whole shipload of sugarl To com
bat this chaos the West India mer
chants built their own fortlike docks.
With more trade came more
docks, and more toll-rate wars and
other confusion. This ended in 1909
when the Port of London authority,
a Royal commission, took full con
trol under act of parliament.
It paid 23,000,000 pounds for pri
vately owned London docks, spent
millions more to make the lower
Thames the world’s longest deep
water channel and to enlarge and
j re-equip cargo-handling facilities.
It has dredged mud enough out of
; the Thames to build a Chinese Wall,
and has constructed the world’s
j most extensive dock system. One
of its cranes, the “London Mam
moth," lifts 150 tons!
Finally, with characteristic Brit
ish financial genius, it sold its deb
entures on the stock exchange, and
now its operations usually pay all
costs and interest and leave a profit
which is used for more improve
ments.
Giant Docks and Yard.
The PLA is not in trade. It is
merely custodian of merchandise
that may range from wild animals
for the zoo to a shipload of molasses
from which to distill fuel alcohol.
It weighs goods, reports on their
quality and condition; it opens bales
and boxes for customs inspection,
furnishes samples for buyers, and
looks after repacking and loading
for those who ship from London to
other ports.
On the north bank of the Thames,
scattered for miles downstream
from the Tower, stand these great
PLA docks: London, St. Katharine,
East and West India, Millwall, Vic
toria and Albert, King George V,
and the Tilbury.
On the south bank, near London's
heart, are ancient Surrey Commer
cial docks, with a lumberyard that
covers 150 acres!
Besides the railways and truck
lines that tie these docks to the out
lying kingdom, some 9,000 Thames
barges handle goods to and from
ships’ sides.
Each dock has its own character.
St. Katharine docks are built on the
site of the old Church of St. Kath
arine by the Tower, founded by
Queen Matilda in 1148. What hetero
geneous goods they store: wool,
skins, wines, spices, sugar, rubber,
balata, tallow, ivory, barks, gums,
drugs, coffee, iodine, hemp, quick
silver, canned fruits and fish, coir
yarn, coconuts, and brandy!
Navy at One Dock.
West India and Millwall docks lie
in a river peninsula known as the
Isle of Dogs. Here the passer-by
may smell 12,000 puncheons of rum,
a million tons of sugar and ship
loads of dates.
Victoria and Albert and King
George V docks form one huge
structure, the world’s largest sheet
of enclosed dock water. Often 40 or
50 ships—equal to a good-sized navy
—tie up here at one time.
Tilbury is the first dock one sees
when sailing up the Thames. Its
long landing stage forms a home
land gateway for people from Au
stralia, New Zealand, India, China
and other eastern countries who
land or embark here. Fast trains
of the London, Midland and Scottish
railway touch the dock’s edge and
whisk passengers away to all parts
of the kingdom.
In the city, PLA has still more
warehouses. At its Butler street
building are 70 rooms full of oriental
carpets—enough to cover a farm of
120 acres!
People buy most carpets in June,
for wedding presents, you are told.
There are electric ovens, too, for
conditioning raw silk, a mountain
of Havana cigars and leaf tobacco
enough to last one man, say, 500,
000 years!
Here is a furtive horde of lean
black cats, to help out the official
human rat catchers. Musty wine
vaults use 28 miles of underground
track on which to roll barrels that
hold the 12,000,000 gallons of wine
brought to London each year.
This is the world’s ivory and tooth
market. It takes 16,000,000 artificial
teeth from the United States every
year—and some 2,000 elephant tusks
from Africa and Asia.
Not many tusks are from newly
slain elephants. Most of them come
from mudholes. left by animals.
Tea for Londoners.
Wool was England’s chief export
in the Middle ages. Today it is one
of London’s main imports. It takes
the fleeces from about fifty million
sheep to meet London’s annual de
mands!
Tea trade has centered here for
300 years. In Mincing Lane you can
see brokers bidding on lots which
have been expertly sampled by
PLA’s own teatasters.
When they "bulk” tea, or mix it,
on some warehouse floors you may
see it heaped up in mounds higher
then men’s heads.
Think of all the “liquid history”
that has been packed into this an
cient water front since Roman gal
leys traded here; since Danes and
Vikings came to plunder: since the
great companies of merchant ad
venturers launched their tiny ships
for daring trade and colonizing far
over then little-known seas.
Think of the 60,000 ships a year
that now form smoke lanes from
London to every nook of the world
where goods can be bought or sold
and you begin to see why this 70
mile stretch of "London River” is,
incomparably, the world's busiest
water front
Overweight and
Life Span
By
DR. JAMES W. BARTON
© Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service.
POR many years it was believed
" that overweight shortens the
span of life but it was not until
the large insurance companies with
the records of thousands of
“healthy” individuals accepted for
life insurance, gave out their
figures to physicians that the true
facts became known.
These facts are that overweight
Dr. Barton
definitely shortens
the span of life. Tak
ing the life expec
tancy of individuals
of definite height,
age and weight, it is
shortened in the ex
act proportion to the
amount or percent
age of overweight
that exists.
The table states:
“Taking the life ex
pectancy of any in
dividual as 100 per
cent, his mortality or death rating
as influenced by overweight is given
in percentages. Thus a person 5
feet tall whose standard weight is
129 pounds, but who weighs 50 per
cent in excess, or 193 pounds, has a
mortality or death rate of 170 per
cent, or 70 per cent above normal.”
In commenting upon this fact that
the death rate is increased in pro
portion to the percentage or amount
of overweight, Dr. Harry Gauss,
University of Colorado, in his book
“Clinical Dietetics” says: “There
is nothing amazing in these statis
tics. A person whose normal weight
is 150 pounds and who weighs 180
pounds is carrying 20 per cent ex
cess body tissue. His heart is re
quired to pump blood to 20 per
cent increased tissues by weight,
the kidneys must get rid of waste
matter from 20 per cent increased
tissue, the liver and pancreas must
do the work for the same increase
in tissue, and so all the organs in
the abdomen (and also in the
chest) are taxed by the increased
burden.”
Now we know that Nature is very
generous, that the limit or margin
of safety in these organs is much
beyond the everyday needs of the
body (we could live with one kid
ney, one half or less of the stomach,
of the liver, and of the intestine),
but the extra strain of overweight
over a number of years must re
sult in a breaking down before it
otherwise would occur.
Tendency to Diabetes.
“And the reducing of the span of
life is not the only penalty of over
weight. The increased tendency to
ward diabetes is another. Dr. E. P.
Joslin, Boston, the outstanding au
thority on diabetes, has shown that
diabetes is from ten to twenty times
more common among fat persons
than in normal or undernourished
persons.” Dr. W. E. Preble, Bos
ton, who made observations on 1,000
cases of obesity (overweight),
found that 432 of the patients showed
evidence of organic heart disease,
230 showed functional diseases of
the heart (disturbances such as in
creased rate or irregularity), while
463 showed evidences of interfer
ence with the work of the kidneys.
That overweight persons are poor
surgical risks is a common obser
vation of the surgeons, and that
they offer less resistance to such
infections as pneumonia is a com
mon observation also.”
Now the above facts should not
make those of normal weight think
they would feel better, be more free
of ailments, and live longer if they
were to reduce their weight. To be
of normal weight, with just the right
amount of fat (15 to 20 per cent of
the total body weight) is an asset.
Cut Down on Bread.
Nor should those who are slightly
overweight give the above figures
much thought; a matter of 5 to 8
pounds over the average weight
should cause no concern. Perhaps
cutting down slightly on bread, but
ter and potatoes—nothing more—
would reduce the weight to normal
over a period of two to three
months.
It is of course fortunate up to a
certain point that the fashion for
slimness has passed its height;
stage directors no longer demand
that members of the chorus shall
be “skinny” and women in general
are not ashamed of curves any
more. This will prove helpful if
women, and men also, will not let
the pendulum swing too far the
other way, and allow themselves to
become overweight, because there
is no getting away from the facts
presented in insurance tables.
Insurance companies do not re
fuse applicants for insurance if they
can help it. Their business is to
insure all that they “safely” can.
The fact that they refuse applicants
with excessive overweight, and
! charge a higher premium for those
who are even moderately over
weight is the strongest possible
argument that overweight is not
only a menace to health but defl
i nitely shortens the life. span.
—
Agouti, a Rodent
The agouti is a rodent allied to the
guinea pig and common in the jun
gles of eastern South Africa. It is
about the size of a rabbit, has a
rudimentary tail and ranges in color
from yellow to brown.
j-loyd Qi&fotos'
ADVENTURERS’ CLUB
HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES
OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU R S E L F I
“ When Clocks Stopped ”
By FLOYD GIBBONS . |
Famous Headline Hunter
TTELLO, everybody: Bryan Carlock of Bloomington, 111.,
A A is one man who knows exactly when his adventure
started. Other folks may be a little vague about the exact
hour and minute of their life’s biggest thrill.
When death is staring you in the face, you don’t stop to look at
your watches and say, "Ho hum, if I don’t get out of this mess pretty
quick I'll be late for dinner." Neither did Bryan, for that matter But
he knows the time.
He knows it because, when the blow struck, all the clocks and
watches stopped. It was the end of time. The end of the world!
The end of everything! The day was March 10, 1933, and Bryan
had arrived in Long Beach, Calif., just that morning, to visit his
sister, who was married to an army officer, Lieut. Chester Linton.
She and Bryan had gone down town in the afternoon and returned
home at 5 o’clock. The clocks and watches stopped at exactly 5:55!
It Was Just Before Dinner, When—
In the meantime, they were busy getting dinner ready. Chester
Linton had come home. Sis was in the kitchen making salad and bis
cuits. Potatoes were boiling on the stove and the roast was in the oven.
The rest of the family was in the living room. Bryan was reading and
the children—a girl and three boys—were playing on the floor.
Sis came in and said, "Are you all hungry? Dinner will be ready
in a few minutes.” And then—
And then—terror! The words were hardly out of his sister’s
mouth when the building began to sway and rock. There was a
roar that sounded like thousands of firecrackers exploding all
at once. Tables and floor lamps fell over. Plaster crashed
down from the ceiling and the floor bulged upward and burst open.
Says Bryan: "I thought the world was coming to an end. The whole
house was rocking like a boat. I couldn’t get my voice for a moment, and
when I did, I cried out, ‘What is it?’ Then I heard Chester say, ‘Earth-:
quake! Get out!’ As he said it, the wall beside him crumbled and
fell out into the street.”
The More He Struggled, the Worse His Fix.
The apartment was on the second floor of a brick building at the
corner of Broadway and Linden. They started for the stairway, and, -A
Bryan says when he reached it it was moving like an escalator. Sia
The stairway was moving like an escalator. J
and the kids were safely at the bottom. The lieutenant was behind him.
Bryan was half way down that tottering stairway when his foot went
through a broken step and caught there.
He struggled to extricate himself, but the harder he tried,
the tighter he seemed to be wedging himself in. Now, the lieu
tenant was at his side, trying to get him out. Plaster was still ,
falling from the walls and ceiling. At last the lieutenant got him
loose, and they ran out into the street. *
On the other side of the street, a neighbor was lying dead on the
lawn—a great chunk of cornice beside him. He had run out of his
home at the first shock of the quake, just as the cornice fell, and it
killed him. The whole neighborhood was in confusion. Some men were
carrying a woman into the bungalow next door, her leg torn and bleeding.
Tidal Wave Threatens Destruction and Hunger.
And then, another terrible cry was passed from mouth to mouth
through the stricken area. "Tidal wave coming!” “We were only three
blocks from the ocean,” says Bryan, "and we took the kids and began
running inland. We had had nothing to eat. The roast and potatoes and ^
other food back home had been blown against the north wall of the
kitchen.
“When we couldn’t run any more, we walked. We went on
that way for two or three hours, through streets filled with de
bris and ruin and desolation. Before long, the city was under
martial law. About 8:00 or 9:00 o’clock we struck a place that
hadn’t suffered quite as badly as other sections of the town. They
were serving soup, sandwiches, coffee, etc., so we stopped and ,,
had something to eat.” *+
He Didn’t Even Feel Nail in His Leg. *
They were all exhausted by this time. There was still no sign of "
a tidal wave and, tidal wave or no tidal wave. Bryan wasn’t going to go
a step farther. They held a council of war and decided to return to the
neighborhood of home.
They wandered back toward the ocean and, within a block of the
Lintons’ wrecked house they found an apartment building which was
still in pretty good shape, and managed to get shelter for the night.
For the first time, then, Bryan noticed that his right foot was
damp. He pulled up his trouser leg and found the foot covered
with blood. There was a nail In the calf of his leg. Evidently it
had been thrust there when he got caught in the broken stairway.
"There was a doctor in the house,” he says, ‘ and he dressed the
wound. I was walking like a drunken man, and the doctor told me I
was 'earth shocked.' ”
Calls Quake’s Effects Worse Than War.
The tremors continued all through the night. They stayed in the
apartment house, but in the morning they had to move on, for the city s
mains had been broken and there was no gas or water. They went
to City Hall park, where relief work was getting under way, and there
they were put into a truck and sent to Lennox, about twelve miles from
Los Angeles where a women's club had been turned into a dormitory.
“They gave us medical attention there,” says Bryan, “and a
lot of us needed it. A lot of the women were hysterical. One of
the nurses there had been in hospitals in France during the war
and had been bombarded by the Germans, but she said it didn’t
affect her nearly as badly as the quake did.
"Our little group got off easily. My sister and her little girl had
been hit by plaster and the three boys had their legs skinned. The lieu
tenant had had the presence of mind to hold a chair over his head, and he
escaped without a scratch. But the thing that saved us all from death
was our delay in getting out of the house. If we had gone out while the
debris was still falling we would have met the same fate as our neigh
bor across the street.”
©—WKU Service.
Most Slowly Written Works
The “Acta Sanctorum," the great
collection of the lives and legends of
the Roman Catholic saints, is one of
the most slowly written works on
record, says Collier’s Weekly. Ex
cept for two interruptions, which
stopped the compilation for 48
years, Belgian Jesuits have worked
on it steadily since about 1600 and
hope to complete its some 35,000
biographies by approximately 1875.
Lee, Jackson in Shenandoah Valley
Gen Robert E. Lee. after the Civ
il war, went to the Shenandoah val
ley as president of Washington and
Lee i\niversity, at Lexington—the
oldest of the many schools and col
leges for which the valley is fa
mous. Stonewall Jackson entered
the valley soon after the outbreak
of the Civil war and, with an army
of 10,000 men, drove back 60,000 in
vaders.
!