SEEN and HEARD
around the
NATIONAL CAPITAL
By Carter Field
FAMOUS WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
Washington—Decision to make
nine-cent loans on cotton, plus the
bonus to those agreeing in advance
to go along with next year's reduc
tion in acreage program—to be pro
vided in the special legislation on
which President Roosevelt now has
the congressional leaders hog-tied
on promises—marks the beginning
of the end of cotton growing in the
southeastern states.
The point is very simple. At pres
ent 60 per cent of the cotton crop of
the United States, on the average,
is exported. Which means that it
is sold, naturally, in competition
with cotton from all other parts of
the world. During the last six years
especially, though there were begin
nings before that Brazil has been
increasing its cotton production by
leaps and bounds.
Brazil can sell cotton at a profit at
six cents, American money, a
pound. During the period of expan
sion the world price has been held,
largely through American efforts,
at above ten cents. During the flr3t
year or two it was the Hoover farm
board which artificially maintained
the world price of the staple. Be
fore the shrewd speculators had
bought up huge stocks of cotton at
the low early depression figures,
and reaped a harvest when govern
ment efforts put the price up.
Just as the Soviet government ob
tained an enormous price for its
bumper wheat crop, also in the
Hoover farm board days, by the
simple expedient of concealing the
fact that Russia had a lot of wheat
to sell, and selling it short in Ameri
can markets—incidentally to the
farm board—and delivering the ac
tual wheat later instead of cover
ing, as Arthur M. Hyde, then sec
retary of agriculture, expected.
In each year of AAA reduction—
following the farm board period, it
can be ascertained from official fig
ures—the curtailment of American
exports was almost precisely
matched by increased production in
the rest of the world. This was not
a coincidence. It did not just hap
pen. The world wanted the cotton
and bought it elsewhere. It would
have bought the cotton from the
United States if we had produced it.
Our own failure to produce it en
couraged the producers of other
countries.
Brazil Take* Lead
Brazil led this parade, but there
were many other foreign countries
participating, including even the
new Japanese puppet state in North
China.
Remembering this six-cent price
at which Brazil can afford to sell
cotton at a profit, the fact seems to
be—apd this based on our own gov
ernment figures — that only two
states in the Union can compete
with such low cost production.
These states are Texas and Okla
homa. and there would be plenty of
wails from them if the price drops
that low.
All of which" points to the eventual
retiring of all the southern states
cast of the Mississippi from cotton
production, since it is only a matter
of time when the export of cotton
will be virtually impossible econom
ically.
This may prove a blessing. In
Georgia there is a monument to the
cotton boll-weevil in a certain
county seat. That county was forced
by the weevil to turn from cotton to
other crops, including peanuts, and
as an unexpected result the county
flourished as it had never done be
fore.
So that it is not impossible that
the entire South, from North Caro
lina to Louisiana and Arkansas,
may be enormously benefited when
that section stops raising cotton and
turns to other crops.
But no one who is really responsi
ble for what is about to take place
is planning any such consumma
tion!
Seeking Motive
Many critics of the Roosevelt ad- I
ministration and the New Deal gen
erally have been critical of both >
because of the attitude of the pow
ers that be against Andrew W. Mel
lon. Since his death there have
been more vocal demonstrations of
this than usual—more seeking for
the “motive" that inspired the at
tacks.
Most of the ascribed explanations
miss the truth by a mile. First,
there was nothing personal in it.
Second, there was no particular de
sire to discredit the Hoover admin
isration. This last may sound fan
tastic, but the simple truth is that if
James A. Farley and Charles Mich
elson could have accomplished just
what they wanted by propaganda
directed to Republicans last year,
they would have nominated Herbert
C. Hoover instead of Gov. Alfred
M. Landon at Cleveland.
This of course refers to their at
titude at the time- untinctured with
hindsight as the situation is viewed
now. As a matter of fact, several
important Democratic chieftains
took one very concrete step, shortly
after Christmas, 1935, to aid in the
nomination of Hoover by the Repub
licans. They supplied a certain
strongly pro-New Deal newspaper
man with ample funds, and instruct
ed him to bet any newspaper man
who differed with him in an argu
ment that Hoover would be the
Republican nominee. They further
instructed him not to bother about
odds, but to bet at even money if
he could find any takers!
The whole point was to put a
doubt in the minds of the men writ
ing Washington dispatches to news
papers all over the country about a
possible Hoover comeback. Frank
ly, the New Dealers at that time
thought they could beat any Repub
lican, but they knew they could beat
Hoover. So they wanted Hoover
nominated.
No, the motive in attacking Mel
lon was different, and more impor
tant, than any indirect means of
smearing Hoover.
Mellon’s Feat
Mellon represented a legend
which had to be destroyed, from the
New Deal standpoint. Mellon stood,
in a way, for all the old, thrifty
American virtues—particularly get
ting out of debt. Mellon’s great
claim to fame will always be that
he paid off $9,000,000,000 of federal
debt in ten years as secretory of the
treasury—paid it off much faster
than congress wished by the simple
device of fooling congress every
year about expected receipts.
Even more damning, Mellon stood
in the public mind for the theory
that reduction of taxes on big in
comes and corporations results not
in less but in more money for the
Treasury. In a way, he proved it.
This is controversial. The answer
is made that he was able to do both
things because there was a rising
tide of prosperity which never
turned from flood to ebb until the
last fiscal year with which he was
concerned.
There is n rising tide of prbsperity
right now in this country. Every
one has been fairly sure for several
years now that it was en route. But
there is no pursuit of the Mellon
doctrine of paying off one's debts
during good years so that when the
bad years come there will be, so to
speak, an ace in the hole in the
form of a huge, unexhausted credit.
Harry L. Hopkins is perhaps the
frankest of New Dealers about fiscal
matters. He contends that there
must always be huge relief expendi
tures. and that the government
must have the courage to take in
taxes from those who have to
finance them. But, it was figured
quite a long time back in this ad
ministration, the Mellon doctrine
must be destroyed and discredited
to make anything like this possible.
That's the real reason for the
smear Mellon campaign.
Expect Big Show
Official Washington can hardly
wait to see the show expected when
Justice Hugo L. Black, former sen
ator from Alabama, begins to func
tion. The waggish comment to wait
"until the eight old mep” give him
a dinner of welcome illustrates one
angle of the interest.
But that is just the human, impish
angle. The serious angle is whether
the new justice will continue as a
hard-hitting, ruthless New Dealer,
or whether he will, as some lawyers
around Washington have put it,
have a "rush of law to the head."
There is another angle—which
may be found by studying the life
and works of some of the great
liberal justices, notably Oliver Wen
dell Holmes, Louis D. Brandeis and
Benjamin N. Cardozo. It is the dif
ference between talking for the un
der dog and acting for the under
dog.
The two things are far from be
ing the same, as anyone who ana
lyzes politics and economic condi
tions coldly will discover at once.
The truth of course is that the em
battled automobile workers in their
various fights—and in the fight to
come with Henry Ford—are not the
under dogs of this country by any
manner of calculation.
The automobile workers were, as
workers go, extremely well-paid
even before the recent adjustments.
They had higher pay and worked
shorter hours than almost any other
class of workers with equal skill.
Must Work
Considering the length of training,
and the responsibility required of
the men in the five railroad brother
hoods, where a man has to work
through quite a period before he can
be a fireman, and then has to work
usually for years before he gets a
chance to be an engine driver, the
automobile workers are very highly
paid indeed.
So it was rather maudlin to get
worked up about the underprivi
leged and downtrodden if you were
thinking about the automobile work
ers. This is no attempt to criticize
them, or those in sympathy with
them. That is not the point. There
is plenty of room for argument as
to whether they are getting a suf
ficiently large share of the profits
of the business, or whether any
struggle is not worth while to force
collective bargaining. The only
point Is that they are and have been
anything but the under dogs of this
j country's economic and social life,
e Bell Syndicate —WNU Service.
GRABBED BY JAPANESE
Hokey-Pokey Man of Peiping.
Cities of North China That
Have Been Occupied by Nippon
Prrnarrd hy National GfoRranhic Society.
nWa«hinsrfon, D. C.—WN(J Service.
APANESE occupation is not
now to the port of Tsingtao,
China, where Nippon troops
were recently reported to have
neen denied permission to land by
Chinese officials. While Germany
was busy in Europe during the
World war, the city, then under a
99-year lease to the German govern
ment, was occupied by the Jap
anese until hostilities in Europe
ceased.
Facing the Yellow sea, on the
southern coast of the Shantung penin
sula, Tsingtao has been from time
to time a provincial capital as well
as a dilapidated fishing port. Ger
many, in 1898, saw the city as a
great port, a "German Hong Kong"
—hence the 99-year lease.
The German lease was eight years
old when the harbor was opened to
foreign trade. In the meantime
several thousand Germans moved
in, constructed new buildings and
wide, tree-lined boulevards. New
water and sewage systems were in
stalled, granite piers built out in
the harbor, which had been dredged i
and marked so that ocean-going
vessels could dock and discharge or
load cargoes with modern equip
ment. When the World war broke,
Tsingtao had not only become a
modern commercial Titan along the
Chinese coast, but its splendid
beaches and new hotel accommoda
tions made it a vacation rendez
vous for many residents of foreign
colonies in the Orieht.
Today Tsingtao is not the German
Tsingtao. Before the Germans were
driven out, they blew up its fortifi
cations and demolished many other
mementos of their occupation. Jap
anese airmen did considerable dam
age with airplane bombs. Yet
Tsingtao remains one of China’s
leading ports, and one of the near
est Chinese ports to Japan.
Tientsin a Commercial Center.
Another Chinese city in which
Japanese troops have concentrated
recently is Tientsin, 70 miles from
the gates of Peiping. News dis
patches from Tientsin stated that
its principal railway station was
converted into an army supply depot
for Nippon’s soldiers.
Few inland Chinese population
centers display the modern aspect
that the traveler discovers in Tient
sin. While the city has its quarter
of narrow, winding byways where
children play amid odors typical of
a Chinese city, the foreign quarter
spreads its influence amid modern
settings. Within a stone’s throw of
the tortuous streets are bank and
commercial buildings of which most
occidental cities would be proud,
and there are the concessions of
the British, French and Italians.
Tientsin is the chief commercial
center of North China, largely be
cause of its geographic location.
The city is only about 30 miles from
the sea, and nearby Tangku, on the
lower Hai Ho in reality is the
Tientsin seaport. The Pieyun Ho
flows into the city from the north
west and the Grand canal also passes
through it. Besides these trade ar
teries, century-old caravan routes
and railroads spread from Tientsin
like spokes in a gigantic wheel, pene
trating Shantung, Jehol, Manchuti
kuo. Honan, Shansi, Kansu and In
ner Mongolia. While traders still
ply the old routes, and railroads
and small vessels add to the com
mercial animation of Tientsin, there
also are industries in the city that
employ many of its 1,338.000 people.
Flour milling is a chief industry
while cotton mills operate more
than 200,000 spindles.
As Tientsin is “on the way" from
the sea to Peiping, it has long been,
a key to the old capital.
Fighting in the Peiping area has
l again thrown a world spotlight on
i that frequently fought-over city, for
! mer capital of China and always a
center of international interests.
Many fore.gners are residents of
Peiping, where embassies to China
are retained, although offices must
«
be established also in Nanking, the
official capital of the central gov
ernment. Such an arrangement has
been adopted by the United States,
which retains an embassy in Peip
ing guarded by a detachment of
United States Marines. Other for
eign embassies with armed guards
are the British, French, Italian and
Japanese.
Peiping the Focus of Affairs.
Peiping was the focus of perhaps
the most widespread international
tension on Chinese record during
the anti-foreign Boxer uprising in
1900, when troops of several na
tions, including the United States,
were landed and marched inland to
rescue all Peiping's foreign resi
dents, who had been besieged for
two months in the British embassy.
As commercial and cultural mis
tress of China's northern plain,
Peiping is the country’s second
largest city, being surpassed only
by Shanghai. Its geographic loca
tion brings it into contact with Jap
anese-controlled Manchukuo on the
northeast, semi-independent Tibetan
provinces on the west, and Russian
controlled Mongolian republics on
the northwest. The foreign embas
sies and branch offices of foreign
business firms in Peiping give it the
greatest international importance
north of the Yangtze river. As cen
ter of the Hopei-Chahar council, it
is a focus for the independence
movement which has weakened ties
between North China and the cen
tral government at Nanking.
Having lost the name of Peking,
"northern capital,” in 1928 when
China's administrative center was
moved south to Nanking, Peiping
now finds its present title, "city of
northern peace,” threatened.
In national affairs Feiping is a
stronghold of tradition. Contrasting
with the present Chinese capital,
the northern metropolis has had
many reincarnations as seat of Chi
na’s government under such ro
mance-freighted names as Peking,
Cambulac, and Purple Imperial
City. Its Mandarin dialect, the
“Parisian French” of Chinese
speech, comes closer than any other
to being generally understood
throughout the nation.
Famous Marco Polo Bridge.
When the boom and rattle of
heavy guns and rilles disturbed the
calm of Peiping recently, newspa
per men sent back word that the
first clashes were in the neighbor
hood of the Marco Polo bridge, nine
miles southwest of the city. Many
foreigners make excursions from
Peiping to this ancient many-arched
stone bridge, one of the most pic
turesque in northern China, which
spans the muddy Yung-ting river.
Marco Polo bridge was named by
foreigners in honor of the Venetian
adventurer who first described it—
albeit inaccurately—to the western
world when he came to the Orient to
call upon the fabulous Kublai Khan.
The Chinese call it Lu Kou Chiao.
Marco Polo praised the magnificent
solid stone span of twenty-four
arches on almost the same page
with such Chinese novelties as beau
ty contests, daily baths, and black
rock which was burned as a cheap
substitute for wood. Europeans
found the twenty-four arches the
most credible part of the story, but
it was actually the one inaccuracy.
The arches numbered no more than
thirteen, but countless loads of coal
passed over them from western
mines to supply Peiping with "black
stone” fuel. The treacherous Yung
ting river in a Seventeenth-century
flood clipped off two arches. Now
the bridge has only eleven stone
arches, mossy with age.
The Marco Polo bridge nas played
a significant role in the history of
Peiping, to which it was once the
main portal from the southwest. For
centuries, when Peiping was the
political as well as the cultural cen
ter of China’s ancient civilization,
the bridge played a dramatic part in
invasions. It still bears its share of
motor, caravan, and foot traffic.
fUfyd QMohs'
ADVENTURERS' CLUB
HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES
OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELFI
“ Tusk of the Wild Boar ”
By FLOYD GIBBONS
Famous Headline Hunter
Hello everybody:
Well, sir, here’s a story that starts out with another
story. A long time ago I got a letter, sent to the Adventur
ers’ Club, from Java, in the Dutch East Indies, way over on
the other side of the world. It came from Kaboel, whose
address was panggoengweg No. 2, Tegal, Java, and Kaboel
said that he’d read in the paper that I was giving away
money, and would I please send him a hundred dollars be
cause he was very poor.
Well, sir, I wrote Kaboel a letter telling him I couldn’t send him any
money until he'd sent in an adventure yarn good enough to print in
this column, and—well—I guess they have adventures over in Java, too,
because in came the yarn from Kaboel.
Incidentally, here’s where the Adventurers’ club breaks another
ironclad rule. You know these yarns are all true and they all have to be
vouched for. It’s the club's custom to require that all papers be signed
by the adventurer’s name in full—first and last name, complete. But
what are you going to do when a guy hasn’t got any las,t name. Kaboel
writes:
*
“Kaboel is the only name I have. I am a pure blooded Jav
anese boy, and we do not have family names.”
On a Week’s Hunt in the Jungle.
And now for Kaboel’s story. He says he’s had lots of adventures,
but this time he's going to tell us about a boar hunt he went on with his
father and some of their Javanese neighbors. They set out for a week’s
hunting in the jungle one morning in 1929, taking with them a supply of
beras, or prepared rice, and dendeng, which is meat prepared with
spices. They traveled through the jungle for two days, walking
about eight hours a day, and stopping to eat and rest in the early after
noons when the sun was hottest.
During the first two nights, they slept on the ground, rolled up in
blankets. After that they were in country where the wild boar were
plentiful and dangerous. Then they climbed trees as soon as it got dark,
and passed the night in them. On the third day they pitched camp and
The Boar Saw Him and Charged Again.
were ready to begin hunting. First they looked for water holes (drink
places, Kaboel calls them) where the boars came at night to quench
their thirst. They found several, and Kaboel and his dad hid in the under
growth near one of them. The first night they killed three boars and
carried them back to camp.
On the second night, about eight o’clock, a boar came out of the
jungle across from where they were hiding. Kaboel and his dad both
fired. The shots told. The boar stumbled and fell. But the next moment
he was on his feet again, his eyes gleaming malevolently, and was com
ing at them like a hurricane.
The guns they were using were old single shot affairs. There
was no time to reload them. Kaboel’s dad yelled to him to run,
while he dashed off in another direction.
The boar could only follow one of them—and he picked on Kaboel.
The boar was a scant ten yards from him, and the nearest tree was
twenty-five or thirty yards away. Kaboel ran as he had never run in
his life, but he COULDN'T OUTRUN THAT BOAR. Foot by foot it
gained on him. By the time Kaboel reached the nearest tree, the boar
was a scant yard behind.
Neat Trick That Fooled the Boar.
There was no time to climb that tree then. The boar would have
ripped Kaboel’s legs to pieces with his tusks while he was trying to get up
It. But Kaboel had a trick up his sleeve—a trick known to all native boar
hunters in Java. As he neared the tree he reached out and caught it
with his hand—swung himself sharply around it.
The boar WENT THUNDERING BY HIM. Before he could stop he
was ten yards away, and that was all the room Kaboel needed. Before
the animal could turn around, Kaboel had started up the tree. The
boar saw him—charged again—but he was just too late. By the time he
reached the tree again, Kaboel was sitting pretty on one of the lower
limbs.
But the boar wasn’t giving up yet. He made a few desperate
lunges up the side of the tree trunk, trying to climb up after Ka
boel, then he began to walk around that tree. Around and around
he went, pawing the ground with his hoofs and stopping every
now and then to glare up into the tree at Kaboel.
Kaboel thought it would be only a short time before the boar either
succumbed to his wounds or got tired of waiting and went away. But
the boar, evidently, wasn't wounded very badly, and neither did he get
tired of waiting for Kaboel to come down. Hour after hour went by.
Dusk turned into night, and the night wore on. Still the boar hadn’t
given up. Still he paced around and around the tree, waiting to kill
that man creature who had stung him with his shooting stick.
Kabocl Tied Himself in the Tree.
Kaboel was getting sleepy, but he fought sleep off. Once or twice
he caught himself falling into a doze, and brought himself awake just
in time to keep from falling out of the tree. That would never do. Once
he landed on the ground, he would be ripped and trampled to death by
the boar in a matter of seconds—minutes at the most.
Still, he was dead tired. The day had been a hard one, and his body
ached with fatigue. He searched his pocket—and found a piece of rope.
That was all he wanted. Picking a nice comfortable spot in the upper
branches of the tree, he tied himself to the trunk.
Sleeping in trees was nothing new to the Javanese boy. It was un
comfortable up there straddling that tree limb, but not uncomfortable
enough to keep him from taking a nap when properly secured. He dozed
off, and when he awoke again it was morning. The boar was gone. ‘‘In
deed, such animals are timid in daylight,” says Kaboel. And Kaboel
climbed down the tree and started back to camp.
©-WNU Service.
Anise of Parsley Family
The true anise is a member of the I
parsley family, native to southern
Europe. It is a slender plant, two
to four feet tall, with opposite oval
sharply serrate leaves. Somewhat
branched at the top the branches
end in interrupted spikes of small
blue flowers each a half inch long.
The tubular calyx is also a purplish
blue adding color to the flowering
j spike. The decided odor of the
flower spike gives the name anise
hyssop; botanists call it Agastache
anethiodora and it is also known as
fragrant giant hyssop.
Noughts for Naught
The Armenian merchant’s arith
metic is somewhat elastic, as when
he asks $200 for an embroidered
tablecloth and accepts $2. An Eng
lish official tells of an instance when
adjusting claims of the allied sub
jects for damages in the Near East
after the war. An Armenian asked
for $500,000 damages, was awarded
$400 and insisted he should have
$500. “But you asked for $500,000
originally,” they told him. “That’s
nothing,” with a shrug of his shoul
ders, “my lawyer just added a tew
noughts.”
1
Something Varied,
Rare in Crochet
Pattern 1402
An opportunity to combine ele
gance without extravagance—and
all with your own nimble fingers
and crochet hook! These lovely
10-inch companion squares of filet
crochet, done in string, are hand
some used together. Repeat each
alone and you have an entirely
different design in a cloth, spread
or scarf. You can make smaller
squares using finer cotton. Pat
tern 1402 contains directions and
charts for making the squares
shown and joining them to make
a variety of articles; illustrations
of them and of all stitches used;
photograph of a single square
about actual size; material re
quirements.
Send 15 cents in stamps or coins
(coins preferred) for this pattern
to The Sewing Circle Needlecraft
Dept., 82 Eighth Ave., New York,
N. Y.
Please write plainly your name,
address and pattern number.
Those Who Are Good
Must of Needs Match
I doubt whether anything in the
world can beautify a soul more
spontaneously, more naturally,
than the knowledge that some
where in its neighborhood there
exists a pure and noble being
whom it can unreservedly love.
When the soul has veritably
drawn near to such a being,
beauty is no longer a lovely, life
less thing, that one exhibits to a
stranger, for it takes unto itself
an imperious existence, and it?
activity becomes so natural as to
be henceforth irresistible. Where
fore you will do well to think it
over, for none are alone.—Maeter
linck.
checks
CCC GOLDS
ODD fever
LIQUID. TABLETS „ . ,
salve, nose drops Headache, 30 minutes.
Try “Rnb-My-Tism”—World's Best Liniment
BYERS BROS & CO.
A Real Live Stock Com. Firm
At the Omaha Market
Of One Value
He that loves to be flattered is
worthy of the flatterer.—Shakes
peare.
WOMEN WHO HOLD
THEIR MEN
NEVER LET THEM KNOW
NO matter how much your
back aches and your nerves
scream, your husband, because he
is only a man, can never under
stand why you are so hard to live
with one week in every month. ,
Too often the honeymoon ex
press is wrecked by the nagging
tongue of a three-quarter wife. The
wise woman never lets her husband
know by outward sign that she is
a victim of periodic pain.
For three generations one woman
has told another how to go "smil
ing through" with Lydia E. Pink
ham's Vegetable Compound. It
helps Nature tone up the system,
thus lessening the discomforts from
the functional disorders which
women must endure in the three
ordeals of life: 1. Turning from
girlhood to womanhood. 2. Pre
paring for motherhood. 3. Ap
proaching “middle ago."
Don’t be a tliree-quarter wife,
take LYDIA E PINKHAM’S
VEGETABLE COMPOUND and
Go "Smiling Through."
WNU—U 37—37
Don’t Neplect Them I
Nature designed the kidneys to do a
marvelous job. Their task is to keep the
flowing blood stream free of an excess of
toxic impurities. The act of living—life
itself—is constantly producing waste
matter the kidneys must remove from
the blood if good health is to endure.
When the kidneys fail to function as
Nature intended, there is retention of
waste that may cause body-wide dis
tress. One may suffer nagging backache,
persistent headache, attacks of dizziness,
getting up nights, swelling, puffiness
under the eyes—feel tired, nervous, all
worn out.
Frequent, scanty or burning passages
may be further evidence of kidney or
bladder disturbance.
The recognized and proper treatment
Is a diuretic medicine to help the kidneya
get rid of excess poisonous body waste.
Use Doan'i Pills. They have had more
than forty years of public approval. Are
endorsed the country over. Insist on
Doan’s. Sold at all drug stores.__