SEEN
and
HEARD
ardund the
NATIONAL
CAPITAL
By Carter Field ^
Washington.—A real battle be
tween President Roosevelt and the
New Dealers, on the one hand, and
the conservative Democrats plus
the regular Republicans, on the oth
er, seems certain despite the flood
of exaggerated reports about the
President’s conceding the error of
his ways and turning kindly toward
business.
He hasn’t changed any.
His talks with Wendell L. Willkie,
president of the Commonwealth and
Southern Power company, and with
Floyd L. Carlisle, chairman of the
Niagara and Hudson Power com
pany, details of which are now
known, prove this, giving quite a dif
ferent picture from that obtained
merely from the news that he had
called them in, and from their own
statements just after tyeir White
House visits.
Actually the President conceded
nothing. On the contrary he gained
a great deal for the New Deal ob
jectives. From Willkie he obtained
concessions as to the rate-making
base which are going to cause the
utilities a great deal of trouble.
More important, its publicity effect
is to put Roosevelt in the right and
the utilities in the wrong as to thp
battle so far.
From Carlisle he obtained a
promise—again accompanied by a
lot of publicity—to spend a great
deal of money. Which reinforced
Roosevelt's contention that the utili
ties have been holding back their
spending, and thus helping impor
tantly to bring about the preient re
cession, in order to have an effect on
legislation—specifically, to force
modification of the holding company
death sentence.
Roosevelt met every point made
by either executive with an argu
ment or silence. He disputed ev
ery figure cited, and denied or
merely iiniled at every contention.
On taxation the President is still
fighting tooth and nail to restrict
modification exclusively to the small
corporations. Even the house com
mittee (ways and means) has gone
further than the President wanted—
further than he had the Treasury of
ficials urge.
Set* Battle Stage
In the senate, of course, there Is
even more sentiment to modify
taxes with an eye single to improv
ing business—encouraging Invest
ment and hence employment. Sena
tors, and many house members, are
not concerned whether such modifi
cation happens to play ho9 with
planned economy, war against big
. ness, or any of the other New Deal
objectives.
This temper on the part of the
- White House and congress sets the
stage for a battle which has been
becoming more certain since the
early arrivals of congressmen for
?the extra session. But every pass
ing day has actually drawn the line
of conflict more sharply.
One piece of this White House
propaganda has been correct. The
.President is concerned about the re
cession. But he believes it due to
the attitude of the economic royal
ists.
There are three chief reasons for
■the recession, in the mind of the
^President. They are:
1. Too high prices, containing too
large profits, in many commodi
ties, with steel No. I on the list and
concrete a close second. Lower
prices, the President believes, would
have made greater sales, hence
jnore employment in the industries
pientioned (and other similar of
fenders) and in the industries that
juy from them.
„ 2. Hold off in expansion and re
- >lacement by the utilities, amount
' ng, according to figures given him
>y S. E. C.. to a billion dollars a
rear for the last three years. Inci
: lentally Willkie put this figure
lomewhat lower in his talk with
he President, and was argued into
iiience because he wanted to keep
. he President in a good humor.
This utility thing the President re
gards as even more damnable than
teel and concrete prices. The last
re due, he thinks, to greed, selfish
nd unenlightened. But the utility
old-back is Just a conspiracy to
tymie Roosevelt on his objectives.
3. Failure of railroads to make
ecessary improvements. This is
le only one of the three which
| le President regards as having no
—lterior motive. He would like to
: elp the railroads, but does not
; now how. Nor, apparently, does
ny one else.
One grain of salt must oe inject
; i into all this discussion. The Pres
lent just may decide the battle is
m.ecessary. He may decide that
' lere is too much risk involved, and
i lat it would be better to bend be
• ire the storm to avoid conse
. ~uences
1 Vould Revive N, R. A.
y A proposal to revive all the 900
^ id NRA codes as a substitute
j or the wages and hours regu
tion bill now pending before con
~ ress has been made to President
oosevelt by a group of southern
senators. Only in this way, the
southern senators told the Presi
dent, could the legislation be saved.
They predicted that otherwise this
bill, which means so much to the
progressives and is so integral a
part of the administration program,
would be sidetracked again as it
was last session. Not in the same
manner, necessarily, but perhaps
by some other device.
This proposal was made to the
President after the blast of William
Green, president of the American
Federation of Labor, against the
pending bill. This attack by Green
was regarded as devastating for
several reasons. One is that the
A F. of L. has a great many friends
on Capitol Hill, not only senators
end representatives who believe in
the old organizrtion as against the
C. 1. O. on principle or economic
theory, but personal friends of long
standing with A. F. of L. leaders.
More important is the difficulty
of meeting Green’s objections. Elim
ination of any type of governmental
board to supervise enforcement of
the law would seem simple. It
would seem as though the law could
be enacted just as any other fed
eral statute, leaving prosecution for
violations upon the federal govern
ment’s legal department—local fed
eral district attorneys, etc.
There’* a Problem
That would be simple were it not
for the differential question. It Is
next to impossible to get any law
passed fixing minimum wages and
maximum hours without providing
some arrangement whereby the
South will continue to have the pres
ent differential, under which it may
oontinue to pay slightly less wages
and work its labor slightly longer
hours than the competing industries
in the North and West.
But how to fix such an arrange
ment without a board, which would
have discretionary authority, is a
problem.
Complicating the situation is the
rsmainder of the program. Al
ready the senate has shown what it
can do in the way of time-wasting.
Discussion of the anti-lynching bill
dragged on and on until the farm
bill was reported. Every one knows
that the report on the farm bill
would net have been made yet by
the senate agricultural committee
were it not for pressure on Chairman
E. D. Smith to rush this measure
out so as to head off the anti-lynch
ing bill. Otherwise, Senator Smith
was informed, he would be blamed
for not doing his part in battling
the anti-lynching bill.
But whether any time was really
saved by this pressure on the senate
agricultural committee is something
else again. As Senator Smith said,
under the pressure, he would bring
the bill out if it were a blank piece
of paper, and leave the working de
tails to the floor of the senate.
Means a Struggle
The administration will be forced
to fight with all its strength to pre
serve as much as possible of the
social and economic reform objec
tives of the New Deal, while the of
fensive, caring nothing about the
New Deal ideals or Brain Trust
theories, will be considering only
how to ease the strain on business
sufficiently to produce prosperity
and employment.
Roosevelt and his senate and
house leaders will face a new prob
lem. For five years the White
House has fought an offensive war,
reaching its high tide and its first
serious reverse on the Supreme
court enlargement bill. Now, how
ever, with the business recession,
plus the demonstration in the court
battle that the President could be
beaten, plus the fact that the politi
cians on Capitol Hill are now con
vinced that the folks out in the coun
try, strong as they may be for the
President, are not excited by specif
ic votes against his recommenda
tion, the picture is different. Deter
mined to aid business, congress is
on the offensive, and the President’s
forces are driven to a new type
of strategy—a type which the his
tory of the relations of Presidents
with congress shows is frequently
unsuccessful.
Unexpected fireworks may vnlive
the situation as the President tries
to change the battleground. A mas
ter political strategist, he realizes
keenly the difficulties of » defensive
battle. So he may be depended up
on to inject new proposals, make
new appeals to the country over
the head of an obviously recalci
trant congress. In short, he may
be expected to make every effort to
resume the offensive, and attempt
to whip congress back into obedi
ence.
Chief Problem
But the President’s chief problem
is that he is facing opposition on
so many fronts. He is lighting his
farm control battle now. The wages
and hours battle has taken on a
more serious tinge in the last few
weeks, especially since William
Green denounced the national la
bor relations board, and after a
group of southern senators warned
him that the bill would be side
tracked again unless he consented
to reviving all the 900 odd NRA codes
as a substitute.
Then will come the tax bill, on
which the President and congress
are absolutely at loggerheads, and
seem destined to stay there. The
difficulty of a compromise lies in
the fact that the fundamentals of
the two positions clash. One aims
purely at business recovery. The
other aims purely at social and eco
nomic reform through the tax route,
fc Bell Syndicate. —WNU Service.
BORDER TROUBLES
The Fort at Ciudad Trujillo.
Prepared by National Geographic Society.
Washington, D. C.—WNU Service.
OT many islands in the
world have an inter
national border. One
of this select group is Hispa
niola, the big West Indian
island which is shared by the
Haitian and the Dominican
republics. Recently this ob
scure boundary came into the
news as a scene of outbreaks
in which Haitians were re
ported killed. The disorders
were said to have been caused
by heavy Haitian immigra
tion into Dominican border
towns.
Hispaniola’s border divides more
than governments. On one side of
the line is the overcrowded, French
speaking. predominantly negro re
public of Haiti, about the size of
Vermont. On the other side is the
Spanish-speaking and Caucasian
controlled Dominican republic, al
most twice the size of its neighbor.
The island was discovered by
Christopher Columbus on his first
voyage to America and at Cape Hai
titn his flagship, Santa Maria, was
shipwrecked.
Course of Boundary Line.
Although the 193-mile boundary
follows throughout much of Its
length a lofty chain of mountains
which forms a natural wall, it cuts
the island into two very unequal
parts. The Dominican republic is
almost twice as large as its neigh
bor, Haiti. Yet smaller Haiti has
a population of about 3,000,000 as
compared to the Dominican repub
lic’s estimated 1,400,000. Haiti, in
fact, is one of the most densely peo
pled nations in the world having
some 275 persons per square mile.
Beginning near the bay of Man
zanillo on the north, the border
runs the gamut of nearly every type
of natural obstacle known to geog
raphers. At first it parallels the
jungle-draped Copotillo river. Aft
er a few miles the boundary takes
to the hills tumbling like a roller
coaster over some of the highest
peaks in the West Indies. In these
mountains the frontier traverses a
region of pines, oaks, and other
Temperate zone vegetation.
Near Manneville it plunges into a
dry, desertlike trough, which, at
nearby Lake Enriquillo is 150 feet
below sea level—one of the two such
depressions in the Western Hem
isphere, the other being in Califor
nia.
Continuing in a general southward
direction the boundary next leaps
over the rugged Sierra de Bahoruco
more than a mile high along the
southern coast of Hispaniola and
finally picks up another small trop
ical stream, Rio Pedernales, be
fore it ends in the Caribbean.
Two Motor Roads Link Nations.
No railroad crosses this frontier,
but there are two motor roads. One,
in the north, crosses the Rio Cop
otillo at Dajabon. The other, about
midway, pierces the mountain wall
between the Haitian town of Las
cahobas and the Dominican village
of Las Matas. A narrow-gauge rail
way from Port-au-Prince, the Hai
tian capital, reaches almost to the
border at Manneville, where an un
improved roadway connects with
Ciudad Trujillo, the capital of the
Dominican republic.
While the two nations on the is
land present sharp social contrasts,
there is a great deal of similarity
in the scenery and the economic re
sources of each. Both raise sugar,
tobacco, cotlee, and cacao (the
source of chocolate) for export.
Both have deposits of valuable min
erals largely unexploited. The Do
minican rep iblic however has less
rainfall for crops but more g azing
land for cattle and greater timber
wealth including mahogany, cedar,
lignum vitae and satinwood.
Twice in recent years this sec
ond largest of West Indian islands
made news for map-makers. The
first time was when the old name of
Hispamolo given to it by Columbus,
was restored. Previously the is
land was termed either Haiti or
Santo Domingo, which not only
caused confusion among outsiders
but resentment between the two
countries on the island.
In 193(5 the name of the ancient
capital of the Dominican republic,
Santo Domingo was changed to Ciu
dad Trujillo in honor of the nation's
president Gen. Rafael Leonidas
Trujillo Molina.
Threats of new trouble over the
long-disputed boundary between
Nicaragua and Honduras have fo
cused attention again on these two
Central American countries closely
related to the United States econom
ically and historically.
Nicaragua and Honduras.
Each no larger than the state of
New York and with populations re
spectively the size of Cleveland and
San Francisco Honduras and Nic
aragua occupy the widest part of
the Central American isthmus and
have many similarities.
Bananas are the leading export
product of Honduras. Those raised
for export are grown chiefly on plan
tations along the northern coast
fronting on the Caribbean sea and
extending inland 5G to 75 miles. Mil
lions of bunches of the yellow fruit
are produced in this “banana belt.”
Coffee is the most important
export product of Nicaragua and
her prosperity rises and falls to a
large extent with the price that cof- j
fee brings. In the United States,
however, Nicaragua in recent years !
has been best known for the canal
which has been proposed through
her territory as an auxiliary to the
Panama canal.
If the canal is built its route
probably will be along the southern
border of Nicaragua just north of j
Costa Rica, following the course of
the San Juan river from the At
lantic to huge Lake Nicaragua,
then across the lake and through
the narrow strip of land that sep
arates the lake from the Pacific
ocean.
Have Much in Common.
Both Honduras And Nicaragua
have low, damp tropical regions
along the coast, while the interior is
made up of high mountains and
plateaus with a cooler, more tem
perate climate. Gold and silver are
plentiful in the mountains of both
countries, but'few mines now are
worked.
The boundary between the two
countries follows the course of the
Wanks or Segovia river from Cabo
Gracias a Dios (“Cape Thanks to
God”) on the Caribbean coast, far
inland. Then it runs through the
mountains of the interior to the
Rio Negro which it follows down to
the Pacific. Disputes between Hon
duras and Nicaragua are not new.
The two nations have had several
disagreements over the boundary in
the past, and were at war in 1907,
1897, 1884 and 1863. Internal dis
turbances have caused United States
marines to be landed in both coun
tries at various times.
Lack of roads through the thick
jungles of the lowlands and the high
mountains of the inerior, some of
which reach 10,000 feet in Honduras,
has kept both countries from fully
developing their resources. Teguc
igalpa, capital of Honduras, is the
only capital in Central America not
reached by a railroad, but never
theless is an up-to-date city for
regular airplane service operates
between it and other Central Amer
ican centers.
Managua, capital of Nicaragua,
was almost completely destroyed by
a disastrous earthquake in March,
1931, but its people have returned
and a new city has risen rapidly
from the ruins. Extinct volcanoes
are features of the skyline in the
mountainous interior of both coun
tries and Nicaragua has an active
volcano, Omotepe, forming an is
land in Lake Nicaragua.
People of Honduras and Nic
aragua are largely a mixture of the
original Indians and their Spanish
conquerors with small proportions
of pure-blooded Indians and whites
of unmixed Spanish descent. Ne
groes, some descended from slaves
and others brought in as contract
laborers from the West Indies, per
form much of the labor in the
banana-growing regions.
-_
First Permanent Settlement
While several communities and
towns in America predate James
Town (now Jamestown) that lora
tion is considered the place of the
first permanent settlement of the
American continent. Through dis
cord and dissension, storms and
fires, winds and wars, the town last
ed nearly 200 years, only two dwell
ings being there in 1807. But one
of these was there in 1861 and was
bunned during the Civil war. The
ruins of a single house, an old
church, a Confederate fort and
tombs of a few of the ancient worth
ies mark the spot of the once-thriv
ing Colonial village.
Sinusitis
and Adenoids
By
DR. JAMES W. BARTON
© Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service.
IT IS only natural that par
ents who have undergone
the suspense and expense of
having their youngsters’ ton
sils and adenoids removed
should expect immediate and
complete relief of the usual
symptoms — frequent colds,
discharge of mucous (or pus)
from the nose, mouth breath
ing, snoring, sore throat,
tiredness, loss of interest in
work or play.
Fortunately in most cases the re
sults are very gratifying; in some
Dr. Barton
cases, nowever, me
youngster still feels
tired, has frequent
colds, and may re
main or become ill
tempered.
What should prove
of interest to par
ents and to physi
cians also, is that in
a number of cases
where removal of
tonsils and adenoids
does not remove the
symptoms, the
cause of these symptoms may oe
some infection of the sinuses—the
little hollows or caverns in the bones
about the nose.
Sinuses May Be to Blame.
Dr. James Crookes in “Archives
of Disease in Childhood,” published
by the British Medical association,
states that any or all of the sinuses
may be affected but the large sinus
in the upper jaw is very frequently
affected and the infection very
readily discovered.
In a large series of routine oper
ations for removal of tonsils and
adenoids, about 15 per cent had
chronic disease of the sinuses* This
was shown by the fact that during
the operation the wall of the sinus
was punctured and the disease (pus
formation) was found.
“This is a startling fact which
may go far to explain the trying
group of ‘failures’ after the removal
of tonsils and adenoids, in which
symptoms of nose, throat, and
bronchial tube infection and other
disorders occur again, despite the
‘complete’ removal of tonsils and
adenoids.”
m m m
Water and Salt.
In prescribing a die* to decrease
weight most physicians advise that
table salt and all liquids be reduced
in amount. This is because every
pound of fat tissue holds three
pounds of water, and every grain of
salt keeps 70 times its weight of
water in the body tissues. Table
salt is known as sodium chloride.
Table salt and water are both neces
sary for the proper action of the
different body processes.
‘‘The need of additional salt
in the diet of certain animals is rec
ognized by the farmer who pro
vides salt for his stock. Wild ani
mals, too, sometimes seek salt licks
but only when forage is scarce.
Animals differ from human beings,
however, in >hat they refuse to eat
a quantity of salt in excess of that
which the body really needs. Since
a vegetable diet contains a large
amount of potassium salts (and each
mineral salt seems to need a cer
tain definite proportion of the other
mineral salts in order to do its work
properly) man and those animals
which are herbivorous (eat grasses
and similar foods) require an addi
tion of sodium chloride, table salt,
to their regular diet. Without this
extra salt they become uncomfort
able and lose appetite. On the oth
er hand, the carnivorous Eskimos,
who eat their meat raw, do not
require this sodium chloride since
their supply of this salt is obtained
from the blood of the prey, which
is distinctly salty.”
I am quoting from an article by
Dr. Edwin A. Cameron in Hygeia,
who shows that too much salt re
quires too much water for the tis
sues and organs (particularly the
kidneys) to handle.
According to insurance com
panies, deaths from kidney disease
between the ages of forty-five and
fifty-five years, are three times
more than those for the period of
thirty-five to forty-five years.
In regard to preventing kidney
disease, “restraint should be more
specially directed against overin-1
dulgence in table salt (sodium chlo
ride) and fluids of all kinds since
the reduction in salt and water
intake is often extremely necessary
in the treatment of any condition af
fecting the kidneys.”
It is estimated that in every min
ute the blood flowing through the
kidneys equals the weight of these
organs. This quantity is from ten j
to twenty times greater than the
flow through any other organ. Thus
the popular belief that the forced j
drinking of water removes poisons |
by flushing the system is false.
Fingernails Denote Rank
Gentility is said to be judged by
the fingernails. In China, for in- ;
stance, long, pointed shapes signi
fied at one time high rank or birth.
In ancient Egypt and other Orien
tal countries dyed fingernails set
royalty apart from the common peo
ple.
HOW “SEW
By
RUTH WYETH
SPEARS
“TO modernize the old walnut
chair at the right the pieces
under the arms were removed and
most of the carving covered up.
The padding at the back was re
moved entirely and replaced by
a fiber board which was covered
by a loose cotton filled cushion
tufted like an old fashioned bed
comfort except that the tied
thread ends of the tufting were
left on the wrong side.
This back cushion was fastened
in place with tapes that slipped
over the knobs at the ends of the
upper carving. If the knobs to
hold the cushion had been lacking
it could have been tacked in place
along the top on the under side
by using a strip of heavy card
board to keep the tacks from pull
ing through the fabric as shown
here for tacking the box pleated
ruffle around the seat as at A.
A plain rust colored heavy cotton
upholstery material was used for
the covering.
Every Homemaker should have
a copy of Mrs. Spears’ new book,
SEWING. Forty-eight pages of
step-by-step direptions for making
slipcovers and dressing tables;
restoring and upholstering chairs,
couches; making curtains for ev
ery type of room and purpose.
Making lampshades, rugs, otto- ■
mans and other useful articles for
the home. Readers wishing a
copy should send name and ad
dress, enclosing 25 cents, to Mrs.
Spears, 210 South Desplaines St.,
Chicago, Illinois.
Take it to any.J[
radio dealer! SeeVJf
the new 1938 farm ^
radios. Choose
the radio you like
best, and ask your
dealer how you
can save $7.50 on
the purchase of a
new battery radio
equipped with a
genuine Win
charger.
Wincharger
turns FREE
WIND POWER
into electricity,
brings "big-city”
reception to farm
homes. Elimi- *
6-VOLT
1 I FR EE
\ POWER
A From the
\ WIND
RUNS
IV YOUR RADIO
nates a batteries. Ends expensive re
charging. Provides plenty of free electricity
to run your radio as much as you want for
less than 50c a year power operating cost.
See Any Radio Doat'orl
____________________________________________________ -
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BRIDGEPORT, CONNECTICUT
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