SEEN
■na
ardund the
NATIONAL
CAPITAL
By Carter Field ^
Washington.—Not much has been
heard lately about the “purge'’ of
Democratic senators who opposed
the White House on the Supreme
court enlargement. On the contrary.
President Roosevelt has been hold
ing out quite a few olive branches to
the northern and western Democrats
important issue, but who agree with
him on most of his New Deal pro
posals.
The answer is simple. The Pres
ident is worried about possible
strength at the 1940 Democratic
convention of the southern conserv
atives. He knows that his opposi
tion to the northern and western'op
ponents of his court plan drove
those senators into alliance with the
Southerners, and he does not want
that alliance made permanent.
So within a few days no one need
be surprised when Senator Burton
K. Wheeler, the one opponent of the
court plan whose attitude was re
sented more than that of any other
by the White House, is announced
as conferring with the President.
In fact, the subject for this confer
ence has already been selected. It
will be on the railroad situation.
Wheeler being chairman of the sen
ate committee on interstate com
merce.
But there is another reason why
the talk about a “purge” has died
away. It develops that plenty of
thick and thin, tried and true. 100
per cent administration senators
may have renomination troubles.
The latest is Senator Kenneth D.
McKellar of Tennessee. This comes
closely on the news that Senator Al
ben W. Barkley of Kentucky, whose
selection as Democratic floor leader
President Roosevelt forced by a
majority of one vote after putting
on pressure and pulling every wire
he could manipulate, is in danger.
In both these cases there is no
rumor of an anti-administration up
start taking the scalp of a good New
Deal senator. Both the aspirants
in these cases, Governor Gordon
Browning of Tennessee, and Gover
nor Albert B. (Happy) Chandler of
Kentucky, are ardent supporters of
President Roosevelt. In fact. Chan
dler was elected over a non-con
formist with all the strength the Far
ley organization could bring to bear.
Bad Medicine
But it is bad medicine for the
morale of the administration forces
in the senate and house to have the
word get round that even the most
devoted following of the White
House on every issue is no guaran
tee that the follower will be re
turned to power when his term ex
pires. And it is slightly embar
rassing, to say the least, to the
White House for it to be known that
the senator it picked to lead its
forces in the upper house may be
thrown out. Especially when the
man defeated by that White House
pressure, Pat Harrison, was renom
inated the last time he faced his
voters by something like a three to
one majority, despite the opposi
tion of his own colleague!
Then there are some other bad
spots. Governor Herbert H. Leh
man of New York, whom Roosevelt
once called “his good right arm.” is
getting sourer and sourer on the
New Deal. And now spies are tell
ing the Great White Father that his
own choice for governor to suc
ceed Lehman, Robert H. Jackson,
might not be elected if nominated.
They whisper that he has no "polit
ical sex appeal.” whereas Attorney
General John J. Bennett, Jr., fairly
reeks with it!
There are no cases yet of a Re
publican making a real threat any
where, nor even of some rabid anti
New Deal Democrat frightening the
faithful. But there are plenty of
crackings in the existing machine,
all calculated to encourage sena
tors and representatives to play
safe when measures that their own
constituents may not like are de
manded by the White House.
Nobody Likes It
The proposal by Commonwealth
and Southern’s president, Weldell
L. Willkie, that the government buy
all the privately owned electric util
ities in the Tennessee valley field,
accompanied by the suggestion of
thi machinery for determining the
price, promises to cause more irri
tation and trouble among the pro
government ownership and anti
utility groups in Washington than
anything which has so far devel
oped.
The truth is that nobody likes it.
It is mighty hard to criticize, and
that combination is an annoying
thing to happen to anyone. David
E. Lilienthal, most ardent "yard
stick” man in the TVA, could find
nothing further to say than that
Willkie’s proposal was ‘‘radical.”
If Willkie had not proposed a
board, or rather suggested how the
board that would determine the
price be selected, he would have
invited a barrage of criticism.
There would Have been lots of talk
about asking the government to pay
for “water” and “air,” plenty of
speeches aDoui wail street financ
ing, etc.
But the head of Commonwealth
and Southern has apparently learned
something about Washington during
his long controversy with TVA. He
sacrificed a lot from business trading
methods in his offer, but what he
gained by putting his opponents on
the spot!
For it is very hard for a radical
to criticize the idea of a board com
posed of three men, one to be ap
pointed by the company, one by
President Roosevelt, and the third
by the Supreme court! Especially
now that the Supreme court has a
liberal majority! And especially as
Hugo L. Black, for years one of the
most rabid of the utility baiters, a
man who believed in reading pri
vate telegrams of all and sundry in
the hope of discovering some utility
propaganda against the death sen
tence when that was pending in
congress, is now a member of the
court!
Put in a Dilemma
So Willkie puts the government in
a dilemma. To accept his offer is
to admit that government action is
and has been frightening investors
from putting their money into util
ities. That fastens the blame
squarely on the government for the
failure of the utilities to spend that
billion dollars a year additional for
the la-st three years, which Presi
dent Roosevelt and the securities
commission and the power commis
sion think they should have spent.
Further, it knocks the props from
under the Roosevelt contention that
the operating companies are all
right, but it is the wicked holding
companies, controlling the operat
ing companies, that prevented this
spending just as a lobbying measure
to force repeal of the death sen
tence.
But to reject his offer is to make
the actual picture worse, so far as
these same investors are con
cerned! Which again puts the ad
ministration squarely on the spot as
being responsible for the depres
sion, or at least one of the impor
tant-according to its own ex
pressed judgment—reasons for the
depression.
Surprise Reverse
Passage of the federal housing
bill, it was generally agreed at the
time President Roosevelt called the
special session of congress on No
vember 15 last, was the one thing
congress could do quickly to con
tribute to the employment situation,
and to help business conditions.
The President had other plans in
mind for that session. One of them
was the wages and hours regulation
bill. Also he wanted to get a start
on his pet government reorganiza
tion bill, and generally clear the
ground so as to exedite the legis
lative bill in the regular session.
But there came the surprise re
verse for the wage-hour bill, and
no one on Capitol Hill really thought
any progress would be made on the
reorganization bill. General opin
ion was, as that special session con
vened, that just two things would
be accomplished: (1) congress
would rush through the housing bill,
and (2) congress would crystallize
its ideas on the impending tax re
vision.
But here is January of the regular
session slipping away, with the
special session passed into history,
and the housing bill just agreed up
on in conference. There were va
rious excuses, one of which was
that the father of the bill, Senator
Robert F. Wagner of New York,
has not been well.
The trouble was over one of those
peculiar combinations of politics
and face-saving which so often arise
in any governmental body. In this
case it revolved around the amend
ment introduced by Senator Henry
Cabot Lodge, Jr., of Massachusetts,
and accepted by the senate. And it
was the discarding of this amend
ment that made conference agree
ment possible.
This amendment merely provided
that no mortgages should be ap
proved and brought within the scope
of the act unless the prevailing rate
of wages had been paid in the con
struction of the houses thus mort
gaged.
Not So Simple
Sounds fair and simple, doesn’t
it? Well, so it did to the senators
the day young Mr. Lodge proposed
it. But it’s far from simple. In
fact, the housing experts in the ad
ministration stated frankly that the
amendment, if enacted, would sim
ply make their program unwork
able—that congress might as well
uot pass the bill at all.
Why was it so difficult to straight
en this thing out? Face-saving is
the answer. Senators and represen
tatives do not like to vote against
provisions for “prevailing wages.”
It would sound bad when the op
ponent talked about it in the next
primary, or election. Too many
people would get the impression
that the representative so voting
was against fair wages.
Worse than that, in this case, it
would put the union leaders and their
lobbyists in a hole. The truth is
that while the building trades have
been pretty tightly organized they
have concerned themselves chiefly
with larger types of building con
struction-public buildings, hotels,
office buildings, apartment build
ings, factories, etc. They haven't
bothered much about the folks who
work on dwellings. If they were
unioti men, fine; if they were not,
the union organizers often looked the
other way. The game wasn't worth
the candle, and there were too many
odds-and-ends-job chaps who could
do a little scabbing.
£ Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service.
THINGS TO SEE IN LONDON
In Hyde Park, “Safety Valve” of Britain.
World's Metropolis Is Undergoing
Numerous Significant Changes
Prepared by National Geographic Society.
CWashington. D. C—WNU Service.
OT even London’s
growth after the Great
Fire can compare with
today’s swift, significant
changes. More than 600,000
new homes, besides square
miles of flats, have been built
in recent years to house peo
ple taken from slums, crowd
ed sections, and from areas
cleared for parks, factories,
or new streets.
Historic Metropole hotel served
its last summer. Sad-faced waiters
closed its doors forever, Meanwhile
the famous Adelphi terrace was
torn down, even as Hotel Cecil melt
ed into scrap.
As ancient city landmarks fade,
queer modernistic structures, bewil
dering to Londoners returning after
long absence, rise in their place.
Look at that big cube of metal and
glistening black glass which holds
Lord Beaverbrook’s Daily Express
in Fleet street; or the classic stone
temple of the British Broadcasting
corporauon.
Or at Shell-Mex house on the
Strand, Bush house in Aldwych, and
all the monster new piles raised
here as official headquarters by
Canada, Australia, South Africa,
and other members of the British
Commonwealth—whose show win
dows display the products of these
far-away lands. They seem unreal,
out of place, in this long-static,
smoke-stained, weather-beaten old
town.
Rise of new suburbs is no less
astonishing. “Satellite” towns, dor
mitories of 50,000 or more, spring
up where yesterday lay green fields
and truck gardens. Smoky forms
of new factories rim the horizon.
City Steadily Spreading Out.
Middlesex county, men say, will
soon be wholly urban. Steadily the
city unfolds down through Surrey.
Southeast towards the hop fields of
Kent “ribbon towns” sprawl beside
the highways; in Essex and Hert
fordshire “the scaffold poles of the
builder are like wands that conjure
new towns out of the ground.”
Drawn by this boom, industry
tends to shift here from the less
prosperous north. Workers flock
along; each year London adds a
young city to it^ population, and
each day 100,000 visitors pass
through its streets. In one week,
at Regent Palace hotel, 40 different
nationalities filled out the police
form. Yet you see few idle men.
Munition works run day and night;
40,000,000 gas masks are being
made—even every child is to have
| one; flying field schools turn out
I more and more pilots.
To learn how London, growing so
| fast, handles its passengers, go to
j “London Transport” headquarters,
I a system which hauls a crowd each
year equal to twice all the tabulated
people on earth.
This greatest of all urban trans
port systems was formed under the
Passenger Transport act of 1933.
; Its board has issued more than half
| a billion dollars' worth of stock.
Listed on the exchange, it is an ex
ample of the British public utility
sponsored by the government, yet
owned by private stockholders.
Buses and the Underground,
Londoners have a deep affection
for their buses. They grow up to
j respect the conductor for his cour
tesy, efficiency, good temper, and
wit. Many visitors hold out hand
fuls of pennies, trusting the con
ductor to pick out the right fare.
Here the joy of a sight-seeing ride
on a bus never stales. London
played skillfully on human nature
when she sent buses to France with
British troops in the World war.
These gay. red vehicles, or "scar
let galleons,” bore London’s famil
iar advertisements right up to the
front line.
There is no less romance under
ground than above. It is easy to
imagine the relationship between
the motorbus of 1938 and the first
wheeled vehicles, made by shaping
logs, that rumbled along prehistoric
roads.
But the Underground. ^ triumph
of mechanization, is1 uncompromis
ingly of today. The automatic tick
et-vending and change-giving ma
chines, the fast-moving escalators,
the air-operated car doors, and the
automatic signaling which enables
forty eight-car trains an hour to
travel on some lines—these wonders
cannot be taken for granted, even
if they are mechanical.
Only by keen study of human na
ture can the Underground carry its
1,750,000 passengers a day. Con
sider the escalators. If people walk
or run up an escalator instead of
standing still, its capacity rises by
as much as 40 per cent. There
fore each escalator is run at a speed
designed to keep people walking.
The 137 moving stairways used here
travel more than 2,500 miles a day—
enough to form a narrow bridge full
of people stretching almost across
the Atlantic!
Ticket-selling machines present
another problem in psychology. The
extent to which they are used de
pends upon their situation; a re
moteness of a few feet may dis
courage purchasers. In a year the
Underground sells 350 tons of tick
ets! And on busy week-ends its
riders spend thirty tons of copper
and ten tons of silver.
“What about the future?” a vis
itor asked the guiding genius of
me L.onaon lranspori Doara.
"Apart from new lines, signaling
will be improved and platforms will
be lengthened so that in time prob
ably all lines may carry forty eight
car trains an hour during peak pe
riods. We now use the Metadyne
system of control, which enables
faster and smoother acceleration
and better braking. We have also
reduced noises in the tubes.
"Some 1,200 Diesel-driven buses
are in service and eventually * all
will be of that type."
"Can you reduce traffic jams?”
“Certainly we can't let them get
any worse! Even now, ours are not
so bad as New York’s, because we
have no sudden crowds dumped at
closing time from skyscrapers that
house 10,000 or more people. But
London urgently needs some bold
street widening and some stagger
plan by which all people going to
and from work will not travel at
the same time.”
Hyde Park Orators.
Go out to Hyde park Sunday
morning and hear the soapbox ora
tors.
An old man had been speaking
there, on the League of Nations,
so often that hecklers knew his sen
tences by heart; whenever he be
gan a line, they’d say it with him,
like church responses, in owlish
solemnity!
But police arrest hecklers who get
abusive.
Sit in a Maiden lane cafe and
count noses: a Bombay merchant,
two Argentine cattlemen, a Nether
land tulip salesman, the agent for
a French brandy, a British army
man on furlough from India, and
the publisher of a Pacific coast
newspaper.
A Saturday-noon High street bus
queue was 200 yards long, three or
four abreast. Thus, in orderly pa
tience, you see London trained to
wait in line; no crowding, no cut
ting in at ticket windows and bus
stops. Cars drive to the left, of
course. It is only pedestrians
wno swarm in curious disorder.
Ask directions here and people do
not say, “Across the street”; they
say, “Over the road." You do not
“turn to the left"; you “take the
left turning.” Odd street names
abound, such as Haunch of Venison,
Rabbit Bow. Shoe Lane, Mincing
Lane, St. Mary the Axe, Wood,
Bread, and Milk streets, Honey
Lane, Roman Bath street, Lime
street, and Butter Lane, with Iron
monger and Petticoat and Fetter
Lanes.
You see all men lifting their hats
when they pass the Cenotaph in
Whitehall.
While you talk with the lord mayor
in his red robes, his old-style car
riage and four, with drivers and
footmen in white wigs, draws up
before the door to take him to open
the courts.
Soldiers and Bells.
Before the Mansion house a sol
dier demonstrates an anti-aircraft
gun, while another pleads for re
efuits. Beneath its routine hurly
burly, all London is uneasy.
Thoughts of war and bombs are
with it always. They still point out
where World war bombs w’ere
dropped.
Drums, bugles, bells, and tramp
ing feet sound everywhere. Bells
of St. Paul's peal merrily for wed
dings that unite ancient families.
Royal Horse Guards in white
breeches and high black boots cross
sabers over the heads of bridal
pairs while crowds cheer.
I WHO'S NEWS I
THIS WEEK...
By Lemuel F. Parton
ymrffff¥fV¥¥v»T*mrrr
NEW YORK.—Many a good news
yarn has been spoiled by the
necessity of “getting the story in
; the lead,” as they say in the news
paper shops. This
Story That reporter asks in
Haa Kick dulgence for sav
FnA ir,g the kiCk in
at the End ^ one for the
end.^noting merely that it is a
happy ending. In recent years,
there have been so many unhappy
fade-outs, from Sam Langford to
the League of Nations, that any
thing in the line of an unexpect
ed Garrison finish rates a bit of
suspense before the news pay-off.
In Maxwell street, Chicago, long
before the fragrance of Bubbly
creek ebbed and sank and saddened,
there was a book-stall' which was
the Jewish Algonquin of those parts.
The place was overrun with phil
osophers, some white-bearded and
highly venerated, some young and
contentious, all stirred by a fever
ish intellectual zeal. They wolfed
new books and started clamorous
arguments about them, the way the
crowds at the big pool hall down
the street grabbed the box scores in
the late sporting extras. Sweatshop
workers used to throng in after a
hard day’s work and get in on the
seminar.
Wrinkled, merry, mischievous lit
tle Abraham Bisno from Russia was
the Erasmus of the sweatshop phil
osophers.
He used to circulate a lot around
this and other Maxwell street book
shops, and many
Erasmus of times the state of
Sweatshops Illinois was saved
Makes Peace th* expenf °f
calling out the ;
militia because Bisno happened -
along to referee an argument.
He was a sweatshop worker, a
man of amazing erudition, but of
salty, colloquial speech, never en
meshed in the tangle of print lan
guage around him. He used to tease
his friend, Jane Addams, of nearby
Hull house, by calling her settle
ment workers “the paid neighbors
of the poor.” He liked to deflate
the Utopians, boiling things down to
Gresham’s law of money, the law
of diminishing returns, weighted
averages or something like that. He
was the first of a multitude of
sweatshop economists who spread
light and learning through Chicago’s
Ghetto.
Bisno had a bright-eyed, clever
little daughter named Beatrice, one
of several chil
The Btsnos dren. Old sages,
Pass Beyond up and down Max
Our Ken ^e11 us^
to say the world
would hear from Beatrice some
day. But the world went to war,
regardless of Sir Norman Angell
and all the other philosophers, and
the Bisnos passed beyond the ken
of this writer.
About twelve years ago, I had a
visit from Francis Oppenheimer, a
New York journalist. Beatrice Bis
no was his wife. She was going to
write a book, and did I know of a
quiet hide-out where she could write
it? I sent them to the old Hotel Hel
vetia, No. 23 Rue de Tournon, in
Paris. She sat in the nearby Lux
embourg garden and wrote her
book.
They came home and the book
made endless round trips to pub
lishers’ offices. The smash of 1929
took the last of their savings. Today
I had a letter from Francis Oppen
heimer.
“We finally threw the book in an
old clothes basket," he said. "Then,
acflng on impulse, we used our din
ner money to give it one more
ride. Weeks passed. Beatrice fell
ill. There came a letter from Liver
wright, the publisher. I knew it
was another rejection and didn’t
want to show it to Beatrice. But
I tore open the envelope and hand
ed it to her. Her eyes were glazed.
She could not read the letter. It
slipped from her fingers and fell to
the floor.”
And in the same mail today, there
came to this desk a copy of the
. new book, “To
Oirf Wins morrow’s Bread,”
Big Prize by Beatrice Bisno,
With Novel winning $2,500
prize award, the
judges being Dorothy Canfield
Fisher and Fannie Hurst. That was
the news that Mr. Oppenheimer
picked up from the floor when his
wife was too ill to read it.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher says of
the book: “A searchingly realistic
portrait of an idealist. Wha4 an
idealist does to the world and what
the world does to an idealist is here
set down with power and sincer
ity.”
Winsome little Bisno is gone. One
wishes he could be carrying the
news down to the old Maxwell street
book stall, if it’s still there.
© Consolidated News Features.
WNU Service.
Cannot Arrest the President
Theoretically, the President of the
United States cannot be legally ar
rested for any act whatsoever, even
the commission of murder. His per
son is inviolable during his, term of
office and he is beyond the reach of
any other department of the govern
ment, except through impeachment.
If the President were impeached,
convicted and removed from office
he would then be subject to arrest
as a private citizen. The President
might be arrested cy mistake.
Stitches in Time
A STITCH in time goes a long
way toward making your
days brighter and your burdens
lighter when the bustling, busy
days of Spring roll ’round. No
time then for leisure hours with
your sewing kit, and fortunate in
deed are the early birds Who have
got on with their Spring wardrobe.
The moral?—make your selec
tions now and be off to the races
when the season starts!
Practical House Coat.
There is a versatility to this
clever pattern which makes it a
prime favorite for the style con
scious and the thrifty. Designed
in two lengths, it lends itself per
fectly to either of two needs—as
an apron frock in gingham or
seersucker for busy days around
the house, or as a full length beach
or sports coat in chintz or linen
crash. The princess lines are
smooth and flattering and there
are just seven pieces to the pat
tern—a cinch to make and a joy
to wear.
Slimming Silhouette.
This handsome frock in linen or
crepe does wonders for the full
figure, sloughing off pounds here
and bulges there with the utmost
ease. Streamlined from the shoul
ders and buttoned at the waist
with two graceful scallops, this is
the sort of frock which answers
your need perfectly for almost
any social or shopping excursion,
a standby to see you through the
Summer. There is a choice of
long or short sleeves and the sim
plicity of the design—just eight
pieces in all—insures success
even for the inexperienced in
home sewing.
Attractive Apron.
“Swell” isn’t a word the teach
er recommends but it is highly
appropriate in describing this
handy apron frock which goes
about the business of being an
honest-to-goodness apron, not just
a postage stamp model to wear
for effect. Appealing in design,
easy to wear, extremely service
able, with two convenient pockets,
this perfectly swell apron was de
signed by a busy housewife who
knew her oats! Six pieces to the
pattern.
The Patterns
Pattern 1323 is designed for
sizes 14 to 46 (32 to 46 bust). Size
16 requires 5% yards of 35 or 39
inch material for short length
without nap. Five yards of braid
required for trimming. House
coat length IVi yards.
Pattern 1448 is designed for
sizes 36 to 52. Size 38 requires 51&
yards of 35 or 39 inch material,
plus % yard contrast.
Pattern 1439 is designed for
sizes 34 to 48. Size 36 requires
2% yards of 35 inch material. Five
and one-half yards of bias strips
required for finishing.
Send your order to The Sewing
Circle Pattern Dept., Room 1020,
211 W. Wacker Dr., Chicago, 111.
Price of patterns, 15 cents (in
coins) each.
© Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service.
Making a Way
As men in a crowd instinctively
make room for one who would
force his way through it, so man
kind makes way for one who
rushes towards an object beyond
them.—Dwight.
Dr. Pierce’s Favorite Prescription is a
tonic which has been helping women
of all ages for nearly 70 years. Adv.
Spiritual vs. Material Force
Great men are they who see
that spiritual is stronger than any
material force.—Emerson.
NERVOUS?
Do you feel so nervous you want to screamf
Are you cross and irritable? Do you scold
those dearest to you?
If your nerves are on edge, try LYDIA E.
PINKHAM’S VEGETABLE COMPOUND.
It often helps Nature calm quivering nerves.
For three generations one woman has told
another how to go “smiling through” with
Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound. It
helps Nature tone up the system, thus lessen
ing the discomforts from the functional dis
orders which women must endure.
Make a note NOW to get a bottle of world
famous Pinkham’s Compound today WITH
OUT FAIL from your druggist—more than a
million women have written in letters re
porting benefit.
Why not try LYDIA E. PINKHAM'S
VEGETABLE COMPOUND?
Not by Reason Alone
We know the truth, not only by
the reason, but also by the heart.
—Blaise Pascal.
BECAUSE BUILDING UP TOUR
ALKALINE
RESERVE
helps you to resist colds
LUDEN'S
Menthol Cough Drops
DIZZY DRAMAS By Joe Bowers
Now Flaying—“DYNAMITE”
X k\ (POWDER -*)/T on your coat )
a ^\\ v. -—-j—s
don’t be ) ( it won’t )
afraid, y _ V explode J
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<Q Public Ledger. Inc.—WNU Service.