SEEN and HEAR)
around the '
NATIONAL CAPITAL!
By Carter Field p
FAMOUS WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT ^
Washington. — It is gradually
dawning on the country that Presi
dent Roosevelt did not lose his Su
preme court fight—he won it. The
only question is whether the price
he paid for making it was too high.
Only time will answer that.
On the last decision day in Febru
ary the high bench handed down
four decisions favorable to labor
three of them by unanimous votes.
This is merely typical of what has
been happening in the court ever
since the President began his fight
little more than a year ago. In the
13 months that have intervened
there has not been a single rebuff
to New Deal proposals by the court.
As a defense of the rights which the
conservatives thought they had that
august body has been a broken reed.
The most spectacular case, of
course, was the Wagner labor rela
tions act. Most lawyers in Washing
ton believe, rightly or wrongly, that
if the President had not started his
fight to enlarge the court the deci
sion on that act would have been
unfavorable. As it was, these law
yers believe that the court's deci
sion, or at least the casting of the
votes of several individual justices,
was based largely on self-defense.
They thought, these lawyers believe,
that it was better to surrender on
one decision than to Increase the
chances of the President’s winning
his fight to pack the court.
Then came the changes in the
court personnel, the substitution of
Hugo L. Black for Willis Van De
vanter, and of Stanley Reed for
George Sutherland.
Certain in the comparatively near
future are two more. Justices to
be appointed by Roosevelt will take
the places of the last two conserva
tives, Pierce Butler and James C.
McReynolds. Washington also ex
pects Justice Benjamin N. Cordozo
to retire because of ill health, but
that is not figured in the calcula
tions, since Cordozo has been one
of the strong liberal group on the
court ever since his appointment.
Not AH Wounds Healed
As to the price paid by the Presi
dent it is obvious that the White
House has not been able to heal all
the wounds. Just a few days ago
Sen. Burton K. Wheeler of Montana,
outstanding liberal, sounded off in
Boston to the general effect that
Roosevelt could not be re-elected if
renominated, due to the opposition
in this country to a third term.
Now no one really believes that
Wheeler would have said that if
the relationship between him and
the White House had been one of
uninterrupted cordiality. Nor can
Mr. Wheeler's attitude toward the
President be blamed entirely on the
court fight. Actually it antedated
that by several years.
Wheeler was one of the strong
"For Roosevelt Before Chicago”
men. But for certain reasons he
was never rewarded as nearly all of
the stars in that galaxy were. The
chief reason probably was that
Roosevelt was personally fond of
Wheeler’s chief political enemy in
Montana, Bruce Kremer. So bitter
ness welled up in Wheeler’s breast.
It never boiled over, however, un
til the court fight. Senator Wheeler
went so far. at that time, that ap
parently he did not think it possible
for him to get back in the fold. So
in a way his present attitude, or
certainly his public attitude, grew
out of that fight.
Whether this will be really de
cisive when the national convention
approaches, and presidential pri
maries arc being held, depends on
many factors. But it is always im
portant that any powerful leader is
bitterly opposed to a President’s re
nomination.
Merchant Marine
Ambassador Joe Kennedy’s re
cent pleas for a new system which
would permit the establishment of a
real American merchant marine
may accomplish the spending of
some money, but there is no inkling
that any of the real difficulties in
the path leading to this objective
will be removed. At present the
two greatest obstacles are: (1) the
absurdly high cost of operating a
ship under the American flag as
compared with any other maritime
country, and (2) union labor.
Both grow out of the well-defined
policy of keeping the American
standard of living high. Both for
that reason are commendable, per
se. But Just as surely they mean
that the United States will never
be a real competitor in the world’s
shipping business. To use Wood
row Wilson’s illustration, it looks as
though Uncle Sam will remain in the
position of a department store which
uses the delivery systems of its
competitors.
The writer has just returned from
a cruise to Rio on the Italian liner
Rex. Actually this was a good-will
tour for the Italian government.
When the passengers swarmed
ashore in Venezuela and Brazil to
see the sights, the ship’s officers
entertained local politicians and ce
lebrities.
Italian flags were everywhere.
The great ship was lit up like a
church at night in Rio harbor. Bra
zilians swarmed aboard, thousands
of the more important being served
champagne lunches free; the less
important were charged a small fee
for the inspection trip.
But Americans Paid
But—the cost of this good-will ges
ture by Italy, this impressing of the
Latin - Americans, was borne by
Americans. Of the nearly 600 pas
sengers all except less than a dozen
were citizens of the United States.
They paid for their tickets. They
paid stiff prices for shore excur
sions. They bought Brazilian mil
reis at 16.40 for the dollar at the
ship's bank, and found they could
get almost 20 for the dollar in Riol
On the day after the Rex left Rio
the French liner Normandie ar
rived, making the Italian record of
having the largest ship ever to en
ter Rio harbor one of brief stand
ing. I don't know about the French
efforts to entertain the Brazilians.
Generally they are not as smart
about such things as the Italians.
But whether the French made equal
use of the opportunity or not cer
tainly the great liner must have im
pressed the people of South Amer
ica generally, just as the Rex did.
Such things are intangible.
Now the importance of all this is
enhanced by the fact that of all the
countries south of Panama, Brazil,
for more than 20 years, has been
the best friend of the United States.
At virtually every Pan-American
conference, Brazil has sided with
the United States in some of the
embarrassing situations which have
arisen. Cuba has been just as good
a friend, but her friendship has
always been discounted by the in
sinuation that the United States con
trolled Cuba.
Yet here are two great European
powers, seeking to ingratiate them
selves with our international pal, so
to speak, and doing it with their
traveling salesmen’s expenses all
paid by American touristsl
May Help Business
American business probably will
benefit substantially as a result of
the British vote of confidence in
Prime Minister Neville Chamber
lain following the resignation of
Foreign Minister Anthony Eden.
Mr. Chamberlain happens to be an
industrialist at heart, and he favors
the reduction of trade barriers in
Europe where food shortage is a
chief cause of unrest.
If the American theory that more
freedom of trade produces national
and international prosperity i£ cor
rect, then England should be more
prosperous under the Chamberlain
policy. Furthermore, England will
prosper in proportion to the remov
al of the threat of immediate war.
Not only England, but Chancellor
Hitler is trying to avoid war. Wash
ington diplomats believe Hitler is
determined to get back the lost Ger
man colonies but that he wants to
do it without war. Now that Mr.
Eden and his adherence to the
League of Nations are out of the
way, they believe. Hitler will suc
ceed in his aim. England’s surren
der to the demands of the dictators,
distasteful as it may seem to many
Americans, probably will stave off
war for another three years or so.
That leaves England free to go
ahead with her armament program,
which will contribute much to busi
ness activity there.
England is by far this country’s
best customer. And, being busy
as she is with armament manufac
ture, demands even more goods
than she normally would. Then too,
England's being engaged in rearm
ing herself gives the United States
an opportunity to sell goods to coun
tries that have been buying from
England.
Our Foreign Trade
The United Kingdom will not only
buy our manufactures, but will buy
our farm commodities. One of the
main objectives of the trade agree
ment being negotiated with England
is to sell her more of our agricul
tural products. The United States
has had a great deal of trouble with
surplus crops. Sometimes it’s
wheat, sometimes it’s corn, and
most recently it was cotton. But
farm labor costs, and the American
standard of living, make our farm
products difficult to sell except at
unprofltably cut prices. Stabiliza
tion of farm prices by the govern
ment has only added to the trouble.
Cheap-labor countries start produc
ing in competition against this coun
try as soon as our prices are fixed
at high levels.
The United Kingdom and Europe
in general buy all the commodities
they can get from the low-cost la
bor countries. Now, in the trade
agreement program, this country
will cut tariffs on things England
sells us, so that England and, of
course, other countries, will buy our
farm surplus.
American business has been
watching anxiously the trend of
business in England, which has been
holding up under its great arms pro
gram. If England should go into a
slump it would be bad news for the
United States. It looks as if the
bad b0>' team pf Hitler and Musso
lini has done this country a good
turn, even though the benefits may
be temporary.
£) Bell Syndicate—WNU Service.
# WONDERS
] of AFRICA
Freight Barges on the Nile.
Nature and Man Have Contributed
I •
To the Marvels of the Dark Continent
I Prepared by National Geographic Society,
Washington, D. C.—WNU Service.
IN AFRICA are natural
wonders which almost
challenge belief. The Sa
hara, a vast waste of rock,
gravel, and sand, is so big it
would hold the entire conti
nental United States. The
reason it is a desert at all is,
simply stated, that the wind
blows in the wrong direction
—down from the dry heart of
central Asia instead of from
the moisture-giving ocean.
The temperature changes so
sharply at nightfall that trav
elers who have suffered in
the blazing heat find them
selves shivering under blan
kets.
This immense area of desolation
served ns a highly effective shield
which long protected central Africa
from overland exploration from the
north.
The Zambezi river’s Victoria
falls—whose native name means
“Smoke That Thunders”—are al
most two and a half times as high
as Niagara.
Lake Tanganyika is the world’s
longest fresh-water lake, and near
by Lake Victoria is larger in area
than any of the five Great Lakes of
North America except Superior.
The Nile is a river so long that it
would reach from New York to far
beyond the North Pole. The Em
peror Nero sent an expedition to dis
cover its source, but the effort failed
and not until 1862 was it ascer
tained that the White Nile had its
beginnings among the mountains
and huge lakes of the Congo-Tan
ganyika borderland.
Four Thousand Miles of Nile
From the source of the Kagera,
which flows into Lake Victoria and
which may be regarded as the ulti
mate starting point, Nile river wa
ter flows about 4,000 miles before
reaching the Mediterranean. Heavy
seasonal rainfall at the headwaters
of the Blue Nile in the mountains
of Ethiopia mainly causes the an
nual flood which has irrigated the
fields of Egypt for countless cen
turies. The marvelous Nile drains a
million square miles.
In its long and useful flow through
desert lands the Nile loses sq much
moisture that only a feeble stream
actually reaches the sea. In fact,
at low water special dams help to
keep the Mediterranean from flow
ing into the river.
Instead of enormous pyramids
erected by long-vanished monarchs,
modern men, through the enterprise
of the British, have built along the
Nile huge dams to harness it for
irrigation and power purposes. The
Aswan dam, in Egypt, impounds
more than five billion tons of water.
The Congo, draining even a larg
er area than the Nile and flowing
through the heart of the continent,
provides,, wi<h its tributaries, nearly
11,000 miles of navigable waterways
above Leopoldville, and its seasonal
variation in volume is less than that
of Africa’s other great rivers. Rap
ids and cataracts, however, make
it inaccessible to ocean steamers.
The rocky barriers characteristic
of African rivers, where they plunge
toward the sea, long proved a tre
mendous obstacle to the exploration
and development of the interior.
All Sorts of Natural Wonders.
A noteworthy victim of river pi
racy is the Niger, which rises within
150 miles of the Atlantic, yet flows
for 2,600 miles before emptying into
I the Gulf of Guinea. Its headwaters
are raided by pirate rivers—short
streams fed by heavy rainfall along
the coast which cut deeper and deep
er inland, year by year capturing
more and more of the Niger's wa
tershed,
From elephants and gorillas to
butterflies, there is no end to the
, wonder of Africa’s natural life, still
rich, although some of the most in
: teresting species have been deci
mated by thoughtless hunting.
Besides “big game,” there are
termites that build “anthills” the
height of a small house; driver
ants, that destroy every living thing
in their path; tsetse flies, whose
bite gives men sleeping sickness
and dooms domestic cattle to sud
den death; snakes that eject their
venom, aiming for the enemy’s
eyes to blind him; trees that store
up water to tide them over the dry
season.
A man-made wonder is the
world’s deepest gold mine, near Jo
| hannesburg. "The City Built on
! Gold.” Down, down it goes to a
depth of 8,380 feet—more than a
mile and a half—in quest of the
precious yellow metal. Work was
begun not long ago on an air-condi
tioning and cooling system for this
abysmal maze of shafts and pas
sages.
An elephant trail through the wil
derness, a traffic-filled street in a
bustling city, the Pyramids, modern
universities, professors, pygmies,
whites and blacks and every shade
between, a gasoline station in the
desert, a motor car’s honk, a hy
ena’s laugh—all these are modern
Africa.
Over it all, the lines of transport
are being constantly improved and
extended, as the European powers,
which control all but a tiny fraction
of this continent as big as three Eu
ropes, seek to tap to the full its
immense resources of mineral
wealth and tropical produce.
Air and Rail Transportation.
Comfortable British air liners reg
ularly fly mail and passengers from
London to Capetown, 7,700 miles
away, in nine days, while a white
hunter on safari in the big-game
country, with 40 blacks, takes about
the same length of time to travel
150 miles. The French and Belgians
are planning to blaze another long
air route diagonally across the con
tinent from the Barbary states to
the Belgian Congo and far-away
Madagascar.
By train one may ride from the
Cape to the Congo, or across Africa
from Lobito, Angola, on the west
coast, to Beira, Mozambique, on
the east. On a new railway bridge,
one of the longest in the world,
trains sweep across the broad Zam
bezi river at Sena, Mozambique, re
placing slow, flat-bottomed ferry
boats. A new 318-mile railway
in French Equatorial Africa con
nects the Congo river system’s
thousands of miles of navigable wa
ters with the sea at Pointe Noire.
The purple of France covers a
larger area than the color of any
other nation—an empire nearly 19
times the size of the home country—
but much of it consists of desert.
Only three areas, comprising
about one-fourteenth of the total of
Africa, remain as separate native
nations—Ethiopia, (in a diplomat
ic sense) Egypt, and Liberia.
With the aid of the famous Foreign
Legion, France controls some of Af
rica's most warlike peoples. The
keynote of its policy has been to
cause a minimum of disturbance of
the customs of the natives. From
its far-flung colonies it obtains such
products as groundnuts, cotton,
palm oil, fruit, cocoa, rubber, to
bacco, wheat, timber, wine and
hides.
Britain’s Colonies Developed.
Both France and Great Britain
benefited extensively from the elim
ination of Germany as one of the col
onizers of Africa. The World war
raged in many parts of this con
tinent, and even a naval battle was
fought in the heart of Africa when
enterprising Britons dragged boats
through the jungle and broke the
German grip on Lake Tanganyika.
A glance at the map shows how
the territories of Britain have been
consolidated, forming a highly im
portant and strategic right of way
from top to bottom of the conti
nent, since the British influence is
strong also in Egypt. The uniting
factor in this string of possessions
was Tanganyika, formerly German
East Africa.
The British, in po ssession of some
of the richest areas of the continent,
have been tireless in their develop
ment. In South Africa, gold and
diamonds have played major roles.
On the Nile, irrigation projects have
proved successful, and quantities
of cotton are produced in the
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Uganda.
Kenya is growing large quantities of
coffee and the West African posses
sions yield tropic products, such as
oil palm nuts, cocoa, copra, and
groundnuts; tiny Gambia alone
ships more than a million dollars’
worth of peanuts a year. The Brit
ish islands of Zanzibar and Pemba
yield the bulk of the world's cloves.
Belgium, third on the list of Afri
can landholders, possesses in the
Belgian Congo untold resources of
minerals and tropical produce, in
cluding palm oil, rubber, rice,
ivory, cotton, cocoa and coffee.
What gold and diamonds have been
to South Africa, copper promises for
the Congo, and much of the rapid de
velopment that has taken place
there has been aimed at tapping
the r>ch deposits of the metal.
T-t&tyd
ADVENTURERS’ CLUB
—
HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES
OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF!
*‘W hale Overturns Boat”
By FLOYD GIBBONS
Famous Headline Hunter
Hello everybody:
Stick close, boys and gals. We’ve got to make a long
trip today, and we don’t want anybody to be lost, strayed or
stolen. We’re popping off for the South Seas. Down there
where they do say, the gals wear grass skirts, and men dive
down into the water and choke sharks to death.
There’ll be some sharks in this story, too. It comes from an old
salt who sailed the briny deep in the days when they had iron men and
wooden ships. He’s Alfred Stuart, of Jersey City. A1 is up in the seven
ties now, but he recalls mighty well the adventure hehad almost half
a century ago. I get a big kick out of these yarns from the old timers.
Some day I’m going to slip over to Jersey City and just sit down with
A1 Stuart and swap adventures with him.
He shipped on a whaler out of New Bedford, Mass., with a crew
of mostly Portuguese sailors, a tough-egg captain, and West Indians as ;
officers. Everybody was a partner on the trip, because the crew re
ceived a share of the profits, and were all pretty tickled when they
picked up several small whales.
The captain was out for big game, though, and he sailed round
and round in the whaling zone, looking for more prizes. It’s a long
way from New Bedford to the South Seas, and the captain didn’t
want to start back without picking up everything they could find.
They Harpooned a Big Bull Whale.
He was so insistent about it that once he gave the first mate a raking
over the coals for not sticking with a whale after nightfall. A1 had
harpooned a fairly good sized catch, but when it got dark, they had just
“flagged’’ the whale and rowed their dory back to the ship. The cap
tain had bawled out the mate before the whole crew.
“Very well, sir,” the mate said. “It won't happen again."
Well, it wasn’t long after that, they spotted a great bull whale, one
day about dusk. Here was a beauty, and the boat was lowered to go
Men Went Hurtling Through the Air.
after him. A1 was up in the bow, and as they approached the great sea
monster, he made a ten strike with his harpoon.
The big steel prong struck deep into the whale’s back; then a second
was hurled into almost the same place, just ahead of the “hump.” Then
the fireworks started. That whale was what A1 calls a “runner,” not
a fighter. He started off like an express train for points distant.
They gave him practically all the line they had, and he just
jerked that little boat around the South Seas like a wrecking car towing
a baby carriage. The dory bobbed around like a cork, and plowed
through the waves so fast that the spray nearly swamped it. After
several hours, the whale slowed down a bit. They took in the slack line.
The mate got out the bomb gun and took a pot shot at Mr. Whale, and
was getting ready to let him have another, when the big boy decided to
dive.
Down he went; straight down, with everybody hoping he’d
change his mind before he pulled the little boat under. Down,
down. The line was almost at its limit. Everybody was stand
ing tense.
Smashed the Boat to Bits.
A Portuguese sailor stood by with an ax to cut the line when it
became taut. With a few more feet of its seventy-five fathoms to go,
the line slackened.
“Watch him now,” yelled the mate. “He's coming up!”
There was nothing they could watch for. It was now dark as pitch,
and there floated that little band of whalers trying to penetrate the inky
night, straining their eyes for a sight of the whale.
Then, suddenly, bang! Crash! Their little craft was thrown
completely out of the water. Men went hurtling through the
air. The whale had come up directly beneath the boat and tossed
it up as though it had been a toothpick. It cracked in two, almost
amidships, and the pieces whirled in the fierce eddies as the
whale thrashed about.
The men managed to reach the stern half of the boat and to hang
on for their lives, fearing all the while that the whale might crash it
to tinder by another slap of his immense tail. And then, another, even
more terrifying menace faced them. There was a swish in the water
nearby.
Sharks Were All Around Them.
“Sharks,” shouted the mate. "Everybody tread water!” Everybody
started pumping his legs up and down like a reserve football player
warming up. And they treaded water for hours.
In the gloom of the night, they could hear the soft swish of water and
faintly see the sinister dorsal fins as sharks nosed close to them. More
and more of them. Exhausted men desperately kicking out at unseen
dangers. It seemed the sea was literally alive with sharks.
Slowly the dawn broke over the eastern clouds. And there, not
fifty yards away was the whale floating on the surface. He was dead.
But around him the water was seething with the fins of sharks, making
a meal of the great hulk.
“That’s a big piece of luck for us,” was the mate’s com
ment. “If it hadn’t been for that whale near us, we’d all have
been shark meat long before this.”
The ship finally picked up the boat's crew, but it was almost noon
before they did it, and most of the men were half dead from exhaustion.
Y6u can’t stay in the water and keep on kicking for eight or ten hours,
even in the South Seas, without feeling it right down to the bones.
They towed that whale in, and it yielded 120 barrels of oil, and that’s
some whale. Incidentally, A1 Stuart got two of that monster’s teeth,
and he says they're eight and three-fourths inches long and weigh two
and three-quarter pounds. How would those babies be for a watch charm?
Copyright.—WNU Service.
Beauty in Glass
It has been well said that glass
more than any other form of handi
work shows the individuality of the
craftsman. The glassmaker of old
j created products which expressed
his own conception of beauty. But
j no longer does he shape and turn a
I piece of molten glass on the end
of a metal tube into a thing of ex
; ceeding beauty. The technique of
glass blowing has so completely
j changed that it may almost be con
sidered a lost art
I
Aloes, Medicinal Plant
Among the Greek physicians,
aloes was a most important me
dicinal plant. Centuries earlier, the
idea of binding fresh plant leaves
of various kinds on burns or other
wounds was a favorite of Egyptian
surgeons. Homeric heroes bound j
up damaged skin in the same way j
with herbs and oil. Roman expedi
tions found the savage Germans
adept in the art. European set
tlers in America learned from the i
candy is customarily used.
When Rossini Sneered
at Wagner’s Opera
Recalling an occasion when Ar
nold Schonberg, “impressionistic”
composer, came to London to con
duct a Schonberg program with
“explosive” results, Sir John
Squire is reminded of Rossini be
ing taken by friends to hear an
opera by the new marvel, Richard
Wagner. The dialogue, after th®
show, ran like this:
Disciples—What did you think of
it, Master?
Rossini—I don’t think it would be
fair to express an opinion without
hearing it a second time.
Disciples (eagerly)—And when
are you going to hear it a second
time. Master?
Rossini (emphatically)—Never!
Dr. Pierce’s Pleasant Pellets are an
effective laxative. Sugar coated.
Children like them. Buy now!—Adv.
Worth Nothing
Advice can be had for nothing
and is often worth it.
2-WAY RELIEF
FOR THE MISERY OF
COLDS
RELIEVES THROAT
PAIN—RAWNESS
ENTERS BODY g
THROUGH /
STOMACH AND
INTESTINES
TO EASE PAIN
The speed with which Bayer tab
lets act in relieving the distressing
symptoms of colds and accompany
ing sore throat is utterly amazing
. . . and the treatment is simple
and pleasant. This is all you do.
Crush and dissolve three genuine
Bayer Aspirin tablets in one-third
glass of water. Then gargle with
this mixture twice, holding your
head well back.
This medicinal gargle will act
almost like a local anesthetic on
the sore, irritated membrane of
your throat. Pain eases promptly;
rawness is relieved.
You will say it is remarkable.
And the few cents it costs effects
a big saving over expensive “throat
gargles” and strong medicines.
And when you buy, see that you
get genuine BAYER ASPIRIN.
2 FULL
Virtually 1 cent a tablet
The Wellsprings
Ideas are the wellsprings of all
the joy and sorrow of our moral
life.—Augusta Evans.
ONLY LUDEN'S
MENTHOL COUGH DROPS
will do these 3 things...
and all for . . . 5?
Q Soothe inflamed membranes
Menthol helps clear the bead
0 Help build up your
ALKALINE RESERVE
WHEN A COLD STRIKESI
Fight for the Good
It is better to fight for the good
than to rail at the ill.—Tennyson.
HAVEYOU GAS. HEARTBURN?
Wichita, Kans.—Mrs.
Lou J. Bechtel, 406 N.
Walnut St., says: *‘I
have found Dr. Pierce s
Golden Medical Discov
ery invaluabJe for relief
of gas and acid indiges
tion. It helps to give
one ^ fine appetite and
more strength. When I
have felt weak and out
of-sorts it has always helped to make me
feel like myself again.” Buy Dr. Pierce's
Golden Medical Discovery from your drug
gist today. See how much stronger you feel.
WNU—U 11—38
IT 'M
q I in ^ Kalla -* * jj
Don’t Neglect Tliem!
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 freer
the blood if good health is to endure.
When the kidneys fail to function as
S Nature intended, there is retention of
waste that may cause body-wide dis
tress. Or.e may suffer nagging backache,
persistent headache, attacks of dizziness,
getting up nights, swelling, pumness
i under the eyes—feel tired, nervous, all
" 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 kidneys
get rid of excess poisonous body waste.
Use Doan’s Pills. They have had mors
than forty years of public approval. Are
endorsed the country over. Insist on
Doan’s. Sold at all drug stores.