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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (April 20, 1939)
Washington Patterns Future After Original L’Enfant Plan Spring Brings Influx Of Tourists to Capital Prepared by National Geographic Society, Washington, D. C.-WNU Service, The spring tourist trek is descending on Washington. The Capital City has changed so rapidly in the last decade through a $200,000,000 gov ernment building program that even those who live there have difficulty keeping track of the shifting scenes. The problem faced by the commission of fine arts and the builders of the new Wash ington is twofold. In carry ing out the plan of 1901, worked out to incorporate vir tually all that was feasible in Major L’Enfant’s original plan, they are striving to produce the most beautiful capital in the world and at the same time to pro vide suitable quarters for the ever increasing bureaus of the federal government. To erect a truly graceful build ing large enough to house the thou sands of employees of one of the major departments, such as com merce, interior, or agriculture, is a task so difficult as to challenge the most skilled architects. There must be hundreds of offices, all with out side windows; no gloomy medieval castles will prove satisfactory. Hugeness is a physical necessity, grace an artistic obligation. Federal Triangle Large. To their everlasting credit, the architects who have designed the new edifices have mastered seem ingly impossible difficulties. The federal triangle, where are concen trated more official activities than in any other capital, covers an area of about 20 city blocks from its Fifteenth street base, the enormous department of commerce building, to its Sixth street tip, the Apex building, which is to be occupied by the federal trade commission. Within the nine buildings of this group are offices for more than 25, 000 government employees; yet, de spite the vastness of the structures, the development has genuine archi tectural attractiveness and dignity. Fortunately L’Enfant planned a Federal City with room to expand. Even the largest edifices can be made to look graceful if surrounded by grounds sufficiently spacious, and the new buildings are so framed by pleasant parks and plazas that they escape the charge of crowded awk wardness. With its new south extensible sec tion, the department of agriculture building has become the largest gov ernment office structure in the world, housing in its 4.292 office quarters 6,450 employees; yet even in such a commodious building only about a third of the department’s Washing ton personnel can be brought to gether. Wings Added. Constant expansion of activities requires an increase in government office forces too rapid to be taken care of in any single structure, even though it be extensible by merely adding wings and be placed, as is this, in a 35-acre park. One of the latest of the new struc tures to be occupied is the new in terior department building, into which some 3,000 workers recently moved. Designed by Waddy B. Wood, in consultation with Secre tary Harold L. Ickes, this building departs somewhat from the classi cal style of its neighbors. No pil lars adorn it, but setbacks provid ing outside walls for its many wings give the appearance, at a distance, of Doric columns. Building Has Electric Stairway. This gray stone giant, Just north of the marble edifices that form the frame for the Lincoln memorial, is the first government office building to be equipped with electric stair ways. Two of these have been in stalled to carry passengers between the C street and E street levels and to relieve congestion during the rush hour when lunch is being served in the big cafeteria in the basement. Besides the moving stairs there are 20 high-speed elevators and 11 com plete stairways. Like others re cently constructed, the building has WASHINGTON OFFICIAL DOM—A typical departmen tal home, quarters of the United States Department of Agriculture. Photo shows the administration building at the left, with east and west wings, and the south building at the right. a completely automatic air-con ditioning system. The structure Is virtually a city within a city. It has a telephone system now handling 2,200 main lines and 1,100 extensions. At a peak, 2,600 main lines can be served. The system is equivalent to one serving a city of 30,000. Along the north side of broad Con stitution avenue, across from the munitions building, stand the white marble edifices described by the commission of fine arts as the frame for the Lincoln memorial. Erection of a home for the federal reserve board between Twentieth and Twen ty-first streets completes this com position, and when eventually the temporary buildings, result of war time haste, are removed, one of the major dreams of L’Enfant will be realized. Pan American Annex Planned. Other splendid buildings in this "frame” are those occupied by the National Academy of Sciences, the public health service, and the Phar maceutical association. Plans for an annex to the Pan American un ion have been prepared. Although a short sight-seeing tour seldom includes a trip through the public health service, that bureau is one that will richly repay a spe cial visit. Within its laboratories men are constantly at work, seek ing out causes of diseases that men ace life. Here Dr. Edward Francis discov ered the nature and origin of tula remia, or "rabbit fever.” Here he is now conducting a study of inter mittent fevers. He has exposed him TROPICAL SETTING? — The famous Washington mon ument stands out in severe contrast against a black sky, | apparently in the midst of a Florida palm grove as Inde pendence day firetcorks hurst overhead. self to the bacteria of so many dis- j eases that it seems a miracle that he still lives. Other earnest scien tists are his colleagues. They work tirelessly, risking their own lives for the safety of others. The late Andrew Mellon, former secretary of the treasury, in pre senting to the nation his collection of art, together with a $10,000,000 building to house it, made a gift valued by experts at probably $50, 000,000. For a site, the location across Constitution avenue from the Apex building has been chosen. Mr. Mellon’s magnificent gift is not to bear his name, for he has asked that it be called the National Gal lery of Art. Any discussion of Washington art treasures must include at least mention of the Corcoran gallery, the Phillips Memorial gallery, the Freer gallery and the National Collection of Fine Arts, formerly the National gallery. All are distinctive. In the Phillips gallery the pictures are hung as they would be in a home. Washington circles, parks, and plazas are adorned with many me morials, some of outstanding artis tic merit. For those interested in sculpture and other arts, the city offers a field for months of study. NATIONAL AFFAIRS Revitwtd by CARTER FIELD Netv Deal Democrats talk about possibility of Repub lican success in 1940 . . . Probably propaganda . . . Whatever is done about the cotton situation will prob ably be wrong ...“A ppease ment** program apparently profited only two big cor porations. WASHINGTON.—It’s rather curi ous that lor some weeks now one hears more talk about Republican victory in 1940 from Democrats, and particularly from New Deal Democrats, than from Republicans. This is not just a strange situa tion. There is plenty of logic back of it. Some of it is founded on cold reason. But a good deal of it is propaganda. The answer to why there is not too much talk of Republican victory from the G. O. P. leaders them selves is that they realize their own weakness. Despite the Republican victories last fall in many states, which had been held by the Demo crats for six years, most of the states are still ruled by the Demo cratic party. The importance of this lies in or ganization. It means that the Dem ocrats have the state house crowd, men on the state payroll who want to stay there, and whose main Job next year will be carrying their own states for the Democratic ticket re gardless of who is the presidential nominee and what may happen to be written in the platform. Most politicians believe that con trol of the county governments is more important than control of the state government when it comes to carrying a state in an election. And by the same token the Demo crats are in control of a tremendous majority of the county governments in this country. Most Democrats Don't Want A Conservative Candidate Then, too, a careful survey of the 1938 election does not present the bright forecast for Republican suc cess which some seem to think. If the Democrats in 1940 can only hold the states they carried beyond question in 1938, leaving out such doubtful problems as Indiana, Iowa and Colorado, they will have a com fortable margin in the electoral col lege. Moreover, the Republicans don’t like the idea of getting too enthusi astic until they know who their lead er is apt to be. Thomas E. Dewey is way out in front now, but there is plenty of talk about Senator Rob ert A. Taft of Ohio, and Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio, and others. On the Democratic side there is an entirely different situation. Down in their hearts most of the Demo crats, especially of the New Deal variety, believe the Democratic par ty will be successful again—but— they would never think of conceding that the party can win with a con servative as the nominee! For instance, most New Dealers would regard the nomination of a man like Senator Harry Flood Byrd of Virginia, or Josiah W. Bailey of North Carolina as little short of a catastrophe, and none of them would throw their hats up in the air over the idea of John Nance Garner being nominated. So the strategy of these New Deal ers at present is to keep the Demo crats scared about the next election. Whatever Is Done About Cotton Is Sure to Be Wrong Only one thing seems sure about the cotton situation. That is that whatever is done will turn out to be wrong. In fact, economists who have studied the situation, who know about the rest of the world as well as about the United States, and whose judgment is not affected by political considerations, say frankly that not one of the proposed plans will work in the long run; that all of them would be expensive as well as futile. With hindsight, the nonpolitical experts say they could have rem edied the situation had they started on it in 1928. Now, they are not sure that anything could be done. But as a matter of fact, this hind sight would have been of no prac tical value, for the simple reason that even if one could have foreseen the future, back in 1928, it is incon ceivable that a politically minded government would have taken the proper course. It would have seemed too brutal—too hard on the cotton farmers—at the time. The year 1928 is picked not be cause it was the year before the business crash began, but because in a way it marks the starting of Brazil on its path to becoming one of the great cotton producing coun tries of the world. It was the year before President Hoover began to worry about the farm problem. It was before the farm board of that administration. For there is no doubt whatever that it has been federal interference with the nat ural course of cotton growing that has raised the present problem. Let’s look at the history of cotton before that. Every now and then there would be a terrible overpro duction, the price would go to pot. and the southern statesmen would scream their heads off about the census bureau issuing misleading figures, or the gamblers on the cot ton exchange preying on the poor farmers, or something of the sort. Then, another season would see fairly good prices, and every one in the cotton states would be so happy that no one up north would even hear that the trouble was over. Every time the rest of the country heard about cotton it was the bad news, not the good. Scheme Was Set Up Which Made the Trouble Permanent With the Hoover farm board in action, however, a scheme was set up which inevitably made the trouble permanent instead of just every few years. For a century before that the British cotton mill owners had been hoping to develop some other section of the world as a cotton producer. They wanted something which would prove a check on high cotton prices in the short-crop years. Every one interested in cotton could see that, with the starting of this idea of the government doing something for the cotton farmers, the period of occasional low prices for cotton had gone forever—that is the possibility of the United States dumping a cotton surplus at very low prices had passed. This was made even more clear when the United States government started paying farmers not to grow cotton. With this “guarantee” of high world prices, development of cotton growing in other areas grew by leaps and bounds. Uncle Sam was holding an umbrella over them. Danger of cheap cotton from the United States in any particular year was averted. As a result of this, Brazil expand ed her cotton growing. She found that she could sell cotton at six cents a pound and make money. There has never been a chance since that she would abandon this expansion, for there is not a state east of the Mississippi where cotton can be pro duced, at a profit, at any such price. Appeasement Program Helped Only Two Big Corporations Curiously enough, apparently the only two big corporations in the country which profited from the "appeasement" program—during this short span of life—were the big electric utility holding companies which President Roosevelt is known to dislike so cordially. One of these is Electric Bond and Share. The other is Commonwealth and South ern. It will be recalled that one of the most convincing steps in the so called appeasement program was the agreement on the part of TVA to buy out the interests in Chat tanooga of the Commonwealth and Southern, and in Memphis of the Electric Bond and Share (this lat ter held through a subsidiary). At the time these agreements were made, Harry L. Hopkins had been talking to senators and mem bers of the house as to the necessity of doing something to encourage business. One of the main reasons for “ap peasing" the electric industry was that Hopkins had been thoroughly sold by the arguments for the pre ceding 18 months by William O. Douglas, now on the Supreme court, that if something could be done to encourage the electric industry, there would be such a flood of spend ing that it would be almost enough alone and unaided to produce the return of prosperity. But a far more important part of the appeasement program, and one which affected all business and new investment instead of merely the electric business, was tax revi sion. President Intervenes in Fight for Revision of Taxes Suddenly the President intervened in the fight for tax revision with an ultimatum which seems to have def initely ended all chance for it. This does not apply, of course, to the post ponement of the increase in the so cial security taxes, but to the levies on corporations. His ultimatum was that if any re duction should be made in the es timated revenues, this must be made up by adding additional taxes somewhere else—but on the corpo rations. In short, his verdict is that congress may shuffle the present taxes on business in any way it may deem to be helpful, but that the net result—in estimated revenues—must De uie same. What so many of his lieutenants had hoped, and this goes not only for important members of the house and senate but for the treasury de partment and the department of commerce, was that the government would take a chance—that it would encourage business by reducing taxes on business, hoping that busi ness would thereupon boom, and the actual revenues of the treasury would be increased by the reduction rather than cut. This phase of the problem the President ignored completely. He still insists that if estimated rev enues are reduced, then government spending, for relief or something else, must be reduced to precisely the same amount. He attacks the problem just as though the federal budget were now balanced, and any reduction of the corporation taxes would throw it out of balance. This has divided business as to the tax revision, will keep it divided unless congress forces the gamble on the President, which does not now seem likely. C Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service. Collegiate Gastronomes Challenge Professional Though Donald Mulcahy, left, of Brockton, Mass., Junior at Boston college, swallowed 29 live goldfish to set a temporary record, and John Patrick, right, University of Chicago student, consumed three phonograph records, they are still rank amateurs. Hadja AH, center, can swallow a walnut, a frog, a bullet and a fish, and without regard to the order in which they go down, return them to the surface in any sequence be desires. Los Angeles medical men proved that he could control his abdominal muscles. YES, THEY’RE REAL Juliette Marglen, Hollywood beau tician, is a fingernail expert. She should know her business, as her own nails are between three and four inches long, and she seldom even chips one. Franco Representative Makes Initial Visit Juan Francisco de Cardenas, charge d’affaires of the Nationalist Spanish government, made his first official call on Secretary of State Cordell Hull recently, inaugurating diplomatic relations between the Franco government and the United States. Left to right: Cardenas, Senor Don Felipe A. Espii, Argentine ambassador, and George T. Summerlin, chief of the division of protocol of the state department. Biggest Gold Shipment Arrives in New York This $60,000,000 cargo of gold which was brought to the United States from Europe recently is believed to be the biggest ever carried from Europe on a single ship. It was believed to have been made because of anxiety over Chancellor Hitler’s new drive in eastern Europe. Although officials refused to divulge informa tion, it was learned from an authentic source that the gold cargo was worth $60,000,000 or more. Upper Berth for the Motorist-Camper One of the latest devices for the touring motorist who likes to pitch camp at night is this tent which can be put on top of the car. It was shown at a recent camping and hiking exhibition in London, and proved popular with the many motorists who prefer the by-paths instead of main traveled roads. TERRIBLE TERRIER ww.wmwbmw.:.^ rrtm “Baby Toots,” two-months-old fox terrier of St. Louis, Mo., weighs only 11 ounces against the normal av erage weight of five pounds. His tireless antics point to an otherwise I normal condition.