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Show News Review of Current Events the World Over .Credit Expansion, Reopening of Banks and Rehabilitation of Railways Planned Ocean Mail and Ship Deals Under Investigation. By EDWARD V. PICKARD PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, like all other persons, knows that the recovery re-covery program has been slumping somewhat of late, because the rising -?r prices of commodities tt ts have not been met by p " vj increased purchasing ! Jl power and by re-em 1- SXJ ployment. Still averse Sf I't t0 currenc-v Inflation x y and devaluation of the dollar, the Chief Ex-ur Ex-ur eeutive called into x i conference several higb fficiaia ( his KBi administration to plan " for further expansion 8"reary of credit ami for the Woo reopening of closed banks, thereby freeing several billions of dollars represented by the frozen assets of those institutions. Secretary Secre-tary of the Treasury YVoodin, not yet recovered wholly from his late Illness, was one of the conferees; the others were Secretary of Agriculture Wallace, Wal-lace, Attorney General Cummings, Gov. Eugene Black of the federal reserve board, Lewis W. Douglas, director of the budget ; Jesse H. Jones, chairman of the Reconstruction Finance corporation; corpora-tion; Walter J. Cnmmlngs, conservator conserva-tor of closed banks, and J. F. T. O'Connor, controller of the currency. Following the conference the President Presi-dent took train for his Hyde Park home, and on the train he had a long talk with Prof. James H. Rogers, Tale economist. Rogers then returned to Washington and discussed financial matters with Douglas and others. This led to the report that some change involving the purchasing power of the dollar was imminent, but dispatches dis-patches from Hyde Park said no announcement an-nouncement on monetary policy was forthcoming yet. Senator Thomas of Oklahoma announced an-nounced that several groups working with him for Inflation had decided to euspend their campaign for the moment mo-ment to permit trial of the credit expansion ex-pansion program proposed by President Presi-dent Roosevelt. It was stated with authority that the President hopes to get a large proportion of the 5,000 closed banks reopened before January 1, when the deposit Insurance system goes Into effect. In order to qualify for deposit Insurance, banks must be liquid. Thousands Thou-sands of the closed banks, the President Presi-dent Is advised, are solvent but not sufficiently liquid to meet the requirements require-ments for reopening. To make them liquid, additional capital must be provided, pro-vided, To the extent such additional 'capital is not furnished by the communities com-munities In which the banks are situated situ-ated It will be supplied by the R. F, C, through purchase of preferred stock In the Institutions, according to, the plan approved at the White House onference. . STEEL manufacturers, under the urging of President Roosevelt and Joseph B. Eastman, co-ordlnntor of transportation, have agreed to competitive competi-tive bidding for the sale of rails to the 'railways, and Mr. Eastman announced that 700,000 tons of rail!) will be bought as soon as financial arrange-Enentj arrange-Enentj can be made. If the bids of the steel companies show that reductions reduc-tions In the price have been made, the money will be loaned to the railroads direct from public works funds. Competitive bidding and bottom prices. It was hoped by Mr. Roosevelt end Mr. Eastman, also would result In the purchase by the railroads of quantities quan-tities of rolling stock and equipment, which deals, too, would be financed by the government. Ixans for buying rails, It was said, may run to some J2r,000.0,iO. Equipment loans may surpass sur-pass that amount. Reports of railroad business are encouraging. en-couraging. The first '1 railroads reporting re-porting August business had a totnl ret operating Income of .?."! .0' 1,0), approximately double that of the preceding pre-ceding August. A year ago the figure for the same number of carriers was ?2."J.i10,000, the Increase amounting to 67.8 per cent. The net operating Income of tbeso. carriers In July totaled J.'.I.W.Wi, an Increase of 311 per cent over July, 3032. Gross revenues of the .ri7 carriers car-riers In August n mounted to Vl I7.2c,:i , 000, compared with .'2 tn.'tfiO.W) In July and $210,i:i2.000 In August last year. MANY of our large cities are In deipernte financial straits and have been looking to the public works administration for salvation. There has been much criticism of the slow-less slow-less with which the $1,7.V),000,000 of federal money allocated for municipal and state projects Is being handed out by Herretary of the Interior Ickcs, the administrator. Hut Mr. I'kes met the mayors of 65 cities nt the Chicago World's fair and let tliern know plainly that the cities themselves were at fault. "It l now largely In the bands of the mayors of our cities to determine whether the public workn program will fully serve Its purpose In aiding Jn the economic recovery of the country." coun-try." said Secretary P l;en ,, ,s nt. ftr'f --4. "Our national treasury Is valtlng to be drawn upon I'or hundreds hun-dreds of millions of dollars for useful public works. "The administration in Washington can approve your projects and advance ad-vance funds necessary to complete them. We have moved and are moving mov-ing expeditiously, if circumspectly, but there is a point beyond which we cannot go. "We can give you money ; we can help you to decide what project to undertake; we can aid you In supervising super-vising your work, but we cannot decide de-cide for you whether you want public works. We cannot force yon to move any faster than you are willing to move." CEAN mail and ship construction contracts let during the Hoover administration are under investigation by a senate committee headed by Son- ator Hugo r.Iack of & Alabama, and lnter- jp esting deals are being I revealed. On the first v day Black charged "- v that Henry Herbor- sx man of New York, w president of the Ex- v port Steamship cor- 5 poration. had directed N v one of his employees i ' to pay a ?."10 tailor r, . bin of T- v- O'Connor. Senator Black . . , .. then chairman of the United States shipping board. This Herberman flatly denied, hut he and other witnesses were not able to easily dispose of testimony concerning alleged al-leged favors to various former officials. It was disclosed that ocean mail subsidies sub-sidies paid to the Export Steamship corporation annually amounted to more than the organization paid the shipping ship-ping board for eighteen vessels. A formal statement that C. Easeom Slemp, of Virginia, who once was secretary sec-retary to President Coolidge, had helped to engineer the ship purchasing deal at a price lower than originally asked by the shipping board was placed before the committee by Herberman. Her-berman. In a letter to Senator Black, chair man of the committee. Herberman wrote that Siemp had billed him for JJO.OOO for legal fees In connection with the sale of the ships at S7..V) a ton Instead of ??.r.O as asked by Admiral Ad-miral Palmer of the shipping board. The sale price, Herbennan wrote, was a compromise, and the "question Involved was the per ton to be paid for shipping board vessels," adding that "Mr. Sletnp acted In connection with this matter and felt thnt bis services serv-ices were worth, as I recall. $.".0i"A I actually paid him $ 1 rw $ri.V0 on July 1, 102.",, nnd S12.0.VI on July 10, 102.'.." fclemp resigned as secretary to Mr. Coolidge In January of 102.". Mrs. Mina G. Irvine, who was secretary secre-tary to O'Connor for many years at the shipping board, testified she negotiated ne-gotiated several Florida deals for Herberman. Her-berman. She said that after a Justice department agent had sought to Inspect In-spect flies at her shipping board office with regard to the transactions, she had destroyed the records. Miss Clara McQuown of Washington told of her work as a lecturer employed em-ployed at ?200 a month by the American Ameri-can Steamship Owners' association to put merchants marine propaganda before be-fore women's clubs. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, always a 1 friend of the navy, has turner down a British suggestion that the American naval construction program be cut down. The State department Issued this statement: "In reply to suggestions from the British government that the laying down of any six Inch gun cruisers larger than those now In existence might be deferred during the life of the disarmament conference or nt least pending further discussion of the quallt atlve limitations of future ships, the American government has replied that It did not see Its way clear to alter al-ter Its delayed naval construction program pro-gram or to suspend the laying down of any projected ships." The ships In question are four 10,-000-ton, six-Inch gun cruisers, the Savannah, the Nashville, the Brooklyn, and the Philadelphia. TEN convicts made n sensational escape from the Indiana penitentiary peniten-tiary nt Michigan City, slide automobiles, automo-biles, kidnaped a sheriff find scattered. Followed a great man bunt by hundreds hun-dreds of police of Indiana and Illinois, Illi-nois, which was still going on nt this writing. The entire population of Pennsylvania's Pennsyl-vania's eastern penitentiary nt I'lilln dolphin, comprising 1.102 long term felons, staged ft wild revolt because' they bail lost their special privileges for ft previous riot, They beat the warden severely and set lire to their mattresses, but finally were subdued. George Kelly, a notorious desperado known as "Machine Gun," wanted for participation In the kidnaping of ('. I'. I.'rs'hel of Oklahoma City, was captured cap-tured In Memphis, Term., after n long bunt. Ilis wife also was arrested and both were taken back to Oklahoma fop frliil. Kelly Is also charged with having hav-ing n part In klllliics and robberies In Kaunas City and (lilongo. POSTMASTER GENERAL Jim Farley, Far-ley, practical and hard headed, is going after some hundreds of fourth class postmasters who have been "racketeering" at the - expense of the gov- fcy ernment. His lnspec- w tors already have con- f s ducted an lnvestig.f- ,.;. tion of the facts, and It Is likely many of the sinners will lose t : S their positions and 1 some of them may go to prison. jp Fourth class post- t a masters, most of ' 4 whom are In small Postmaster villages, receive 1C0 Gen' Farlev per cent on the first ?75 of postage post-age they cancel, 85 per cent on the next $100, and 73 per cent on all In excess of $175. To this compensation are added the rental of post ollico boxes and an allowance of 15 per cent for rent, -light, fuel, and equipment They also receive a commission of 3 cents each on all the money orders. This method of compensating these rural postmasters, It appears, prompts some of them to use various devices to increase cancellations. The more stamps they cancel, the more they make. The Inspectors have reported many schemes adopted by postmnsters to swell the cancellation fees. Some of them have mailed bricks, gravel and other bulky and worthless articles. Others who conduct stores sell groceries gro-ceries to their relatives and friends In other localities and by allixing sufficient suffi-cient postage on the bags and boxes Insured their delivery by the rural carrier car-rier In the neighborhood. They not only received profit on the sales, but also received from the government the amount of stamps placed on the packages, plus the usual per cent. Representative J. J. Cochran Instigated Insti-gated the Investigation, and it Is expected ex-pected that In the next session of congress con-gress he will lead a movement to have the present system of compensation of fourth class postmasters radically changed and thousands of the otfiees abolished. TROUBLES between organized labor la-bor and employers, predicted some time ago, are coming fast. Coal miners min-ers of western Pennsylvania to the number num-ber of nearly a hundred thousand were r.n Etrike, calling It a "holiday." In West Virginia nlso there was labor discord. At Weirton 5,000 employees were forced Into Idleness In a dispute between company union and an independent inde-pendent union. The second attempt In two days to picket the Clairton works of the Carnegie Car-negie Steel company was frustrated and deputy sheriffs hurried to the plant on a tip that another Invasion was planned. Employees of the Ford plant at Chester, Pa., struck, and the Ford company promptly closed down the plant "for an Indefinite period." A federal mediator was sent there, but was told there was nothing to mediate. The Chester workers planned to go to Edgewater, N. J., and nk the Ford employees there to Join In the demand for more pay. It was expected that General John-son, John-son, recovery administrator, would toon announce carefully drafted plans for a general reorganization of the NBA "from nn emergency, temporary setup Into a cohesive body ready to function through the two-year life of the recovery act." Drawn by Thomas S. Hammond of Chlcngo, with the aid of the policy board, the plan calls for greater accent ac-cent upon self-regulation by Industries operating under codes, with the government gov-ernment to step In only when necessary. neces-sary. AN OUTSTANDING figure nniong the statesmen gathered nt Geneva for the coming disarmament conference confer-ence Is Dr. Paul Joseph Goehhels. . propaganda mlni--ler ? , of the Hitler govern- -A merit of Germany, lie rc. m may not be so Itnpor-.,,.,' Itnpor-.,,.,' ' tant as Foreign Min-J Min-J ' 1st it Von Neurnth. V . but for the present - ' ' he Is more voluble. V j and It Is be w ho Is "'n pulling forth G e r- ,, many's demands for ; ') nrniM equality n n d S J wln Is ostensibly do- Paul Joseph UvJ. ,,, ..hrK,, ,,.,,. Goebbels )ni... f,,r hN country In the discussions that center nhout the French proposal for strict supervision super-vision of arms during a four year test period. The German delegates. It was said In Geneva, had been given full power pow-er by Hitler to conclude n disarmament nccord. nud nn Indication that some agreement might be reached was seen In the fact that the French and German Ger-man statesmen were brought together at a carefully arranged "private" dinner din-ner nttended nlso by Sir John Simon of England nud some Italians. Italy has been favorable to Germany's de mauds In n certain extent, and lias put forward n plan allowing partial rearmament re-armament of the relch. The Germans were willing to accept the supervision plan but only If Ihe commission were tiul h or I zed to supervise, not nrtnn moots, but merely effectives. In oilier words It would see that Germany carried out Its obligations to transform the relchs-webr relchs-webr Into n short term mllllla and disband semi -military organizations. RIM! I.AItDNEH, one of America's best known humorists, died at bis home In East Hampton, I.ong Island, after II long Illness, lit the ngi of forty eight. In England Mrs. A. M. Williamson, an American who wrotn ninny popular novels In cnllahoral Ion with her English liusbmid, ''. N. Williamson, Wil-liamson, passed away nt Bath. C. P-H. W-prn Niiw.Bir V'nlon. |